ASUS Maximus II Formula - new P45 king?

[KURTZ]

OK

just a Q humeboy: so the A3 revisions aren't good mobos? the better are still the A2?

[humeyboy]

OK

just a Q humeboy: so the A3 revisions aren't good mobos? the better are still the A2?

No, I have an A2, would be better with an A3 as its newer and the good clocking Gigabytes are A3's.

Someone here had 490FSB on a Q6600 on one, I cannot get that stable on a Q9650.

[Mr.Pink]

After some testing 1307 is ( for me ) the best bios for quads

[humeyboy]

Tried it too, exact same results.

This Mobo is a POS for Quads IMO.

[KURTZ]

After some testing 1307 is ( for me ) the best bios for quads

1307 is still the best bios, imho

[Haes]

No, I have an A2, would be better with an A3 as its newer and the good clocking Gigabytes are A3's.

Someone here had 490FSB on a Q6600 on one, I cannot get that stable on a Q9650.

That's me and I got it with the same /VTT/SB/NB GTL etc. stable with my 9550 E0, but setting the multi high it get unstable and I've to bump NB to 1.4V (Q6600 was 1,36V NB - very strange), have to tweak the VCore CPU GTLs, PLL and VTT.

My problem is sometimes with the same settings it 2-3 hrs smallfft stable (max multi) and sometimes not even 15 mins.

And tweaking the GTLs.VTT,PLL is for 4,0+ Ghz +/- 50 Mhz is really hard with my E0.

[humeyboy]

That's why for a guaranteed 4GHZ on this Mobo I advise a Q9650, all are E0 so no luck of the draw and the higher Multi.

Once you have a stable FSB it should not be affected by higher MHZ on the Multi.

The only things that you should need adjust is VCore and PLL.

I have same issues as you, 1 setting is stable for hours then fails, then its only stable for a few mins, then its again 100% stable.

[Haes]

that's what i thought too and this was the reason hy i tweaked out the max stable fsb with mymobo to be 100% sure that i can run 4gs (471*8,5) with a 9550 (if the 9550 will do it) and i got results with small fft stable with 1,34V VCore.

Now you add stable 490 fsb settings to the stable vcore settings and you expect stable 24/7 4g 9550 rig but no ...

Even testing different bios versions keep me back to the most often used versions:

1307
1901
2104

and with no improve.

[KURTZ]

just wondering guys, if i put a second nVdia card for the physics, the first pci slot goes @ 8x?

[Haes]

no matter which pcie slot...

if u use only one card you've a 16x lane connection and if you use CF you've on each lane 8x .

[humeyboy]

Don't matter its PCI-E 2.0, so 8x is same as old 16x.

[In-Fluence]

Just for the record, if you use just the lower PCI-E slot in its own it goes to 8x too. I still need to mount my HR-03 the other way up so it fits in there

Still having inconsistent results at 457x8 - on certain tests it will pass 12K and continue to do it for 3 entire small fft loops before I stop it. I then reboot and it fails a minute or 2 after it hits 12k - grrrr!

[Haes]

I think seriously my M2F have n memoryslot problem with 1901 - have to check it again with memtest and switch to 2104, cause there i passed with all four slots 1066mhz.


I got rounding errors after only three minutes (core 3 and 4) custom inplace run 4096 ffts 15minutes each fft with 920mhz with 2.1V and than i put only the one memory in the slot where i know that it makes 1120 with 1.99V.

And know custom runs 1hr and no problem at all ... , besides I set 1,42V Vcore LLC off VCore auto and tested with 460*8 and VCore drops to 1,32V stable ... wtf 0.08-0.1V drop that's huge ...

[humeyboy]

Yip even with LLC there is a drop/droop on mines.

On my old 780I it was solid with LLC on.

[Mr.Pink]

strange with LLC enabled my vcore actually goes up under load

[Haes]

If Vcore goes up and under , it means you have to bump your gts 1 or 2 notch.
It's stable but not 100%... this is why you've GTLs ... to adjust correctly the volts.

[In-Fluence]

strange with LLC enabled my vcore actually goes up under load

Same as me, as much as .025v which takes me to 1.5v, and things are getting a little toasty in here!

I've managed to get a bit further with 60,20 gtls, but it hung within a minute of the 14k test. Strange as with 50,10 (if it did get past 12k), it always got past 14K and higher ffts. Currently testing 70,30 to see if it gets further, but it seems to have raised temps a fair bit

[Haes]

Well, I will let my Q9550 something in between 3.6-3.9 Ghz, cause that stupid thing is really bad or I was unlucky.

I got even 4Ghz with reasonable volts stable with custom inplace run for about 3 hrs. Would I play a little bit I could perhaps make this rockstable but I tweaked over 1 week already and need a break.

If I set the multi on 6 and try my 490FSB setup it's rockstable with a little bump of 1 or 2 notches on the NB (Q6600 setup needs less).

But the cpu demands volts volts and again volts.
1.34-1.37 ~4Ghz, 1.31-1.33 ~3.9 Ghz, 1.29-1.31 ~3.8Ghz. Really thought about selling it and buy a Q9650.

I could even boot win7 with 4 Core 505FSB. Even with 1.41V by 4.1Ghz the cpu is 66°C under load small fft (stable vor 1 hrs or so), so cooling and mobo isn't the issue here it's just the cpu.

[In-Fluence]

Anyone know of a good vcore read point for a DMM measurement? (Ideally for all voltages would be great). I'm tempted to stick one in there & try & find it myself, but as I'm sure you're all aware, it's a risky business, and only have a rough idea where to look!

p.s. 50,10 is my most stable GTL setting with 1.31 vtt and 1.40nb at both 450x8 and 400x9 so I have a good reference point to go from.

A slight increase to 1.32vtt helped me stabilise a fair bit more at 450x8 with 1200@5-5-4-5-15 PL7 (1 core failed after 38mins during 768K test, 2nd core failed in 1.5 hours during 448k test, the rest kept going for over 3 hours).
1.31vtt only got me 10 mins at the same settings, so I now feel the urge to up the VTT a bit more, but would like to know if anyone has advice on how the GTLs would need to be adjusted accordingly.
Setting any higher vtt with current GTLs only gives me 10 mins of stability again, plus the 45mv gap comes into play after 1.32vtt (according to the vtt/GTL formula) so I'm suspecting the GTLs will need to be re-tuned - hurrumph! :/

*edit:
Backing the PL down to 9 and setting NBGTL to -10 got me 100% stable albeit at the cost of memory bandwidth, but still better than 400x9, and I at least know what's causing the instability now so I can hopefully tweak further

[64dragon]

hey guys, i'm having some issues clocking my new chip (but all other hardware is the same), it's a Q9505 (9550 but with 6mb cache). i'm at 3.5ghz (412*8.5)@1.306v in bios, vNB and VTT at 1.33v, i'm 9hrs orthos small FFT stable and 10hrs large FFT stable BUT when i start running WCG i get computational errors and BSOD. ram is underclocked @ 989 and 2.18v (same voltage i've been running since October with my X3330). With the X3330 i needed 1.4v for NB and VTT. Any ideas what i need to adjust?

[WaterFlex]

2202 is ok for me.

[In-Fluence]

@64 Dragon - Have you tuned your CPU and NB GTLs? What are your temperatures like, and do any of them get higher in WCG than when testing? I only mention this because I've recently discovered that my PWMs get too hot and have the same kind of effect.

On another note, I've been running a little experiment to determine the effectiveness of the Asus cooling solution to my own consisting a NB waterblock on the P45's die (Shared with CPU), 2x copper enzotech mosfet sinks and a aluminium chipset HS for the SB. Here's what I recorded:

______|1___|2___|3___|4___
CPU__|72°C |71°C|82°C |78°C
NB___|47°C |51°C|47°C |51°C
SB___|40°C |48°C|40°C |49°C
MB___|34°C |34°C|34°C |34°C
PWM_|60°C |57°C|64°C |61°C

1: Custom cooling - 1024K FFT test (31°C ambiemt)
2: Asus cooling - 1024K FFT test (28°C ambiemt)
3: Custom Cooling 8K FFT test (31°C ambiemt)
4: Asus Cooling - 8K FFT test (28°C Ambiemt)

I set the motherboard to all auto, with CPU level up to 'Crazy' giving 389*9 with memory at 933. Voltages were left to generate the heat, and were as follows:
Vcore: 1.488
Mch: 1.32
VTT: 1.31
PLL: 1.79
SB/1.1: 1.5/1.12
DDR: 1.86

As you can immediately see, the SB benefits greatly from being cooled on its own by plummetting by nearly 10°C, and that's with 3°C Higher ambient temps! It's clear from this alone that a lot of heat spreads towards this part of the Asus cooler
The northbridge shows expected results with a drop of 4°C (probably more if the ambiemt temps were the same) when it is cooled on its own.
The PWM seems to suffer the most when cooled on its own as it runs 3°C higher, and although this could be down to the ambiemt temps, judging by the part of the case it is in (i.e. v.little airflow in that area) I would say that it needs the extra cooling when running with higher voltages.

So it looks like I either need some mosfet blocks, a better PSU (a small chance), or will have to get another fan going on the mosfet area (which I really want to avoid, as I'm aiming for a semi-passive setup). Does anyone experience worse PWM temps with a naff PSU compared to a good one, or can anyone test this for me? This will probably make my decision to go for a Corsair HX850 at the end of this week, so accurate feedback would be very useful in making a decision about this issue.

[64dragon]

@64 Dragon - Have you tuned your CPU and NB GTLs? What are your temperatures like, and do any of them get higher in WCG than when testing? I only mention this because I've recently discovered that my PWMs get too hot and have the same kind of effect.

In Orthos I see max cpu temp of 51C and NB and SB are 40-45C and i've not seen the PWM break 40C. WCG gives lower temps than Orthos

no, i've not tuned the GTLs, i'm only at 412FSB and people say you can go to 450 before needing to tune them. On my Xeon i was at 438FSB and didn't tune them so i figured a lower FSB would be fine. Guess i'll have to learn how.

[Mr.Pink]

hey guys, i'm having some issues clocking my new chip (but all other hardware is the same), it's a Q9505 (9550 but with 6mb cache). i'm at 3.5ghz (412*8.5)@1.306v in bios, vNB and VTT at 1.33v, i'm 9hrs orthos small FFT stable and 10hrs large FFT stable BUT when i start running WCG i get computational errors and BSOD. ram is underclocked @ 989 and 2.18v (same voltage i've been running since October with my X3330). With the X3330 i needed 1.4v for NB and VTT. Any ideas what i need to adjust?

Post your bios setup

You have tested the ram with memtest to rule out bad dimms??

[64dragon]

Post your bios setup

You have tested the ram with memtest to rule out bad dimms??

i did one pass last night and it was fine (i know i should do more), i've been running this ram in this board since October and the ram has never even hit the rated 1066. while i was at work today i ran 8hr of OCCT large just fine

Processor: Q9505
BIOS revision: 1802
Ai Overclock Tuner: Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting: 8.5
FSB Frequency: 412
CPU Clock Skew: auto
NB Clock Skew: auto
FSB Strap to North Bridge: 333
DRAM Frequency: DDR2-990MHz

DRAM CLK Skew on Channel A1: Auto
DRAM CLK Skew on Channel A2: Auto
DRAM CLK Skew on Channel B1: Auto
DRAM CLK Skew on Channel B2: Auto
DRAM Timing Control: Manual

CAS# Latency: 5 DRAM Clocks
DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay: 5 DRAM Clocks
DRAM RAS# Precharge: 5 DRAM Clocks
DRAM RAS# Activate to Precharge: 18 DRAM Clocks
RAS# to RAS# Delay: 3
Row Refresh Recycle Time: 55 DRAM Clocks
Write Recovery Time: 6
Read to Precharge Time: 3

Read to Write Delay (S/D): 8
Write to Read Delay (S): 3
Write to Read Delay (D): 5
Read to Read Delay (S): 4
Read to Read Delay (D): 6
Write to Write Delay (S): 4
Write to Write Delay (D): 6

Write to PRE Delay: 14
Read to PRE Delay: 5
PRE to PRE Delay: 1
All PRE to ACT Delay: 6
All PRE to REF Delay: 6
DRAM Static Read Control: auto
DRAM Read Training: auto
MEM. OC Charger: auto
Ai Clock Twister: Strong
Ai Transaction Booster: Manual

Common Performance Level: 12
Pull-in of CHA PH1: Disabled
Pull-in of CHA PH2: Disabled
...
Pull-in of CHB PH1: Disabled
Pull-in of CHB PH2: Disabled
...

PCIE Frequency: 101

CPU Voltage: 1.30625
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.5265
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.3385
DRAM Voltage: 2.118
North Bridge Voltage: 1.3385 (also tried 1.3517
South Bridge 1.5 Voltage: 1.51325
South Bridge 1.1 Voltage: 1.11325

CPU GTL Reference (0): auto
CPU GTL Reference (1): auto
CPU GTL Reference (2): auto
CPU GTL Reference (3): auto
NB GTL Reference: Auto
DDR2 ChA Reference Voltage: Auto
DDR2 ChB Reference Voltage: Auto
North Bridge DDR Reference: Auto


CPU Configuration:

Ratio CMOS Setting: 8.5
C1E Support: Disabled
Max CPUID Value Limit: Disabled
Intel Virtualization Tech: Disabled
CPU TM Function: Disabled
Execute Disable Bit: Disabled

Load-Line Calibration: Disabled
CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled