flashing a AsRock 890GX Extreme3 BIOS on a 880G Extreme3 motherboard

[biohead]

Why do you have 1.35v on NB voltage (actually it's CPU-NB)? Default is 1.1v, and your NB is at 2ghz (default)

NB is 2800 ...

[arroyo]

@biohead
What is your max stable overclock on this mobo and what voltage settings did you set?

I'm starting my adventure with 1055t and I would be glad for any advice. I would like to get 4 GHz at 1.4V, but I was afraid when I saw stock voltage just a one notch under 1.4V. So it's not a bad batch of CPU. I've heard that stock voltage can vary from one mobo to another. Is it true?

[biohead]

don't know about the stock voltage thing but i don't think it's indicative of anything really. in regards to overclocking i can't help you. you need to find out for yourself, because that's how it works. each chip is different and plays differently with the memory you're running.

so you just go the usual route. clock each component individually (HT+NB, CPU, RAM) and then try to combine them with max CPU freq as the highest priority. but keep in mind that the NB will clock higher with rams and cpu kept low, since there's less stress and lower temps than when they're all combined. also keep in mind to match the HT and NB clocks, it makes a huge difference in latency.

as for me, i've been running my chip at 3.5 ghz on 1.325v bios (1.368v cpuz load). from the thuban charts i've seen my stepping doing 4ghz and 3ghz NB clocks but no such luck for me. i've been running a quick-and-dirty mount, but the mugen2 mounting system is keeping me from redoing it more carefully with some better MX-2 (vs ceramique now), it's too much hassle. My NB needs 1.4-1.5v volts to go beyond 2600mhz which generates a lot of heat when combined with high CPU clocks. so i found myself a safe spot at 3.5ghz, 250*14*10*10. not very extreme, but i don't need the speed. thing's fast as it is, and i'm very happy with how stable it is now (coming from a 2.8 ghz 939 opty!). in other words, i haven't pushed my system beyond some 3.6ghz since it became unstable due to temps. i'd like to add that i've been using K10stat from the beginning to have my idle clocks (P3 state) at 3000mhz 1.25v (1.256v real) and load (P0) 3500mhz 1.3250v (1.368 real) and it works like a charm.

[MaliMomak]

NB is 2800 ...

uhhh...my bad.. my bad vision and my habbit not to wear glasses leads to things like this

[arroyo]

I found the cure for OVERCLOCKING 1055T on 880G@890GX. There is no NB voltage! OC Tuner is a LIE!

In bios there is something called mGPU voltage. Since GPU is the same chip as NB and it's stock voltage is 1.4V ... I've bumped this voltage to 1.5V and overclock improved a lot!
Still testing but this may be a clue for all bad 1055T ocing on this mobo.

[biohead]

I found the cure for OVERCLOCKING 1055T on 880G@890GX. There is no NB voltage! OC Tuner is a LIE!

In bios there is something called mGPU voltage. Since GPU is the same chip as NB and it's stock voltage is 1.4V ... I've bumped this voltage to 1.5V and overclock improved a lot!
Still testing but this may be a clue for all bad 1055T ocing on this mobo.

hmm good catch. what kind of improvement are we talking about? we need hard numbers

[arroyo]

Patience my friends... I am at work now, but I cannot wait to push my mobo to the limits. I've could not get my A-Data to work at 1600MHz. They were stable only at ~1500. Now they seem to be stable at 1600 (1h prime-blend). Also it looks I can push my CPU to more than 3500MHz without BSOD. But after that... CPU temperature shuts my computer off.
@biohead
What is your CPU temperature when you are overclocking your 1055T. I've read that you have made 3.5GHz. My temp (55-57 degree) looks to be a bit high for Thermalright 120 Ultra.

---- EDIT ----
With 1.5V at mGPU I can drop my CPU voltage to 1,375V and CPU-NB to 1,275V and bump RAM to 1666 MHz and It's all sable with CPU at 3500MHz. mGPU voltage works!!! Try yourself guys!!!

[biohead]

i'll give it a shot as well. however i recommend that you try those settings one last time without the mGPU bump. we need this 100% confirmed

my temps at 3500mhz / 1.325v are around 50°C. depends highly on room temp though, now it's nice and warm since i turned on the stove so i won't freeze to death in wintertime. also turning the fans up to full rpm shaves off ~2°C but i like it nice and quiet.

will keep you posted on trying to reproduce this behaviour.

[arroyo]

Confirmed ... without mGPU voltage bump it is impossible to get CPU stable at 3500MHz and MEM at more than 1600MHz.

Let's summary:
- there is no NB voltage for 880G and 890GX because there is no NB! (OC Tuner is a lie)
- IGP works as NB so mGPU voltage is NB voltage
- there is no difference in OC capabilities if you bump NB voltage via OC tuner (OC Tuner is a lie)
- there is a big difference in OC capabilities with mGPU bumped a bit.

[MaliMomak]

Confirmed ... without mGPU voltage bump it is impossible to get CPU stable at 3500MHz and MEM at more than 1600MHz.

Let's summary:
- there is no NB voltage for 880G and 890GX because there is no NB! (OC Tuner is a lie)
- IGP works as NB so mGPU voltage is NB voltage
- there is no difference in OC capabilities if you bump NB voltage via OC tuner (OC Tuner is a lie)
- there is a big difference in OC capabilities with mGPU bumped a bit.

Yes, i think someone said earlier that NB voltage in 880G@890GX is actually CPU-NB voltage, and that 890GX Extreme4 is first board that give CPU-NB and NB voltage..
Just one question.. You have 880G board.. Do you have 880G BIOS on it, or you flashed it with 890GX E3 BIOS?? If so, which version?

[arroyo]

I've had both of them. 880G and 890GX is the same board with different IGP (you may call it NB if you want)

Now I'm using 880G flashed to 890GX. There was a little problem with this crossflashing. Nobody here said that there is a problem with GUID for firewire. It's changing after flash, so if you crossflash and use firewire, it's not working.
There is workaround for this problem. Use this tool to fix it:
http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/index...c,13437.0.html

[biohead]

about OC tuner... maybe you're using an outdated version but with me it clearly says "NB voltage" which reads the vCPU-NB i set in bios, and "mGPU voltage" which reads 1.146 V since i left that on Auto in BIOS. Now, you're saying you bumped mGPU from 1.4 to 1.5 V, but couldn't it be that the default value is 1.15 V ? perhaps you're overvolting this thing too much right now, and perhaps setting 1.3 V for mGPU in BIOS should do the trick as well?

[biohead]

Also, are you using the onboard graphics chip or not?

[arroyo]

about OC tuner... maybe you're using an outdated version but with me it clearly says "NB voltage" which reads the vCPU-NB i set in bios, and "mGPU voltage" which reads 1.146 V since i left that on Auto in BIOS. Now, you're saying you bumped mGPU from 1.4 to 1.5 V, but couldn't it be that the default value is 1.15 V ? perhaps you're overvolting this thing too much right now, and perhaps setting 1.3 V for mGPU in BIOS should do the trick as well?

1. I've used latest version of OC Tuner (OC Tuner ver:2.3.76)
2. NB Voltage at 1,15 is for chipsets without IGP. There is no difference if you bump this voltage in OC Tuner (for 880G and 890GX). Any other monitoring software cannot read this voltage (because this voltage doesn't exist). It's like dummy voltage.
2. Default voltage for HD4250 and HD4290 is around 1.35-1.4V (depending of mobo producer)
3. If you undervolt mGPU to 1.3V or less system may be unstable.
4. I'm using HD4850 as my primary GPU, but results are the same even on IGP only.

Just try to overclock not using OC Tuner. This tool sucks! Try bump mGPU voltage by one or two notches and try yourself.

On 890GX and 880G and on all other AMD northbridges with integrated IGP there is no NB voltage! There is only IGP or mGPU or "whatever you call this voltage" setting. AMD overdrive read all possible voltages to set. On Asrock 890GX you can see that there is no such thing as NB voltage. OC Tuner think there is NB voltage, but it's dummy setting. I don't know how Asrock engineers work, but they have made more silly bugs (like calling "CPU-NB voltage" just "NB Voltage").

Even if you buy Asrock 890FX Deluxe3 (without IGP) in bios you still have mGPU voltage and it's set at 1,2V. WTF? Proof?
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-89...w-31909-3.html
"The ASRock OC Tweaker menu provides convenient access to frequency and ratio controls, along with a few automatic overclocking modes that experienced users will likely avoid. Likely a carryover from its 890GX boards, 890FX core voltage is confusingly labeled “mGPU Voltage.” "

[MaliMomak]

Are you 100% sure that 880g/890gx (actually, how you say boards with IGP) have mGPU voltage above ~1.3v.. I ask you this because OC Tuner and AMD overdirve say that my mGPU voltage is 1.15V (on auto setting)..

[arroyo]

Guys... come on... Where on earth Overdrive shows 1,15V on mGPU?

Here you have a screenshot with mGPU voltage set in bios to "Auto":


With 1,4V on mGPU these settings are unstable. With 1,5V they are rock solid!

[biohead]

could it be because your IGP itself isn't disabled (and it's overclocked)? i don't think overdrive should be showing IGP clocks etc if you have it disabled, i.e. primary graphics adapter "pcie" and internal graphics mode "uma". check device manager whether or not the IGP shows up next to your normal graphics card.

i don't doubt that it's working for you and that's great. but i'm not convinced that it's the answer to everything, since it all seems kind of circumstantial. besides, it isn't even working for me.

[oneb1t]

pls can someone post guide for this because i tried it and my second PCI-E is not working with 890gx bios on 880g motherboard :-(

(i need it for my 6850 crossfire)

[Dr. Gonzo]

pls can someone post guide for this because i tried it and my second PCI-E is not working with 890gx bios on 880g motherboard :-(

(i need it for my 6850 crossfire)

Have you solved your issue with the 2nd PCIe?
I also own an 880G extreme3 and thinking of flashing it in 890GX.
I have my GPU on the 2nd PCIe as well, due to space-limitation in my water-cooled system.
Anyone else has this issue?

[oneb1t]

no its still not working (white slot is working so we can use 16x/4x configuration) but no luck for 8x/8x in blue slots :-(

starts to work again after downflashing to 880g (now im at 1.71L :-P)

i flashed with official update from asrock page u only need to run it with /x to ignore motherboard ID

[oneb1t]

can someone with bios modifying skills compare 890GX and 880G bios files and find how to repair pci-e slots please ;-)
i looked on pci-e with mmtool and i dont know what to do to make it works

[arroyo]

@oneb1t
I have already tried to modify 890GX 2.51 BIOS without any positive results. I was transplanting modules from 880G 1.71. Also my experiments with AGESA transplantation from Asus Crosshair 4 to Asrock 880G Extreme 3 failed badly.

Where did you get 880 1.71L version? The latest one I have found is 1.71. Can you share this bios with others?

[oneb1t]

i think this is it
http://www.pctreiber.net/bios-file/88
its called L1.71B

im not crazy enough to test my modifications because there is no recovery method for asrock boards (u need new bios chip or chip flasher etc..)

[Davey]

Hello Arroyo,

As you can see in my capture, I'm running a 1055T at ~3800 on a 890GX (2.42B) at 1.15V for mGPU. mGPU voltage defaults to 1.15 with onboard GPU enabled and disabled. Do you think my overclock would improve if I tried 1.4V ?
It isn't shown on capture, but NB is running at 271x10 = 2710Mhz. CPU-NB volt is set at 1.2375V.
With bios 2.50/2.51 NB is only stable at 271x9, up to 1.3V on mGPU setting, didn't try anything higher I think.

http://i53.tinypic.com/2iqxyq1.jpg

[arroyo]

@Davey
Your clocks are great. I didn't tested 2.42B as I should. Those settings (PSI_A, PSI_EN, OVP, Droop Adjust, VCore Offset) freaks me out. How did you set them?
Anyway... on regular 880G Extreme3 bios 1.71 and 890GX 2.51 setting mGPU to 1.3V (even 1.4V) helps a bit with high bus>250. It is safe up to 1.5V since with enabled IGP this voltage is set to 1.4V. I did not managed to get real stable clocks above 3500MHz (VCPU=1.35V;CPUNB=1.275V;mGPU=1.25V;NB=2500;HT=200 0) and I do not know what could be the fault.

One question: You have GSkill F3-12800CL7D-4GBECO. Those memory is rated 1.35V and you have them at 1.6V. Why? I am asking because I changed my Adata Plus (they were really bad ones) to Gskill Ripjaws X 2x4GB 1600 cl9. They do not want to start on white slots and still cannot make anything over stock on them.


One MOAR THING:
ASRock released BETA BIOS with Bulldozera support for older AM3 boards:

• 890FX Deluxe4
• 770 Extreme3
• 770iCafe
• 770DE3L

Maybe they are preparing 880G or 890GX Extreme 3 Bulldozer Support also.