M3A overclocking

[justapost]

That looks like a capacitor, haven't measured it though.

Ups, thought only the black units with imprints where capcitor's.

Yellow circle is the resistor I shaded, arrow with V is where I can measure voltage. Green is NB. Both resistors were around 100k. Had to get below 20k before I saw any increase.

Great thank you, gonna try it on the weekend with an old X2 first.

Do you know any programs that can read NB voltage, it's a pain getting to those pins while it's running.

AMD Power Monitor may work. That is the only program i'm aware of for nb voltage, but it reads the NB VID and not the voltage.

[Methious]

Hey Justapost where's the link to the voltage mod for the phenom? Got a buddy that want's to fry his Phenom.

[justapost]

Hey Justapost where's the link to the voltage mod for the phenom? Got a buddy that want's to fry his Phenom.

You can find a link to a vmod guide on page #9 also posted the clock chip's layout there. CRFX found the right resistances and was so kind to post a pic few days ago.

[SSN585]

Last good reboot was about 12 hours before it crashed. I normally leave it on 24-7.

This AM, WinXP suddenly locked up. On reboot, after WinXP logo, a BSOD message flashed (too quick to see text), and it would reboot. After several failed attempts, changed MEM speed from 1066 to 800. While doing this, I noticed some BIOS text was corrupted (voltage selection drop-down lists, etc) - some artifacts in the text. I tried to do a boot from CD to do a repair, there was a crash when a file was not found. Twice, I had lockups during POST.

It looks to me like the M/B (or CPU) has taken a nose dive. Base power supply voltages reported in BIOS look OK...I haven't looked with a multimeter yet.

My Crucial RAM with LEDS looks like they're responding, so probably no hard fault there.

I have not been "overclocking", per se. Running at 200FSB, 11xcpu (2.2G), 1066 RAM, standard nameplate voltages. It's aircooled with Exotech xtreme-x and PWM fan in silent mode. The boot drive is fairly new, installed it shortly after installing this MB.

Thinking of replacing the MB, possibly with a non-M3A. Any suggestions?

[i found nemo]

you would have no post if it were dead .... so be glad for that lol.

[SSN585]

There doesn't seem to be much hope. It stills crashes from WinXP (after a few minutes) with these settings:
Mem clk manual 400Mhz, 2T, auto-auto-auto-auto
FSB200, cpu x 8 (1.6G), cpuV 1.2375, DRAMv 2.20
Last 2 DRAM's, new, installed <1 week ago, removed

Nothing feels overly hot...CPU and NB heatsinks, RAM, all good to touch.

I even crash when booting to memtest.

Maybe I should have went Intel. I switched to AMD's about 10 years ago; mistake?

[Jakalwarrior]

Bet youd love those new intel chips that slowly die with a bit of a voltage bump

Anyway, did you already try the normal stuff like letting the bios battery sit out over night? trying an old backup PCI vid card, etc...
If so thats when you call tech support and get an RMA. You give them some of your money to give you a refurb board (hope there arent any yet!) in place of your new board. Standard ol refurb lottery issue too. Most every manufactuer does that BS.

[SSN585]

Jakal, I didn't do too much troubleshooting yet. As for the BIOS, I didn't reset or leave the battery out. The glitches seen in the BIOS were a one-time event. I don't have enough info to see if this is a MB or CPU problem (or possibly the GPU). I think the OS is good, as well as the HDD's. I took out the two very new ram sticks, but have same symptoms - so will swap the older and newer ram sticks (none are more than 1 month old). Nothing in the system is very old, except maybe for the CD/DVD's.

I went out on the town today looking for parts - we have nothing in the area. One CompUSA, closing it's doors tomorrow...it looked like a bomb went off in there. Best Buy, Circuit City and Staples carry nothing. NO CPU's. I thought if I could get my hands on a fairly cheap AM2 CPU, I could use it for troubleshooting.

[SSN585]

Maybe, it lives.

I removed the "old" ram sticks in the slots A1/B1 yellow slots, and re-installed the "new" sticks in the A2/B2 black slots. Bravely, I set manual mem clock to 800. Some fairly short Prime95 testing indicates the system is working again.

What may have happened is the Enzotech H/S interference with the A1 yellow slot. The heatpipes are putting slight pressure on that stick, and maybe that combined with the h/s fan vibration is screwing the works up.

Time will tell. p.s. this is not funny, so stop laughing

[Methious]

I didn't laugh, I did chuckle a little. Glad you got it up and running. Short note, things touching ram sticks isn't a real good idea.

[da-key]

Great thread ...Subscribed.

[SSN585]

It's still freaking out. Removed all Crucial ram, installed one stick of XMS, Bios to defaults, then minor tweaks for manual mem clock 800, no cool'nQuiet.

Did a WinXP restore point from a few weeks ago. Various corruptions were occurring, possibly due to the numerous crashes and reboots. During one attempt to do a winxp repair install, got a BSOD apparently due to MEMORY_MANAGEMENT.

POST failed one time and I got a broken english message about possible overkclocking problem (yes, that's right, overKclocking).

I'm thinking that's about all I can stand. This motherboard is outta here!!

[Brizzzer]

This is my first post on these forums and use these forums a lot to get information from. But, I feel its time I add something.

I can NOT get my AMD 5000 Black Edition to boot at 3.2. Its causes a BSOD 5 seconds into the Windows loading screen. I can however ever get it to boot at 3.1(200x15.5) but will not last but a min before BSOD. My current settings are... 3.GHz(200x15) @1.4v. I have done a process of elimination but take parts are and replacing them, checking RAM slots changing voltages and such. I have gone up to 1.6v in the core but have the same exact effect.

MSI 8800GT
Thermaltake 600 Purepower RX
Soundblaster XFi Extreme Gamer
Generic PCI Capture Card
Corsair 2x2GB DDR800 4-4-4-14 T1(100% Good)



justapost I noticed that you have a very similar setup as me and was wondering how you were able to do it? Is it something i'm missing? I've never been so stumped before...

Thanks for any help guys!

- Naturn

[justapost]

It's still freaking out. Removed all Crucial ram, installed one stick of XMS, Bios to defaults, then minor tweaks for manual mem clock 800, no cool'nQuiet.

Did a WinXP restore point from a few weeks ago. Various corruptions were occurring, possibly due to the numerous crashes and reboots. During one attempt to do a winxp repair install, got a BSOD apparently due to MEMORY_MANAGEMENT.

POST failed one time and I got a broken english message about possible overkclocking problem (yes, that's right, overKclocking).

I'm thinking that's about all I can stand. This motherboard is outta here!!

Do you have an X2 you can try in that mobo?

This is my first post on these forums and use these forums a lot to get information from. But, I feel its time I add something.

I can NOT get my AMD 5000 Black Edition to boot at 3.2. Its causes a BSOD 5 seconds into the Windows loading screen. I can however ever get it to boot at 3.1(200x15.5) but will not last but a min before BSOD. My current settings are... 3.GHz(200x15) @1.4v. I have done a process of elimination but take parts are and replacing them, checking RAM slots changing voltages and such. I have gone up to 1.6v in the core but have the same exact effect.

MSI 8800GT
Thermaltake 600 Purepower RX
Soundblaster XFi Extreme Gamer
Generic PCI Capture Card
Corsair 2x2GB DDR800 4-4-4-14 T1(100% Good)



justapost I noticed that you have a very similar setup as me and was wondering how you were able to do it? Is it something i'm missing? I've never been so stumped before...

Thanks for any help guys!

- Naturn

Hmm I tried it with a lower cpu multi.

3105MHz
ref HT: 270
cpu mulit: 11,5
cpuv: 1,35V
ht multi: 3 (4 might also work)
mem: @460 5-5-5-18 (still some room for optimization) 2,07V
SB: 1,23V

3220MHz
ref HT: 280
cpu mulit: 11,5
cpuv: 1,4375V
ht multi: 3 (4 might also work)
mem: @460 5-5-5-18 (still some room for optimization) 2,12V
SB: 1,27V

[Rammsteiner]

I see you used higher SB Voltage? Why is that? Does it help?

[justapost]

I see you used higher SB Voltage? Why is that? Does it help?

That is NB(external) and SB voltage on the M3A, so i had to increase it cuz of the higher ref HT. Might also work with a lower SB/NB voltage, looking at my sheets i can not find an point where the higher SB voltage made a difference in stability.

@brizzer: My BE2400 and 5000BE required ~1,325V (bios) for 3GHz, looks like you need ~1,4V for that frequency.

With 1,4V I can run ~3,2GHz, with 1,525V ~3,3GHz. Above 1,4V I can gain ~100MHz max.

[Brizzzer]

Do you have an X2 you can try in that mobo?


Hmm I tried it with a lower cpu multi.

3105MHz
ref HT: 270
cpu mulit: 11,5
cpuv: 1,35V
ht multi: 3 (4 might also work)
mem: @460 5-5-5-18 (still some room for optimization) 2,07V
SB: 1,23V

3220MHz
ref HT: 280
cpu mulit: 11,5
cpuv: 1,4375V
ht multi: 3 (4 might also work)
mem: @460 5-5-5-18 (still some room for optimization) 2,12V
SB: 1,27V

Yea I did as well but still the same issues. Now i've got a new one. My XFi cause a BSOD on boot.(Not related to my CPU issues.) I think i'm stuck at 3GHz. I'll just try it again once they issues another bios.(Current on my is 601.)

[Brizzzer]

That is NB(external) and SB voltage on the M3A, so i had to increase it cuz of the higher ref HT. Might also work with a lower SB/NB voltage, looking at my sheets i can not find an point where the higher SB voltage made a difference in stability.

@brizzer: My BE2400 and 5000BE required ~1,325V (bios) for 3GHz, looks like you need ~1,4V for that frequency.

With 1,4V I can run ~3,2GHz, with 1,525V ~3,3GHz. Above 1,4V I can gain ~100MHz max.

Can you take a picture of your bios settings? I want to see what you have set exactly.

[SocketMan]

Yea I did as well but still the same issues. Now i've got a new one. My XFi cause a BSOD on boot.(Not related to my CPU issues.) I think i'm stuck at 3GHz. I'll just try it again once they issues another bios.(Current on my is 601.)

Try a different pci slot for XFI, check "system information" (in winXP) to make sure XFI is not sharing an IRQ

[Brizzzer]

Its not that i've completely removed the 2 extra cards all together and it still won't boot at 3.2Ghz.

[SSN585]

So maybe I'm back in business for a while.

Removed the Phenom. Installed a new X2 5400+. 4 sticks of 1066 set to 800. Removed the NB HS, cleaned her up, reinstalled with arctic silver 5. Installed those small swifttech copper heatsinks on most of the mosfets.

When I was re-installing the sticks, I found that the A2 black slot had a small piece of broken plastic inside the latch groove. It was such a small piece that I did not notice until I was latching up with the pc laying down on a table. This small plastic piece prevented the latch from fully engaging (very slight amount). I don't think this prevented the stick from fully seating, but can't tell. I was having problems even with that slot unpopulated.

Anyway, I think this is the last hoorah for my M3A. Shortly, I'll be moving back to Intel (after several years).

Many thanks to all of you who chipped in with ideas.

[SSN585]

A couple of minutes after my last post, another quick BSOD and lockup.

Needless to say, I've had it.

I really think the MB is fried. Yes, there are other possibilities, but the MB/RAM/CPU are the newest components. The GPU is new also, but this seems to happen with no stress involved.

M3A for sale...cheap.

[CRFX]

I'm happy to report then the vmod was a success.
Added a 100k trimmer to the core FB pin, and a 1meg to the NB FB pin. Now I can adjust the voltage all the way to 1.7 before it hits over volt protection. That's not such a good idea with my phenom hitting 90.
I'm kind of dissapointed that I can't get over 2.8Ghz with the 9500. 3Ghz would have been nice, but it was worth it considering I only got 2.5 stock. It's stable on 1.5, still need to test out min volts.
If anyone wants pics, let me know.

[Brizzzer]

I've come to the conclusion the my mobo was a dud. I kept having issues with IRQ conflicts and not being able to achieve an overclock @ 3.2GHz is pretty much it. I ordered a ASUS M2N-E...

[Oc-Ghost]

CRFX, what temps are you hitting? Besides 90@1.7V