MARS really is quite a sweet board now bios is mature

[Don_Dan]

How about germany, England, Sweden or Norway ?
If you know speak up XS user

Most Foxconn boards, including the MARS, are available in Germany ( alternate.de for example ).

This board is very nice indeed and looks like it is the way to go if you're sticking with DDR2 for a while... Damn, why am I saving for a notebook?!

[Pej]

Tony

Back to my problem..

Just try an X38 Quad GT with the same system..

WinXP detects 3,25gb of ram..

Back to the "Mars"..same thing Only 2,75Gb are detected..

Definitly don't understand..
Changing the bios makes no difference..

[Cronos]

Pej
Make sure you have Memory Remap disabled then using 32bit OS.

[Tony]

Anything you are using thats pci will use ram, so try disabling everything in bios and see if the ram usage goes down

[seamumc]

I'm running an e8400 @ 4ghz (9 x 450) on a Mars board and it reminds me a lot of my old badaxe in terms of stability and power. Gotta love the active northbridge cooling! Curious though, lowest i can set the tras is 9 where my ram is good for 8 or lower on other boards...

I believe Foxconn manufactured the badaxe for Intel. Does Foxconn make all of Intel's mobo's?

[Daytime Dreamer]

Just got one of these Mars P35 boards myself. I'm thinking on going with 8GB of Ram set to 1000fsb.

Tony, please recommend some of the OCZ Ram that you know for sure that works in a 8gb setup. I'm looking for 500 fsb 1/1 for a stable 24/7 rig

Also whats the best Bios for this board (I havent even booted up my board yet)

[dinos22]

Pej
Make sure you have Memory Remap disabled then using 32bit OS.

enabling is necessary in bios to see RAM past 3GB
no?

[Tony]

Just got one of these Mars P35 boards myself. I'm thinking on going with 8GB of Ram set to 1000fsb.

Tony, please recommend some of the OCZ Ram that you know for sure that works in a 8gb setup. I'm looking for 500 fsb 1/1 for a stable 24/7 rig

Also whats the best Bios for this board (I havent even booted up my board yet)

here is something you should see, only memtest for now V2.0 which is pretty brutal Ram is the 6400Plat quad 8GB kit.

5-5-5-18 DDR800 tRFC38 1.665V
5-5-5-18 DDR833 tRFC38 1.665V
5-5-5-18 DDR886 tRFC40 1.665V
5-5-5-18 DDR933 tRFC42 1.665V
5-5-5-18 DDR966 tRFC45 1.665V
5-5-5-18 DDR1000tRFC52 1.8V
5-5-5-18 DDR1033tRFC52 1.89V
5-5-5-18 DDR1066TRFC54 2.115V (2.14real) some errors

I was testing tRFC Vs voltage with 8GB and hit 1000MHZ with 1.8V, I could do 966 with sub 1.7V.

If you go for Reaper X get 1x4GB kit and get 1x8000 plat 4GB kit so they fit together

[Cronos]

enabling is necessary in bios to see RAM past 3GB
no?

Not BIOS, but OS. And not past 3GB, but some amount of memory located under 4GB address range, which is taken by PCI devices including VGA memory. For example, with 8GB, without remap 64bit OS will see around ~7GB total.

For 64bit OS, remapping should be enabled to see all available memory. For 32bit OS without PAE, remapping should be disabled.

BIOS remaps part of the system memory with addresses under 4GB into higher address range - over 4GB, on the top of memory address range (over 8GB in case 8GB is installed).
32bit OS (without PAE) cannot access addresses over 4GB, so this remapped memory cannot be accessed. It may (and usually) happen that remapped amount is bigger than actually taken by PCI addresses (including VGA memory). In this case, some unnecessary memory lost will occur.

[Daytime Dreamer]

Tony you mean this one?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...atid=8&subcat=

Part number OCZ2P8008GQ

I'll also stick to 5-5-5-18 timmings for 24/7 usage. I dont think there is any point really trying 4-4-4-12 for 24/7 and/or long term stability

1.8 volts at DDR1000 is just awesome!!

Again, what bios are you using on that Mars?

[Cronos]

here is something you should see, only memtest for now V2.0 which is pretty brutal

I wish i could live with just memtest86+ stability, this would make my memory OC so much higher and me so much happier

[Tony]

I already tested in OS with 2V and tighter tRFC, the point of the test was to map out the effects of tRFC VS voltage. Also the new memtest is quite brutal Vs the old one and im confident I will be close in vista with the voltages I saw in memtest.

Overall with me testing as many boards as i do I get a real good feel for whats going to work pretty darn quick, and what won't.

If anything 966 1.665V may not be ok but 933 1.665V will be which is kinda nice.

[Tony]

Tony you mean this one?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...atid=8&subcat=

Part number OCZ2P8008GQ

I'll also stick to 5-5-5-18 timmings for 24/7 usage. I dont think there is any point really trying 4-4-4-12 for 24/7 and/or long term stability

1.8 volts at DDR1000 is just awesome!!

Again, what bios are you using on that Mars?

yes thats the kit I was testing with

bios is latest beta off the QF site

[Daytime Dreamer]

Ok man, thanks a lot! I will be ordering this kit and posting results when I receive it. DDR1000 with the lowest voltage possible is my goal. Timmings are very secondary.

OS will be Windows 2008 Server

Again thanks and do keep us posted on your results. I'll be also checking the OCZ forum as I saw you have a thread dedicated to the Mars there as well

[Cronos]

I already tested in OS with 2V and tighter tRFC, the point of the test was to map out the effects of tRFC VS voltage. Also the new memtest is quite brutal Vs the old one and im confident I will be close in vista with the voltages I saw in memtest.

Not brutal enough. I can easily pass memtest86+ 2.0 at 1000MHz with my G.Skill PC8000, but Linpack errors out even at 980MHz.

And i hope you are talking about many-hours testing in memtest, at least 10 full passes.

What i have found, with this memory you may be getting really seldom Linpack or memtest86+ errors, but to totally get rid of them, you may need
to lower your frequency quite a bit.

[Kasparz]

I believe Foxconn manufactured the badaxe for Intel. Does Foxconn make all of Intel's mobo's?

Foxconn is largest OEM motherboard manufacturer in world, almost all if not all Intel motherboards are made by Foxconn, many notebook motherboards are made by Foxconn, and almost all I/O ports and connectors for motherboards are made by Foxconn. Foxconn makes very few boards with it's own brandname in market. Every piece of hardware would rock with proper R&D engineer work. But it seems that very few big hardware companies have R&D. They just Develop and leaves Research for end users making buggy final boards, bioses etc. As i'm working among end users and manufacturer, i have to do all dirty work and research for hardware compatibility, overclocking, bios support that manufacturer doesn't care about.

[masterpain]

they are available at most of the retailers in germany.
i also own a foxconn p35 mars, i love it.
had two dfi x38 before, totally pos, both died after 2 or 3 hours, altough many people get great results.

[zfactor]

wow really?? what happened with the dfi boards? i just got one and was looking also at the mars or its x38 counterpart i hope i made the right choice...im seeing more and more of bad dfi mobo's the last few weeks around the forums here and elsewhere...

[Pej]

Pej
Make sure you have Memory Remap disabled then using 32bit OS.

Thanks "cronos"..

Where do i find this feature in Windows?

never heard about that.Never have to look after this option with all the other boards..

[intothefantasy]

does anyone using mars for xfire? hows d performance compare with x38 full 16x dual lane? can mars support xfireX?

[@rne]

Thanks "cronos"..

Where do i find this feature in Windows?

I think its in the bios

[HDCHOPPER]

does anyone using mars for xfire? hows d performance compare with x38 full 16x dual lane? can mars support xfireX?

answers to your questions on foxconn- quantumforce forum

[RaKLeZ]

The company has big potential for sure, good they have entered the enthusiasts market...
But their software engineers should really pay more attention to what they do with bioses...
Let me show you what I mean by bios history for P35A/-S mb...

version
P19 - fixed multiplier issue, ok thx for that...
P30 - annoying post message added "Do you want to boot with overclocking settings press Y/N"
P32 - annoying message removed but multplier change feature broken again lol...
P33- fixed multiplier issue... CPU TM Function disappeared...
P34 - fixed CPU TM Function, but mb now doesn`t boot after unpluging power cord from electricity and pluging it again... only reset CMOS jumper helps...
P35 - Fixed Foxconn LOGO doesn't show when power on issue - oh what an important fix! but mb still doesn`t boot, wake up foxconn...

I am just tired writing to their tech support which won`t answer me anyway... I don`t believe they are able to make one good bios for that mb...
I know many people related with foxconn are watching this thread, so could you mention them about this bios circus?

Funny thing is that a guy from polish forum flashed P35A-s budget mb with MARS bios and it works with all the gladiator features... lol... but you need a hardware programmer for that because from what I know there is no software which allows to flash Award bios on AMI. Or am I wrong, do you know any?

[YogiCK]

Foxconn P35A/P35A-S are not bad mainboards, but problems with its BIOSes are very strange.

[Supershanks]

I am just tired writing to their tech support which won`t answer me anyway..

I must have got lucky then I've got an issue here Mars Option Rom
got a reply back this AM try this driver Not really of help with post/bios issue

luck