Official ASUS X38 Boards: P5E, P5E3 - Info/BIOS Thread

[Mtrx]

Would the Vdroop mod cause any harm to mobo or CPU? According the Intel and several tech sites, Vdroop is normal and Load Line Calibration should be disable.

I have seen also some advices that recommends to keep loadline calibration disabled to let the vcore droop under load, mostly for 45nm cpus. The mod, in some way, will affect the mb and the cpu as it changes theirs specifications.

After doing the mod, Instead of Vdroop, my load Vcore, increased a little bit compared to idle.

Try to rise a bit the nb voltage, it may help to reduce the vcore a little.

[Right now I'm trying to resolve a minor problem: Every so often after I reboot from windows, the P5E will not post (no beep & black screen) and I need to hit the reset button. I'm trying a bit more dram voltage and adding some VTT. See more sig for details Any suggestions?]

Same happened here with fsb higher than 1600. Now with vtt at auto, nb at 1,31v and giving +0.02v to the ram that issue seems to disappear up to 1700fsb but can´t confirm yet because still testing.

[Mtrx]

[Right now I'm trying to resolve a minor problem: Every so often after I reboot from windows, the P5E will not post (no beep & black screen) and I need to hit the reset button. I'm trying a bit more dram voltage and adding some VTT. See more sig for details Any suggestions?]

Same happened here with fsb higher than 1600. Now with vtt at auto, nb at 1,31v and giving +0.02v to the ram that issue seems to disappear up to 1700fsb but can´t confirm yet because still testing.

I reboot windows 10 times continuously and that issue has disappear with that configuration. I can´t go higher with my system, the quad isn´t stable at 1752fsb (8*438) and temps pass for much 70ºc. Have you tried with nb gtl voltage reference at 67x instead of auto? I tried both and see no differences, at least up to 1700fsb, no more issues rebooting in both cases so I leave it at auto, but I´ve read that can help with 1800fsb.

[INTREPID]

I've tried a NB up to 1.45v, Vcore up to 1.3625v, VTT (FSB Term Volt) up to 1.28v, 5-5-5-15 timings and Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) of 65.

This may happen because I have 4 x 1GB Ram.

The post fail problem happens every 1 to 10 reboots (varies).

The fastest way to test this is to hit F8 For Popup BBS (Boot Selection Popup Menu) and then hit Ctrl-Alt-Del after the boot menu appears (a safe place to reboot).

This is not really a serious problem, but if I remote reboot my computer (using remote desktop for example), I can't count on my computer coming back up. For the time being I've gone back to 3.6 Ghz. (400 x 9). So, I prefer 100% reliability. But if I can get 4.0 Ghz. to work with 4 x 1GB Ram, that would be nice.

Any ideas are always appreciated.

Originally Posted by INTREPID
[Right now I'm trying to resolve a minor problem: Every so often after I reboot from windows, the P5E will not post (no beep & black screen) and I need to hit the reset button. I'm trying a bit more dram voltage and adding some VTT. See more sig for details Any suggestions?]

[WeldZilla]

try bumping your NB to 1.55 and set your mem on the 5:6 divider and run 5-4-4-6 for your timings. Increase your Dram voltage to 2.06 or 2.08.
I too run 4 sticks of memory as you know the same mem as you. I have been playing with these settings trying to find a stable place for you to run your with a little more punch. I hope this is it for you.

In the bios I am running 5-4-4-6-6-30-6-4


WZ

[crackbag]

Your friend is correct, Intel chipsets are Crossfire only.

thanks... so what vid cards would you run i would like to do crossfire then and not just 1 card

[INTREPID]

Thanks WeldZilla !!! Bumping the NB to 1.55v fixed the post problem.

Question: Since my case has superb cooling, do I need active cooling on the P5E Northbridge itself at 1.55v?

BTW, I tried your timings with the memory at 1116Mhz with 2.06v., but MemTest failed.

See my signature for revised settings.

try bumping your NB to 1.55 and set your mem on the 5:6 divider and run 5-4-4-6 for your timings. Increase your Dram voltage to 2.06 or 2.08.
I too run 4 sticks of memory as you know the same mem as you. I have been playing with these settings trying to find a stable place for you to run your with a little more punch. I hope this is it for you.

In the bios I am running 5-4-4-6-6-30-6-4


WZ

[wyemarn]

After testing my quad, I found the stable settings for 24/7.

8x400= 3.2Ghz
Vcore : 1.2925V (1.28V idle and load) Vdroop mod
PLL Voltage : 1.5V
FSB Termination : 1.2V
NB : 1.27V
SB : 1.050V

Not sure whether I should push higher since the VID of my Q6600 is 1.325V. Except NB voltage, all other voltages are running at stock or lowest setting. I'm not sure also whether to erase the Vdroop mod because I'm afraid of damage to the board or CPU. Any thoughts?

[WeldZilla]

Hey Intrepid I am glad it helped to bump the NB volts as that usually will help out alot when trying to stabilize memory. Sorry your HZ won't quite achieve the higher settings but,if you are able to run stable where you are at currently your system will be anything but slow!!
I always run a minimum of a 90mm fan blowing on both my memory and my Northbridge. Always... On this set up I am running a 120MM fan over both.
Is it necessary? Well I am running much faster so maybe that is part of the difference?
I say just keep prodding it an getting a little more all thew time.

WZ

[Mtrx]

I have a fan also at the nb, there is no sensor so I don´t know the temps, but this is from the review of the p5e at x-bit, page 8, overclocking a QX6850:

“We increased the chipset North Bridge voltage to 1.55V; CPU PLL Voltage, FSB Termination Voltage and CPU GTL Reference were at their nominal values(…) By the way, the North Bridge temperature hits 70-75ºC during such quad-core processor overclocking, despite the additional fan included with the mainboard. It is another indication that Intel X38 platforms are more dependent on efficient chipset system cooling than Intel P35 based ones, because the new North Bridge dissipates almost twice as much heat.”

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mai...sus-p5e_8.html

[De1337]

Okay I need to clear a few things up.
I'm having some stability issues with the setup in my sig. (2x1gb ram atm)
I run BIOS 0605 with the following:

Q6600 @ 3.6
Vcore: 1.43125
Vdimm: 2.06
FSB: 400
Strap: Auto
PCIE: 110
Loadline Calibration: Enabled
DRAM Freq.: 1066
Timings: 5-5-5-15

Rest is on AUTO.

All the CPU config is disabled (vanderpool, c1e etc), except Execute Disable Bit.
PCI and CPU Spread Spectrum disabled.

Cooling is ThermalRight Ultra 120 eXtreme. Load temps in prime95 small FFT is somewhere around 60 on the hottest cores, depending on the room temperature.

Currently I've been running this config in XP for about 30 minutes prime blend, and all seems fine, but if I try in vista, it will fail with BSOD saying PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (might not be 100 % correct, but you know which one I'm talking about). I'm thinkin that this is maybe because I run 64 bit vista with only 2gb of ram, and then load up all the ram while I stress it. (Since it doesn't happen in XP).
Edit: 1½ hour and still good in XP with the config that gets me BSOD in Vista during Prime blend.

I tested the ram at 1066 5-5-5-15, 2.06v, and everything else in BIOS set to auto (no OC), and it proved to run fine in XP for 1½ hour (Prime95 Blend). Also passed MemTest. The reason I'm running 2gb now, is because I fried one of the sticks when I ran memtest all night at Vdimm 2.16 BIOS (2.2v is printed on the sticks, but the manual says 2.1), and we know how P5E controls ram voltage (at least +0.05). I'll RMA the set. When I woke up to a screen of red lines in MemTest and rebooted, it made the same errors even at JEDEC, so I figured out which set was bad, and the one I left in now is all good.

Now to the questions:
Will NB/CPU GTL x67/x63 damage my board? I see many people running those, but the BIOS warns me about high voltages. I did run with this without stuff breaking, but I don't know if it's necessary, and I don't want to overvolt something that doesn't need it.

What would you consider a safe NB voltage? I've had it running at 1.55 at my highest overclocks (tighter timings, ai twiser, transaction booster etc enabled), but it got very warm (to touch), and I don't really feel safe with that. My thermalright takes up pretty much space, and I only have the chipset cooler that came with the board cooling the chipset (Antec P182 tri-cool fans right on top of that though, so the airflow around all the hot spots is pretty good. The two fans in the back run on high when testing.) I also run the Corsair Dominator fan on the ram (not right now tho, since I took out 2x1gb, and it's so damn hard to get back on with the thermalright and graphics card and ATX power etc.)
Picture of NB cooling facility:


And what in the world do I do with SB 1.5v? Never heard of it before P5E.

Going from 2.4Ghz to 3.6Ghz also made my NB much hotter to touch (only probe I have ), while only changing Vcore. I suppose this is normal, since the FSB is upped from 266 to 400, and the Auto on NB increases the voltage automatically?

When is it really necessary to up FSB Termination? I never got that.

And VTT is the same as CPU PLL, right?

Sorry for the amount of questions.

[Aleslammer]

De1337

First page has some Qcore settings

http://www.overclock.net/intel-mothe...38-thread.html

[De1337]

Thanks, I'll read through it

[manieq]

What is your highest stable fsb on p5e? I set 520fsb 1.5v NB and it works few minutes in orthos.

[STaRGaZeR]

Going from 2.4Ghz to 3.6Ghz also made my NB much hotter to touch (only probe I have ), while only changing Vcore. I suppose this is normal, since the FSB is upped from 266 to 400, and the Auto on NB increases the voltage automatically?

Yes, if you leave NB voltage on auto, the board will increase it to about 1,6v when running high FSBs. Well, at least with 445 and 500, that is what I've tested so far. You should lower it manually until you reach stability with the minimum possible voltage

[De1337]

Yeah I'll get it reduced when I get my new ram. No idea in adjusting everything and then add 2x1gb ram and mess it all up.

I read through the link you gave me Aleslammer, but I didn't really get much out of it. I still don't know what VTT/CPU PLL (assuming those are the same) does, and the GTL ref is also still a mystery to me.

[WeldZilla]

For all of you who have been worrying about my E8400 dropping dead from
"High Voltage" I thought I would go ahead and dial it up to the top again this weekend just to let you all know that it still will.

No mods on the board. Just a great processor, memory and Cooling!!

and it is off to the races...............



Have a great week guys and gals............

The voltage was 1.618V.... I just love it!!!



WZ

[QuantumZero]

I personally want to do a huge overclock on my P5E3 dlx wifi mobo. I am at 4.4ghz-4.5ghz stable at 1.58v running daily. RAM usage i try to keep below 70%. I did the Vdroop pencil mod. In BIOS everything is set to auto except for DRAM Freq - 1N, FSB Freq, Multiplier, Vcore. There is this one more thing where you can flash your bios to P5E3 premium but its not thoroughly tested and improvements in "overclocking" have specifically not been pointed out. Some guys motherboard got bricked cause of it.

[Aleslammer]

De1337

I've been looking for the same thing and found this. It's general.
http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=5170

This has some more info.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3156&p=4

[De1337]

Thanks Ale i'll read up

[trt740]

hey guys anyone know if this ram will cause a problem with a maximus /Rampage formula motherboard. Seems like a good deal 2 gb sticks http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227299. the only problem I see is you cannot install more than 2 of them due to the thickness, but it is 4 gb.

[microman]

simple ? what bios have you all found to be the most stable for the P5E3 Deluxe. i flashed from the bios the board came with when i got it like 2 days ago because it wasnt playing well with my X2's and now it just doesnt seem to wanna oc all that well anymore.

[wyemarn]

I can do 8x400 with Vcore at 1.3V and all other chipset and memory voltage at lowest settings stable. Quite surprised since Ive seen others need high chipset voltage for their X38s.

[Aleslammer]

This last weekend I was trying the Rampage 0308 BIOS with everything set to auto except Vcore, Vdimm, NB, FSB and memory timings @ 5-5-5-15, when I got into Windows I opened MemSet and noticed that my memory performance level was 12. After playing around a little I flashed to the P5E 0605 BIOS after setting everything as it was set in the Rampage BIOS, I booted into Windows, upon opening MemSet my performance level was 5. Setting the level to 4 I locked up, looks like the P5E is very aggressive with this setting.

I tried OCCT on settings that were 8 hrs Ortho blend stable using P5E0107 and got 10 minutes into the test using P5E0605 when it stopped and reported a cpu error. I went into BIOS and manually set all voltages not stated above one setting above their lowest value and ran OCCT again, passed one hour test. I then ran out of time.

Today I found this page during lunch about the Rampage MB that is a very good read,
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3208

[DJBUDDY]

Guys i think i killed my system, ive been gettin random lock ups and cold boots, so i decided to update my bios thru windows using autoupdate which was a big mistake, it worked like a champ before but not this time. So it began normally then it said failed to check bios, then i tried to reflash it and it said failed to erase bios, so i tried reflashing again but then it said no bios found and my pc tried to reboot and now it wont post, it just restarts over and over, is there anything that can be done to fix this, or do i have to call asus and rma it?

q6600
p5e
8800gt
4 gig of crucial

[Xelation]

Guys i think i killed my system, ive been gettin random lock ups and cold boots, so i decided to update my bios thru windows using autoupdate which was a big mistake, it worked like a champ before but not this time. So it began normally then it said failed to check bios, then i tried to reflash it and it said failed to erase bios, so i tried reflashing again but then it said no bios found and my pc tried to reboot and now it wont post, it just restarts over and over, is there anything that can be done to fix this, or do i have to call asus and rma it?

q6600
p5e
8800gt
4 gig of crucial

No worries, take it you took the latest Bios and used your old bios settings saved or by profile?

I had that to and started with setting the memvoltage on auto, think the voltages are correct in this Bios.

If that doesn't work, start from scrap with factory settings and oc your way up from there on.