**Official ABIT IP-35 Pro Review/Overclock/Guide Thread**

[dstedman]

Question for y'all - for Vista 64-bit, what drivers do you recommend I install off of the first page in this thread?

There are some that are labeled 64-bit, but not 64-bit Vista (Intel chipset, JMicron SATA, ...). Are these OK or even necessary? Are all of the ports JMicron, or just the eSata ports?

Vista seemed to work fine without any additional drivers. Just wondering if there is any improvement to be gained with these driver updates...

thanks!

[BenSanford]

Question for y'all - for Vista 64-bit, what drivers do you recommend I install off of the first page in this thread?

There are some that are labeled 64-bit, but not 64-bit Vista (Intel chipset, JMicron SATA, ...). Are these OK or even necessary? Are all of the ports JMicron, or just the eSata ports?

Vista seemed to work fine without any additional drivers. Just wondering if there is any improvement to be gained with these driver updates...

Vista will install it's own default drivers if it thinks it needs a driver. That helps it work on most systems with the user not having to do anything.

However, the default drivers that Vista loads are often generic drivers that are probably not the best for your board. I installed all the drivers listed - the 64-bit versions where listed. Since I'm not using the 2 e-SATA ports, could probably have omitted installing the jMicron drivers for those, but went ahead and did it so I wouldn't need to bother later.

Your system profile looks a lot like mine. Good luck.

[Moto450]

What is the best BIOS for a E8400 that you guys have tested ? I see a few beta BIOS here and wanted to know whice one is working the best for that cpu.

[Ace-a-Rue]

Are half multies present in the BETA bioses?

YES!

Currently using the latest official bios 14 that was shipped with the board, and vcore is way off in bios but that's a known issue with this bios AFAIK (1.4250v bios = 1.33~1.34v windows).

if you use Uguru, it will be the opposite way with set versus actual vcore...i can set my VID (lowest available) and it will give me actual of 0.07v higher.

Also which BIOS do you think is currently the best for your system? (stability and performance wise in case there would be any difference).

so far for me, i like 16.B10...it appears to be very good for my QX9650...but...each of us have their opinions about this beta

[JuliM]

I have also moved to 16.B10 on my board with the E8400. No problems so far, but I didn´t see any differences at the moment. Vdroop is the same for me as under 16.B09.

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well I tried 16 B10 and went back to 14 official lol. B10 fixed the inproper bios vcore values (1.3450v BIOS = 1.34v windows as opposed to 1.4250v bios = 1.34v windows) but it was also slower, mem latency went up and b/w slightly down. Also it seemed like I couldn't use 1.34v (windows) voltage for 4.0GHz stable and would have had to use slightly more but with v14 windows 1.34v value is enough so either the windows values are not exact with the different bios (BIOS values are way different between the bioses so no use to try and compare with that) or 16B10 has worse overclockability but as long as I use the vcore setting that barely keeps 4.0GHz stable I don't care about if BIOS shows correct or not.

Performance is important for me so whatever gives me best clock for clock performance and also doesn't provide any stability issues is what I use. Hopefully performance gets fixed in newer BIOSes though. 7.5x533 didn't turn out to give any reasonable performance improvement (well it did provide some) but the voltage bumps were not worth it and at 8x500 it lost to v14 bios so.

[Crazy Chuckster]

RPGWiZaRD, can you post your full voltages and timings to get 8x500?

Thanks

[Ace-a-Rue]

RPGWiZaRD: glad it worked out for you...i am satisfied with 16.B10 EXCEPT for my multi is locked above 9X for my QX9650....this is two beta bioses in a row that has it locked....i might go back to 16.B04 to get it unlocked and then check the performance difference...i am currently doing DDR1068 on a set of GSkill DDR800 sticks which is giving me relatively good bandwidth at that DDR speed.

[Pntgrd]

i had that same problem...the way you fix that is hit F8 at boot time and then select "last known good configuration", or similar words like that...it will allow return to default settings...basically it resets all your system changes back the way it was installed for the first time....you will regain access to windows update, control panel and other sub adjustments....UAC will remain deactivated if you disabled it before...i do! (POS)

Just an update. I finally had the time to play a bit. Put all four sticks back in and booted to XP and all is fine in XP. It is in fact a problem with my Vista install. Set it all back to my original voltages for 3.6 and ran wPrime and tried a bunch of other things with no problems. Been up and running for almost two hours now where 4 minutes was the longest for Vista. Do I hear the distant sound of the airplane in the distance on it's way to drop the "F" bomb on my Vista partition?

Thanks for the suggestion Ace.

[Ace-a-Rue]

good to hear things are looking up!

the F8 thing worked only during that re-start for me...upon a subsequent re-start, it was back to the same situation...but...i think i found out what my problem was...i finally activated my installation and now everything stays the way it should after doing numerous re-starts....control panel opens; i can get into the system properties and so forth.

my problem could be complicated since i am pursuing the feature that disables vista64 driver enforcement 100% of the time without having any further intervention via the F8 key...currently it is working nicely that way...i had to NOT install about 10-12 windows updates...5 of them were definitely preventing me from having the disabled feature of the driver enforcement.

[RPGWiZaRD]

RPGWiZaRD, can you post your full voltages and timings to get 8x500?

Thanks

Certainly, as I had the voltages written up on a note here on my table in case I'd lose the settings and forget them.

CPU: 1.4250v (1.34v in windows due to old bios v14 as mentioned above)
DDR2: 2.200v
VTT: 1.27v
MCH: 1.37v
ICH: 1.05v
ICHIO: 1.55v
DDR2 Ref voltage 0%
CPU GTLREF 0&2: 67%
CPU GTLREF 1&3: 67%

DDR2 timings are IMO very tight for 24/7 but that's due to great micron D9GMH sticks:

tCL: 4
tRCD: 4
tRP: 4
tRAS: 8
tRFC: 25
tWR: 10
tWTR:10
tRRD: 5 (could use down to 3, but saw absolutely no performance improvement, in fact it was more the opposite I lost some B/W, but we're talking very minor differences)
tRTP: 5 (same as above ^)

Since MemSet isn't supported with this mobo I can't mess with tREF or Performance Level but they're both on suitable values anyways, performance level = 7 which is the lowest these sticks handles and tREF = 2600T, not the fastest but should be ok.

Been using settings above since January sometimes without any signs of CPU degration despite really using the minimum required vcore for this to pass OCCT for example.

[chawks2]

DDR2 timings are IMO very tight for 24/7 but that's due to great micron D9GMH sticks

Those are OUTRAGEOUS timings for your clockspeed.

[RPGWiZaRD]

Those are OUTRAGEOUS timings for your clockspeed.

Yea I'm very satisfied with them due to the fact I use only 2.2v which is within the specified range 2.0 - 2.2v by the manufacturer. TRAS could be lowered even further to a low 22 ~ 23 but heh 25 looks better and good enough really. They are naked chips with 2x80mm fans over them. :p

Below at the settings I used with my DS4 with E6750 @ 3.75GHz w/ 1.20x divider. Very flexible RAM for overclocking, I know the old Ballistix Tracers for example does this easily as well but heh these are DDR2-667 rated sticks and clocks up to around DDR2-1150 with 5-5-5-x timings and very tight subtimings with only 2.2v so I'm not complaining.

[Ace-a-Rue]

can you show us an everest memory bandwidth?

[Dr_at_Home]

Hey, I just got an external hard drive and now i'm told i've got no USB2 ports...



I have USB set to high speed in BIOS allready, and USB 2 support is added in XP SP1 I believe...

Am I missing something else in BIOS that controls this?

[Crazy Chuckster]

Thanks wizard, im going to mess with my settings this weekend and see if I can squeeze some more out of this setup.

I would like to see an everest badwidth shot as well

Also what kind of core and pwm temps are you seeing under load?

[RPGWiZaRD]

can you show us an everest memory bandwidth?

I don't really trust Everest Mem B/W and will give u a shot at that why I think so....

Gigabyte P35-DS4, E6750 @ 469x8 (3.75GHz) w/ mem divider 1.20x = 562.8MHz 5-5-4-10 with subtimings u see in my last post.



Abit IP35 Pro, E8400 @ 500x8 (4.0GHz) w/ RAM 1:1 500MHz 4-4-4-8 and subtimings mentioned in my 2nd last post before this one.

Also what kind of core and pwm temps are you seeing under load?

Difficult to say as my sensors aren't the best, there's a 10C idle difference between the cores, and a little less on load, according to RealTemp around 53C if taking the avg number between the cores Tuniq ~1600rpm (not using any comp case and it's fairly cool in the room 20~21C I'd guess). PWM temps I don't remember but the 80mm fans I use for RAM also helps slightly for PWM temps. Idle temp is right now 35~36C on PWM at least. After 5 mins of OCCT it's showing now 44C.

[Dr_at_Home]

Hey, I just got an external hard drive and now i'm told i've got no USB2 ports...



I have USB set to high speed in BIOS allready, and USB 2 support is added in XP SP1 I believe...

Am I missing something else in BIOS that controls this?

wow, disregard this. The USB controller wasn't even installed (showed up as unknown in device manager for the first time today)

All is well now.

[Ace-a-Rue]

I don't really trust Everest Mem B/W and will give u a shot at that why I think so....

Gigabyte P35-DS4, E6750 @ 469x8 (3.75GHz) w/ mem divider 1.20x = 562.8MHz 5-5-4-10 with subtimings u see in my last post.



Abit IP35 Pro, E8400 @ 500x8 (4.0GHz) w/ RAM 1:1 500MHz 4-4-4-8 and subtimings mentioned in my 2nd last post before this one.

some mobo makers tweak the chipset a lot more with tighter latencies (SPD set)...i think abit takes the easy way out so it can get more memory to work on the initial post using loose latencies through SPD settings.

i think your ip35 pro everest is close to what i got at 485 mhz doing 1:1

[Pntgrd]

I see a lot of guys using the 8800GT with this board. I take it there are no problems running the PCIE 2.0 cards on this chipset. I am thinking of replacing my 8800 with a new 8800 GTS-512 (G92). Just want to make sure it will work.

[Volkswagen]

i dont think the 8800gt is pci e 2.0

[dstedman]

I see a lot of guys using the 8800GT with this board. I take it there are no problems running the PCIE 2.0 cards on this chipset. I am thinking of replacing my 8800 with a new 8800 GTS-512 (G92). Just want to make sure it will work.

Works great!

[Astakos]

Is there any away to undervoltage Vcore below cpu vid?

[Ace-a-Rue]

unfortunately, NO with the IP35 Pro board...you can do it on DFI's LT X38 board and i also presume their P35 board too!

[Pntgrd]

Works great!

Thanks