680i Simplified

[rjw]

With all the problems people are having with these boards, I thought that I would throw up some tips.

maybe these have been covered before, elsdewhere, but it sure helped turn a not so good situation into an easy and rewarding result.

HistorY:

I got an EVGA 680i board to run my E6600 on. I got it up and running after a bit of fiddling, and fsb got up to 1942 / 4 x9, so I was kind of happy, but not overjoyed, seeing as I was coming from a P5B wheere I had no problem getting 562 Mhz out of the buss.

Then the board died, so I went and got another one. This one would only go up to about 465 fsb, so I was not too happy, but I tsted a lot of different combos and wrote down all the fsb speeds that would boot.

Strangely, some of the settings would boot most of the time, but sometimes I it would go into safe mode, when it just wirked fine. Simply saving the bios without making changes, 1 , 2 or maybe 3 times and it would boot. Shut it down completely and back to safe mode...hmmm

Then I got a QX6700 and slapped it in...outside of the oem settings, it would not boot to anything AT ALL

even at ANY of the E6600 settings that ran fine, NO GO.....

fast forwrd to my point....

Here is the deal....

Here is how I st it up as a NO brainer

1 Go into bios and set everything to AUTO. Disable 1394 and everything else that you don't need. Leave all voltages on auto except for maybe vcore and mem.

Boot to the oem fsb and multiplier

2) Reboot and check all the voltages.Set them all manually to what they defaulted to.

Herre is where the fun begins

3) You booted to the oem settings, so now look at the fsb screen

You are set to AUTO , so fsb is 1067

Look at what it says your ram is set to and also look at the timings. Also check to see if they match what your ram specs are, but don't change them just yet.

Example: with my Gskills, fsb was 1067 , mem was 667

4) Write all the timings down

5) Now change FSB MEM Clock to LINK
Change FSB MEM Ratio to AUTO

Start upping FSB QDR Mhz from 1067 in incrments of 5 or 10

The only othe settings that may cause a no boot is Vcore and Mem voltages.

6) Keep rebooting while upping FSB QDR Mhz and posssibly core and mem voltages.

Once you've reached the limit of your cpu, it's time to make soome decisions.

That's a subject for another post, except to say that if you are happy with your current cpu speed, then start playing with the mem timings

You can go into EXPERT mode and try forcing some better timings


NOTE: It seems that the big deal is to try and get high fsb out of these boards. The method I decribed will get you to your top cpu speed, which has to be determined first.

Then by looking at the mem settings, you can determine if more fsb is possible

I advise NOT to go into unlinked mode until you've gone through this part

My results so far?

Currently running 1150 fsb w/ mem at 719...and the mem is GSkills PC-5400 with 3-4-3-8-1T timing all other mem timings on auto

[damnnit]

Highest ive seen qx6700 on these boards is about 330fsb(?), the P5B clocks these chips higher fsb.

[rjw]

My chip gets a higher stable cpu speed on this board

One reason is that even with latest bios, the P5B will NOT allow for over 12 multiplier, wheras the 680i allows up to 15

[JohnMike]

Strangely, some of the settings would boot most of the time, but sometimes I it would go into safe mode, when it just wirked fine. Simply saving the bios without making changes, 1 , 2 or maybe 3 times and it would boot. Shut it down completely and back to safe mode...hmmm

I'm experiencing the same issue, don't understand why?!... My settings are normal and worked pretty well on my P5B-Dlx, just regularly 24/7 setup.

[rjw]

I'm experiencing the same issue, don't understand why?!... My settings are normal and worked pretty well on my P5B-Dlx, just regularly 24/7 setup.

On the P5 mb's we only had the choice of a few ratios. They either worked or didn't, with some grey area as in when it would boot but be unstable.

With this board, running unlinked can lead to some strange ratios that the bios has problems with, especially if your timings are set marginally and even when leaving the mem setting at optimal, sometimes some timings will not be the same as a previous boot.

Thankfully, with the quad core, I can set multiplier to 15 and have the capability to oc well past the cpu's limit, while still in link mode.

I have NEVER been able to get this cpu to run unlinked, but once I found that linked was solid, I didn't try too much.

In linked mode, the ratios are 2:3, 4:5, 1:1 or auto which uses a predetermined ratio that the bios LIKES.

Unlinked worked fine with my E6600's, but not so user friendly with the quad.

I tried lowering the multiplier and rasing the fsb, but benching showed that the lower fsb was faster. Probably some loose timings as the fsb goes up, similar to my P5B.

Also, my cheapo Gskill pc 5400's can run at 713 with 3-3-3-8-20-1T timing, so that isn't too shabby.

my pc8000 corsairs are not welcome on this board At ALL!