The Maximus Formula Thread - Help/OCing/Guide/Rampage conversion

[dimsdale]

In prime95 testing, all four core temps are hanging around 70*C.

How can I tell if my CPU is throttling? I used to use ThrottleWatch, but that hasn't been updated in forever it seems and won't run on my rig.

[Gunlance]

I totally give up on my board and chip. I've went through 3 quads(vid's of 1.2875, 1.325, and 1.2125) and still haven't touched 3.6ghz without going over 1.45volts(voltage damper off which puts about 1.35 to chip under load). I've tried testing cpu pll, fstb, cpu volts, nb volts, switching from 4x1 to 2x2 for ram. CPU is on its on loop with a thermochill pa 120.3.

THe chip with vid 1.2125 will do 9*365 at 1.275v(in bios again with damper disabled) all day but as soon as I go for 9*370 volts have to take an exponential leap.

If ANYONE can lend any advice AT all, I'm all ears. If there is something quirky about this board that I don't know about like jacking up the sb volts help, let me know.

Sorry had to vent my frustration.

[dimsdale]

->FSB Termination Voltage

Folks, take a look at your FSH Term Voltage. BIOS allows you to set it up to 2.00 V. However.... it seems that the highest voltage the board will actually put out (according to Everest) is about 1.50V.

Anyone seen Everest actually report something higher than 1.5 V?

[jwfitt]

jwfitt,
CPU Voltage at 1.4875 for 4ghz with a Thermalright eXtreme 120!
What kind of temps is that generating??

Hehe. Hot! RealTemp was hanging around 61-66 for Core 0, all the others were low 60s (this is at full load). Everest/CoreTemp show it 8-10 C higher than Real Temp, but alot of people seem to think Real Temp is the more accurate reading for this CPU...

I'm not too thrilled with those settings, working on getting a 3.8 configuration that I'm more comfy with going at the moment. I still can't figure out what my bottleneck is since small fft passed with lower cpu voltages.

Does anyone know how high you can safely push the FSB Voltage setting? What does it directly affect in regards to overheating if you push it too far?

Thanks

[jwfitt]

->FSB Termination Voltage

Folks, take a look at your FSH Term Voltage. BIOS allows you to set it up to 2.00 V. However.... it seems that the highest voltage the board will actually put out (according to Everest) is about 1.50V.

Anyone seen Everest actually report something higher than 1.5 V?

Now that you mention it I'm not sure I've ever seen it over 1.55 ... I'll check on my next reboot/tweak run...

[loften]

will ddr3 run on the maximus with rampage bios??

[Nuckin_Futs]

I dont run 4GB so I cannot say, Dominators 2x1GB PC8500 will do 1275 on this board with a little extra cooling

While the timing is rather relaxed, A high FSB will compensate for any bandwidth loss, this board really likes 500FSB and 1200+ ram

DRAM Command Rate - 2N
Dram Timing Control - Manual
*In Brackets are timings that can be optimized later, outside of the brackets is a good starting point*
CAS# Latency - 5
RAS# to CAS# Delay - 5
RAS# PRE Time - 5
RAS# ACT time - 18
RAS# to RAS# Delay - 4(3-4)
Ref Cycle Time - 45(25-55)
Write Recovery Time - 6(3-6)
READ to PRE Time - 4(2-5)

READ to Write Delay (S/D) - 9 (7-10)
WRITE to READ Delay (S) - 5 (3-6)
WRITE to READ Delay (D) - 5 (4-6)
READ to READ Delay (S) - 4 (3-5)
READ to READ Delay (S) - 6 (5-7)
WRITE to WRITE Delay (S) - 4 (3-5)
WRITE to WRITE Delay (D) - 6 (5-7)

DRAM Static Read Control - Disabled (Enabled)
Ai Clock Twister - Light (Strong)
Transaction Booster - Disabled
Relax Level - 2 (0-3)

O.K., mine look pretty close to yours, however, all my sub timings are set as WAuto, till I learn otherwise of their tweaking performance results. Here's a recap of my settings for rig 2 in sig;

DRAM Frequency: [DDR2-1153]
DRAM Command Rate: [2T]
DRAM Timing Control: [Manual]
Primary Info : 5-5-5-15-3-42-6-3
CAS# Latancy: [5]
RAS# to CAS# Delay: [5]
RAS# Precharge: [5]
RAS# Active Time: [15]
RAS# to RAS# Delay: [Auto] = 3
Row Refresh Cycle Time: [Auto] = 42
Write Recovery time: [Auto] = 6
Read to Precharge Time: [Auto] = 3

Secondary Info : 8-3-5-4-6-4-6
Read to Write Delay(S/D): [Auto] = 8
Write to Read Delay(S): [Auto] = 3
Write to Read Delay(D): [Auto] = 5
REad to Read Delay(S): [Auto] = 4
Read to Read Delay(D): [Auto] = 6
Write to write Delay(S): [Auto] = 4
Write to Write delay(D): [Auto] = 6
DRAM Static Read Control: [Enabled]
Ai Clock Twister: [Moderate]
Transaction Booster: [Auto]

Can you give feedback on the sub timings in BOLD as to how they can be improved and in wich direction (wich ones equal higher or lower as better/tighter)? I'm not looking to tighten for beyond realistic everyday use, just better number crunching, or media encoding performance.

Also, Inoticed you use Ai of "strong" yet booster disabled and further relaxed to 3. What difference did this make (for real world stability, NOT scores as much) v/s Ai Moderate or light w/ booster to Auto or disabled 0. I always get lagging if forcing Ai Strong or booster to enabled when at 1153MHz+.

I totally give up on my board and chip. I've went through 3 quads(vid's of 1.2875, 1.325, and 1.2125) and still haven't touched 3.6ghz without going over 1.45volts(voltage damper off which puts about 1.35 to chip under load). I've tried testing cpu pll, fstb, cpu volts, nb volts, switching from 4x1 to 2x2 for ram. CPU is on its on loop with a thermochill pa 120.3.

THe chip with vid 1.2125 will do 9*365 at 1.275v(in bios again with damper disabled) all day but as soon as I go for 9*370 volts have to take an exponential leap.

If ANYONE can lend any advice AT all, I'm all ears. If there is something quirky about this board that I don't know about like jacking up the sb volts help, let me know.

Sorry had to vent my frustration.

Wow, it has to be the BIOS settings then cause I have a GO q6600 w/ 1.3000 VID and it has lil' trouble to 500FSB. Look at the previous POST I made about this. NOTE the featutres to try and enable v/s the ones to disable.

will ddr3 run on the maximus with rampage bios??

NO, this mobo is not socketed for DDR3.

[loften]

i get it.. thanks..

[fordf250]

I totally give up on my board and chip. I've went through 3 quads(vid's of 1.2875, 1.325, and 1.2125) and still haven't touched 3.6ghz without going over 1.45volts(voltage damper off which puts about 1.35 to chip under load). I've tried testing cpu pll, fstb, cpu volts, nb volts, switching from 4x1 to 2x2 for ram. CPU is on its on loop with a thermochill pa 120.3.

THe chip with vid 1.2125 will do 9*365 at 1.275v(in bios again with damper disabled) all day but as soon as I go for 9*370 volts have to take an exponential leap.

If ANYONE can lend any advice AT all, I'm all ears. If there is something quirky about this board that I don't know about like jacking up the sb volts help, let me know.

Sorry had to vent my frustration.

Did you try 2x1G of ram? Is the nb water cooled with one of those chipset coolers you have listed? Try the ram at 1:1 to start?

[dimsdale]

I'd be perfectly happy at just 400 FSB with my 9650, I've gotten to 450 on the FSB and stayed fine on small FFT testing. It all comes crashing down when I get into Blend testing though.

However, I've just bumped a few things up to see if blend would stabilize at 10x400, and it's looking good. Well over an hour going at the following settings:

Transaction Booster : Disabled
Relax: 7

Gonna start scaling back some settings and see where it goes...

You realize what the Relax 7 does to your memory performance, right? It makes your performance level 7 + 7 = 14. I tried that and ran the quick benchies in Everest. It's really high latency and slow thruput.

I sure hope that's not why you are passing prime.

[safan80]

Odd, I had to update Everest and everything seems fine. Oldder version wasn't showing NB/SB, or the proper voltage readings.

when I'm using 4.50.1330

[Nuckin_Futs]

Quick question. MB temp dropped out of detection and mis-read by PC ProbeII for a moment? I know many of you must have experienced this at some point. For example, right now just out of the blue, mine just read as 32c but dropped out of detection by Everest. PC ProbeII now shows in the RED @ 154c for a few seconds.

Has anybody come accross a cure for this, or notice at wich point it appears to stop or not happen as much. It's happend to 2 of my MAXIMUS mobos and more on older one. I noticed it happens more w/ higher FSB and NB voltages.

[cyrixMII300]

Quick question. MB temp dropped out of detection and mis-read by PC ProbeII for a moment? I know many of you must have experienced this at some point. For example, right now just out of the blue, mine just read as 32c but dropped out of detection by Everest. PC ProbeII now shows in the RED @ 154c for a few seconds.

Has anybody come accross a cure for this, or notice at wich point it appears to stop or not happen as much. It's happend to 2 of my MAXIMUS mobos and more on older one. I noticed it happens more w/ higher FSB and NB voltages.

yes i have seen this too. also happens to nb temps and sometimes to various other PCprobe items such as fan rpm. i am thinking its something to do with the refresh cycle of the software. apart from that no clues since this happens randomly.

[youraa]

Hi guys
I was working stable on 450x8 strap 400 with 2gb ocz reaper 1150@1199, but suddenly one of the modules stopped working, it hang on restart with detecting dram info. At the store they checked both modules and their were working fine, but still I thought that maybe it's good to switch them, and I did. To geil black dragon 2x2gb 800mhz and set them to 1081 strap 333 2.16v. 3dmark stable, cod4 stable, crysis stable (although from time to time i see something like a little stutter in graphics, which I didn't see with my ocz 2gb pair). the geil mem conf fails occt test after 5minutes. It doesn't matter for me to be 100% stable as long as the games work fine, but maybe the cause of the stutter is the memory issue? What do you think about geil black dragon 2 x2gb 800mhz 5 5 5 5?
thx

p.s. Maybe I should gt ballistix 4x1gb 1066?

[Grnfinger]

Quick question. MB temp dropped out of detection and mis-read by PC ProbeII for a moment? I know many of you must have experienced this at some point. For example, right now just out of the blue, mine just read as 32c but dropped out of detection by Everest. PC ProbeII now shows in the RED @ 154c for a few seconds.

Has anybody come accross a cure for this, or notice at wich point it appears to stop or not happen as much. It's happend to 2 of my MAXIMUS mobos and more on older one. I noticed it happens more w/ higher FSB and NB voltages.

You need the newer version of Everest 4.50.1330 or the beta 4.20.1307
I had the same problem till I upgraded Everest.

I will look at your ram and see if I can make any suggestions and post later today, setting Booster to strong improved Latencey and slightly better read/write/copy scores in Everest.

So I run on strong if it dosent effect stability

[Grnfinger]

when I'm using 4.50.1330

The beta 4.20.1307 works very well with this board.
I'm using it and have all temps/volts reporting normally.

[Leeghoofd]

Hi guys
switch them, and I did. To geil black dragon 2x2gb 800mhz and set them to 1081 strap 333 2.16v. 3dmark stable, cod4 stable, crysis stable (although from time to time i see something like a little stutter in graphics, which I didn't see with my ocz 2gb pair). the geil mem conf fails occt test after 5minutes. It doesn't matter for me to be 100% stable as long as the games work fine, but maybe the cause of the stutter is the memory issue? What do you think about geil black dragon 2 x2gb 800mhz 5 5 5 5?
thx

run the GEILs at 900Mhz and try again... 2gb dimms don't clock as good as 1gb dimms... why didn't you just buy 1066Mhz dimms to have some headroom... could also be ya memory controller is getting dodgy...

and for the 4 Ballistix sticks I think you are going for even more trouble as many many users have issues with them running in 2 pair configuration on the Maximus...

[Webster]

Sorry for taking my sweet time to reply. I hit 3.8 with some stability, and 9x440 long enough to get a screen cap. I really haven't had much time to experiment with voltages, but it is priority #1 when I get home this afternoon. Thanks for all of your help so far. My only remaining question is could I get any possible performance gains by dropping my multiplier to 8 and raising my FSB? Thanks again for your kindness.

[Grnfinger]

Sorry for taking my sweet time to reply. I hit 3.8 with some stability, and 9x440 long enough to get a screen cap. I really haven't had much time to experiment with voltages, but it is priority #1 when I get home this afternoon. Thanks for all of your help so far. My only remaining question is could I get any possible performance gains by dropping my multiplier to 8 and raising my FSB? Thanks again for your kindness.

definately, lower multi and high FSB will always give you better performance

[aussie-revhead]

Hi guys , great thread here !!!

I have a Maximus Formula on the way , is there only one mod for these (as shown in the OP) ? It says there :

Use a HB / 3B / 4B pencil, 2 or 3 strokes only.

So there is no resistance value for this ? Are there any other mods to do before I install it ?

[dimsdale]

Do you folks ever see prime95 crash as in "prime95 has stopped working" and the application quitting out from under you? What do you make of that?
Do you suppose that is a bug in prime95 or is that a bad OC?

[Grnfinger]

Do you folks ever see prime95 crash as in "prime95 has stopped working" and the application quitting out from under you? What do you make of that?
Do you suppose that is a bug in prime95 or is that a bad OC?

I have had that happen b4 when my FSB was around 475 or higher and not enough NB volts.
I would suspect you need a drop or 2 more NB volts

[ygor.almeida]

Well well well ... after reading 42 pages i´m still not sure where is the latest information on how to do this, ( the 1st page ) ... can someone resume or indicate where (post) is the most new guide on this flash ... btw, any problem if i translate this guide to Portuguese BR - offcourse i will leave username and link back to here !

[Grnfinger]

make a bootable media device ( USB Stick... CD.. ect)
you will need these

http://www.elektroni.fi/Stilt/Asus_Rampage/HPUSBFW.zip
http://www.elektroni.fi/Stilt/Asus_Rampage/USB-Boot.zip

Download AFUDOS and toss it on the media along with the RF Bios

Latest Rampage bios http://rapidshare.de/files/38827325/RF0219.zip.html
AFUDOS http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...9&d=1205468995

Once you have everything ready boot from your media and then type
AFUDOS /iRF0219.rom /pbnc /n
reboot and your done.

[jwfitt]

I've been running at 3.8ghz rock solid as of last night (in Blend), I'm currently tweaking my RAM settings and adjusting voltages to see how low I can bring them down before I lose stability. I'll post the exact config later tonight.

Edits are in Bold

Last Edit: 8:31pm EST, 4/10/08

Ai Overclock Tuner : Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting : 9.5
FSB Frequency : 400
FSB Strap to North Bridge : 333
PCI-E Frequency: 100

DRAM Frequency: DDR2-961
DRAM Command Rate : 2T
DRAM Timing Control: Manual
CAS# Latency : 5
RAS# to CAS# Delay : 5
RAS# Precharge : 5
RAS# ActivateTime : 15
RAS# to RAS# Delay : Auto
Row Refresh Cycle Time : 60
(All Other Timings on Auto)

DRAM Static Read Control: Disabled
Ai Clock Twister : Strong
Transaction Booster : Disabled
Relax: 0

CPU Voltage : 1.375
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.50
North Bridge Voltage : 1.41
DRAM Voltage : 2.00
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.30
South Bridge Voltage : Auto
Loadline Calibration : Enabled
CPU GTL Reference : .63x
North Bridge GTL Reference : .67x
DDR2 Channel A REF Voltage : Auto
DDR2 Channel B REF Voltage : Auto
DDR2 Controller REF Voltage : DDR2_REF
SB 1.5V Voltage : Auto

CPU Spread Spectrum : Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum : Disabled