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

[RAINMAN2004]

Has anyone had success running 4x4gb memory on the x38 by flashing to rampage or other bios,just wondering if 16gb @ 800 would show any realworld gain compared to 8gb @ 1000 ? I'm running rampage 410 bios right now with Q6600@3400 (on air) on 333 strap with 8gb gskill pc2 8000.Any and all input is welcome.

[les_paulde]

Has anyone had success running 4x4gb memory on the x38 by flashing to rampage or other bios,just wondering if 16gb @ 800 would show any realworld gain compared to 8gb @ 1000 ? I'm running rampage 410 bios right now with Q6600@3400 (on air) on 333 strap with 8gb gskill pc2 8000.Any and all input is welcome.

I would say just stick with your 8gb of 1000mhz ram, unless you really need all 16gb of memory for whatever use you have for it... 1000Mhz ram gives you more bandwidth than 800Mhz, and considering you already have a large amount of ram which probably does not get fully utilized, your system would probably slow down a little (prolly only noticeable in benches though) compared to your current setup...


OH, and on another note, I'm currently running the system in my sig (Q9550 E0 + P5E dlx --> rampage). I'm currently busy getting the 4Ghz rocksolid and tweaked, and for some strange reason I cannot lower my performance level to below 9 or the PC won't even post anymore. When using PL9, Vantage crashes on me so I'm currently forced to use PL10. Obviously I would like to be able to lower this, especially as I'm forced to run my GSkills at only 471Mhz, but was just wondering what the main reason is why I can't lower this. Would I need more NB volts or do I need to relax other timings? Thanks for any input!

[Grnfinger]

Zucker2k I'm having trouble getting ATIFlash or Winflash to work with 64bit Vista.
Any ideas on how to grab the bios or am I the problem

Cant test max clocks on my card unless I have the room extremely cool, ran 840/1100 for 6 mins b4 3DMark06 lock'd up
Also GPUZ wont report my clocks correctly any ideas?
lol maybe I should head over to right thread to ask these questions

Now back to are regular scheduled programing.....

[les_paulde]

Zucker2k I'm having trouble getting ATIFlash or Winflash to work with 64bit Vista.
Any ideas on how to grab the bios or am I the problem

Doesnt it involve using atiflash under a DOS bootdisk? At least back in the HD3870 days thats how i used to backup my biii (correct multiple of bios? lol) before flashing... I typed

atiflash.exe -ai

to get the designated numbers of the graphics cards, and then using

atiflash.exe -s adapter_number whatever_file_name.xxx

to save the actual file. Not sure if the nature of the 4870x2 changes this process, but prolly you'll have to flash each card independently using their designated numbers (0 and 1 most likely).

Or am I just stating the obvious now?


EDIT: according to this page, even GPU-z should be able to extract a bios, but not sure if, and how well, it can do so.

[Zucker2k]

Zucker2k I'm having trouble getting ATIFlash or Winflash to work with 64bit Vista.
Any ideas on how to grab the bios or am I the problem

Cant test max clocks on my card unless I have the room extremely cool, ran 840/1100 for 6 mins b4 3DMark06 lock'd up
Also GPUZ wont report my clocks correctly any ideas?
lol maybe I should head over to right thread to ask these questions

Now back to are regular scheduled programing.....

Yes, GPU-Z will do it; after saving first adapter, switch to second and save with another name. It's easy, but not too obvious; look the little green card sign in the middle-right.

Edit: On the GPU-Z screen where it says Bios Version, look all the way to the right, there's an ic icon, click on that to save the current selected adapter. Thanks for the effort.

[orbiter]

Hello again you guys

Remember me?... Q9650 hitting wall on Maximus Formula @ 3.8GHz, and trying to decide on mobo for higher FSB.

Well, after listening to your views and doing a bit of reading for myself as suggested. I've decided not to splash out on any of those expensive boards I was considering.. Rampage Formula/Extreme etc. Instead I've been looking at the Gigabyte UD3P and some of the excellent results its been achieving with the 45nm quads. I must be honest, for the price the board sounds amazing. I understand it's not got some of the bells and whistles that the expensive boards have, however it's maximum performance I'm after with my Q9650, so I'm gunna give it a try. Have you heard of anything I should be concerned about regarding the UD3P e.g. heat, reliability etc?

Kind Regards

Orb

[Simps]

Hello again you guys

Remember me?... Q9650 hitting wall on Maximus Formula @ 3.8GHz, and trying to decide on mobo for higher FSB.

Well, after listening to your views and doing a bit of reading for myself as suggested. I've decided not to splash out on any of those expensive boards I was considering.. Rampage Formula/Extreme etc. Instead I've been looking at the Gigabyte UD3P and some of the excellent results its been achieving with the 45nm quads. I must be honest, for the price the board sounds amazing. I understand it's not got some of the bells and whistles that the expensive boards have, however it's maximum performance I'm after with my Q9650, so I'm gunna give it a try. Have you heard of anything I should be concerned about regarding the UD3P e.g. heat, reliability etc?

Kind Regards

Orb

This is just my opinion. I would never ever put a Q9650 on a mobo with a 6 phase power like the UD3P's. But then again, this is just me, my personal opinion. Anyway, a 16 phase power like Maximus II Formula BIOS 1901, can handle your quad and even 500FSB is you want. I am actually working on 508FSB stable on my quad at this moment.



[]'s
Simps

[orbiter]

This is just my opinion. I would never ever put a Q9650 on a mobo with a 6 phase power like the UD3P's. But then again, this is just me, my personal opinion. Anyway, a 16 phase power like Maximus II Formula BIOS 1901, can handle your quad and even 500FSB is you want. I am actually working on 508FSB stable on my quad at this moment.



[]'s
Simps

That was one of the few things I was looking at, but a quote from a review hardwarecanuks put me at ease...

Now six phases might not seem like a lot in this age of twelve to sixteen-phase voltage regulation systems, but this model supports 30 amps per phase and can deliver a total of 180 amps to the CPU, which is overkill even for extremely overclocked quad-core processors.

Should I really be worried about this?

Regards

Orb

[Zucker2k]

That was one of the few things I was looking at, but a quote from a review hardwarecanuks put me at ease...

Should I really be worried about this?

Regards

Orb

No, you can do things with that Giga board you can't even dream about.

[Grnfinger]

UD3P is a decent board, but remember no NB sensors, has been known to kill chips altho iirc a bios update sorted this.
Gigabyte is trying to make a name in the overclocking community, solid board and most who buy it were impressed.

MIIF like all boards has its pros and cons, MIIF is a really good board for air cooling, it likes low volts compared to its big brother X48 but the bandwidth and latancey is poor compared to X48, the bios needs alot of maturing, some key bios options still do not work, ( ASUS are you listening???) wich limits the boards true potential.
Following teh UD3P thread and having a chance to test the board for an afternoon I was impressed how quickly you can overclock a chip, all auto and I had a E8500 upto 4.3GHZ stable.
After an hour or 2 of tweaking and the chip maxed out at 4.5GHZ with air cooling!
Best advice do you homework and research many boards, ask the questions that are important to you, in the end all that matters is your happy with your choice

Hit me up on PM if you want to unload that Max X38, I'm looking for a replacement

[orbiter]

No, you can do things with that Giga board you can't even dream about.

Thanks Zucker2k

Believe me my friend.. I'm dreaming already after seeing some OC results

EDIT - Thank you for your valued info also Grnfinger . With my savings on the UD3P I may buy a DMM also to keep an eye on NB/SB temps.

[Grnfinger]

Please come back and post some screenies of your overclocks when your board arives

[Zeppelin]

Hi!

I'm trying to flash my P5E Deluxe with the Rampage BIOS!
Did everything exactly as described and allways get the error message:
"Unable to open rom file"!!!

Any ideas here?

Tks
[]

[Zucker2k]

Hi!

I'm trying to flash my P5E Deluxe with the Rampage BIOS!
Did everything exactly as described and allways get the error message:
"Unable to open rom file"!!!

Any ideas here?

Tks
[]

rename the bios you want to flash to bios.rom

download afudos ES (afu236u.exe)

type:

afu236u.exe /ibios.rom /n /pbnc

hit enter, and wait till process completes, turn off power, wait 30 seconds and power back on.

@ Grnfinger: Did you manage to upload that x2 firmware?

[Zeppelin]

rename the bios you want to flash to bios.rom

download afudos ES (afu236u.exe)

type:

afu236u.exe /ibios.rom /n /pbnc

hit enter, and wait till process completes, turn off power, wait 30 seconds and power back on.

Tks m8!
But it didn't do the trick!!!

I've been flashing BIOS'es for a long time...
Never had this kind of problem

[]

[Zucker2k]

Tks m8!
But it didn't do the trick!!!

I've been flashing BIOS'es for a long time...
Never had this kind of problem

[]

hmm, you're doing this in dos mode right? Also, could be environment, I don't know if this'll work on compressed drives or not. There are other alternatives, albeit dangerous methods.

[chew*]

Tks m8!
But it didn't do the trick!!!

I've been flashing BIOS'es for a long time...
Never had this kind of problem

[]

Are you at stock clocks? I've found when oced this board is hell on USB sticks, flash drives.

[chew*]

Got my "other board" grn went with gigabyte for various reasons anyway ripping windows in as I type, keep an eye out for results.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=215130

[Zeppelin]

hmm, you're doing this in dos mode right? Also, could be environment, I don't know if this'll work on compressed drives or not. There are other alternatives, albeit dangerous methods.

Yop @ DOS
I really don't have a clue here!
Strange!!!

Tks anyway

[]

[Zeppelin]

Are you at stock clocks? I've found when oced this board is hell on USB sticks, flash drives.

First rule fr flashing --> Stock

[]

[ziggo0]

I'm having a lot of trouble with 4x1gb Buffalo Firestix. They are stock 2.1vDIMM, but this board doesn't give enough juice to get them to post, so I have to take out all the ram, stick a cheap stick in, post, set voltage, then attempt different settings while overclocking. Any ideas? I appreciate it greatly.

Oh, running the Rampage Formula 408 bios.

[orbiter]

Please come back and post some screenies of your overclocks when your board arives

I sure will mate That's assuming I can clock it up to a level which will fit in with all the big figures I'm seeing around here.

Orb

[chew*]

Yop @ DOS
I really don't have a clue here!
Strange!!!

Tks anyway

[]

I don't think you can compress the drive. Format the USB stick and start from scratch, make it bootable. follow steps from there.

[Grnfinger]

Got my "other board" grn went with gigabyte for various reasons anyway ripping windows in as I type, keep an eye out for results.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=215130

I will be lurking in your thread

rename the bios you want to flash to bios.rom

download afudos ES (afu236u.exe)

type:

afu236u.exe /ibios.rom /n /pbnc

hit enter, and wait till process completes, turn off power, wait 30 seconds and power back on.

@ Grnfinger: Did you manage to upload that x2 firmware?

Yes I have them, sorry I forgot to upload them, will do that in a few mins.
Busy today, it appears Grn is getting audited tomorrow at 1:00pm and I'm trying to find important papers for my tax credits and such.
Bastards, you make one questionable claim and there all over you like a fat chick on smarties
If I'm not around much after tomorrow just look for the big cardboard box I'll be living in.....

[Zeppelin]

Format the USB stick and start from scratch, make it bootable. follow steps from there.

Yeah, I've done that!...
I'll just keep trying!
Gonna try with another USB stick now and pray

[]