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

[loften]

i just want to say that this rampage 308 bios is so easy to get set up after learning it a little. i stuck my crucial 4x1 pc8500 back in and ran memtest past 3 hours without any errors. it never passed on any maximus bios or settings i ever tried.. it would never go over 20 min before.

[triple]

I just got this board, nothing is oc'd.. everything is well cooled, a lianli full tower and an AC 7 pro

My E8400 idles at like 44C (coretemp, hwmonitor, everest), and the nb is showing 56C.

The e8400 idled around the same temp with a tuniq tower on a p5w dh deluxe.

Suggestions?

[ZenEffect]

I just got this board, nothing is oc'd.. everything is well cooled, a lianli full tower and an AC 7 pro

My E8400 idles at like 44C (coretemp, hwmonitor, everest), and the nb is showing 56C.

The e8400 idled around the same temp with a tuniq tower on a p5w dh deluxe.

Suggestions?

are you sure that your case is getting good flow? those numbers seem a bit high to me... i have no experience with either that board or cpu... but i could pull 33c idle on a e6750 OVERCLOCKED on a lesser air cooler (asus silent square or something like that... its orange and im looking at it wondering what the exact model is.) perhaps the sensor is stuck on your cpu? try realtemp. what is your northbridge reading volt-wise?

i just want to say that this rampage 308 bios is so easy to get set up after learning it a little. i stuck my crucial 4x1 pc8500 back in and ran memtest past 3 hours without any errors. it never passed on any maximus bios or settings i ever tried.. it would never go over 20 min before.

this motherboard is quite finnicky but once you stroke it the right way it purrs. it seems that this board is all about trial and error. 1 guide does not really help another even with near identical setups. it seems that there is no real base for which to start overclocking or memory tweaking. just to get it running proerly requires different settings for each user. this is my observation at least.

[Nuckin_Futs]

i just want to say that this rampage 308 bios is so easy to get set up after learning it a little. i stuck my crucial 4x1 pc8500 back in and ran memtest past 3 hours without any errors. it never passed on any maximus bios or settings i ever tried.. it would never go over 20 min before.

Waht are you complete timings plus sub now and compared to before at a given FSB and RAM spd?

ie: mine for my 485x8 profile in v602~903 are as follows;

DRAM Frequency: [DDR2-1166]
DRAM Command Rate: [2T]
DRAM Timing Control: [Manual]
Primary Info : 5-5-5-18-3-42-6-3
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]
Performance Level [N/A]

Still waiting for some kind of feedback or comment on the sub timinges used in auto by BIOS as to where and why I should adjust and in what order and direction. Odd, this tread was heavily into RAM sub timings tweaking just a month ago. Like I said before, I'm not looking to crash the board, just wondering if it has room for improvements for real world performance with stability.

Furthermore, I am occassionally getting the det_ram msg on random resumes from S4, and I can only guess lots from S3 since it just hangs on resume from S3. Nevertheless, I can simply reset and it is good to go. I notice it happens a lot from cold wakes as my office gets cold in night and in day w/ A/C on. If it is warmed up and on and off all day, it's fine. mind you, these are soft hangs, not the hard hang ups I had in 907 BIOS requiring a hard pwr off and reset. later I may test w/ OCZ Plats to see if it makes a difference.

I continue to get the occassional blinking LCD poster issue. I confirmed it is dropping detection of all mobo temps except CPU and MB and reads out 4.08 for all volts except for CPU and PSU rails (12v/5/3.3). Is or has anybody experienced this yet? To my thermal probing, it is just a fluke since surface temps of various parts are same as before the drop our. Performance is the same too.

[triple]

are you sure that your case is getting good flow? those numbers seem a bit high to me... i have no experience with either that board or cpu... but i could pull 33c idle on a e6750 OVERCLOCKED on a lesser air cooler (asus silent square or something like that... its orange and im looking at it wondering what the exact model is.) perhaps the sensor is stuck on your cpu? try realtemp. what is your northbridge reading volt-wise?

yea, well I just happen to have an e6750, and my oc'd e6750 was getting the same temps (33c) overclocked.

so its not the case or the heatsink.

hmmm

[ZenEffect]

yea, well I just happen to have an e6750, and my oc'd e6750 was getting the same temps (33c) overclocked.

so its not the case or the heatsink.

hmmm

my guess is the northbridge is not seated well and the sensor is stuck on your cpu. try giving realtemp a go and see what your temp is there.

[triple]

10C lower, exactly.

[Nuckin_Futs]

yea, well I just happen to have an e6750, and my oc'd e6750 was getting the same temps (33c) overclocked.

so its not the case or the heatsink.

hmmm

But at what kind of OC. I get 32c idle on 500x7 @ 1.36v or 36c on my 485x8 @ 1.480v and only 37/38c @ 4GHz as 500x8 @ 1.56v Note: these ratings are with high flow Sythe S-Flex in push single only in SilverStone TJ-06 case. CPU and base lapped to smooth.

[triple]

e6750 400x8 @ 1.35 = 30-33C idle

Stock 8400 @ way lower voltage (i dunno) = 15C higher? way to suck, intel.

[Nuckin_Futs]

e6750 400x8 @ 1.35 = 30-33C idle

Stock 8400 @ way lower voltage (i dunno) = 15C higher? way to suck, intel.

Wow, I am totally astonished, is this for real? I had 2 other of these and could barely ever boot to XP x64 w/ 1.488v let alone prime. Is this the bare minamium for boot or actual prime 95 stable? And I got my 2 early on in production. So is it to say the recent cores are needing less to OC. Mine was a 1.3000 vid and 1.3250 vid on the 2nd if that helps. Oddly my Q6600 is like 1.2550 vid.

[triple]

Wow, I am totally astonished, is this for real? I had 2 other of these and could barely ever boot to XP x64 w/ 1.488v let alone prime. Is this the bare minamium for boot or actual prime 95 stable? And I got my 2 early on in production. So is it to say the recent cores are needing less to OC. Mine was a 1.3000 vid and 1.3250 vid on the 2nd if that helps. Oddly my Q6600 is like 1.2550 vid.

it was rock stable.. could do prime in its sleep

just did it to get my ram up to 800

anyways im sending the 8400 back to newegg, bringing the board back to microcenter.. ill get a replacement on the mobo, I want one for the cpu too, but I doubt they'll have it in stock so ill just get a refund most likely.

[loften]

since the 308 bios is a little different then the maximus here are some pictures.. sorry they are a little big as i don't have any picture resize tool installed yet. i set up the speed and volts knowing what 907 ran at then left the rest at auto then shut down and went right back into bios. it reset the settings that it wanted to run the timings with the pl level at that speed then just added them in. then re started to make sure it worked. i played with moderate and strong a little also.. on 8x450 on the 333 strap at 1081 it changes a few timing settings and the pl shows up as 7 it ran good there. i just need better cooling then i can start to play with it as i am kind af scared to go any higher especially with the nb volts and temp getting up there. i ran memtest on the picture settings for a couple hours. then i played games and 2 hours in. i had a crash where it changed my fsb termination voltage back down to 1.20 then it gave me the f1 to go back into bios and it took me a few min to find it.. wtf??? i am going to lower it back down untill i get water for it..

[Nuckin_Futs]

Looks cool. So to all the RAM peeps tweaking for th gold. What do these new settings probide for us in reality? We never got a clear answer on the use of our previous RAM< tweaks;

DDR2 Channel A REF Voltage -- [Auto]
DDR2 Channel B REF Voltage -- [Auto]
DDR2 Controller REF Voltage - [Auto]

How can they be used, and when or why?

[loften]

it does have many sweet settings that i don't know enough about yet. especially since i was stuck on my old computer with pc3200 untill i bought this thing.. it has been months since i have been able to use this one without it being a paper weight for days at a time.. this bios and or me getting rid of my raid for a single drive made my board work long enough so i can actually test stuff. i am going to give raid another go on it. something changed the way it works now.. it has never started or stopped and restarted they way it does now from when it was new..

[Grnfinger]

Looks cool. So to all the RAM peeps tweaking for th gold. What do these new settings probide for us in reality? We never got a clear answer on the use of our previous RAM< tweaks;

DDR2 Channel A REF Voltage -- [Auto]
DDR2 Channel B REF Voltage -- [Auto]
DDR2 Controller REF Voltage - [Auto]

How can they be used, and when or why?

When I do a cold boot and would have the "det dram" hang, under hardware monitor my ram volts were showing 1.88.
So as I was not 100% sure what these settings did I started playing around.
So after a few experiments I have found setting all to DDR2-REFF +10mv removes my det dram issues completely.

I used to get 2 or 3 det dram hangs a week, after making the setting change, I have not had a hang for over 1 week.

[TouGe]

When I do a cold boot and would have the "det dram" hang, under hardware monitor my ram volts were showing 1.88.
So as I was not 100% sure what these settings did I started playing around.
So after a few experiments I have found setting all to DDR2-REFF +10mv removes my det dram issues completely.

I used to get 2 or 3 det dram hangs a week, after making the setting change, I have not had a hang for over 1 week.

Interesting find. I have problems with booting my computer cold as well. Funny thing though it didn't start happening until after I installed my QX9650, this never happened while using my x6800. I've heard people suggest upping NB volts and/or switching trans booster to "auto" but neither of those fixes worked for me. I'll give yours a shot and see what happens. Thanks...

[tiesum]

Is there any way to skip the IDE and RAID check at startup? It makes startup so slow...

[Brama]

Is there any way to skip the IDE and RAID check at startup? It makes startup so slow...

I never found one...

[triple]

got a new board

nb: 52c idle
cpu (6750): 25-30c idle

think im keeping this one.. the e8400 got rma'd though, 45-50c on that is ridiculous

[kup]

When I do a cold boot and would have the "det dram" hang, under hardware monitor my ram volts were showing 1.88.
So as I was not 100% sure what these settings did I started playing around.
So after a few experiments I have found setting all to DDR2-REFF +10mv removes my det dram issues completely.

I used to get 2 or 3 det dram hangs a week, after making the setting change, I have not had a hang for over 1 week.

That's interesting... I might give that a shot and lower my NB volts again... Cheers dude!

[Nuckin_Futs]

Is there any way to skip the IDE and RAID check at startup? It makes startup so slow...

IDE is simply an add on from J-Micron, just disable it in CMOS. The RAID (ICH9R) can be converted back to IDE mode and act as legasy SATA, no AHCI and of cose no RAID function anymore.

This is only good if you use no IDE/PATA (not many anymore) and have NO RAID array or need no AHCI SATA performance boost. In AHCI/RAID mode (ICH9R) detection can be shortened, however, it heightens the risk of one or more drives not fetting detected on a given POST/BOOT and only having to reboot and still take longer now. Same would go for EIDE on J-Micron.

Thats why for daily use, it's best to really make use of the ACPI functions of S3/STR (Stand By) or S4/STHDD (Hibernate) if you overclock profile supports it. S3 is usually unstable on a divider and tight timings.

Any word on the higher comfort vcore zone for these Xeon X3350's or X3230? Is 1.35~1.4v too high for these?

[Sources]

Has anyone tried the MF 1006 bios yet to compare with older versions ?

[kup]

Has anyone tried the MF 1006 bios yet to compare with older versions ?

Haven't seen a link to get it?

[Sources]

Haven't seen a link to get it?

DOWNLOAD http://seanet.com/~keeper/B1006.ROM
SCREENSHOT @BOOT http://seanet.com/~keeper/init.jpg
BIOS DUMP http://seanet.com/~keeper/bios.jpg
dated 03/27/08

A guy had this bios on a new MAXIMUS FORMULA version 1.03G he bought from NewEgg last Friday. Any S3 issues he said don't exist with this bios, S3 works fine.

[Nuckin_Futs]

C'mon fella's share your experience. Anybody overclocking any quality 2x 2GB RAM sticks to 1150~1200MHz on x38/x48? If even at 1150MHz, can those OCZ really stable out at only 2.1v? If that's so, I'm sold already, but how much further can they overclock?

Members please share links to reputable lab reviews if you would. Or at least comparing how 2x 2GB sticks OC next to 2x 1GB kits for us interested.

ThankX!