ASUS P5Q-E (P45) pre-view

[Dee]

Did you try the obvious -- raise CPU voltage? I need to set 1.425 in BIOS to get stable at 4.33GHz. It gives me 1.408V actual voltage in Windows (read by CPU-Z) under load. Idle is 1.392V. That's OK with me, as I'd rather not exceed 1.4V for 24/7 use.

What's your CPU voltage currently set to?

[Quad-Damage]

1.35

[Dee]

Bump it up to 1.4!

[thehinge1]

A possible revelation (at least with my setup): I can run lower PL (8) with Pull-Ins Enabled if I leave both CPU & PCIE Spread Spectrums both on 'Auto' with the 8400 whereas the 7200 didn't seem to care. It goes against my old-school OC teachings but it works here. I am also able to run just 1.16v VTT at 451fsb on this thing with 5:6 divider for DDR 1082 at 5-5-5-15, CPU PLL@1.54v and DRAM@2.08v although could probably drop it to 2.06v or less. It was VERY important to advance DRAM Clk skew 150ps on the 2GB sticks.

Currently 4.059GHz@1.26v under full load on a 1.25VID chip, LLC off and vcore set to 1.31875 in bios, showing 1.280 in OS unloaded

[bayer]

Absolutely! At & above 400FSB with mine the issue went away by raising CPU PLL to 1.54v in BIOS - 1.52v was extremely inconsistent although it would pass testing without issue once it actually did boot. My E7200 required as much as 1.26VTT (could do 550FSB there) and 1.24v for 400FSB no matter what the GTL settings while the E8400 is fine at 1.20VTT for 400FSB.

Right now I've been able to recreate the issue with the 1103 BIOS as well. I set VTT to 1.12 and EVERYTHING else on default settings... the board will boot and restart fine. Then, the MOMENT I manually set vNB to 1.30, it'll boot fine, but once restarted through windows, it'll fail to boot....

(This is with an E8500 and 2GB OCZ SLI sticks)

[thehinge1]

What FSB and RAM speeds are you running? With more experimentation I must use at least 1.16VTT for 450+ fsb and 1.54v CPU PLL to boot and reboot reliably even with the 8400. A certain memory mfr with 3 initials did some testing with the P5Q-E and found you need at least 1.36NBv set in bios to reliably stabilize 2x2GB sticks of RAM at DDR1066 and above. I found mine likes 1.32NBv above 1066 with 2x1GB OCZ Reaper or Platinum (while only 1.34NBv gets it to DDR1200 on 5:6 divider), yet my board does seem to want 1.36NBv for my 4GB 2x2G kit@1066+ no matter where I set the GTL's, other voltages, divider, or which CPU. Setting the Ai twister to 'Lighter' w/4G kit ('Light' to 'Moderate' w/2x1G Reaper1150) did make a difference for me, w/OC charger 'on', DRAM Static Read and Read Training both disabled.

It is still far from perfect with the 4G kit while the 2G kit works nicely, but setting TRFC to 55 or 60 w/2GB sticks helps where I use 45 to 50TRFC on 1G sticks. I'm screwing around with NB GTL right now and it seems ok to leave NBv on 'auto' with the GTL at 0.65% and 4G kit.

What are your clock skew settings?

Right now I've been able to recreate the issue with the 1103 BIOS as well. I set VTT to 1.12 and EVERYTHING else on default settings... the board will boot and restart fine. Then, the MOMENT I manually set vNB to 1.30, it'll boot fine, but once restarted through windows, it'll fail to boot....

(This is with an E8500 and 2GB OCZ SLI sticks)

[bayer]

To test this thing out... I loaded default settings in BIOS, rebooted, and then 1st changed VTT to 1.12, booted to Vista x64 and then rebooted the machine via Vista and all was fine. Then I went back into the BIOS and changed vNB to 1.3... (so right now, EVERYTHING else is on defualts/auto and ONLY VTT - 1.12, vNB - 1.30). Saved settings and booted into Vista fine... then restarted the machine via Vista and it failed to restart. After the Vista shutdown scren, but monitor went black, the machine sat there for about 4 seconds and then it soft shut itself down and restarted again, but just sat there with the vid card spinning at 100% and nothing on the screen.

With everything at AUTO, but CPU was at 3.16, RAM at 333. At the time of the test, the clock skew settings were AUTO as well.

However, I have been able to get the machine XP stable and rebootable with the following settings:
CPU - 6x
FSB - 533
STRAP - 333
DRAM - AUTO (1066)

vCore - 1.20
vPLL - 1.52
vFSB - 1.16
vDIMM - 1.9
vNB - 1.26
NB GLT - .625

With those settings, it'll stay pretty much rock stable in XP, but it'll fail within about 4 or 5mins of OCCT (RAM Test) in Vista x64.

[thehinge1]

XP32 or XP64? I run both and tend to find that XP64 likes a hint more voltage at the NB, plus a slight bump on PLL & Vcore at higher freqs compared to XP32 - you may also want to try bumping that RAM up some unless you have some uber-low voltage stuff. Most folks here seem to find that 1.54CPU PLL and 1.14VTT are good starting points.

Would you please post your complete system specs?

To test this thing out... I loaded default settings in BIOS, rebooted, and then 1st changed VTT to 1.12, booted to Vista x64 and then rebooted the machine via Vista and all was fine. Then I went back into the BIOS and changed vNB to 1.3... (so right now, EVERYTHING else is on defualts/auto and ONLY VTT - 1.12, vNB - 1.30). Saved settings and booted into Vista fine... then restarted the machine via Vista and it failed to restart. After the Vista shutdown scren, but monitor went black, the machine sat there for about 4 seconds and then it soft shut itself down and restarted again, but just sat there with the vid card spinning at 100% and nothing on the screen.

With everything at AUTO, but CPU was at 3.16, RAM at 333. At the time of the test, the clock skew settings were AUTO as well.

However, I have been able to get the machine XP stable and rebootable with the following settings:
CPU - 6x
FSB - 533
STRAP - 333
DRAM - AUTO (1066)

vCore - 1.20
vPLL - 1.52
vFSB - 1.16
vDIMM - 1.9
vNB - 1.26
NB GLT - .625

With those settings, it'll stay pretty much rock stable in XP, but it'll fail within about 4 or 5mins of OCCT (RAM Test) in Vista x64.

[bayer]

I was using XP32 and now just recently switched to Vista x64. I'll try with 1.54 PLL and 1.14 VTT and report back soon. BTW thehinge1, what BIOS are you currently using - satisfied, or thinking of down/upgrading to another ver?

[thehinge1]

I LOVED Ket's m1306 modified BIOS with the E7200 on this board. The E0 E8400 did not seem to care for it a whole lot, so I am back on ASUS factory-released 1103 as I know it best. I may try Ket's again after I finish flogging this new stepping.

*and I just ordered a TPower I45 so I'm gonna have a throwdown with all three chips and 5 sets of RAM!*

Let us know how your experimenting goes - there are some very sharp folks on this board

I was using XP32 and now just recently switched to Vista x64. I'll try with 1.54 PLL and 1.14 VTT and report back soon. BTW thehinge1, what BIOS are you currently using - satisfied, or thinking of down/upgrading to another ver?

[bayer]

I set 1.54 PLL and 1.14 VTT with everything else on AUTO/default with the exception of vNB which was at 1.28 and once again the board would boot fine, but then when restarted via Vista, it'll fail to restart.

[ahmad]

I set 1.54 PLL and 1.14 VTT with everything else on AUTO/default with the exception of vNB which was at 1.28 and once again the board would boot fine, but then when restarted via Vista, it'll fail to restart.

One of your settings is unstable for a boot, I get it sometimes and the most recent recurrance was unstable memory settings.

Set your vnb to 1.46, and see if you still get the issue. If its not solved, try relaxing some of your memory timings.

What have you used to verify stability?

[bayer]

Relaxing my mem timings with PLL at 1.54 and VTT at 1.14 and vNB at 1.46 caused the same issue of it booting fine, but failing to restart.
(DRAM/FSB at 333, CPU 6x)

I've been using OCCT and wPrime.

These settings allow me to boot and reboot with a value in VTT, but the moment I changed vNB from 1.26 to 1.28, it failed to restart (but this time it recovered on its own without me have to cut power at the PSU).
CPU - 6x
FSB - 333
STRAP - 333
DRAM - AUTO (1066)

vCore - 1.20
vPLL - 1.52
vFSB - 1.16
vDIMM - 1.9
vNB - 1.26
NB GLT - .625

Can anyone else really reproduce this problem, or am I really the only one?

[ThugsRook]

Can anyone else really reproduce this problem, or am I really the only one?

there are many problems like this reported by many different users.
at one time vNB 1.30v refused to boot, but 1.28v or 1.32v would run fine.

certain combinations of voltages might refuse to boot, certain combinations of FSB/NBS/MEM ratio might refuse to boot, 500fsb might refuse to boot but 499 and 501 work fine.

these oddities are different for different ppl, and for the most part... no they arent fixable from our end. the bios files are garbage

[bayer]

I'm not sure if you meant cold boot (from an off state) or if you meant reboot in your post... My system will boot fine, but fail to boot again after it's booted into windows and restarted from there. That's just damn odd and something I cannot understand.

[OC_Newbee]

so I am back on ASUS factory-released 1103 as I know it best.

Same goes for me 1103 final work the best for my Q6600 and P5Q-E, other ones causes to much instability.

[FinnEire]

I'm not sure if you meant cold boot (from an off state) or if you meant reboot in your post... My system will boot fine, but fail to boot again after it's booted into windows and restarted from there. That's just damn odd and something I cannot understand.

Try loading BIOS defaults, install BIOS 12.01 and afterwards clear CMOS as a step. 14.02 unstable for me.... just recently went back to 12.01 and it seems better than 13.06 was. So may variables with hardware combinations may have your experience differ from others.


------ Still the same behavior? Try some of these separately to narrow things down: -------

Set GTL to Auto, No C1E, speedstep, read train, static read etc. PL level conservative (12 or 13) with moderate, light or lighter driving.

Set vDIMM close to manufacturer recommended level with eye toward possibility it may be overvolting somewhat. Eg. 2.1 rated set to 2.04

Set default cpu multiplier and different bus speed achieving like overall frequency as a test

RAM in different slots

[NBF]

I'm not sure if you meant cold boot (from an off state) or if you meant reboot in your post... My system will boot fine, but fail to boot again after it's booted into windows and restarted from there. That's just damn odd and something I cannot understand.

Try up 2 notches on Vcore or enable C1E, both of then solved this issue here.

[bayer]

Try up 2 notches on Vcore or enable C1E, both of then solved this issue here.

Tried that, but that didn't seem to help either.

Try loading BIOS defaults, install BIOS 12.01 and afterwards clear CMOS as a step. 14.02 unstable for me.... just recently went back to 12.01 and it seems better than 13.06 was. So may variables with hardware combinations may have your experience differ from others.


------ Still the same behavior? Try some of these separately to narrow things down: -------

Set GTL to Auto, No C1E, speedstep, read train, static read etc. PL level conservative (12 or 13) with moderate, light or lighter driving.

Set vDIMM close to manufacturer recommended level with eye toward possibility it may be overvolting somewhat. Eg. 2.1 rated set to 2.04

Set default cpu multiplier and different bus speed achieving like overall frequency as a test

RAM in different slots

I'll try another BIOS, but 1103 official seems to be working well for the most people. With the 1103 BIOS, I tried with GTL at auto, no C1E, speedstep, read train on auto, static read on auto PL at 12, etc... and still the same issue.

vNB and VTT are linked too dilicately! At least that's what I've noticed on my board.

As it stands right now, I am unable to set a value in VTT and a value for vNB. If I do so, the borad will cold boot fine, but fail to boot when restarted. I can restart with vNB on auto and a value for VTT, OR VTT at auto and a value for vNB.

Anyone know roughly what the auto value(voltage) for VTT is?

[ahmad]

Anyone know roughly what the auto value(voltage) for VTT is?

Changes with FSB. Readout is hidden under my TRU, so no MM tests from me for that voltage.

[MorGo7h]

I have a little problem over here
Yesterday I could boot my pc at 4ghz (9*445) but I was not orthos stable. So today I wanted to make it stable for 24/7 use but I couldn't even POST anymore after playing with some voltages... Anything over 420fsb won't post, but 500*8 does :x (I can boot with 400*9 and everything auto, but I dno if its stable). Temps don't go above 50°C with coretemp (45°C realtemp)

System: E8400, P5Q-E, 800mhz ballistix
The settings I used yester were:


Ai Overclock Tuner ................. [Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting .................. [9]
FSB Frequency ...................... [445]
PCIE Frequency ..................... [100]
FSB Strap to North Bridge .......... [400]
DRAM Frequency ..................... [890]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel A1 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel A2 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel B1 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel B2 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Timing Control ................ [Manuel] (5-5-5-15)
DRAM Static Read Control ........... [Disabled]
DRAM Read Training ................. [Disabled]
MEM. OC Charger .................... [Enabled]
Ai Clock Twister ................... [Moderate]
Ai Transaction Booster ............. [Auto]
____________________________________

CPU Voltage ........................ [1.3750]
CPU GTL Voltage Reference (0/2) .... [Auto]
CPU GTL Voltage Reference (1/3) .... [Auto]
CPU PLL Voltage .................... [1.54]
DRAM Voltage ....................... [2.2]
vFSB.....................................[1.14]
NB Voltage ......................... [1.26]
NB GTL Reference ................... [Auto]
SB Voltage ......................... [Auto]
PCIE Voltage ....................... [Auto]
____________________________________

Load-Line Calibration .............. [Enabled]
CPU Spread Spectrum ................ [Disabled]
PCIE Spread Spectrum ............... [Disabled]
CPU Clock Skew ..................... [Auto]
NB Clock Skew ...................... [Auto]
CPU Margin Enhancement ............. [Perfomance Mode]

[FinnEire]

I have a little problem over here
Yesterday I could boot my pc at 4ghz (9*445) but I was not orthos stable. So today I wanted to make it stable for 24/7 use but I couldn't even POST anymore after playing with some voltages... Anything over 420fsb won't post, but 500*8 does :x (I can boot with 400*9 and everything auto, but I dno if its stable). Temps don't go above 50°C with coretemp (45°C realtemp)

System: E8400, P5Q-E, 800mhz ballistix
The settings I used yester were:


Ai Overclock Tuner ................. [Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting .................. [9]
FSB Frequency ...................... [445]
PCIE Frequency ..................... [100]
FSB Strap to North Bridge .......... [400]
DRAM Frequency ..................... [890]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel A1 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel A2 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel B1 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel B2 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Timing Control ................ [Manuel] (5-5-5-15)
DRAM Static Read Control ........... [Disabled]
DRAM Read Training ................. [Disabled]
MEM. OC Charger .................... [Enabled]
Ai Clock Twister ................... [Moderate]
Ai Transaction Booster ............. [Auto]
____________________________________

CPU Voltage ........................ [1.3750] ==> Maybe a little high esp with LLC
CPU GTL Voltage Reference (0/2) .... [Auto]
CPU GTL Voltage Reference (1/3) .... [Auto]
CPU PLL Voltage .................... [1.54]
DRAM Voltage ....................... [2.2] ==> What is RAM rated?
vFSB.....................................[1.14] ==> Maybe bump to 1.16 (my board preferred that)

NB Voltage ......................... [1.26]
NB GTL Reference ................... [Auto]
SB Voltage ......................... [Auto]
PCIE Voltage ....................... [Auto]
____________________________________

Load-Line Calibration .............. [Enabled]
CPU Spread Spectrum ................ [Disabled]
PCIE Spread Spectrum ............... [Disabled]
CPU Clock Skew ..................... [Auto]
NB Clock Skew ...................... [Auto]
CPU Margin Enhancement ............. [Perfomance Mode] ==> Optimized?

Try clearing CMOS. My suggestions above.

[MorGo7h]

I tried clearing CMOS a few times, also tested ket1306m, stock bios.
Ram is rated at 2.2V
I can boot at 1.35Vcore with 8*500 but that was unstable. Dno if it was the Vcore that was too low or something else.
Gonna try 1201 bios today, heard is a good bios for OC'ing

[Leeghoofd]

Set these to AUTO plz :

FSB Strap to North Bridge .......... [AUTO]
DRAM Read Training ................. [AUTO]
MEM. OC Charger .................... [AUTO]
Ai Clock Twister ................... [AUTO]

vFSB.....................................[1.22]

[MorGo7h]

Set these to AUTO plz :

FSB Strap to North Bridge .......... [AUTO]
DRAM Read Training ................. [AUTO]
MEM. OC Charger .................... [AUTO]
Ai Clock Twister ................... [AUTO]

vFSB.....................................[1.22]

Thx, gonna try it now

EDIT: I can boot with this http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=418962, but orthos errors after 6 seconds

Settings I'm using now:

Ai Overclock Tuner ................. [Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting .................. [9]
FSB Frequency ...................... [445]
PCIE Frequency ..................... [100]
FSB Strap to North Bridge .......... [Auto]
DRAM Frequency ..................... [891]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel A1 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel A2 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel B1 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Clock Skew on Channel B2 ...... [Auto]
DRAM Timing Control ................ [Manuel] (5-5-5-15)
DRAM Static Read Control ........... [Disabled]
DRAM Read Training ................. [Auto]
MEM. OC Charger .................... [Auto]
Ai Clock Twister ................... [Auto]
Ai Transaction Booster ............. [Auto]
____________________________________

CPU Voltage ........................ [1.3500]
CPU GTL Voltage Reference (0/2) .... [Auto]
CPU GTL Voltage Reference (1/3) .... [Auto]
CPU PLL Voltage .................... [1.54]
DRAM Voltage ....................... [2.2]
vFSB.....................................[1.22]

NB Voltage ......................... [1.28]
NB GTL Reference ................... [Auto]
SB Voltage ......................... [Auto]
PCIE Voltage ....................... [Auto]
____________________________________

Load-Line Calibration .............. [Enabled]
CPU Spread Spectrum ................ [Disabled]
PCIE Spread Spectrum ............... [Disabled]
CPU Clock Skew ..................... [Auto]
NB Clock Skew ...................... [Auto]
CPU Margin Enhancement ............. [Optimized] Dno whats best?