ASUS AMD Beta BIOS Releases

[pershoot]

1102 is great here as well. No problems at all. Not sure what the big issues are?

2 main ones:
wide voltage fluctuations (even with LLC)
HTT drift

[hokiealumnus]

I must not be paying enough attention or something. I have not seen HT waiver other than +/- the typical MHz or two, which happens on every platform I can recall owning. Vcore with LLC on has always been consistent, sticking to a value on idle and boosting up to ~.05V higher under load.

[Leeghoofd]

Almost no HT swing here... 200 set is 200.6 -- 200.7 ( has been far worse before )

Eg I set 1.325 in bios for my daily 3.8GHz OC, 2800NB , LLC,

Vcore :CPU-Z --> 1.308 at idle and 1.32 -1.344 during Linx ( which is normal as the test doesn't load full time, check the load on the cores )
DMM tells me 1.316 idle and 1.33 - 1.342 Vcore under load

CPU NB +/- stays put : 1.25 set --> 1.22 under load
Ht voltage : 1.2 set --> 1.21 under load
Vdimm : 1.65 set --> 1.66 read out

Is that so bad ? Only CnQ setting is greyed out here when we set manual volts...

[LowRun]

2 main ones:
wide voltage fluctuations (even with LLC)
HTT drift

I'm getting crazy voltages fluctuations too. Unacceptable on a mobo that cost as much the C4F.

[NEOAethyr]

On my CH4, my vcore, when cnq and turbo is disabled, fluctuates about 0.02v, maybe slightly higher in certain cercumstances but I don't normally run without those so I don't know that much about it.

My fsb fluctuates, from what everest/aida64 is saying, around 5-6mhz on avg.
But...
When I was checking it out a sec ago in the overclock page in those programs, aida was saying that my 275mhz was hitting up to around 312mhz sometimes, like a spike.

Min was around 268mhz, max was around 312mhz fsb ^^, that's a big f'ing jump...

Cpu, nb, ht and mem speed all fluctuate alot more considering that they are use a multible of the fsb.


This was the 1st time that I've noticed the fsb was actually jumping much higher then what it was supposed to...
I've got spread spectrum enabled too btw, which should be stabilizing it but apperently not.

Everest is saying the same, up to 314mhz, jump from a bios set 275mhz.

Voltage wise, the thing that fluctuates the most is my cpu-nb.
0.04xv fluctuation on that from what everest is saying, I haven't checking with a dmm.

Edit: There's times when I'm in the bios where I just changed my vcore and end up having to up the cpu-nb a notch or 2 to get it to read the same as what it did before I changed the vcore level...
So the fluctuation I'm seeing on the cpu-nb in everest/aida64 is probably real.

One more edit:
I forgot to ask this.
Has anyone else noticed that when you press down on the south bridge's heatsink that it moves down quite a bit?
Feals like few mm.

Oh... one more lol.
Towards the bios value of 1.4v vcore, somewhere around there (using an offset so I can't remember what values).
When I increase it a value at a time or just a few, sometimes my vcore results are lower and not higher like they are supposed to when I reboot.
When I up the value again or so then it finally increases it.

What seems to me is that some of the value's for vcore are not programming the voltage controller correctly...
Might be having the same thing happen to the cpu-nb sometimes when you change the core value for the cpu....
Sounds odd I know...
I've noticed it happen a few times.
I'm not sure if it's a prob with LCC and certain vcore values or what.

[Leeghoofd]

So eg you set 200 and it goes up to 205-206 ? let's see : 20 multi for 4000Mhz, that means fluctuation between 4000 and 4100mhz... how on earth can you get it stable ?

I hope you meant 0.5-0.6Mhz fluctuation... Use the THG tool for clocks check... if the board was really upping HT clocks from 275 to 312, I think ya pc would have crashed...

Like always for the volts do not trust 100% Software, DMM is the only correct way...

[NEOAethyr]

Yep, say I set 200mhz, it would likely go up to 206mhz or so.

Yeah lol, it's no wonder I have probs if it's true..
Now I've never seen it happen inside the bios (cpu clocks are steady there but maybe they aren't being read out in realtime in the bios).


What's THG?

I don't know how to check crystals or clock rates with resitance meters or anything...
I can check my voltages though with my dmm.


It only crashes on random in certain games.
Right now the only games i can get to crash are mafia 2 and the new medal of honor.
I've beat moh twice and had it only crash once so far.
But mafia 2, that's just luck if it doesn't crash in a few hours.

What happens is my vga stops working, and most of the time I can back out using the taskmgr or ctrl-alt-del to get the taskmgr.
Afterwards my vga card is glitched up and it looks like mem corruption on the vga card.
When I got rmlogging enabled on the driver sometimes it'll mention in my logs that the vga core was the cause.

I dn though, that's just what it seems.
Both my vga cards do the same.
My 8600gt and my 240gt.

Thing is though it's not the card's temps because I thaught that was the problem with the 240gt at 1st.
So it's either my psu voltages, or perhaps even this fsb swing... (like I said this is the 1st time I noticed it could really be a prob :\ )

[Leeghoofd]

http://users.telenet.be/OAP/thg_clock.zip

I had a swing with earlier biosses but that was 10-20Mhz in total CPU speed, not 100Mhz... now I get a max variation of 1-3Mhz

[NEOAethyr]

Thanks for a link to that tool .
I'm getting what seems to be a max of 3mhz fluctuation on the fsb with that tool.

But everest says otherwise.
I'm upping a screenshot to show you guys just how bad this looks.

Note, my speed is 275x13(norm), x15 (turbo).
4x, 8x, 12 are my idle states probably, a guess off hand but it's probably correct.

In the screen shot notcie how my 13x goes from 3.575ghz to over 4ghz...

It does this quite offen too, every so many ms's.
Poosibly a bad value result from reading it to quickly ???
In ms, perhaps everest's timer needs to be slowed down a tad to get accurate results?
To be onest though I don't think that is the case, I think it's right.

But then again how could I be stable if such a thing was happening?
Well maybe I just am because it's only for a split ms.
I dn :\.
I don't really like it though.

THG-Clock says I only flutuate by 3mhz.
By why then would my everest benchmarks say otherwise?
Not just the overclock page says I fluctuate more then that, but I've never notice it flutuate "that" much in anything other then the overclock page.

Cpu-z says my cpu speed and ht speed flutuates but my fsb doesn't.
I dont' think it shows the fsb in realtime.
The ht speed seems to fluctuate about 0.8mhz on the ht speed in that program.

Can you guys check everest's/aida64's overclock page and see if your clocks are flutuating that much?


Edit:

CPU bios setting = Offset -0.037500v
Bios readings: 1.230v and 1.237v
DMM readings: 1.28v (0 fluctuation, checked idling in bios)
When turbo kicks in it's probably 1.38v but I dn at the moment.

CPU-NB, bios setting offset + 0.125000v
Bios readings: 1.25v
Dmm readings: 1.30v

Completely not useful...
I would of measured them all and when under load but I don't feal to good.
My whole body feals like jalipinio cheese dip, yuck...
If I haven't ate in a few days I'm not gonna start it off with cheese dip ever again .

This might not be to useful but...
In hwmonitor pro, my readings:

12v: 11.38v - 11.68v (big swing I know, not good, note it's not the correct level)
5v: 4.93v - 5.00v (3-4 steps, ok'sih but not the greatest, looks like it's dipping 2 steps more then I'de like)
3v: 3.39v/3.38v - 3.40v (this barely ever moves, right now I can't get it to budge even under load)

The rest of the value's are useless because they are totally not even at the right levels (bad div's and multi's for each input in hwmonitor).
The 12v isn't at the right level either, everest is better at that but it has no min or max to show you how much it's changing.

The cpu voltage at the moment, no point in taking measurements when I have my vcore able to dynamically change with cnq and turbo.

Hmm, dmm readings while I'm idling here...
Empty hd 4 pin lead,1st conenctor, no ferrite beads.

12v: 12.06v - 12.07v
5v: 5.15v, no change.
3v, 24pin atx: 3.41 - 3.42v (could be off, hard to jam my dmm probe in there).

12v, at the 8/4pin (4pin for me) cpu hookup: 12.01 - 12.02v.

My prefered lv's would be:
12.18v
5.18v (err maybe it was 5.12v that was my prefered spot, I can't remember, I got it written somewhere...)
3.48v

My 5v is ok.
My 3v, ehh, good enough.
My 12v is a bit low though.

But as I type this, I'm betting everest is saying my fsb is flutuating like mad ^^.

[Leeghoofd]

Coz everest is ... ( fill in on the dotted line) There's no FSB on AMD, HT clocks only. Disable the Turbo and see what happens then (I never use that function)

[NEOAethyr]

You were right.
Turbo mode was the prob with my fsb flutuation.
Now it says 275.9mhz all the time.
My ht and cpu clocks still fluctuates, but only by a min amount.

What the heck...
Must be everest.

Shame that aida64 is pretty much the exact same thing but with less stuff :\.
Less on the sensor page anyways.

I love the optional temp sensors on the board, I got them all in use (baught some sensors on ebay when I 1st got the board).
That's what sucks though, only everest and asus's program will show all of the sensor stuff.

I'll brb, I wanna post my one of my settings...
Edit:

Under chipset settings, dram config I think.
The dram channel interlacing setting, instead of auto try the value "Address Bits 12".
It was the fastest value for me.
You might take a small hit in stability with it though.

[mav2000]

Any idea why CnQ is greyed out all the time on the Crosshair IV Formula Bios....come on this is such a basic thing. I love the board overall, but this is really killing me.

[wez]

That's what sucks though, only everest and asus's program will show all of the sensor stuff.

Tried HWMonitor?

[NEOAethyr]

@mav2000
What cpu are you using ???
That's the only reason I can think of...

@wez
Yeah HWMonitor pro is what I use most of the time.
I'm using v1.10 which was the latest the other day...

The voltage level's aren't quite right, especially the 12v.
And the rest of the voltages are just useless.
Fan rpm speeds don't work in it either.
And the optional temp sensors are missing from it.

I gotta use firefox to upload a screenshot to show you..., brb :\
Ok, uped a screenshot showing you the diff between the 2.
I'm gonna install the asus probe it software and show you guys why I can't use it.

Oh btw, I don't have any fans hooked to the bopard that's why everest doesn't show them.
When I do everest works in that respect but hwmonitor doesn't.

Edit:
This is what the asus program does on my system.
It says the bios, cpu, vga, etc etc fails.
Something to do with the performance counters or wmi in windows.

And if it didn't have that prob lol, it's not much in terms of good looks lol.
Clunky looking thing, no offence.

I wish it was programmed a bit diffrently and had a better interface.
I know that's not likely to happen though.

I can use everest's html/registry interface to get my readings in xp and win7's desktop (active desktop or gadget).
Prob is, in win7, the gadget interface takes up 50megs for no reason, and an extra process.
I don't use gadgets right now because of that.

That and everest needs to be running in the bg, which adds on to that.
Not worth using a 100megs for temp's and voltage readings.
:\

Well I got other uses for the active desktop stuff but win7's implimentation of it sucks.

One of those opt temps are the mem sticks heatsink temp, the one stick closest to the cpu.
Another is my pwm heatsink temp and the other my ambient temps.
I dn which one is which at the moment lmao...

Shame everest doesn't have a branch off program only for temps and voltages .
I'de be using that if they did.

I was hoping hwmonitor would update for the ch4 board, with corrected div/mul methods for reading the values on this board, plus the missing stuff.
But so far no go on that one.

I thaught about trying mbm5.
The isa bridge chip is support by that program.
Likely it would only find a few of the things though and not all of it.
But apperently I can't get it to run in win7.

Speedfan.
Well, I can't run that at all anymore.
I haven't been able to run that for I think 2 years now.
It crashes on the cpu usage % reading when it's starting up.

Speedfan and the asus probe software don't run on my system because of the tweaks I did.
Which is my fault...
But that's because of the way they were written, if they were written better then they would run...

If anyone knows of an alternative that shows as much as everest does, I'm willing to try that...

Edit:
Oh CnQ...
@mav2000
Possible that you may need to set the cpu and cpu-nb voltages to auto or offset mode.
CnQ seems to work with a directly set multiplier though, you don't need it set to auto, at least I don't.

Check with cpu-z to see the active pwr state mode (cpu speed).
Hwmonitor helps with it's vcore value and cpu watt usage (should go down to around 60w's on idle).
And tMonitor shows you when turbo mode kicks in and etc.
I use all 3 to see what is going on.

You need the latest amd cpu driver though for it to work 100%.
In win7, min performance lv I have set to 5% (pwr management, advanced).

In xp, well, I reccomend you have it set to always on.
Because when you make a special power config for it (reg or cmd line), it acts up when switching pwr states.
The performance is horrible I mean.

Asus's epu program will make that power profile for you in xp.
You don't need that program get it to work though, just the amd driver.

But it does help make you a power profile if you don't allready have one like it in xp.
Like I said though, I don't reccomend using it.

This is the cause for the performance prob in xp when you try to fully use all of your pwr states:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Throttle]

;"PerfCriticalTimeDelta"=dword:000493e0			;Default, (300000 Dec), 300ms
;"PerfDecreaseAbsoluteModifier"=dword:00000001		;Default, 1%
;"PerfDecreaseMinimumTime"=dword:000249f0		;Default, (150000 Dec), 150ms
;"PerfDecreasePercentModifier"=dword:0000001e		;Default, (30 Dec), 30%
;"PerfDecreaseTimeValue"=dword:00002710			;Default, (10000 Dec), 10ms
;"PerfDegradeThrottleMinCapacity"=dword:00000032	;Default, (50 Dec), 50%

;Disables Throttling A CPU Using Acpi
"PerfEnablePackageIdle"=dword:00000000			;Disabled
;"PerfEnablePackageIdle"=dword:00000001			;Enabled

;"PerfIncreaseAbsoluteModifier"=dword:00000001		;Default, 1%
;"PerfIncreaseMinimumTime"=dword:000249f0		;Default, (150000 Dec), 150ms
;"PerfIncreasePercentModifier"=dword:00000014		;Default, (20 Dec), 20%
;"PerfIncreaseTimeValue"=dword:00002710			;Default, (10000 Dec), 10ms
;"PerfMaxC3Frequency"=dword:00000032			;Default, (50 Dec), 50%
;"PerfTimeDelta"=dword:00000000				;?

Thing is there is allmost 0 info on these settings and trying to adjust without that info, well I've tried a few times.
Been able to force the max performance level but that's about it.
:\

Win7's config for this stuff is totally diff.
It's pretty much adjustable in the cpl and actually works good ^^.

[nex_73]

@mav2000 : It has been answered before in this very thread. Try switch between offset/manual mode

@NEOAethyr : You can't really trust a 3d party monitoring program. But many have come to the conclusion that HWiNFO32 are to prefer.
If you don't like Asus PC Probe II you can always try Asus AI Suite...

[NEOAethyr]

Thanks dude .
The ai suite was pretty lacking, at least the one on the cd was.
But it ran without errors...

Hwinfo32...
At 1st I thaught it might be spyware, but after I went to the config and un-checked auto-update the port it used to open, well it didn't do that anymore.
Hwinfo32 is perfect , close to it anyways .

Heck yeah, cool hehe.
Now I just gotta rename some of those sensors.

In the config I set the main window to minimize on start and to show the sensor page on start, that's how I got it looking like a stand alone program.

Cools...

Oops, forgot to shrink the 1st pic down...

Edit:
Now Madise mentioned something about a 1201 bios?
Anyone hear anything about this or what?
I'm all willing to flash another bios, I'm still using the 0055 beta because it's supposedly newer then the latest release ver...

[nex_73]

Still got nothing for C4F~?! Been waiting for ages and still nothing? Seen 1201 version BIOS leaking...

Care to enlighten us? I just googled my a** off for that one without any luck

[skill123]

Any info about the changes they made on the latest BIOS 1702 for M3A79-T Deluxe ? ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/asus/mb/so...3A79-T_Deluxe/

[stangracin3]

hey bingo i hope everything is ok over there.

[BeepBeep2]

Coz everest is ... ( fill in on the dotted line) There's no FSB on AMD, HT clocks only. Disable the Turbo and see what happens then (I never use that function)

I've got horrible HTT fluctuation on my M4A89TD Pro/USB3...

[NEOAethyr]

@ Everyone that has fsb/ht and other mhz type of fluctuations.

Try disabling turbo mode, and check again.
If it fixed the probs that you wanna post back about that.

If it doesn't, other things I can think of are:
Set multipliers to manual instead of having it/them on auto.
Set voltages to manual.
Disable CnQ.

Disable LLC, and spread spectrum settings.

Those are the only other things I can think of.
It's probably turbo mode though...


My rant below, if you can't read then don't lol :
What gets me is, I'm not sure that we have a real prob.
It could be possible when a program reads a value (voltage or mhz), that if the interval between reads is to quick, the result could be "undefined result" as they say.

The fsb/ht clocks might be baised off some pci reg, mem offset, or msr.
If that were the case then there could be up to say 3 bytes total for the value, one of those may even be a multiplier/dividor value that takes the main value and mutltiplies it by it's value.
Like by 01h which could be, 1mhz, or even 0.016mhz, whatever.
If anyone of those reads back incorrectly then the whole reading is offset by whatever amount.

Or...
It could be much simpler then this ^^.
This is what I bet is happening.

Everest for example, is reading the cpu multiplier, from msr or pci reg (note we have 6 cores... ^^).
And then it takes that known multiplier value and divides it down by the current cpu clock, getting the fsb/ht value.
Ie, 250x10 = 2500, 2500 / 10 = 250mhz fsb...

It's probably using a real time clock msr or apci timer to find the cpu clock to divide with.

Now, here's the issue, we got 6 cores.
It's possible that there's times that it gets the whole algo wrong because it's dividing by a cpu clock that is incorrect, ie turbo mode...

Lets see if I can think of some good examples.
200x10 normal mode, x11 = turbo.
Interval say is speced at 1000ms, but everest is reading it at 100ms (example only).

So...
2000 / 10 = 200
2200 / 11 = 200
2200 / 10 = 220
Everest knows the msr for the cpu mutli is 10x, but the cpu clock still hasn't died down to 2000mhz yet.
So the fsb result is 220mhz, which is incorrect ^^.

In this example it might happen 2 out of 10 times, each of the 2 times is diff.
Say one is like the above example, and the other could be 2000 / 11.

In real life I think it might be 1 out of 4 reading are incorrect, or 1 out of 8 (2 of 8 being incorrect in total possibly).

That is what I think is going on.
That and being that I have 6 cores, getting them all to divide correctly into the fsb using the real time cpu clocks and multipliers, well, it's no wonder this is happening.

At least I think...

This I think explains why most programs don't pick up on it, because there read interval is slow enough not to get messed up.

I believe the cpu pwr state switching interval is around 10ms (guessing).
I doubt you're supposed to read it that fast though.
And it's more then 1 reg that needs to be read out.
Plus the code that does all of this (everest for example), I think there's room in there for the error to happen and the reason why we see all of the clocks that are dependent on the cpu/fsb as varient all messed up sometimes.

To put it simply.
We might not have any prob at all.
The only real prob is the switching speeds and software reading speeds.

I'm gonna check xp/2k3 to see if I see the prob there.
Because thw switching speed in that os for pwr states is likely diffrent from win7, at least a little bit.

[Tonyb]

I only get fluctuations of 0.1Mhz on the bus and the HT with turbo enabled and disabled.

[NEOAethyr]

@Tonyb
Is this in win7, with everest?
No flututation?

I guess I'm gonna check one more thing, disable turbo and set a 15x normal multi, maybe it's just my own system pushing it to far.

Edit:
I was totally wrong.
Fluctuation only happens in turbo mode for me.
Regardless of how far I push my system, I tried setting a normal multi of 15x and disabling turbo mode.
What I got was 275x15, 4125mhz with 0 flutuation in the fsb and little in the ht and mem.

What is odd though, mem and ht speeds do fluctuate without the fsb fluctuating at all.
Though it was very min, 1mhz at best, most of the time it was 0.01mhz diff.
Which is pretty normal for any board really.

Now what in the world is wrong with my turbo mode...
Some people have probs some don't, diff board rev's or something?
And is it turbo mode in it's self to blame for everyone that has the probs?

Then why would turbo act diffrently on 1 board to the next...

I do know one thing, something that struck me as weird.
I was under the impression before I built this system that turbo mode only worked for 5 out of the 6 cores in total at any given time.
While mine can do all 6 cores at once, that's why I use it because it's just an extra power state (abiet config'ed slightly diff then the other pwr states perhaps).
I dn I just think that maybe turbo mode's slight diff in config in relation to the other pwr states is what is causing the prob.

I'm gonna have to work on not using turbo mode for a while and get my system up back to speed ^^.

Sorry if my posts seem like they are full of bs and randomess ^^.

[zoomee]

The HT fluctuations seem common to the asus boards.

I had the M4a89GTD/PRo-USB3 - At first it NEVER used to fluctuate the HT - upon installing the BIOS's from around April onwards they fluctuate roughly 1 - 2 Mhz - Now that may not seem much but times that by 20 and you can see how easily the CPU jumps around from 4013Mhz to 4045Mhz - thats make or break a 4ghz clock.

I decided to give the Crosshair IV a go - thinking that would be better but WAHAY! - That was even worse back in August - tried the standard bios (original one) and the latest one available from here - no joy - But aswell as HT fluctuating (more so than my M4A89) the voltage also used to fluctuate a heck of allot! - This was definately due to turbo - as soon as I switched that off the crosshair IV volts behaved themselves.

In terms of Trying LLC and other settings on manual - NONE of these make a difference. Asus really need to get they're act in gear and sort this out as it can render overclocks unstable with what seems such a minor HT fluctuation (when using high multipliers on CPU)

Anyway - it looks like my M4A89GTD has crapped out on me - Cap busted and in turn caused my PSU to overheat and burn out the connectors - nice one asus! - looks like i'll be seeking compensation from either the PSU manufacturer (XFX) or Asus. I've just bought the crosshair IV (again!) in the hope Asus will sort out they're bios - I've always been an MSI fan - but have given Asus another chance for now.........

Please don't let us down Asus - THIS IS A BIOS ISSUE common to ALL Asus boards- Please address asap -and also decrease boot time for these boards PLEASE!

[Tonyb]

Win 7 using Everest and CPU-Z. Have you tried disabling the Spread Spectrum? it works by modulating frequencies to cut down on EMI.
One method of minimizing the EMI that a device generates is to keep the disturbing signals below a certain level. You accomplish this goal by modulating the disturbing signals
across a wider frequency range, thus spreading the energy across a range of frequencies rather than concentrating it at one frequency. In PCIe systems, the modulation of the
reference clock is spread-spectrum clocking. The PCIe specification uses the down-spread approach when using a 30- to 33-kHz-wave signal as the modulating
frequency to the 100-MHz clock, resulting in a frequency range of 99.5 to 100 MHz.