** OFFICIAL ** Intel DX38BT & DX48BT2 BoneTrail Thread

[Randy]

i've been running my vMCH at 1.425 and vFSB at 1.35 since i got the board. no NB fan, stock thermal pad on the heatsink... totally stock. my NB idles at 30° and i think i saw it as high as 43° once during an Orthos run in warm weather. you'll be fine at 1.4.

Thanks for the info. I think I will try a little more and see if I can get this memory up some. I'm running Vista 64 on my Phenom machine with 8GB DDR2, and I am really pleased with the 64bit overall. Crossfire still blows on it just like it did on this board for me anyways(the Intel machine spoiled me). 4GB is essential with the 64bit IMO.

I was planning on parting the Intel machine out, but I just can't bring myself to stop playing around with it.


Anybody here go from an 8800GTX to a pair of 3870's crossfired that can shed some light on the performance differences. Yeah, I combed the net for comparisons, but every performance site has thier own opinions and testing platforms, so you really compare them on 38BT.

[Anubi]

To completely understanding the reference voltages is complicated. But a basic understanding of what to do with them is pretty easy.

Adjust it in one direction until you get a failure. The failure criteria can be anything, as long as it's consistent. Booting to Windows is a pretty good test. Fine tune it down to one step = pass, the next step = fail. Then adjust it in the other direction and fine tune in again. You'll end up with a min and max number, usually referred to as you margin window. Then you simply pick the number in the middle of the window, and set your final value at that middle point. That will be your best stability point, at the voltages and frequencies that you tested at.

You don't need to do long term stress testing to find the absolute min and max stability points, your not going to be running out there, you just want to use a consistent, and quick test to fine min and max, so you can then calculate the middle point.

As you increase frequency the min and max numbers, your margin window, will shrink down. The min might shrink faster than the max, so you might start failing because your negative margin, adjustment range below default, has collapsed down to nothing. But you might still have positive margin, adjustment range above default. You could raise your reference level to recenter in the margin window that is remaining.

If you jump too far on the adjustment and cause a hard no boot failure, you'll have to pull power from your power supply and move the BIOS jumper to get back going again, so go in small steps

[xMrBunglex]

thank you very much, Anubi. i've read about the theory behind GTL before but that was the first practical advice i've seen on how to optimize them. i appreciate it.

[herwawan]

Hello people

I've got this board since a couple of weeks but there is a big issues: I can't overlock it !

I if change any fréquency (RAM, FSB or other), the board loop boot ... It's a lil' bit frustrating ,and I've try with 2 differents CPUs then ... I guess it's the board.

If you guys have any suggestions ... it would be great !

Thanks

Herwawan.

(Used system: E8500, DX48BT2, 2Go OCZ DDR3 1600 XMP, 80Go SATA/Lecteur DVD SATA, 9800GX2, Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W.)

[xMrBunglex]

that's the watchdog. move the CMOS jumper to enter maintenance mode and turn the Watchdog off. it will stop looping after that. don't ask why Intel included the watchdog with their enthusiast motherboard - none of us know.

[herwawan]

:o :o :o !

It finaly WORKS !

xMrBunglex, I love you

More seriously, yeah it works and it's good for me huhu

There's still a (big) problem: the multi change all alone I've disable EIST and C2State, but I've style can't control the multi by myself. I wanted to have 3.6Ghz, then 9x400, but it set 9.5 for the max limit, and the EIST seems to be still enable (it change the multi in idle etc ...)

What's wrong ?!?

[xMrBunglex]

that is C1E, which cannot be disabled in BIOS. again, we don't know why. you can use Everest to turn C1E off if you want, but i'm running a pretty high overclock on mine and the C1E hasn't caused me any stability issues at all.

[herwawan]

mmmh Ok but in Everest (or OCCT by the way ...) I've got this error: Invalid Floating Point Operation ... What does it mean ?

[xMrBunglex]

are you running a stability test? some of us had to up our memory voltage a bit to make it stable at default speed and timings. i don't know if the BT has vdroop to the DIMMs or what. my memory is rated at 1.8V and i had to set it at 1.9V to make it stable at its advertised speed and timings.

[herwawan]

Yep I use CPU Stress MT, and it says : It's ok dude your cpu at 4 gig' run fine

Because of this stupid multi, I've set 425FSB, so 850Mhz (cas 8) for my ram, and 4(,035)ghz for the proc' ...

Last question: I own OCZ XMP 1600 Modules, and I don't find good timing for making them work at 850 with cas 7-6-6 ... Do you know good timings for X48 ?

[xMrBunglex]

i don't think my memory is quite as good as yours, so it would be an apples to oranges comparison. also, i'm still refining my overclock. i haven't quite gotten everything finalized yet. what i have so far is:

FSB @ 440 (333/1333 reference clocks for a 1:2 ratio)
vFSB 1.35, vMCH 1.425
memory @ 880 (DDR 1760) @ 1.98 vDIMM
8-8-8-24 2T 88-5-12-6-6 timings

i'm able to pass Memtest with tighter timings (7-7-7-18 2T 45-4-10-5-5), but i fail Orthos in less than a minute. that's why i had to loosen my timings.

GTJ has OCZ memory and might be able to help you more than i could.

after i get all my frequencies and volts right where i want them i plan on optimizing my GTL settings. i'll share my settings with this thread after i've done all the work.

[xMrBunglex]

i should also add that i haven't found any benefit to a 1:2 ratio yet outside of synthetic benchmarks. my Everest and SiSandra benchmark scores are very impressive, but i'm still compiling video at the same speed as i was with my memory at DDR 1500 and slightly tighter timings. at least Adobe Premiere Pro and ConvertXtoDVD 3 don't seem to benefit from my increased memory bandwidth at all.

[herwawan]

Ahah ok but so far I still can't load any benchmark like everest or sandra: "Invalid Floating point operation" :'( In the worse case, the bench just don't move

[xMrBunglex]

oh, sorry. i thought the error you got was during stability testing. i assume you've already passed a stability test? also, it would probably help if you read all the way through this thread to make sure you understand how screwed up the chipset drivers are. make sure you have the latest drivers (not the ones Intel's website call the latest). if you've already done all of the above, i don't know what to say.

[Randy]

Ahah ok but so far I still can't load any benchmark like everest or sandra: "Invalid Floating point operation" :'( In the worse case, the bench just don't move

Try putting everything back at stock and see if your errors go away. It is very possible that your overclock allows you to boot to Windows (or your OS),
but the errors may indicating that your hardware is unstable at those settings.

For example, I can boot to Windows with my machine overclocked much higher, but random file errors and system reboots occur running programs. Since I want to do more with my machine than sit and look at the desktop, I had to reduce the overclock and adjust it until it is stable. You can verify stability by running prime95 or one of the many other system stressing utilities.

[herwawan]

Ok, I've got these errors at stock speed too

I use CPU Stress MT to verify stability, and prime ...

I'll try find others drivers, and we'll see after

EDIT: I've got the 8.3.1.1010 driver, and when I try to update it said: you've got the last one you dumb why wan't to come back ?!?

Ahaha Anyway the "Intel Desktop Control Center" don't work too, I guess for the same reason as the others tools ...

What's wrong ? I'm using Windows XP SP3 ..

Edit 2: Ok i've find infinst_autol_8311011.exe and I've udpate it ... but there's still this stupid error Anyway there's a good news: THE EIST IS NOW DISABLE !!

here is the link: http://mainboard-drivers-and-utiliti...(x32-x64).html

I'll check for the multi now ... and the floating point error :o

[xMrBunglex]

i know it's totally unnecessary, but i bought a Scythe Mini Kaze 40mm fan for my north bridge. i bought it because it was only $4 and i was bored. my case has a side fan that already blew a fair amount of air on the NB anyway, so i was curious to see if the Scythe had any affect at all.



the fan is totally silent as far as i'm concerned. i can't hear anything. it doesn't have any affect when i'm idle, but it did a pretty good job at full load. i ran Orthos for 30 minutes in a warm 75°F room and my NB only went up by 2°C according to Everest 4.50.

[gtj]

i know it's totally unnecessary, but i bought a Scythe Mini Kaze 40mm fan for my north bridge. i bought it because it was only $4 and i was bored. my case has a side fan that already blew a fair amount of air on the NB anyway, so i was curious to see if the Scythe had any affect at all.



the fan is totally silent as far as i'm concerned. i can't hear anything. it doesn't have any affect when i'm idle, but it did a pretty good job at full load. i ran Orthos for 30 minutes in a warm 75°F room and my NB only went up by 2°C according to Everest 4.50.

How are you measuring your NB temps? The 3 temp sensors are CPU, Motherboard (which is the 2 o'clock position relative the CPU) and DIMM which is between the 2 sets of DIMM slots.

[xMrBunglex]

i don't have an infrared thermometer or anything. i'm just using Everest Ultimate 4.50 and going off the Motherboard Temp. i know it isn't perfect, but my Motherboard Temp would sometimes climb as high as 10°C over the idle temp when i ran Orthos in a warm room (i live in Southern California). the reading barely moved when i ran Orthos with the fan installed.

[xMrBunglex]

i've done some more testing and i honestly don't see any benefit to running my FSB/memory at a 1:2 ratio. i've run CineBench, SuperPI, 3DMark, and i've compiled hours of real video. the only benchmarks that run better with a 1:2 ratio are synthetic memory tests like the ones found in Everest and SiSandra. i can't find any real world benefit though. my CineBench score is actually a little better with my memory at DDR 1480 7-7-7-18 1T than it is with my memory at DDR 1780 8-8-8-24 2T.

food for thought. i welcome any input from others that have done testing. until i hear something new, i'm sticking with the lower ratio and tighter timings.

EDIT:

i just converted 970 MB (in 216 files) of .MP3's with a mixed bitrate (160 Kb/s and 192 Kb/s) into 128 Kb/s .WMA files using Windows Audio Converter. i did it with my memory at DDR 1480 and DDR 1780 using the above timings. both conversion runs were within a second of each other @ 13 minutes, 37 seconds.

maybe quad core CPU's benefit from the extra memory bandwidth more? i just don't think my CPU can use all the bandwidth my memory is capable of providing.

[Manel]

Long time no new BIOS releases from Intel for the BT, either they believe it's perfect already and something big is coming...
Only new thing out latelly was IDCC 4.1.0.128 beta (still) with 64bit support and performance tools, finally.
I'm still waiting for the performance level (or tRD) to be available in BIOS, and there's also C1E missing still.
What I would really like to see for this board would be a version of UEFI instead of the good old BIOS, the board supports it and now, since SP1, so does Vista (only 64bit) but since Intel was the big propeller why still no such thing for the desktop yet? Others (MSI) are already sampling. Can't wait to see it on my BT, if ever...

[xMrBunglex]

is anyone running the latest IDCC? i'm afraid of it since i found out it was causing all my crashes back when i got this board. i love Everest and am not willing to part with it, so i won't reinstall IDCC until it plays nice with other monitoring programs.

[Manel]

MB
v4.1.0.25 is working fine for me, haven't tried v4.1.0.128 yet. IDCC is the only one I'm using so I can't say if it behaves with others around.

[Sean-E-Boy]

Only new thing out latelly was IDCC 4.1.0.128 beta (still) with 64bit support and performance tools, finally.

where are you seeing 64-bit support? i still only see 32.

[Manel]

Sean
Thw initial page was not updated, you need to enter the download page, agree to the terms and then:



Download the Intel® Desktop Control Center v4.1 beta for Intel(r) Desktop Boards DX38BT and DX48BT2:

Intel(R) Desktop Control Center 4.1.0.128 beta (12.2MB) for both XP (32 & 64bit) and Vista (32 & 64bit)
IMPORTANT: click here to view installation instructions and release notes

Passmark BurnIn Test 64bit (4.42MB)
Passmark Performance Test 64bit (4.88MB)