X48 Rampage Formula Preview.

[Alien Grey]

Try quad and you'll be surprised.

Or try LinX and Prime95 Blend and find out if it's really stable.

[Fritz_the_germ]

Anything new about your bios 1xxx?
I don´t think ASUS will release it before april 2010

[Alien Grey]

Anything new about your bios 1xxx?
I don´t think ASUS will release it before april 2010

It's a part of their strategy. The longer they wait to release something the longer it stays quiet.

They are waiting till someone starts screaming "GRRR... WHERE'S THE NEW BIOS FOR THE RAMPAGE FORMULA "

[leo27]

Consider this the SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

On another note are there any memory timings in our Bios that are better higher rather than lower (i.e like how tREF gives more performance at 16383t rather then 3120t)

[Alien Grey]

Consider this the SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

On another note are there any memory timings in our Bios that are better higher rather than lower (i.e like how tREF gives more performance at 16383t rather then 3120t)

I asked them when we could expect the new BIOS.


There are no other timings.

[Fritz_the_germ]

Consider this the SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

On another note are there any memory timings in our Bios that are better higher rather than lower (i.e like how tREF gives more performance at 16383t rather then 3120t)

The only BIOS I remember that calculated the tREFs at 16,383T was the 0308 version.
It´s right that the memory performance increases by increasing the tREFs. But you shouldn´t forget that you are loosing stability because your memory needs refreshing after a while or your systems breaks down all of a sudden. The more often your memory gets the "refreshing" the better the datas will stay complete to work. Condenser memorychips need a refreshing after a while or they "forget".
The longer your memory won´t get a refreshing the higher is the risk that the memory will "forget" the stored datas.
That´s why the 16,383T should be used for benching - but not for the 24/7 use. Gaining stability a tRFEs value of 2,600T is even better.

[Swiguy]

Hello all,

I've recently attempted to OC my system using the 0902 BIOS but I wasn't able to get a stable OC at all. I've flashed my BIOS back to 0803 and set my BIOS settings to the following:

Ai Overclock Tuner [Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting [8.0]
FSB Strap to North Bridge [400MHz]
FSB Frequency [450MHz]
PCIE Frequency [100MHz]
DRAM Frequency [1081MHz]
DRAM Command Rate [2N]
DRAM CLK Skew on Channel A/B [Auto]
DRAM TimingControl [Auto]
DRAM Static Read Control [Enabled]
Ai Clock Twister [Moderate]
Ai Transaction Booster [Manual]
Common Performance Level [08]
Pull-In of CH A/B all disabled
CPU Voltage [1.35000V]
CPU PLL Voltage [1.50V]
North Bridge Voltage [1.45V]
DRAM Voltage [2.2V]
FSB Termination Voltage [1.3V]
South Bridge Voltage [1.05V]
SB 1.5V Voltage [1.50V]
Loadline Calibration [Disabled]
CPU GTL Voltage Reference [0.63X]
NB GTL Voltage Reference [0.67X]
DRAM Controller Voltage REF [Auto]
DRAM Channel A/B Voltage REF [Auto]
CPU Spread Spectrum [Disabled]
PCIE Spread Spectrum [Disabled]
CPU Clock Skew [Delay 200ps]
NB Clock Skew [Delay 100ps]

CPU Ratio Setting [8.0]
C1E Support [Disabled]
CPU TM Function [Enabled]
Vanderpool Technology [Disabled]
Execute Disable Bit [Enabled]
Max CPUID Value Limit [Disabled]

I'm trying to get my OC stable at 3.6ghz but my system won't even load into Windows 7. If I down clock to 3.4ghz I'm able to boot into Windows but Prime 95 fails within a few minutes. Any suggestions on how to get my CPU stable at 3.6 or will I have to live with 3.4ghz?

Thanks!

[Alien Grey]

Hello all,

I've recently attempted to OC my system using the 0902 BIOS but I wasn't able to get a stable OC at all. I've flashed my BIOS back to 0803 and set my BIOS settings to the following:

Ai Overclock Tuner [Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting [8.0]
FSB Strap to North Bridge [400MHz]
FSB Frequency [450MHz]
PCIE Frequency [100MHz]
DRAM Frequency [1081MHz]
DRAM Command Rate [2N]
DRAM CLK Skew on Channel A/B [Auto]
DRAM TimingControl [Auto]
DRAM Static Read Control [Enabled]
Ai Clock Twister [Moderate]
Ai Transaction Booster [Manual]
Common Performance Level [08]
Pull-In of CH A/B all disabled
CPU Voltage [1.35000V]
CPU PLL Voltage [1.50V]
North Bridge Voltage [1.45V]
DRAM Voltage [2.2V]
FSB Termination Voltage [1.3V]
South Bridge Voltage [1.05V]
SB 1.5V Voltage [1.50V]
Loadline Calibration [Disabled]
CPU GTL Voltage Reference [0.63X]
NB GTL Voltage Reference [0.67X]
DRAM Controller Voltage REF [Auto]
DRAM Channel A/B Voltage REF [Auto]
CPU Spread Spectrum [Disabled]
PCIE Spread Spectrum [Disabled]
CPU Clock Skew [Delay 200ps]
NB Clock Skew [Delay 100ps]

CPU Ratio Setting [8.0]
C1E Support [Disabled]
CPU TM Function [Enabled]
Vanderpool Technology [Disabled]
Execute Disable Bit [Enabled]
Max CPUID Value Limit [Disabled]

I'm trying to get my OC stable at 3.6ghz but my system won't even load into Windows 7. If I down clock to 3.4ghz I'm able to boot into Windows but Prime 95 fails within a few minutes. Any suggestions on how to get my CPU stable at 3.6 or will I have to live with 3.4ghz?

Thanks!

For your BIOS problem.


1. Remove the power cable from your PSU and push the Clear CMOS button for a minute or something.

2. Enter BIOS setup and load setup defaults.

3. Flash your board with BIOS 0902.

4. Repeat step 1. and 2. and don't load your old overclock profiles.

If that doesn't work reflash it with the same procedure. This seems to work when you've got problems with BIOS 0902 flashing it the first time. Don't ask me why but it's a fact.


For your overclock. Does your memory need 2.2V for 1081MHz?
Run MemTest86+ and try to find out how much voltage you need for 1081MHz.


If you need 1.45V for the NB to be stable at FSB 450MHz with Ai Clock Twister Moderate there's a good chance that you experience the exact same issue that I've got at FSB 470MHz when using CPU Clock Skew Delay 200ps and NB Clock Skew Delay 100ps and that is that higher voltage on the NB makes it unstable.

The 100ps delay difference between the CPU and NB Clock Skew is the key to the high FSB overclocks with our Quads but we need a new BIOS that makes it possible to use it with FSB 450MHz+ without having to push the NB Voltage higher than we should need for that FSB frequency to have it stable.


Try with CPU Clock Skew Delay 100ps and NB Clock Skew Normal or both on Auto with Ai Clock Twister Moderate. You can also leave it with CPU Clock Skew Delay 200ps and NB Clock Skew Delay 100ps and try with Ai Clock Twister Light or Lighter.

You should be able to use Common Performance Level 7 with FSB 450MHz and DDR 1081MHz.

[leo27]

Thanks fritz and a-grey for the quick answer to my memory question
Also fritz i've been running a tREF of 16383t for almost 3 months and am HCI memtest 12 passes stable as well as 12 hours P95 blend+UT2004 stable so i guess my memory has no troble running with it

@Swiguy
As A-Grey said you vNB looks quite high for 450 fsb with Clock twister moderate, i need 1.42v at 425 fsb at clock twister stronger (clock twister really requires a large bump up on the vNB). If you memory is memtest86+ stable (run test 5 for an hour) then i'd say you need the BIOS we've all been waiting for.

Also which test of P95 is failing, is it smallFFT's or Large FFT's?
If smallFFT's the chances are its vCPU or CPU GTL's or your processor can't handle the clock speed (unlikely at 3.6Ghz for a q9450)

If largeFFT's then it could be vNB, NB GTL here's a rough guide relating to problem size
1024 – VTT or vNB
896, 448 – vNB
768, 512, 332 - VTT

[Alien Grey]

Here's some information about the new BIOS.


The ASUS R&D team is working on new products and didn't have the time yet to make the new BIOS. The new BIOS will be released but we just have to wait a little longer.

I hope I can still test it with relative low room temperature to minimize the risk of damaging my hardware.


@greg.m

Where are you man. I didn't see you around for a long time.

Did you forget to put anti-freeze in your watercooling loop?

[Swiguy]

For your BIOS problem.


1. Remove the power cable from your PSU and push the Clear CMOS button for a minute or something.

2. Enter BIOS setup and load setup defaults.

3. Flash your board with BIOS 0902.

4. Repeat step 1. and 2. and don't load your old overclock profiles.

If that doesn't work reflash it with the same procedure. This seems to work when you've got problems with BIOS 0902 flashing it the first time. Don't ask me why but it's a fact.


For your overclock. Does your memory need 2.2V for 1081MHz?
Run MemTest86+ and try to find out how much voltage you need for 1081MHz.


If you need 1.45V for the NB to be stable at FSB 450MHz with Ai Clock Twister Moderate there's a good chance that you experience the exact same issue that I've got at FSB 470MHz when using CPU Clock Skew Delay 200ps and NB Clock Skew Delay 100ps and that is that higher voltage on the NB makes it unstable.

The 100ps delay difference between the CPU and NB Clock Skew is the key to the high FSB overclocks with our Quads but we need a new BIOS that makes it possible to use it with FSB 450MHz+ without having to push the NB Voltage higher than we should need for that FSB frequency to have it stable.


Try with CPU Clock Skew Delay 100ps and NB Clock Skew Normal or both on Auto with Ai Clock Twister Moderate. You can also leave it with CPU Clock Skew Delay 200ps and NB Clock Skew Delay 100ps and try with Ai Clock Twister Light or Lighter.

You should be able to use Common Performance Level 7 with FSB 450MHz and DDR 1081MHz.

I tried the above but I'm still freezing within a minute in Windows 7. Not sure what I'm missing here since I was overclocked to 3.4ghz (425fsb) on the 701 BIOS. Ever since I've updated my BIOS to 0803 or 0902 I've had a very unstable system... any other suggestions?

[Swiguy]

Thanks fritz and a-grey for the quick answer to my memory question
Also fritz i've been running a tREF of 16383t for almost 3 months and am HCI memtest 12 passes stable as well as 12 hours P95 blend+UT2004 stable so i guess my memory has no troble running with it

@Swiguy
As A-Grey said you vNB looks quite high for 450 fsb with Clock twister moderate, i need 1.42v at 425 fsb at clock twister stronger (clock twister really requires a large bump up on the vNB). If you memory is memtest86+ stable (run test 5 for an hour) then i'd say you need the BIOS we've all been waiting for.

Also which test of P95 is failing, is it smallFFT's or Large FFT's?
If smallFFT's the chances are its vCPU or CPU GTL's or your processor can't handle the clock speed (unlikely at 3.6Ghz for a q9450)

If largeFFT's then it could be vNB, NB GTL here's a rough guide relating to problem size
1024 – VTT or vNB
896, 448 – vNB
768, 512, 332 - VTT

I've attempted various voltages for my NB (1.39 to 1.45) and all have failed. I can't even run P95 for 5 seconds... my system freezes up and reboots. As I mentioned to A.Grey, I've had instability issues ever since I upgraded my BIOS from 0701. I even tried going back to 0701 and still freezing up :S

[Alien Grey]

I've attempted various voltages for my NB (1.39 to 1.45) and all have failed. I can't even run P95 for 5 seconds... my system freezes up and reboots. As I mentioned to A.Grey, I've had instability issues ever since I upgraded my BIOS from 0701. I even tried going back to 0701 and still freezing up :S

Try with higher CPU Voltage and run Prime95 Small FFT's to see if you can get that stable.

Can you pass MemTest86+ without errors?

[Alien Grey]

I've attempted various voltages for my NB (1.39 to 1.45) and all have failed. I can't even run P95 for 5 seconds... my system freezes up and reboots. As I mentioned to A.Grey, I've had instability issues ever since I upgraded my BIOS from 0701. I even tried going back to 0701 and still freezing up :S

Try with higher CPU Voltage and run Prime95 Small FFT's to see if you can get that stable.

Can you pass MemTest86+ without errors?

[greg.m]

Here's some information about the new BIOS.


The ASUS R&D team is working on new products and didn't have the time yet to make the new BIOS. The new BIOS will be released but we just have to wait a little longer.

I hope I can still test it with relative low room temperature to minimize the risk of damaging my hardware.


@greg.m

Where are you man. I didn't see you around for a long time.

Did you forget to put anti-freeze in your watercooling loop?

My friend, im alive and im watching you
My 4870x2 was a real pain in my ass the last 2-3 months until it died just before christmas, the worst period to buy a card or even rma. I was lucky to find one beast - as you kan see in my sig - which came to me with the new year. So you can easily imagine what im doing since then, tests, tests, benchs & benchs. Man, i tell you its the beastiest beast i ever had. Crazy fps everywhere. I read a lot arround and there are many who has something to say but the truth is: ITS A BEAAAST

[Swiguy]

Try with higher CPU Voltage and run Prime95 Small FFT's to see if you can get that stable.

Can you pass MemTest86+ without errors?

That's the strange part... I had my system overclocked to 3.4ghz on 1.318v (BIOS) prior to my BIOS upgrade. Maybe I should provide a more complete picture of what happened.

I ordered a new case and power supply (950w Corsair) and transferred all of my parts to that case... prior to setting up my new case, I flashed my BIOS from version 0701 to 0902... ever since then I've had nothing but instability issues except when I'm running stock.

I have verified that the new PSU has solid rails at 3.3v, 5v and 12v. Additionally, I insured I had all of the same BIOS settings when I was using 0701. I can't figure out why I can even stay stable in Windows 7 for longer then a minute now... I could run a 3.4ghz clock 24/7 with no issues before.

All of my temps seem quite good so there is no way a temp issue is causing immediate crashing/freezing within Windows 7. As for my BIOS settings now, I've set everything to AUTO pratically and have adjusted the voltages for the CPU from 1.3 to 1.45, CPU PLL from 1.5 to 1.54, NB from 1.41 to 1.55, DRAM at 2.1-2.2 (rated to run from 2.1 to 2.4), FSB term from 1.31 to 1.4 and SB all set to auto.

The only other options I've changed are Loadline = disabled and spectrum settings = disabled... nothing seems to be working for me though... perhaps I should try loading defaults, flashing to 0902 again, clear CMOS (i.e. remove battery for 30 min or so), load defaults flash again?? Any suggestions will greatly help me out since I'm totally stumped!

Thanks again!!!

[leo27]

It wouldn' hurt if you re-flashed to 902 however do this: set to defaults, clears cmos, set to defaults, flash to 902, set to defaults, clear cmos, set to defaults then try. I know its super cautious but at least it'd rule out a bad flash.

[Ghostleader]

Man, i tell you its the beastiest beast i ever had[/B]. Crazy fps everywhere. I read a lot arround and there are many who has something to say but the truth is: ITS A BEAAAST

Second that, imagine what those are like in CrossFire, if one is a beast , it brings down whatever I throw at it

It´s so awesome, pure power




A-Grey

I most say that you are doing a great work hammering on those Asus bios engineers , much appreciated

[Alien Grey]

@greg.m

I see, that's what you were doing all the time, benching that Sapphire OC 5970. They can say what they want but the 5970 is the fastest card around and it doesn't look like Nvidia is going to outperform it with their Fermi.


@Ghostleader

We need something to unleash the power on the ASUS Rampage Formula to get our Quads on high FSB. We can't stay behind.


@Swiguy

The reason I'm asking if you can get it MemTest86+ stable at FSB 425-450MHz is because if you can't the board might be slowly dying. Try it and also try it with one memory stick (test them both so you know that it isn't your memory that's faulty).

[Swiguy]

@greg.m

I see, that's what you were doing all the time, benching that Sapphire OC 5970. They can say what they want but the 5970 is the fastest card around and it doesn't look like Nvidia is going to outperform it with their Fermi.


@Ghostleader

We need something to unleash the power on the ASUS Rampage Formula to get our Quads on high FSB. We can't stay behind.


@Swiguy

The reason I'm asking if you can get it MemTest86+ stable at FSB 425-450MHz is because if you can't the board might be slowly dying. Try it and also try it with one memory stick (test them both so you know that it isn't your memory that's faulty).

I didn't get a chance to test my memory at 425-450 via Memtest yet... I'm fairly certain the memory is ok and I'm starting to think my motherboard is starting to die like you mentioned.

I ran my system completely stock last night and ran Prime95... I cam back in the morning roughly 7 hours later to find my system non-responsive.. had to hard reboot. I'm going to check my temps to see if maybe my heatsink needs to be reapplied but I believe my temps were fairly good... around 40 degrees Celsius per core idle stock. I'll post my stock load temps when I get home.

[TheVaLVe]

Try to raise the NB voltage to range 1.61-1.69. Especially if you have the 4 slots RAM occupied. And make sure you have a fan blowing to the heatsink, or even better have it watercooled.

[Swiguy]

It appears I've resolved my stability issues... my new Corsair TX950W power supply was the culprit! I didn't really think this was the issue at first but when I exhausted pretty much every other option I figured it was worth trying a different PSU. I installed a temporary power supply which instantly improved stability... right now I'm running my system @ 3.6ghz at similar settings mentioned in earlier posts.

I'm going to look and see if I can exhange this PSU with the HX series from Corsair since the modular design appeals to me. Anyhow, thanks to everyone who assisted me with this issue!

[leo27]

What would be the max safe NB voltage that you'd use with this board for 24/7 use??

Obviously lower is better but when the new bios comes round i'm going to have a crack at getting 3.5Ghz outta this chip and hopefully run it as my new OC

[OLDcomer]

1.65V is safe enough.

[leo27]

This is a copy of a thread i made on the asus forum

I've just installed win 7 x64 and whilst all the other drivers have worked fine (sound, network etc) the intel inf refuses to install properly.

I have tried version 9.1.1.1025 and 9.1.1.1023 and they both exhibit the same problem. The install says sucess, it even said to restart the computer but the drivers listed in device manager list a driver from 2006 (i have tried the -overall and -overite commands also).

Has anyone got an intel inf that works fine with win 7 x64 and the rampage formula

I'd appreciate it if any one here can help with this also

EDIT: Intel Chipset version 9.1.1.1019 says the computer doesn't meet the minimum requirements