My Dual Harper - Asus Z7S WS living review *56K warning*

[drewhemm]

Nice add-on for Core Temp here:

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/addons.html

[shanems3]

it has to be exactly 400fsb, to come up as ddr2 800mhz..

[STEvil]

Does the FSB need to be exactly 400MHz? I am running 441MHz and still the memory shows as 667MHz...

You might be reading the wrong numbers. There will be some numbers that will say what your memory is on startup, but there are other numbers which tell you what your memory is actually running at.

At 441 run CPU-Z, if it shows the memory at 441 in the memory tab then you're probably looking at the wrong numbers (or they're not showing at all.. I dont remember because I dont reboot often lol) during POST

edit, got an issue

Dunno what started this, but sometimes my volume is really low even if I max it out and other times its really high and will crackle even if I turn things down as far as possible.

[Madman666]

I tested my system yesterday with a duo core 5120 (single).
Tried OC'ing, same issues. No boot after 400 FSB.
So my L5410's are not the problem.
Still suspect my memory. I will try taking out some banks to see if this will work.
Otherwise, how can I test if it's the memory without buying memory? Beacuse I'm not yet sure it's the memory holding back my OC and I don't want to end up with more memory and no improvement.

Any other suggestions ? or should I just live with it

[drewhemm]

it has to be exactly 400fsb, to come up as ddr2 800mhz..

I will try that just to see if it works, although then I'll be losing a lot of CPU speed...

You might be reading the wrong numbers. There will be some numbers that will say what your memory is on startup, but there are other numbers which tell you what your memory is actually running at.

At 441 run CPU-Z, if it shows the memory at 441 in the memory tab then you're probably looking at the wrong numbers (or they're not showing at all.. I dont remember because I dont reboot often lol) during POST

See attached screenshots! Although I was mainly referring to the memory information tab in the bios, which says 667MHz.

Still suspect my memory....how can I test if it's the memory without buying memory?

Any other suggestions ? or should I just live with it

Have you tried running memtest to see if there are faults with the modules?

On another note, for anyone who has been plagued with bios resets, I disabled quick boot and it seems to be working so far, have reset the computer several times without a bios reset - I'll report back on this in a couple of days...

[STEvil]

nice catch with the quick boot, but I dont have the problem so I cant confirm lol :/

Yeah, your memory is running at 882mhz in that screenshot.. dont worry about what the BIOS says because it is just reading the default values and telling you what you have

[shanems3]

nice one, disabling quickboot now..

If i have a TJmax of 100C, is it safe to run 55c idle 70c load?? that is with vcore at 1.35
normal voltage is 44c Idle 60c Load @ 3.6ghz.

[jcool]

First thing I did was disable quick boot, and it doesn't help at all lol. Good thing I never reboot.

[STEvil]

nice one, disabling quickboot now..

If i have a TJmax of 100C, is it safe to run 55c idle 70c load?? that is with vcore at 1.35
normal voltage is 44c Idle 60c Load @ 3.6ghz.

yup, its fine.

[Madman666]

He guys, what is your BIOS date of the 0401 in Everest?
Mine says 07/22/08 ???

BTW: the memorytimings are set by the BIOS to 5-5-5-15. However @400 the Kingston should have 5-5-5-18. So maybe the memory timings are to tight, hence no boot at FSB 400?

[jcool]

No, 5-5-5-15 is ok.
Try raising your FSB in WIndows using SetFSB until it freezes... PLL to use is the 2nd or 3rd from the top on the list if I recall correctly.

[Madman666]

No, 5-5-5-15 is ok.
Try raising your FSB in WIndows using SetFSB until it freezes... PLL to use is the 2nd or 3rd from the top on the list if I recall correctly.

Still testing, but now at 409 FREEZE

[shanems3]

whats ur vcore?

[jcool]

Well we don't know how much FSB those L CPUs can handle. Maybe it's a CPU FSB hardlimit. Try using a 6x multiplier for testing out max FSB...

[shanems3]

i was just asking, my wall was overcame when i went to 1.35vcore..

[drewhemm]

Well we don't know how much FSB those L CPUs can handle. Maybe it's a CPU FSB hardlimit. Try using a 6x multiplier for testing out max FSB...

My L5420 goes to 441Mhz comfortably with a 7.5 multiplier, that gives me 3.3Ghz. It can go higher but freezes at 450MHz - has anyone gone higher than 450MHz with a higher vcore?

[Movieman]

My L5420 goes to 441Mhz comfortably with a 7.5 multiplier, that gives me 3.3Ghz. It can go higher but freezes at 450MHz - has anyone gone higher than 450MHz with a higher vcore?

I saw 454 on stock voltage on a SM board.. 455 it would bluescreen.
438 for 24/7 work

[shanems3]

highest i could get to boot was 445, but it was buggy, 440 was stable at 1.35vcore.. 1.35mch, 1.86 dimm

[jcool]

My L5420 goes to 441Mhz comfortably with a 7.5 multiplier, that gives me 3.3Ghz. It can go higher but freezes at 450MHz - has anyone gone higher than 450MHz with a higher vcore?

Vcore is not the deciding factor here, but VTT is (which you currently can't adjust). I run 451*9 with 1,24V load Vcore, that is 0,01V below stock voltage. Guess I got really lucky with my chips...

I can bench at FSB 461, 462-463 freezes. Dunno if it's the mobo or CPU's limit, guessing the CPUs tho.

[Bobsama]

The nice thing about overclocking these DP Xeons are they're the best-binned chips, meaning you'll get "lucky" a whole heck of a lot more often. ANyways--very nice overclocking.

[jcool]

Yeah, they are better than any and all desktop Quads I have used in customer builds (around 50 this year) so go figure...

[jt1]

dual Core i7 boards aren't available from Asus yet, I heard that overclocking is limited

If the dual Gainestown is not overclockable (I'll assume 3.2GHz stock), I wonder whether it'll be faster than the overclockable Harpertown Skulltrail@4GHz+. Here's quick and dirty calculation: Let's say, on some benchmark, 8cores is 80% faster than 4cores, and 4.0GHz is 25% faster than 3.2 GHz, and 8core Harper@4GHz is 50% faster than 4core Nehalem@4GHz, then 8core Harper would be slightly faster(~4%) than 8core Nehalem.

[jcool]

They will be overclockable. Gainstowns use the exact same scheme as "normal" i7 CPUs, BCLK of 133 with varying multipliers and QPI link speeds. You can put a Gainstown into a normal single-socket lga1366 mobo and it works, but only the Gainstown has a 2nd QPI interlink node (or something like that) that enables it to communicate directly with another gainstown when you got a dual socket mobo.

Problem is, Intel ran into a kind of TLB bug with i7 as well which can occur after >2 weeks of uptime (just like AMD with the early phenoms) which is why the DP Xeons are postponed until Q1/2 09.

And yes, Gainstown will be faster than Dual Harpertown, even at lower clockspeeds. For once, theoretically, you shouldn't lose any speed when compared to 2x the single CPU setup, because the old bottleneck called FSB is no more. Plus the new architecture is rigorously optimized for multi-threading and multi-CPU environments, the "dual" QPI bus of the Gainstown CPU just being one of many features.

[Jaco]

Installed my Thermalright HR01-X coolers (thanks jcool) today on the Asus Z7S.

Now the system won't boot
Diagnostic card says F.F. (with dots)

[Madman666]

whats ur vcore?

1.26 Vcore
These L5410 E0 have not a voltage range they operate, they are 1.212 V
Will try 1.30 later ? You think I can go higher ?