M3A overclocking

[informal]

I think this boad is just a good clocker (for X2s). Settings that were unstable on my MSI are stable on this board IF the chip is very cool. Overall this board seems to be able to take chips to their ragged edge without pushing them over due to board related screw ups so when you hit your max it is definetly the chip and not the boards fault. One of the best boards ive ever owned as far as that goes.
Just my inductive guess. I could be wrong, but that is what it feels like to me.

I agree 100% .

[jpierce555]

I think this boad is just a good clocker (for X2s). Settings that were unstable on my MSI are stable on this board IF the chip is very cool. Overall this board seems to be able to take chips to their ragged edge without pushing them over due to board related screw ups so when you hit your max it is definetly the chip and not the boards fault. One of the best boards ive ever owned as far as that goes.
Just my inductive guess. I could be wrong, but that is what it feels like to me.

On X2's this is true, it is coming out to be a great board. The Phenom needs more volts and it should be an o.k. board on it. I can hit 2.48 100% stable with the Phenom now. I can also now get my ram to 920mhz(all it can take). The Phenom will go a little higher but at the cost of to much ram performance to be worth it.

Justapost, I found that up to 1.35v on the nb helped, and 1.4 the system would not boot. For initial playing a nb multiplier of 6 worked and nothing lower, going lower required using the cmos jumper. I have not tried lower than 6 after changing other settings. I also see the system was stable down the an ht frequency of 600, and ~at 200!! That surprised me, the board shows promise on the quad if the bugs get worked the rest of the way out.

[justapost]

On X2's this is true, it is coming out to be a great board. The Phenom needs more volts and it should be an o.k. board on it. I can hit 2.48 100% stable with the Phenom now. I can also now get my ram to 920mhz(all it can take). The Phenom will go a little higher but at the cost of to much ram performance to be worth it.

Justapost, I found that up to 1.35v on the nb helped, and 1.4 the system would not boot. For initial playing a nb multiplier of 6 worked and nothing lower, going lower required using the cmos jumper. I have not tried lower than 6 after changing other settings. I also see the system was stable down the an ht frequency of 600, and ~at 200!! That surprised me, the board shows promise on the quad if the bugs get worked the rest of the way out.

So the nb voltage is not locked upwards? I'm currently trying to find the minimum voltags for given frequencies with different cooling systems.
It's a little time consuming took me two days with the be2400.
Could you apply more than 1,55V to an k8 cpu? Seems to be another lock here.
Can be there is another one at 0,850V. At 1,8MHz my BE24000 required only 0,875V to be stable everything below resulted in an CPU-Overvoltag BIOS message.

EDIT: Tried 1,265V via bios for the nb but AMD power monitor shows 1,165V. Seems I can run triple core with 222 ref HT (2442MHz) stable and ~230 ref HT (2530MHz) as single core with 1,25V cpu/nb.

[justapost]

I think this boad is just a good clocker (for X2s). Settings that were unstable on my MSI are stable on this board IF the chip is very cool. Overall this board seems to be able to take chips to their ragged edge without pushing them over due to board related screw ups so when you hit your max it is definetly the chip and not the boards fault. One of the best boards ive ever owned as far as that goes.
Just my inductive guess. I could be wrong, but that is what it feels like to me.

Seen from the hardware side I agree. But the bios lacks the +100mV feature the M2A-VM had. With good cooling I could run an 3800+ stable at 1,6V that is not possible with the M3A as the max I can apply is 1,55V.

[jpierce555]

Does the 1.5v on the x2 work with you? Another thing I noticed was the 1.5v setting dropped voltage back down, but at 1.525/1.55 it did work. I never tried higher.

As far as actual nb voltages mine don't show on anything but the bios. I never thought about AMD power monitor.

[jpierce555]

It does show my voltage at 1.237 on the nb, but it only shows 2.2 on the cpu speed so I don't know if it is accurate.

[justapost]

Does the 1.5v on the x2 work with you? Another thing I noticed was the 1.5v setting dropped voltage back down, but at 1.525/1.55 it did work. I never tried higher.

As far as actual nb voltages mine don't show on anything but the bios. I never thought about AMD power monitor.

Strange it worked flawless up to 1,55V beyond it's locked.

It does show my voltage at 1.237 on the nb, but it only shows 2.2 on the cpu speed so I don't know if it is accurate.

Yep, AMD PWM does not read the current ref HT from the clockchip and assumes 200MHz.

[planet456235]

a new Beta 0601 is out!

But still the Vcore Bug with the Phenom....

[justapost]

a new Beta 0601 is out!

But still the Vcore Bug with the Phenom....

Thank's found it on their ftp sites. So still no vcore beyond 1,25V hope they will fix this asap, starts to annoy me, that this board can not oc a phenom as far as it's ancestor.

[informal]

Justapost ,can you please post the link for the ftp site?
Anyhow,board is running great and stable for now,all with 0406 bios .

[chado]

The link is on the first page of this post

[informal]

Thanks mate and bad me =>

[justapost]

Justapost ,can you please post the link for the ftp site?
Anyhow,board is running great and stable for now,all with 0406 bios .

Here is direct link to version 601, to make reading flawless.
That 1,55V upward lock does not annoy me but 1,25V max for a phenom is something they have to fix.

Can someone tell me where I can find the superio chip on that board? I have an osciloscope here for a week and want to measure that chip.

[informal]

Thanks for the link man .
As for the location of SuperIO chip,it's right next to PCI3 slot(near the edge of the board,normal/90 degrees oriented to PCI3 slot).Look at page 2-3 of manual for M3A.

[justapost]

Thanks for the link man .
As for the location of SuperIO chip,it's right next to PCI3 slot(near the edge of the board,normal/90 degrees oriented to PCI3 slot).Look at page 2-3 of manual for M3A.

Gotta slap my a$$ now. cuz I did not look into the manual.
Thanks located the chips. Damn those pins are tiny.

[crazydiamond]

has anyone here used the onboard raid controller on the m3a yet? im sellin my current m3a rig and am contemplating using the m3a for my next build again, but im gonna be going raid 0 with two seagate 320's. just curious if anyone has had any experience with the onboard raid so far.

[justapost]

Found the layout of a pin compatible super-io chip.

Specs can be found on the ITE homepage here.

I'll stop measuring now, I already caused a short circuit between some of the VIN pin's. Pins are a little darker now but reading still works. Don't wanna challenge fortune.

@crazydiamond: Have not tried raid0 here but no one is complaining about it on the asus form.

[dball3]

has anyone here used the onboard raid controller on the m3a yet? im sellin my current m3a rig and am contemplating using the m3a for my next build again, but im gonna be going raid 0 with two seagate 320's. just curious if anyone has had any experience with the onboard raid so far.

i've got two wd 320's running in raid o and i have had no problems at all, very stable. But i haven't done any overclocking since i set up the raid so i can't give any advice on how it might react to higher clocks or stress.

[jpierce555]

Any benefits from the new bios, if not I will leave it.

[crazydiamond]

thanks guys, unless an nvidia am2+ board magically hits the shelves in the next few days i think im gonna go back to the m3a. so far it has been very stable with my x2 5000 be.

the only things i would like to see changed as far as X2's go is: more memory timings/voltages in bios, nb volts in bios, better fan control in bios. other than that this board is a very nice budget x2 board IMO. hopefully asus can fix these minor things in updates, but i think they will have thier hands full for awhile with the phenom bios'

[justapost]

That new Biostar board whould interest me.

Tried the 601 bios. Can not find a difference between 501 and 601. Still no unganged and tlb-fix field. As planet said before the cpu and nb voltage is locked upward at 1,25V. Have not tried the multi issue i had with the windsors.

[KTE]

Read the VINs pin 96-92, one of them will be the VDIMM.

Yep, be careful as they are tiny and small so don't short them out.

[justapost]

Read the VINs pin 96-92, one of them will be the VDIMM.

Yep, be careful as they are tiny and small so don't short them out.

I don't want to touch those pins the space between is to slim for a peace of paper to fit between.
I measured a few resistances around those pin's and found one with an amplitude of ,2V. That should be vcore i think, or are there other 1,V strains at the VIN's?
If it's vcore it's allways 1,2V, tried it at 1800MHz with 1,075V applied and at 2350MHz with 1,25V.
Gonna check the chips specs now.

EDIT: Hmm I measured the 12V VIN, did not take the 10xmulti of my probe into account.

[KTE]

Achim, check the Vcc pins and ones right near it, one of them will be VCore.
There are many 0.8-1.5V pins there usually, you have to test 'em to find out which is which by fluctuating Vcore. Don't keep probe on them for long bursts.

The PSU voltage readings will be the most inaccurate through the HWM IC BTW.

Did you try ASUS AI Gear for your board? http://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mis...ar2_V10018.zip

Which ITE chip do you have, version I, J or K?

Have you tried using Smart Guardian to get all temp/volts feedback? It should work perfectly for your board since that's the HWM IC you have: SGuardian_it8712_8900135-250.zip

[justapost]

Achim, check the Vcc pins and ones right near it, one of them will be VCore.
There are many 0.8-1.5V pins there usually, you have to test 'em to find out which is which by fluctuating Vcore. Don't keep probe on them for long bursts.

Yep VIN0 and VIN1 are the recommended pin's for vcore, i expected absolute values here as those volatges are in the 0.8-2.0V range the chip can handle.

The PSU voltage readings will be the most inaccurate through the HWM IC BTW.

I assume I can measure those on the 24pin power plug on the mobo much easier.

Did you try ASUS AI Gear for your board? http://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mis...ar2_V10018.zip

That power consumption optimisator you mean, yes I tried it at the first day i had the mobo and it froze my machine, but that was with the first bios version.

Which ITE chip do you have, version I, J or K?

It's an IT8716F-S 0737-DXS whom is only pin compatible with the IT8712.

Have you tried using Smart Guardian to get all temp/volts feedback? It should work perfectly for your board since that's the HWM IC you have: SGuardian_it8712_8900135-250.zip

Just gave it a try does not read correct with the 8716.