**Official** Asrock Z68 Extreme4 thread. Share your experiences, OCs & tech issues!

[Ket]

Calm down guys, gimme a few minutes to gather my head (epic night out ) and I'll get some screenshots of the settings I use.

[noddi]

HAHA I like people of that kind. Do not be faithless.



It was at the begining on BOX cooler.
Now my CPU is running 5GHz @ 1,336V but it easly crunch LinX at only 1.304V



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Oh sorry, i didnt think it could be possible. My mistake. What did you enable/disable in ur UEFI to get that vcore? i can;t seem to get anywhere near it.

[Anusha]

woah that is one lucky chip! or are we not doing it right? i'm trying so hard to get 4.7GHz stable without 1.35V. so far, haven't been successful. but this is a 2600k, so it should be harder to OC than a 2500K anyways, right?

btw, sometimes the PC would freeze when running Prime 95 instead of getting an error or a BSOD. What could be the reason for that?

[Ket]

Nah, about the same. 2600K might even be a little easier because they are binned higher.

[noddi]

Calm down guys, gimme a few minutes to gather my head (epic night out ) and I'll get some screenshots of the settings I use.

^do want! :P oh and ss of what you enabled/disabled in the cpu settings please

[orb]

some success using the default 4.6gig option in the bios booting and running prime smooth for an hour so far temps not going above 63, but vcore jumps from 1.33 to 1.36 during the tests, going to get IBT running today also and try and tweak the bios some more, most likely my chip just needs the vcore i am thinking

[Anusha]

man! which cooler do you have? i'm at 1.368V in CPU-Z running Prime95 and the temps are around 82C!! 20C difference is wicked, or maybe i haven't seated the cooler correctly. hmmm

[orb]

i'm using the notcua NH-d14 with MX 4 paste both fans full speed which is 1300 rpm so still pretty quiet

[Ket]

Heres the screenshots. Ignore vcore I loaded a slightly older profile by mistake instead of the newer one where I'm at 1.33-1.34v.

[Anusha]

i'm using the notcua NH-d14 with MX 4 paste both fans full speed which is 1300 rpm so still pretty quiet

nice. but i didn't think the difference would be this big! of course my ambient temp is kinda high, around 27C, and the case is stuffed up so it is not helping either.

finally i was able to find a NH-D14 here in Japan. It's around $110! yikes!! No thanks.

Heres the screenshots. Ignore vcore I loaded a slightly older profile by mistake instead of the newer one where I'm at 1.33-1.34v.

Why "Additional Turbo Voltage"? does it really do anything?

[Ket]

If additional turbo voltage is left on auto it'll just adjust to what it thinks is needed based on VID values. When running fixed vcore like I am you don't need it doing that, hence setting it manually to the lowest setting.

[radier]

Fixed voltage sux.

[Ket]

Fixed voltage works just fine.

[Anusha]

Got few issues with the board which are not related to overclocking.

1. I cannot go into windows when my iPhone is plugged in. I have enabled legacy support for USB 2.0 in efi, so if I disable it I can go into windows when the phone is plugged in. But then I cannot go into efi because the keyboard (g15 v2) doesn't work at POST. But works in windows. Also efi froze when I plugged in the phone while it was in legacy mode. Quite lame, if u ask me. Or, is there something I can do? I think I cannot shutdown the PC when the phone or a flash drive was connected as well. It repeatedly rebooted, but have to confirm this. Former one is a sure thing.

2. I have my headset plugged into the rear audio ports. I was to plug in the speakers as well. I my old board, with alc889, it let me remap the ports for whatever purpose I needed. I could turn the line in port to the speaker out port. A popup dialogbox would come up when I plug in a device, letting me choose what kind of device that was. While the jacksensing seems to work with alc892 on this board as a balloontip showing a new device plugged in comes up, I cannot choose the type of the device. Of course I can plug it to front audio port. (maybe not a problem with the board)

3. Asked this question before but didn't get an answer. Why doesn't it switch to my hd5870 automatically when I launch Crysis 2? Manually stopping virtu from system tray right click menu works fine. I have added the game to the list of supported games as well. Not a big issue, but it should work as advertised. (again, maybe not a problem with the board)

All drivers are from the opening post + sound from asrock site + virtu from their site.

About overclocking. I am starting from the scratch. Need to get 4.5 stable first. 4.5 @ 1.3V wasn't stable as I got an error after 6 hrs of Prime. All settings identical to ket's except vcore and I need the power saving options. Maybe I need a new cooler as well. I though these chips ran MUCH cooler than my i5 750, but i5 750@3.8GHz@1.25V temps and 2600k@4.5GHz@1.3V are identical. I know the settins are favoring the 2600k but I though I'd get better thermals even then.

Any heatsink recommendations over MUX-120 push/pull w/ 1k RPM fans?

[Ket]

Got few issues with the board which are not related to overclocking.

1. I cannot go into windows when my iPhone is plugged in. I have enabled legacy support for USB 2.0 in efi, so if I disable it I can go into windows when the phone is plugged in. But then I cannot go into efi because the keyboard (g15 v2) doesn't work at POST. But works in windows. Also efi froze when I plugged in the phone while it was in legacy mode. Quite lame, if u ask me. Or, is there something I can do? I think I cannot shutdown the PC when the phone or a flash drive was connected as well. It repeatedly rebooted, but have to confirm this. Former one is a sure thing.

2. I have my headset plugged into the rear audio ports. I was to plug in the speakers as well. I my old board, with alc889, it let me remap the ports for whatever purpose I needed. I could turn the line in port to the speaker out port. A popup dialogbox would come up when I plug in a device, letting me choose what kind of device that was. While the jacksensing seems to work with alc892 on this board as a balloontip showing a new device plugged in comes up, I cannot choose the type of the device. Of course I can plug it to front audio port. (maybe not a problem with the board)

3. Asked this question before but didn't get an answer. Why doesn't it switch to my hd5870 automatically when I launch Crysis 2? Manually stopping virtu from system tray right click menu works fine. I have added the game to the list of supported games as well. Not a big issue, but it should work as advertised. (again, maybe not a problem with the board)

All drivers are from the opening post + sound from asrock site + virtu from their site.

About overclocking. I am starting from the scratch. Need to get 4.5 stable first. 4.5 @ 1.3V wasn't stable as I got an error after 6 hrs of Prime. All settings identical to ket's except vcore and I need the power saving options. Maybe I need a new cooler as well. I though these chips ran MUCH cooler than my i5 750, but i5 750@3.8GHz@1.25V temps and 2600k@4.5GHz@1.3V are identical. I know the settins are favoring the 2600k but I though I'd get better thermals even then.

Any heatsink recommendations over MUX-120 push/pull w/ 1k RPM fans?

1. Enable / Disable Legacy USB so your phone works as it should and switch your keyboard to a USB2/3 port, so it should then work as it should. Basically what I'm saying here is have your phone connected to a USB3 or 2 port, and say if you have the phone connected to a USB3 port, put your keyboard on a USB2 port.
2. Try the latest Realtek generic drivers.
3. Make sure you have the latest Virtu driver. I haven't experienced any problems when the display has been connected to the IGPU when it comes to automatically switching to discrete graphics. I assume you have made sure the discrete graphics are "enabled" in the Virtu CP, and thus available to switch to?

[Anusha]

1. Enable / Disable Legacy USB so your phone works as it should and switch your keyboard to a USB2/3 port, so it should then work as it should. Basically what I'm saying here is have your phone connected to a USB3 or 2 port, and say if you have the phone connected to a USB3 port, put your keyboard on a USB2 port.

ah now i get it. that simple ha? i'll connect the iPhone to a USB3 port then, keeping the KB on the USB2.0. legacy support for USB3.0 is disabled already, so i won't have to do any changes in efi i guess.

2. Try the latest Realtek generic drivers.

OK mate. I was do that when I get back home. That's in another 10hrs, dammit!
ah the version on realtek site is 2.62 while the one on Asrock website is 2.55. hopefully this fixes it.

3. Make sure you have the latest Virtu driver. I haven't experienced any problems when the display has been connected to the IGPU when it comes to automatically switching to discrete graphics. I assume you have made sure the discrete graphics are "enabled" in the Virtu CP, and thus available to switch to?

Wait a second. Which port do I have to plug the monitor cable to? Currently I have it plugged into the video card, not the iGPU. There are two modes of operation, right? d-mode and i-mode? is that mode automatically selected when i choose which port to connect the monitor to?
i guess you don't have Crysis 2 to check if it works fine with for you, ha?
btw, I have to latest virtu drivers from lucid site.

[Ket]

The idea with Virtu is that most stuff you do (web, movies, general desktop stuff) the IGPU does, and for that to happen you need to plug your monitor cable into the port on the mobo. Once thats done simply go into the Virtu CP, make sure your discrete graphics is "enabled" and your set. When a 3D app is detected it should switch to the discrete graphics automatically. I don't have Crysis2, don't even get me started on why I don't own that steaming pile of monkey feasies

Oh, and make sure you have the Etron USB3 v1.1 driver it resolves a LOT of device compatibility issues.

[Anusha]

The idea with Virtu is that most stuff you do (web, movies, general desktop stuff) the IGPU does, and for that to happen you need to plug your monitor cable into the port on the mobo. Once thats done simply go into the Virtu CP, make sure your discrete graphics is "enabled" and your set. When a 3D app is detected it should switch to the discrete graphics automatically. I don't have Crysis2, don't even get me started on why I don't own that steaming pile of monkey feasies

lol. OK OK. you don't have to own it. but that's pretty much the only game I play these days.

as far as i know, having the monitor plugging into the iGPU port will have a slight performance hit rather than when it is connected to the discrete graphics port. isn't this the difference between the d-mode and the i-mode? but the issue is weird. i mean, if it doesn't use the iGPU as i have connected the cable to the discrete port is understandable, but other-way-round is weird? (connected to the discrete port, but used iGPU?) i wonder if it has something to do with me running Sapphire Trixx in the background overclocking purposes. will debug more when i get my overclock stable. first things first. XD

[Ket]

I've had the monitor connected to the discrete graphics as well. IGPU will kick in for tasks its best suited to, if any, depending on what discrete graphics card you have. As far as the 2500k goes and the IGPU it uses, assuming you leave the IGPU part at stock anything with equal to or more than a GTX460 @ 902 / 4300 performance will best the IGPU at more or less everything. If you OC the IGPU though, even a heavily OCd GTX460 will probably fall to the IGPU when it comes to media encoding.

[EzyRyder]

Hi Ket,

I was going to download your Win 7 64 bit driver set but noticed a few anomalies so I hope you can solve those for me

Broadcom BCM57781 LAN Driver v14.6.1.0

On the Asrock website you can download v14.6.4.2. Surely we should use the one from Asrock website?

Marvell SATA3 Driver v1.0.0.1051

Again as above, the version you can find in the asrock website is 1.2.0.1002.

Anyway, thanks for keeping this support thread. It is really useful!

Also, what does the latest BIOS fix in particular – CPU microcode doesn’t mean much to me

Cheers!

p.d - have you heard anything from Asrock regarding the eSata problem?

[Ket]

1. I prefer to use drivers directly from the source. The Marvell and Broadcom drivers were the latest available from the respective manufacturers at the time
2. CPU microcode update is pretty significant by itself, I gained 200MHz for my 2500k
3. Its still being looked into. Try UEFI 1.5 and let me know if your eSATA problem is sorted out or not.

[Anusha]

dammit! 4.5GHz @1.32V failed after 10 hours! arrrghhh!!! could it well be not only related to Vcore? i mean, the temps reach 80C at those settings in the day time. and it can only get worse as the peak of the summer reaches in a month or so.
do you think i should invest on a better cooler? maybe i should try reseating the HSF again.

[Ket]

Uhh... when you consider nothing in the real world will torture the CPU like Prime, IBT, or whatever you use does, 10hrs is stable really. I've seen brand new totally stock systems in the past fail Prime.. so that kinda says it all. Cooling is your choice, but I've used a CoolIT ECO (modded, better fans & TIM) and a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus. Both gave the same temps when running IBT which I'll admit was a bit of a let down. I hadn't excepted the ECO to demolish the 212+ but I had expected it to beat the 212+ by a comfortable 5c or so. If you are looking for a better cooler, you might have some luck with the Corsair H60, but again, Prime/IBT and the like put far more stress on the CPU than any real world application ever will. In reality, continuously running stress programs will hurt your hardware.

[Anusha]

well, my question is, wouldn't temps cause it to fail prime instead of not having enough vcore? more vcore i put to make the chip stable, more heat is generated => the effect of vcore is countered by the temps so making it unstable once again. no?

btw, the latest realtek drivers didn't have that option the old GB mobo had. that's a let down! maybe the AC892 doesn't support unified ports? had no option but to plug the headset to the front audio ports.

however, plugging the phone into the USB3.0 ports AND disabling legacy support on USB3.0 (but keeping it enabled for USB2.0 for the KB) worked fine.

[Ket]

SB chips are odd things, you can pump more and more volts thrugh them and not gain any stability. I'd work on getting a slightly lower OC stable, then try simply turning up the multi. Every chip has its limits. Regards temps, simple logic. Go play any game or run any real world app thats considered demanding and I bet your temps will top out around 65c. Prime / IBT / whatever are designed to absolutely ravage the CPU, effectively showing instability that will only occur in situations you aren't ever going to run into.