Phenom 9500 w/ MSI K9A2 Platinum

[KTE]

i have flashed with 1.33/1.30, and no issues, but i cannot get over 208 HHT...
no biggie really, not trying to do what KTE does.

Should get much more than that. You'll need to work at it and spend time on it if you wanted it.

but I noticed that BIOS 1.13 was reccomended, but i DO have
OCZ PC2-8000 ReaperX HPC 4GB Dual Channel for my ram...
could I place them in slots 1&3 (i know 1&2 are needed for dual channel, i got it like that now) and place the memory as unganged and get the same performance?

RAM should be wok fine IMO. Nope, you need it in 1&2 or no dual channel. Single channel is poor performance. Like this: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...2&postcount=23

I don't want to start messing around with bios, till i know i have one worth messing with. bear with me, havn't overclocked sence pencil mod on the athlons!

It's easy but just confusing.

that right after OOBE, then install drivers, and reboot.

For Phenom you may have to install OS fresh. Or it'll give too many problems unless you've deleted all the waste files and registries of old components manually. OOBE, out of body experience?

2nd time, worked fine, but was getting that BSOD, then i thought,
what the heck, and flashed 1.30, and running pretty good right now
(it's a bit slower than my crosshair mobo though)
which also, weird enough had no issues with OC other than the lack of voltage control (bios 0905beta if you care)

Hmm.. you should flash 1.13B if you want to oc through BIOS. Slower than your Crosshair, as in what way? Any benchmark comparisons?

how would i make sure all 3 are applyed with RW? (version .29) i'll do it manually again see if i can "Fix it"

Like this: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...0&postcount=39
CPU1, 2, 3 etc parameters write MSR for each core separately. RWE has never worked for me yet though so I don't use it, no time to troubleshoot.

EDIT : changed the 0xc0010015 from 0x0000018 to 0x0000010 in all 4 cores. same results. tryed with RED AOD and all 4 cores, same result. intrestingly enough, when i brought up AOD after the first change, it was set at "yellow". and then when i shut it off (black), and rechecked CrystalCPU, only core 1 was back at 18.

It's because you need to write to all cores and two different MSR (AOD yellow will do fine). Like shown here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...postcount=1215

Try it.

What RAM is safe to get in 2X2GB or 4X2GB?

2x2GB, many incl. Crucial Ballistix/Tracer, Corsair Dominator (XMS2), Kingston HyperX (newer BIOSes), many OCZ such as ReaperX/Reaper, G.Skill such as F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK/F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ and GeIL modules like the Black Dragon which can all boot 1.8V if need be. Higher, either 4x2GB or 4x1GB, it gets tricky and depends on the RAM latencies/volts itself. I have not seen or tested any where all four are populated with this board but two which worked with BIOS P0F and P0H: Corsair QUAD2X4096-8500C5DF (Twin2x 4x1GB) and GeIL Black Dragon GB24GB8500C5QC (4x1GB). YMMV as always, but the above are known to be working for others on this board. P0H is best to try them with especially since it can run all RAM dividers, all before P0E do not offer many 4x2GB, 4x1GB or 2x2GB RAM compatibility. The biggest problems are experienced by Vista users and especially Vista X64. Many will have no boot.

Did some winrar benchmark tests with different BIOS versions. Phenom 9600 at stock, no optimizations, Vista 32-bit. I must say I was a bit surprised.

The scores are all "about" scores, I did not record the numbers, just noticed they were about the same all the time regardless of BIOS-version (apart from P0H).

BIOS 1.1 : around 400KB/s (varies between 380 and 430, mostly around 400-410) at stock, around 580KB/s (varies between 570 and 620, mostly at around 58x) with AOD at "red"
BIOS 1.3 : about the same
BIOS 1.0B1 TLB-fix enabled : about the same
BIOS 1.0B1 TLB-fix disabled : about the same
BIOS P0H TLB-fix disabled : around 400KB/s at stock, around 490KB/s with AOD at "red"

First: Are the numbers fine?
Second: Why does P0H have such poor performance compared to the other versions?

I am kinda amazed at how large a difference there is in this particular test between AOD at yellow/red and no AOD running...

There is definitely a performance difference across BIOSes, 1.13B is best I've tested in pure performance and P0H is second. But you need to disable the TLB errata patch first

Try this link method and then switch off all basic extra's, AOD yellow and rerun the WinRAR bench. Should be much higher: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...postcount=1215