Biostar T Power I45 BIOS thread

[Ket]

Looks like I may have to insert patch data individually. For that last beta I tried an outright take one out plonk another in approach. I'll be able to start doing some proper exploring soon, TPower arrived at the door 14 minutes ago Bit of a shock to the system tho being arisen at 7:30am to a doorbell and Tasha barking

[Marcam923]

Sweet, glad it there, sorry it woke you.

[Slovnaft]

Oh and disregard my comment about OCing.
Turns out my board is dead. I don't know how, but it's dead. I didn't even abuse it (much).
Anyways, if Newegg will refund I'll probably get one of those snazzy UD3P boards, but if not I'll just get a replacement.

[Ket]

Sweet, glad it there, sorry it woke you.

lol it was only really a shock cos I was out drinkning last night

I have the TPower on right now out of the case, can't say the BIOS layout is that great, but I can work on that later Apart from that board seems sound. Once I rose from my hangover I got to work on the TPower, it had the standard assortment of compliments, all the heatsinks came off and got a good lapping. The SB HS base was, as expected, more cratered than the surface of the moon lol, but now its lapped I dare say its doing a rather good job The Realtek chip has even had some lovin, a nice lil heatsink to help keep it cool (it gets oddly warm) and to help shield it from electronic crosstalk. NB\mosfet HS also got some attention, and very much seems like its doing a good job as well now its lapped. All that copper coloured stuff actually looks damn sexy alongside my Zalman 9500

Temps for my CPU are also insanely low right now, 24c after a re-lapping of the IHS, should let me push the sucker further. Before I crack on with changing the BIOS layout an stuff like that I'll be throwing some RAM kits at the TPower to see how far it can boot them to, first up is the Geil Black Dragon PC6400 kit. The P5Q Pro tends to crap out with these sticks around 1040MHz even though the sticks will get into Windoze at much higher frequencies, so possibly a P5Q compatibility thing. Will update with how well the sticks do on the TPower

[Slovnaft]

lol it was only really a shock cos I was out drinkning last night

I have the TPower on right now out of the case, can't say the BIOS layout is that great, but I can work on that later Apart from that board seems sound. Once I rose from my hangover I got to work on the TPower, it had the standard assortment of compliments, all the heatsinks came off and got a good lapping. The SB HS base was, as expected, more cratered than the surface of the moon lol, but now its lapped I dare say its doing a rather good job The Realtek chip has even had some lovin, a nice lil heatsink to help keep it cool (it gets oddly warm) and to help shield it from electronic crosstalk. NB\mosfet HS also got some attention, and very much seems like its doing a good job as well now its lapped. All that copper coloured stuff actually looks damn sexy alongside my Zalman 9500

Temps for my CPU are also insanely low right now, 24c after a re-lapping of the IHS, should let me push the sucker further. Before I crack on with changing the BIOS layout an stuff like that I'll be throwing some RAM kits at the TPower to see how far it can boot them to, first up is the Geil Black Dragon PC6400 kit. The P5Q Pro tends to crap out with these sticks around 1040MHz even though the sticks will get into Windoze at much higher frequencies, so possibly a P5Q compatibility thing. Will update with how well the sticks do on the TPower

I'm interested to see how your GEIL kit works out.
I think I've explained about mine before, I had to run at 800 CL4, as they couldnt do stock (1066 CL5).

[Ket]

My kit booted fine first time @ 800, so its already doing its stock frequency. I want this kit to do 1066+, I highly doubt for the price Geil charge for the Black Dragons they even bother binning the chips used in the 6400 and 8500 kits, probably all the same ICs.

[Slovnaft]

My kit booted fine first time @ 800, so its already doing its stock frequency. I want this kit to do 1066+, I highly doubt for the price Geil charge for the Black Dragons they even bother binning the chips used in the 6400 and 8500 kits, probably all the same ICs.

yeh, i mean, 800 cl4 isnt really much to complain about. g'luck mate.

[Ket]

So far the sticks are doing 1030MHz, 5-5-5-15 2.1v. I'l test them fully once the system is put together. Putting the system together might take a good few hours though, absolute minimum amount of fan headers I need is 4, TPower has 3. Might have to run a nasty 3-4pin adapter for my side intake fan. Wonder why Biostar didn't chick a few more fan headers on? Theres stacks of space for em.

[carepolice]

Only 3

[Ket]

Yup, only 3... and one of those 3 is the mandatory CPU fan header. Its taken some damn creative cable management and adaptions to keep everything tidy as my system uses 2x 120mm fans and 3x 80mm fans. After messing with the TPower BIOS a little I'm not impressed with it one bit. Setting things up manually just for a stock config resulted in no POST and a retarded "Warning! Overclock fail." message, like wtf? I wasn't even OCing dumb POS! Setting a 1066 strap instead of 800 seems to fix the problem though.. so either its my freak CPU (everything says its an ES even tho I bought it retail) or the TPower has issues with FSB800 CPUs.

[philbrown23]

wait you got your sticks to overclock? what mem rcomp are you using? try getting thwem past 1066mhz

[Slovnaft]

the BIOS is odd like that, the ONE thing doesnt seem to be very friendly in manual.
i think i'm definitely ditching this baord for ep45 ud3 now that it's broken. i really didnt enjoy my time with it.

[Ket]

Done a bit more experimenting. Currently running 401FSB, 9x multi. Even though I selected a mem divider for 1000MHz and memset reflects this, however when opening that TPower2 software thing it says the memory frequency is a mere 800MHz, bandwidth results and latencies obtained with Everest would reflect that the memory is indeed only 800MHz, regardless of the divider. Trying to set a higher divider results in no POST... more tests pending.

[thehinge1]

Glad you got yer board

I have been letting my TPower 'rest' while setting up Evil 'E' volume II. I set TPower up as the 'sacrificial lamb' with lo-po gfx, and will keep E7200 on it as it runs well and disaster wouldn't sting quite as bad as the E8400 dying... so after you get yours working well I'll be ready to use mine as a test mule with three flavours of Reapers in CL4/800 4GB, CL5/1066 4GB, and CL5/1150 2GB kit versions, maybe even the 2x1G pair of Platinum 1066's if they are still around.

PS - I quit using all mobo fan headers except CPU after two ASUS boards kept killing the tach function on various low-flow/low amperage Panaflo and Delta fans. The Antec sleeve bearing 3-speed adjustable fan are pretty decent on low speed for the price but not as quiet as the more esoteric brands.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Yup, only 3... and one of those 3 is the mandatory CPU fan header. Its taken some damn creative cable management and adaptions to keep everything tidy as my system uses 2x 120mm fans and 3x 80mm fans. After messing with the TPower BIOS a little I'm not impressed with it one bit. Setting things up manually just for a stock config resulted in no POST and a retarded "Warning! Overclock fail." message, like wtf? I wasn't even OCing dumb POS! Setting a 1066 strap instead of 800 seems to fix the problem though.. so either its my freak CPU (everything says its an ES even tho I bought it retail) or the TPower has issues with FSB800 CPUs.

Now you know how much work you have ahead of you.
Good luck

[ReverendMaynard]

Man this thread is growing faster than the P5Q one. Does the TP I45's bios suck that many balls?

[Ket]

The BIOS isn't terrible, it just has a lot of quirks that could easily be worked out in a BIOS rev or two from Biostar. The layout I'm certainly not a fan of though you have to do quite a bit of flapping about. I think I have found what was holding this TPower back anyway, heres some screens using the Black Dragons @ 1000MHz.

[philbrown23]

the bios are actually very easy to navagate and very n00b friendly, there are just a few quirqs that just piss me off a bit thats all.

[Ket]

I don't like the BIOS that much, doesn't feel very organised. I'll work on that a bit later

[Marcam923]

You guys are getting me excited now!! I just set-up my other system yesterday with a Foxconn P35A and xfire 3870's. Oc;d that litte board to 4GHZ on an E7200 fairly easily, however there are many things lacking in that bios.

It will be my first adventure into Intel in a couple years, after playing with Nvidia boards, and I think the Foxconn was a good prep for me.

Can't wait to play with the revised Tpower!!

[Ket]

Don't get too excited yet The next beta will just be some rearrangements within the BIOS.

beta2 DL

[mattkosem]

The BIOS isn't terrible, it just has a lot of quirks that could easily be worked out in a BIOS rev or two from Biostar. The layout I'm certainly not a fan of though you have to do quite a bit of flapping about. I think I have found what was holding this TPower back anyway, heres some screens using the Black Dragons @ 1000MHz.

Wow, PL7 at 1000? What were you able to run on those chips before that?

--Matt

[mattkosem]

Don't get too excited yet The next beta will just be some rearrangements within the BIOS.

beta2 DL

What changes does this have? I'd be happy to test it.

--Matt

[Ket]

Just a few item placement adjustments to hopefully make at a glance navigation easier.

[Ket]

Wow, PL7 at 1000? What were you able to run on those chips before that?

--Matt

Didn't test higher PLs as performance dropped off extremely heavily. ie; PL8 @ 1000 = read 7.3GB\s, PL7 @ 1000 = read 8.8GB\s.