ASUS P5W DH - Problems + Fixes Thread

[Mykou]

Nice summary Simon

Might be helpful

[lawrywild]

Nice findings.. I'll look into that when I get some time..

[matt1]

Interesting, something else to try

[GrossmeisterB]

What BIOS is the best overclocking one so far?!?! I'm on 0701, as it came with my board, I'm using an E6400 with 2x1GB Mushkin EM6400 on it!!
I'm at 8x438 right now, vMCH at 1,65 Volts, I think I've hit a wall on the board, so I'm thinking of modding it, but I want to test some other BIOSes first...

[fornowagain]

snip

I haven't seen any wall as such, it goes as high as 420x9 and the chip craps out. And all with manual memory settings from the get go. So maybe different memory handles the standard settings better than others. If you were to try your experiment again you may even be able to narrow it down to a couple of timings.

[simonmaltby]

I haven't seen any wall as such, it goes as high as 420x9 and the chip craps out. And all with manual memory settings from the get go. So maybe different memory handles the standard settings better than others. If you were to try your experiment again you may even be able to narrow it down to a couple of timings.

I've ordered some of the Geil Ultra 4,4,4,12 that is reported to do well... I will see if the settings the bios picks up change with these when they arrive tomorrow.

I agree, it could well be the RAM that makes the difference.

[eva2000]

FSB WALL TESTING RESULTS AND A CONCLUSION

I did some work last night regarding FSB wall on this board....

P5W DH deluxe with Bios 1101
E6700 OEM Step 6 B2
2GB OCZ 6400 Plat 4,5,4,15

Results:
I have been having real issues at 380FSB and Above. I tried out an E6600 and that worked up to 400FSB, but no higher.

Another post of the foum put me onto crystal http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html which lets you change the multi in windows on this board.

So I tried the E6700 at 9x and 8x to see what happened.
The only Bios setting that helped at all was to set the ram to SPD - no voltage changes let me go higher than 379FSB. With SPD on i could do 410FSB before it would go no further. I should point out that SPD sets my ram at 5,6,6,20 - miles out from what it should be.... this got me thinking...

Next I booted with SPD settings and used memset http://rv.page.cegetel.net.perso.cegetel.net/MemSet.zip to see all the ram settings. I took a screen shot and saved the memset settings.

Then I rebooted changing back to manual RAM settings in the bios 4,4,5,15

When in windows I opened memset and changed all the settings apart from 4,4,5,15 to be the same as the screen shot at SPD.

I was then able to go right up to 440FSB before i suffered any issues.

Summary:
1. FSB Wall at 380FSB with manual Ram settings in Bios
2. FSB Wall at 400FSB with SPD ram settings in Bios
3. FSB Wall at 440FSB with manual Ram settings in Bios but changed to match SPD in windows with memset.

Conclusion:
Asus need to provide access to far more RAM settings in the Bios. This might well be the cause of the FSB wall and would explain why different people get the wall at different points... down to when the RAM fails due to its settings.

thank you so much seems your findings seem to apply to my Intel D975XBX Badaxe too! i loosened tRFC and tRD from 35/6 to 40/7 and went from 433fsb max fsb to now benching at 440fsb on 1067fsb strap (will try higher later )



Maybe all motherboard manufacturers need to do is open their bioses to the other memory timing options that memset has available so we can further fine tune how high the fsb can go ?

[lawrywild]

interesting...

A shame however that my cpu craps out before I hit over 400fsb

[xgman]

FSB WALL TESTING RESULTS AND A CONCLUSION

I did some work last night regarding FSB wall on this board....

P5W DH deluxe with Bios 1101
E6700 OEM Step 6 B2
2GB OCZ 6400 Plat 4,5,4,15

Results:
I have been having real issues at 380FSB and Above. I tried out an E6600 and that worked up to 400FSB, but no higher.

Another post of the foum put me onto crystal http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html which lets you change the multi in windows on this board.

So I tried the E6700 at 9x and 8x to see what happened.
The only Bios setting that helped at all was to set the ram to SPD - no voltage changes let me go higher than 379FSB. With SPD on i could do 410FSB before it would go no further. I should point out that SPD sets my ram at 5,6,6,20 - miles out from what it should be.... this got me thinking...

Next I booted with SPD settings and used memset http://rv.page.cegetel.net.perso.cegetel.net/MemSet.zip to see all the ram settings. I took a screen shot and saved the memset settings.

Then I rebooted changing back to manual RAM settings in the bios 4,4,5,15

When in windows I opened memset and changed all the settings apart from 4,4,5,15 to be the same as the screen shot at SPD.

I was then able to go right up to 440FSB before i suffered any issues.

Summary:
1. FSB Wall at 380FSB with manual Ram settings in Bios
2. FSB Wall at 400FSB with SPD ram settings in Bios
3. FSB Wall at 440FSB with manual Ram settings in Bios but changed to match SPD in windows with memset.

Conclusion:
Asus need to provide access to far more RAM settings in the Bios. This might well be the cause of the FSB wall and would explain why different people get the wall at different points... down to when the RAM fails due to its settings.

Good summary. i would be very interested to know if the couple of asus "Engineering Sample" boards that are floating around that allow higher Vmch up to 1.85v would exhibit this same pattern or would the vigher chipset voltage counteract this? Maybe someone who has don a hardwrae vMCH pencil mod could repeat this test.

[xgman]

I did some characterization of FSB vs Vcore with all other factors being equal.

I started with FSB = 330 and went to 380 and gradually brought up Vcore until the point that my system went from unstable to stable. I plotted this and determined the slope of the curve.

I found that for every 4 mV Vcore increase you could get about 1 Mhz increase in stable FSB speed. In other words 330 FSB was the best I could do at 1.3 Vcore. However at 1.5 Vcore I could get to 380 FSB and remain stable. The Vcore vs FSB curve was almost a straight line. Although I didn't try it, it looks like approx. 1.6 Vcore would be required to get to 400 FSB.

I suspect that the slope is the same for most E6600's but obviously the starting points could be shifted depending on the specific device.



For my system I settled on a conservative 366 FSB = 3.3 Ghz at 1.475. I'm affraid to go >1.5 Vcore.

E6600
P5W DH
PCI=33
PCIE = 101
MCH, ICH, Mem = Auto
HP3 disabled

the problem with vcore increases is that temps scale considerably higher as well with even slight vcore increase steps.

[xgman]

Reading through the thread is evidence enough, most of these are just silly non-MB related issues to do with user inexperience/ineptitude, and most of those that aren't have been answered multiple times.

If anything, this thread shows that there are only a couple of _real_ issues with the board and has made me more confident to get one

Yes, I think most of this is "platform" related limitations and not bugs at all.

[lawrywild]

so far so good

1.5v real

[Durzel]

Nice one

I'm SP2004'ing at 3.7Ghz (370x10) at 1.4750v at the moment. Previously done an 18 hour run at 3.6Ghz (360x10) at 1.4250v, and a 3.4Ghz run at 1.3250v before that...

Getting a bit worried now because it looks like I'm gonna run out of sensible 24/7 voltage before I get to 4Ghz. Anyone know if sticking it under a single stage modded Vapo LS give me more stability at the same volts? I haven't changed any of the other settings yet, only vCore (and the obvious stuff like disabling Hyperpath 3, etc). At what point will I need to change vMCH, vFSB, ICH etc voltages from "Auto" ?

CPU showing ~60 degrees C loaded at the moment in PC Probe, I daren't look to see what it's showing in Coretemp.

[lawrywild]

Nice one

I'm SP2004'ing at 3.7Ghz (370x10) at 1.4750v at the moment. Previously done an 18 hour run at 3.6Ghz (360x10) at 1.4250v, and a 3.4Ghz run at 1.3250v before that...

Getting a bit worried now because it looks like I'm gonna run out of sensible 24/7 voltage before I get to 4Ghz. Anyone know if sticking it under a single stage modded Vapo LS give me more stability at the same volts? I haven't changed any of the other settings yet, only vCore (and the obvious stuff like disabling Hyperpath 3, etc). At what point will I need to change vMCH, vFSB, ICH etc voltages from "Auto" ?

CPU showing ~60 degrees C loaded at the moment in PC Probe, I daren't look to see what it's showing in Coretemp.

ofcourse it will, lower temps are (almost) always better

nice clocks.. wish mine did 3.6+

[famich]

BINGO, Simon !

I had the same problem with G SKILL HZ DDR 2G for my 939 setup-
I ve printed some of the settings from other ppl, wham ! , no boot , so I
did basically the same -SPD settings and A64tweaker in the XP .

It s the proof that DFI MB do not have all those mem settings in BIOS in vain

[Durzel]

ofcourse it will, lower temps are (almost) always better

nice clocks.. wish mine did 3.6+

Well, it crapped out a few moments ago in SP2004 - only did 30 mins so I guess 3.7Ghz/1.4750v isn't stable. Hopefully 1.4875v or whatever the next highest one up will do the job.

I'm sure you'll get further with your chip lawry, fingers crossed for you

Mines an ES so I'd be disappointed if I didn't get 3.6Ghz to be honest!

[Durzel]

FSB WALL TESTING RESULTS AND A CONCLUSION

I did some work last night regarding FSB wall on this board....

P5W DH deluxe with Bios 1101
E6700 OEM Step 6 B2
2GB OCZ 6400 Plat 4,5,4,15

Results:
I have been having real issues at 380FSB and Above. I tried out an E6600 and that worked up to 400FSB, but no higher.

Another post of the foum put me onto crystal http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html which lets you change the multi in windows on this board.

So I tried the E6700 at 9x and 8x to see what happened.
The only Bios setting that helped at all was to set the ram to SPD - no voltage changes let me go higher than 379FSB. With SPD on i could do 410FSB before it would go no further. I should point out that SPD sets my ram at 5,6,6,20 - miles out from what it should be.... this got me thinking...

Next I booted with SPD settings and used memset http://rv.page.cegetel.net.perso.cegetel.net/MemSet.zip to see all the ram settings. I took a screen shot and saved the memset settings.

Then I rebooted changing back to manual RAM settings in the bios 4,4,5,15

When in windows I opened memset and changed all the settings apart from 4,4,5,15 to be the same as the screen shot at SPD.

I was then able to go right up to 440FSB before i suffered any issues.

Summary:
1. FSB Wall at 380FSB with manual Ram settings in Bios
2. FSB Wall at 400FSB with SPD ram settings in Bios
3. FSB Wall at 440FSB with manual Ram settings in Bios but changed to match SPD in windows with memset.

Conclusion:
Asus need to provide access to far more RAM settings in the Bios. This might well be the cause of the FSB wall and would explain why different people get the wall at different points... down to when the RAM fails due to its settings.

Great post Simon

The question is now I guess - will Asus (or someone who is able to mod it) provide a BIOS with these memory options available, or is there some way to set them automatically when Windows boots? (I've never used memset before so there might even be a way to do that now)

[lawrywild]

dam..

I just passed 2 hours.. didn't get any errors but evrything just shutdown

[simonmaltby]

Great post Simon

The question is now I guess - will Asus (or someone who is able to mod it) provide a BIOS with these memory options available, or is there some way to set them automatically when Windows boots? (I've never used memset before so there might even be a way to do that now)

They have to be in the Bios otherwise if you suffer you cant even get the board to post. memset can be set to make the changes at logon... but will not change the CAS from 5 to 4 without crashing first.

Also my method of changing the settings in windows proves that the SPD settings are all over the place and therefore its hit and miss if you get a clean post at all.

[hot_fifty]

dam..

I just passed 2 hours.. didn't get any errors but evrything just shutdown

maybe a bad PSU

[lawrywild]

maybe a bad PSU

psu is fine, it's not new, it's been running my x2 rig which drew more power than this

[MrJamela]

FSB WALL TESTING RESULTS AND A CONCLUSION

I did some work last night regarding FSB wall on this board....

Nicely done.

[fornowagain]

It s the proof that DFI MB do not have all those mem settings in BIOS in vain

Yeah I had the Ultra-D, it really can be one settings that makes all the difference. Anyone got the DFI Infinity 975X? What that got for mem settings?

Anyway, here's my sub timings untouched on the HZ, these go well over 400 without SPD. Any major difference?

[Plaicd]

Yeah I had the Ultra-D, it really can be one settings that makes all the difference. Anyone got the DFI Infinity 975X? What that got for mem settings?

Anyway, here's my sub timings untouched on the HZ, these go well over 400 without SPD. Any major difference?

Does changing the normal-turbo bios setting change any of those mem timings?

[fornowagain]

Does changing the normal-turbo bios setting change any of those mem timings?

Last time I'd tried turbo it locked out my vcore to auto. The only way I could get it off once on, was to load defaults, 903 bios btw. 1101 crashes on mine.