ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA

[Hidari]

Hi all,

It's nice to be here and I have some questions.

I found that I am getting blue screen on this motherboard quite often, especially when I am putting my hard disks under stress.
The messages are mostly DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, with PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA and BUGCODE_USB_DRIVERS occur occassionally.

At first they occur quite frequently, and there are some drivers' name that I can refer to.
And I have identified that Kaspersky Anti-Virus, McAfee Anti-Virus Enterprise, D-Link DWL-G132 and Winfast 7600GT AGP are causes of these blue screens.

For the first 3, I have no idea about them even with updated drivers or solutions on the net, so I removed them. While for 7600GT I updated the drivers and the issue seems to be resolved.

And then I start to see blue screen without references to driver names but only codes.
I tested that when I run tests based on CPU / RAM / Video card only, I would have no problem, but they will come when I do heavy-multitasking or system stability test or hard disk tests.
I was suspecting that it is something related to RAM or Hard Disk but I am not sure.

By the way, my configuration:
Asrock 4coredual-vsta (bios 1.80 / 1.80c - doesn't have any differences on this issue)
Intel Pentium E2160 @ 267 x 9
Corsair TWINX20483200C2 2 x 1GB DDR400 @ 2-3-3-6-1T
2 x Hitachi 250GB PATA133
1 x Hitachi 250GB SATA
1 x Hitachi 160GB PATA100 (on sata channel using a converter, but I am not only pushing this hard disk so this should not be the problem)
Leadtek Winfast 7600GT 256MB AGP
Creative SB Audigy Platinum
Compro X800 TV Tuner
Intel V.92 modem
2 x BenQ DW1670
Enermax Liberty 650W

BIOS setting are mostly default except the cpu overclocking, ram timings, PCI delayed transaction enabled, SMART enabled, PCI Latency Timer to 64, serial port / parallel port / game port / onboard lan / onboard sound etc. disabled.

And although there are blue screens I cannot found any errors after running hours of memtest86 or windows memory diagnostics. There are no bad sectors or smart errors on anything else for the hard disks.

I was wondering if it is the ide controller having problems, or 32-bit data transfer, or what.

By the way, I am using all with the most updated drivers with clean install.

Another question related to the modded bios 1.80c.
Intel's technologies (EIST, thermal throttling, c1e) are good but as this motherboard is not supposed to have these features enabled I really doubt that if this board can stand on jumping vcores so frequently (1.15v <-> 1.3v), asrock's capacitors or other electric components are not that good...

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Space Marine]

"Another question related to the modded bios 1.80c.
Intel's technologies (EIST, thermal throttling, c1e) are good but as this motherboard is not supposed to have these features enabled I really doubt that if this board can stand on jumping vcores so frequently (1.15v <-> 1.3v), asrock's capacitors or other electric components are not that good..."

Holy sh*t u now scared me to death - what do you mean this board is not supposed to have these features??? I think this bios is an "official" beta - lab release - or am i wrong?
Also none of the previous truly official bioses had any of these features???
And again (using 1.80c) i've noted that intel speedstep is ALWAYS on even if you disabled it on bios. Also in bios the intel virtualization option is gray and stuck on enabled! Am i alone on this too? Even the spread spectrum disabled still works... PLz can anybody suggest a proper bios version to use? I care most for cpu quiet fan working properly and speedstep if may be the case imho 1.80 beta or not sucks bigtime but i need a reason too to backflash to older versions.

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: Space Marine
Holy sh*t u now scared me to death - what do you mean this board is not supposed to have these features??? I think this bios is an "official" beta - lab release - or am i wrong?
Also none of the previous truly official bioses had any of these features???
And again (using 1.80c) i've noted that intel speedstep is ALWAYS on even if you disabled it on bios. Also in bios the intel virtualization option is gray and stuck on enabled! Am i alone on this too? Even the spread spectrum disabled still works... PLz can anybody suggest a proper bios version to use? I care most for cpu quiet fan working properly and speedstep if may be the case imho 1.80 beta or not sucks bigtime but i need a reason too to backflash to older versions.

Sorry I don't know much about that -_-" I haven't read through this whole thread, I just thought that the modded bios was done by some experts...

Um... none of the official bios have these features - I mean speedstep, thermal throttling and C1E - isn't this true? According to my knowledge they are not present because via (or asrock?) had not bought the rights to use these intel technologies in their chipset (sth like that, correct me if I am wrong). These functions are not mentioned in this board's manual as well... But the manual did mention VT though, I don't know if this is always enabled. I am just using E2160...

Yes I understand that. Before using 1.80c (i.e. when using official 1.80) my cpu fan is running at 23xxrpm min. and 35xxrpm max. However after using this 1.80c bios it seems that the fan is always running at only 10xxrpm - even though I set the quiet fan at 45 degrees and sometimes the "cpu" goes up to more than 45 with "core#1" & "core#2" going 52+. (the readings are from everest - I don't know if they are accurate because the readings between everest and bios seem different) For idle times the 3 readings are about "32" "42" "42" respectively.

 

[timzak]

The 1.80c bios is a user-modded bios. The website it's on is in German, so I am guessing they are techy German enthusiasts, with no ties to Asrock. I believe the 775dual-VSTA's first few bioses had these options enabled. Then Asrock disabled them for all future updates and the 4coredual-VSTA never had these items enabled (this mobo was released shortly after the first 775-dualVSTA bios that had these options disabled).

Space Marine, when I turn Speedstep off, it turns OFF in the operating system. In Ubuntu, it works fine (except it undoes my cpu overclock when enabled). In Win2k it doesn't work at all (I think it's an OS issue). I don't have XP or Vista to try it in, but it least it works in a Linux-based OS. As for quiet fan, when I enable it my fan runs around 1100 rpm (stock Intel HSF). If I run Orthos or some other cpu-heating program, it'll kick in and bump the rpms up to about 2600 rpm. What's funny is if I disable quiet fan, my fan runs at a constant 2400 rpm (200rpm slower than when it ramps up to full speed with quiet fan enabled).

 

[Hidari]

Hi timzak,

It seems that you are using the same RAM as me. I was wondering if this board can run at 1T command with stability? Seems that this board can only use 2T command when it was first released. I don't know after then. I guess my RAMs are not faulty... I was using 2-3-3-6 1T DDR400 for my previous Athlon XP system without problems.

And for win2k there's a patch for speedstep to run as I remember, you can search for it. I just tested the quiet fan function that, when using 1.80c bios and it is enabled, the fan constantly runs at 10xx rpm, when disabled it runs at 23xx rpm. I haven't tested it to see if it will go up when temperature goes up though. For the 1.80 bios however, it runs at 23xx rpm minimum, up to 35xx rpm. So I just wonder if the function offered by the official bios is really quiet fan, or if it is the 1.80c bios which pushed the fan too low...

And according to intel, EIST can adjust not only the multiplier but the fsb as well. I haven't seen this so far but I wonder if this board can support jumping the fsb or if it will cause problems. My question applies to thermal throttling as well - so when I look at the specs at first time, I guess it will be safest to enable only the C1E (enhanced halt state) as this will only send halt signals and adjust multiplier. (However I still worry that jumping voltages so frequently would make the board suffer - given the capacitors and other electric components asrock use.)

Any comments?

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Hidari
Hi timzak,

It seems that you are using the same RAM as me. I was wondering if this board can run at 1T command with stability? Seems that this board can only use 2T command when it was first released. I don't know after then. I guess my RAMs are not faulty... I was using 2-3-3-6 1T DDR400 for my previous Athlon XP system without problems.

And for win2k there's a patch for speedstep to run as I remember, you can search for it. I just tested the quiet fan function that, when using 1.80c bios and it is enabled, the fan constantly runs at 10xx rpm, when disabled it runs at 23xx rpm. I haven't tested it to see if it will go up when temperature goes up though. For the 1.80 bios however, it runs at 23xx rpm minimum, up to 35xx rpm. So I just wonder if the function offered by the official bios is really quiet fan, or if it is the 1.80c bios which pushed the fan too low...

And according to intel, EIST can adjust not only the multiplier but the fsb as well. I haven't seen this so far but I wonder if this board can support jumping the fsb or if it will cause problems. My question applies to thermal throttling as well - so when I look at the specs at first time, I guess it will be safest to enable only the C1E (enhanced halt state) as this will only send halt signals and adjust multiplier. <(However I still worry that jumping voltages so frequently would make the board suffer - given the capacitors and other electric components asrock use.)
Any comments?

I have not heard of any failing capacitors of mosfets with these Dual series boards yet.
I still have my 775Dual-VSTA board CPU volt moded to 1.6Volts for over a year now with a Pentium D 805 @ 3900 MHz with no problems.
My other board 4CoreDual-VSTA is not yet volt moded but I intend to do the Vnb mod if the E4500 proves to be a good overclocker.
The E4500 with an 11Multiplier and an estimated of 300 to 315 FSB from these boards maybe more with the Vnb volt mod, the potential of running a CPU at these speeds 3300 to 3465 MHz is going to be very satisfying.

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: Mr Vain


I have not heard of any failing capacitors of mosfets with these Dual series boards yet.
I still have my 775Dual-VSTA board CPU volt moded to 1.6Volts for over a year now with a Pentium D 805 @ 3900 MHz with no problems.
My other board 4CoreDual-VSTA is not yet volt moded but I intend to do the Vnb mod if the E4500 proves to be a good overclocker.
The E4500 with an 11Multiplier and an estimated of 300 to 315 FSB from these boards maybe more with the Vnb volt mod, the potential of running a CPU at these speeds 3300 to 3465 MHz is going to be very satisfying.

Well the board is just half-year old (for me), I don't think the capacitors would die so quickly... or should I say... that jumping of voltages shortened their lives?

I am not looking for excessive overclocking the board but just want more stability... and making frequent blue screens is simply unacceptable. (Well, I should say that it is normal when I use it normally. However when I opened some lots of applications (e.g. word / maxthon / outlook / msn / icq / football manager 07 / bitcomet / media player classic) together at a time or when I take it for a stress test like the one in Everest, blue screens emerge.

And rather than running at high clock speeds I prefer to have lower timings and latencies. So I just wonder if it is the board which cannot stand on such low timings & latencies (e.g. DDR-400, CL2-3-3-6-1T / CL2-2-2-5-1T or DDR2-533, CL3-3-3-8 1T, sth like that), whatever RAM is used. (I used an via board from asus before and it is the board having lots of bugs, and asus failed to release the best bios. Well.)

 

[Space Marine]

Originally posted by: timzak
The 1.80c bios is a user-modded bios. The website it's on is in German, so I am guessing they are techy German enthusiasts, with no ties to Asrock. I believe the 775dual-VSTA's first few bioses had these options enabled. Then Asrock disabled them for all future updates and the 4coredual-VSTA never had these items enabled (this mobo was released shortly after the first 775-dualVSTA bios that had these options disabled).

Space Marine, when I turn Speedstep off, it turns OFF in the operating system. In Ubuntu, it works fine (except it undoes my cpu overclock when enabled). In Win2k it doesn't work at all (I think it's an OS issue). I don't have XP or Vista to try it in, but it least it works in a Linux-based OS. As for quiet fan, when I enable it my fan runs around 1100 rpm (stock Intel HSF). If I run Orthos or some other cpu-heating program, it'll kick in and bump the rpms up to about 2600 rpm. What's funny is if I disable quiet fan, my fan runs at a constant 2400 rpm (200rpm slower than when it ramps up to full speed with quiet fan enabled).

U mean in linux it works right? If i have eist in bios enabled in xp when i set the power management features to "always on" speedstep does not turn off as it should.. when i disable altogether via bios option it's still enabled in the os... This is all confusing...
Anyways (using everest) this bios (1.80c) supports and enables C1,C2 states and thermal throttle as well as all other techs my c2d supports.. its sad that we have don't have a proper official bios. Also i can confirm that with other hs fans other than the intel stock this beta bios cannot rev up fans according to thermal...
I'm beginning to lose my patience with this mb

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Hidari

Originally posted by: Mr Vain


I have not heard of any failing capacitors of mosfets with these Dual series boards yet.
I still have my 775Dual-VSTA board CPU volt moded to 1.6Volts for over a year now with a Pentium D 805 @ 3900 MHz with no problems.
My other board 4CoreDual-VSTA is not yet volt moded but I intend to do the Vnb mod if the E4500 proves to be a good overclocker.
The E4500 with an 11Multiplier and an estimated of 300 to 315 FSB from these boards maybe more with the Vnb volt mod, the potential of running a CPU at these speeds 3300 to 3465 MHz is going to be very satisfying.

Well the board is just half-year old (for me), I don't think the capacitors would die so quickly... or should I say... that jumping of voltages shortened their lives?

I am not looking for excessive overclocking the board but just want more stability... and making frequent blue screens is simply unacceptable. (Well, I should say that it is normal when I use it normally. However when I opened some lots of applications (e.g. word / maxthon / outlook / msn / icq / football manager 07 / bitcomet / media player classic) together at a time or when I take it for a stress test like the one in Everest, blue screens emerge.

And rather than running at high clock speeds I prefer to have lower timings and latencies. So I just wonder if it is the board which cannot stand on such low timings & latencies (e.g. DDR-400, CL2-3-3-6-1T / CL2-2-2-5-1T or DDR2-533, CL3-3-3-8 1T, sth like that), whatever RAM is used. (I used an via board from asus before and it is the board having lots of bugs, and asus failed to release the best bios. Well.)

This board does not ike running ram at 1T and the performance gains if any are minimal, I run my ram at 2T with many apps at times and no crashers if I do that with 1T it will crash every now and then.

Quote
Although the BIOS offers a 1T Command Rate, we never could get this setting absolutely stable without drastically raising the memory latency settings.

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=4

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: Mr Vain


This board does not ike running ram at 1T and the performance gains if any are minimal, I run my ram at 2T with many apps at times and no crashers if I do that with 1T it will crash every now and then.

Quote
Although the BIOS offers a 1T Command Rate, we never could get this setting absolutely stable without drastically raising the memory latency settings.

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=4

Just have time to some thorough test yet again and it now appears to me that it is the CAS Latency setting which is making problems. At CL2-3-3-6, whether it is 1T or 2T, it goes to blue screen after several minutes of stability test. Setting at CL2.5-3-3-6, even at 1T it seems more stable.

So now I start to wonder if the board can run on DDR2-533 CL3-3-3-8 1T with stability, as I was planning to upgrade from DDR to DDR2. (You may think that DDR -> DDR2 will not have much performance gain on this board but I am just planning that I will need to move to other boards which will only have ddr2 slots.)

One more thing to add, do anyone of you here applied KB936357 patch from microsoft, which is intended for conroe & kentsfield CPUs? Although the latest Celeron 4xx and Pentium E21xx are not included in the list the automatic update downloaded this for me. After that blue screens emerge when running windows. So I removed it and there's no problem now. I want to ask if anyone of you here applied the patch without blue screen problems, and you are using the CPUs on the list (i.e. E4xxx, E6xxx, X6xxx, Q6xxx and QX6xxx). I just want to know if it is because of the VIA chipset which does not need this patch or it is not intended for Conroe-1M / Conroe-L. (I saw discussions on the net and it seems whatever intel dual-core cpus you use, i.e. including non-conroe cpus, automatic update will prompt you to install this thing. The strange thing is, those people which are using P4 6xx and have this patch applied have no problems.)

 

[mxnerd]

Just bought this board from MWave and put in E6400 2.13G, overclocked to 2.4G easily without voltage mod and without any problem, will try even higher speed later.

Used my 2G of PC3200 DDR400, my GeForce 6200 AGP card and it ran great! Absolutely love this board.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Hidari

Originally posted by: Mr Vain


This board does not ike running ram at 1T and the performance gains if any are minimal, I run my ram at 2T with many apps at times and no crashers if I do that with 1T it will crash every now and then.

Quote
Although the BIOS offers a 1T Command Rate, we never could get this setting absolutely stable without drastically raising the memory latency settings.

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=4

Just have time to some thorough test yet again and it now appears to me that it is the CAS Latency setting which is making problems. At CL2-3-3-6, whether it is 1T or 2T, it goes to blue screen after several minutes of stability test. Setting at CL2.5-3-3-6, even at 1T it seems more stable.

So now I start to wonder if the board can run on DDR2-533 CL3-3-3-8 1T with stability, as I was planning to upgrade from DDR to DDR2. (You may think that DDR -> DDR2 will not have much performance gain on this board but I am just planning that I will need to move to other boards which will only have ddr2 slots.)

One of the reasons for using this board is to save money by using older parts and the small gains achieved by using DDR2 ram over DDR does not justify the extra expense IMO.
Save your money for DDR3 when you move on.

Here in these links you can compare ddr and ddr2 performance in action.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/200.../4CoreDual-VSTA/b2.htm

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=4

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: mxnerd
Just bought this board from MWave and put in E6400 2.13G, overclocked to 2.4G easily without voltage mod and without any problem, will try even higher speed later.

Used my 2G of PC3200 DDR400, my GeForce 6200 AGP card and it ran great! Absolutely love this board.

Hey good to hear that this board is delivering for you.
If you get real keen on volt mods this below link is the best on the net for that purpose.

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=93127

 

[mxnerd]

Thanks for voltage mod info. I don't think I'll do it at this time. Maybe down the road in the future.

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: Mr Vain


One of the reasons for using this board is to save money by using older parts and the small gains achieved by using DDR2 ram over DDR does not justify the extra expense IMO.
Save your money for DDR3 when you move on.

Here in these links you can compare ddr and ddr2 performance in action.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/200.../4CoreDual-VSTA/b2.htm

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=4

I understand what you say. (and why I buy Pentium E2160 is also because of "vlaue for money", also using this board can use back nearly all of my previous peripherals)

I also saw similar benchmarks previously.

What I actually mean is I am waiting to see if I can sell my current pair with a good price, then I don't have to really pay much for the new one When DDR3 becomes popular I afraid that DDR worths nothing... Also it seems that I can have better room for o/c if I get another pair of ddr2, the one I am using did not prove to be the best ones by corsair

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: Hidari
Hi timzak,

It seems that you are using the same RAM as me. I was wondering if this board can run at 1T command with stability? Seems that this board can only use 2T command when it was first released. I don't know after then. I guess my RAMs are not faulty... I was using 2-3-3-6 1T DDR400 for my previous Athlon XP system without problems.

And for win2k there's a patch for speedstep to run as I remember, you can search for it. I just tested the quiet fan function that, when using 1.80c bios and it is enabled, the fan constantly runs at 10xx rpm, when disabled it runs at 23xx rpm. I haven't tested it to see if it will go up when temperature goes up though. For the 1.80 bios however, it runs at 23xx rpm minimum, up to 35xx rpm. So I just wonder if the function offered by the official bios is really quiet fan, or if it is the 1.80c bios which pushed the fan too low...

And according to intel, EIST can adjust not only the multiplier but the fsb as well. I haven't seen this so far but I wonder if this board can support jumping the fsb or if it will cause problems. My question applies to thermal throttling as well - so when I look at the specs at first time, I guess it will be safest to enable only the C1E (enhanced halt state) as this will only send halt signals and adjust multiplier. (However I still worry that jumping voltages so frequently would make the board suffer - given the capacitors and other electric components asrock use.)

Any comments?

I'm the wrong person to ask about ram stability. With my E4300, I cannot even run stable @ DDR400 200Mhz except when in a 1:1 ratio (ie, at my cpu's stock speed). If I attempt an FSB of 266 and DDR400 (ram at stock 200Mhz, but with a 4:3 divider), system is unstable. I am forced to run my ram at DDR333 at any ratio besides 1:1, which I have not been able to resolve through bios settings. I'm not sure if I have a weak or defective motherboard, but I have tried two sets of DDR1 ram, both behaving the same. I can, however, run 1T when my ram is running at DDR333. I'm currently at 2.5Ghz with an FSB of 278, ram at DDR333 with 2.0-3-3-6 1T timings. What is interesting is I can overclock my ram successfully to 215Mhz as long as I keep the FSb low enough to keep the ram in a 1:1 ratio. So from an FSB of 200-215 I can run my ram at DDR400 just fine. One might think the culprit is the cpu being a weak overclocker, but the system is perfectly stable at 2.6Ghz (FSB of 290) as long as my ram is set to DDR333 or DDR266. I've given up trying to get it work and have just settled with running my ram underclocked on this board. I'm okay with that, it's still way faster than the AthlonXP it replaced, and I only had to buy the motherboard and cpu...reused all other components.

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: Space Marine

Originally posted by: timzak
The 1.80c bios is a user-modded bios. The website it's on is in German, so I am guessing they are techy German enthusiasts, with no ties to Asrock. I believe the 775dual-VSTA's first few bioses had these options enabled. Then Asrock disabled them for all future updates and the 4coredual-VSTA never had these items enabled (this mobo was released shortly after the first 775-dualVSTA bios that had these options disabled).

Space Marine, when I turn Speedstep off, it turns OFF in the operating system. In Ubuntu, it works fine (except it undoes my cpu overclock when enabled). In Win2k it doesn't work at all (I think it's an OS issue). I don't have XP or Vista to try it in, but it least it works in a Linux-based OS. As for quiet fan, when I enable it my fan runs around 1100 rpm (stock Intel HSF). If I run Orthos or some other cpu-heating program, it'll kick in and bump the rpms up to about 2600 rpm. What's funny is if I disable quiet fan, my fan runs at a constant 2400 rpm (200rpm slower than when it ramps up to full speed with quiet fan enabled).

U mean in linux it works right? If i have eist in bios enabled in xp when i set the power management features to "always on" speedstep does not turn off as it should.. when i disable altogether via bios option it's still enabled in the os... This is all confusing...
Anyways (using everest) this bios (1.80c) supports and enables C1,C2 states and thermal throttle as well as all other techs my c2d supports.. its sad that we have don't have a proper official bios. Also i can confirm that with other hs fans other than the intel stock this beta bios cannot rev up fans according to thermal...
I'm beginning to lose my patience with this mb

Yes, it works in Linux...but like I said, it ignores any overclock I have set up. I can be running at an FSB of 290 (2.6Ghz)...verified. The minute I turn on Speedstep and boot into Linux, every cpu reporting tool says I'm at 1.8Ghz (1.2Ghz when Speedstep drops the multiplier). It appears the multiplier is being dropped from 9 to 6. It would be sweet if that worked with my overclocked states...so 2.6Ghz dropping down to 1.74Ghz when idle. Oh well. I ended up disabling Speedstep for this reason.

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: timzak


I'm the wrong person to ask about ram stability. With my E4300, I cannot even run stable @ DDR400 200Mhz except when in a 1:1 ratio (ie, at my cpu's stock speed). If I attempt an FSB of 266 and DDR400 (ram at stock 200Mhz, but with a 4:3 divider), system is unstable. I am forced to run my ram at DDR333 at any ratio besides 1:1, which I have not been able to resolve through bios settings. I'm not sure if I have a weak or defective motherboard, but I have tried two sets of DDR1 ram, both behaving the same. I can, however, run 1T when my ram is running at DDR333. I'm currently at 2.5Ghz with an FSB of 278, ram at DDR333 with 2.0-3-3-6 1T timings. What is interesting is I can overclock my ram successfully to 215Mhz as long as I keep the FSb low enough to keep the ram in a 1:1 ratio. So from an FSB of 200-215 I can run my ram at DDR400 just fine. One might think the culprit is the cpu being a weak overclocker, but the system is perfectly stable at 2.6Ghz (FSB of 290) as long as my ram is set to DDR333 or DDR266. I've given up trying to get it work and have just settled with running my ram underclocked on this board. I'm okay with that, it's still way faster than the AthlonXP it replaced, and I only had to buy the motherboard and cpu...reused all other components.

It seems that we have very similar cases but I can now run at 267x9 for my E2160 and DDR400-CL2.5-3-3-6-1T with stability.

BTW it seems that you are using an older version of bios, any special reasons? better o/c ability?

 

[timzak]

Originally posted by: Hidari

Originally posted by: timzak


I'm the wrong person to ask about ram stability. With my E4300, I cannot even run stable @ DDR400 200Mhz except when in a 1:1 ratio (ie, at my cpu's stock speed). If I attempt an FSB of 266 and DDR400 (ram at stock 200Mhz, but with a 4:3 divider), system is unstable. I am forced to run my ram at DDR333 at any ratio besides 1:1, which I have not been able to resolve through bios settings. I'm not sure if I have a weak or defective motherboard, but I have tried two sets of DDR1 ram, both behaving the same. I can, however, run 1T when my ram is running at DDR333. I'm currently at 2.5Ghz with an FSB of 278, ram at DDR333 with 2.0-3-3-6 1T timings. What is interesting is I can overclock my ram successfully to 215Mhz as long as I keep the FSb low enough to keep the ram in a 1:1 ratio. So from an FSB of 200-215 I can run my ram at DDR400 just fine. One might think the culprit is the cpu being a weak overclocker, but the system is perfectly stable at 2.6Ghz (FSB of 290) as long as my ram is set to DDR333 or DDR266. I've given up trying to get it work and have just settled with running my ram underclocked on this board. I'm okay with that, it's still way faster than the AthlonXP it replaced, and I only had to buy the motherboard and cpu...reused all other components.

It seems that we have very similar cases but I can now run at 267x9 for my E2160 and DDR400-CL2.5-3-3-6-1T with stability.

BTW it seems that you are using an older version of bios, any special reasons? better o/c ability?

Sorry, I'm using 1.80c bios. This forum makes you type in username and password to change your signature (even if you're already logged in) and I lost it and don't feel like getting a new one generated for me because I have my browser set to remember it for login. So my browser logs me in automatically to read and post on the forums, but I don't have the uname/pword saved to manually type in to change my sig.

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: timzak


Sorry, I'm using 1.80c bios. This forum makes you type in username and password to change your signature (even if you're already logged in) and I lost it and don't feel like getting a new one generated for me because I have my browser set to remember it for login. So my browser logs me in automatically to read and post on the forums, but I don't have the uname/pword saved to manually type in to change my sig.

OK.

Oh I got one more question, bios doesn't mention anything about AGP bus speed, so is it linked to the FSB or linked to PCI or it always run at 66MHz?

THanks.

 

[Demon82]

Originally posted by: Hidari
OK.

Oh I got one more question, bios doesn't mention anything about AGP bus speed, so is it linked to the FSB or linked to PCI or it always run at 66MHz?

THanks.

AGP is always 2x the PCI speed. Lock the PCI at 33MHz and AGP will be 66MHz, otherwise they'll change along with the FSB.

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: Demon82

AGP is always 2x the PCI speed. Lock the PCI at 33MHz and AGP will be 66MHz, otherwise they'll change along with the FSB.

Thanks. I suppose so.

I tried to look at Si Sandra but it seems it's not really reading the timings... anyways.
While Everest told me the v-link speed goes up. Seems that this is really related to the fsb.

BTW, finally spent an extra US$30 replacing my Corsair DDR-400 2 x 1GB for G. Skill DDR2-800 (CL4-4-4-12). Stable at DDR2-580 CL3-3-3-8-1T. Seems difficult to go up for this board without mods, but very satisfying already

 

[bazza12345]

Hi everybody

My first time in this Forum.

I am upgrading my old AMDXp2400 based machine to a Intel Core2Duo6600 based machine using this motherboard. At this stage, all I want to do is use my existing AGP 8X vid card, 2x512 Mb of DDR 333 Ram and IDE drives. I built the old machine 4 years ago and another P3-1000 machine a few years before that - so I only know enough to be dangerous. I have never done any overclocking.

The previous 2 machines I built pretty well ran on default BIOS settings - but this MOBO covers such a wide range of CPU and RAM speeds , that I am a bit lost as regards the BIOS settings to use. Should I simply leave everything on default settings? - could anybody give me some advice regarding suitable settings for the CPU and RAM listed above. The RAM is Kingmax DDR-333 (PC2700). I believe it runs on 2.5V and has a CAS latency of 3@333(whatever that means??)

Thanks for any help. I will be building this new machine over the next couple of weeks - so you can expect some stupid questions to follow

Barry

 

[Hidari]

Originally posted by: bazza12345
Hi everybody

My first time in this Forum.

I am upgrading my old AMDXp2400 based machine to a Intel Core2Duo6600 based machine using this motherboard. At this stage, all I want to do is use my existing AGP 8X vid card, 2x512 Mb of DDR 333 Ram and IDE drives. I built the old machine 4 years ago and another P3-1000 machine a few years before that - so I only know enough to be dangerous. I have never done any overclocking.

The previous 2 machines I built pretty well ran on default BIOS settings - but this MOBO covers such a wide range of CPU and RAM speeds , that I am a bit lost as regards the BIOS settings to use. Should I simply leave everything on default settings? - could anybody give me some advice regarding suitable settings for the CPU and RAM listed above. The RAM is Kingmax DDR-333 (PC2700). I believe it runs on 2.5V and has a CAS latency of 3@333(whatever that means??)

Thanks for any help. I will be building this new machine over the next couple of weeks - so you can expect some stupid questions to follow

Barry

Hi,

There should not be many settings. If you are not overclocking you can just keep the default / auto settings, except that you may want to specify that you are using DDR333.

BTW I suppose you use this board with your old peripherals is to save money. So I was wondering why you would like to use E6600 (or Q6600?). It still costs around US$225 or more.

 

[Mr Vain]

Originally posted by: Hidari

Originally posted by: bazza12345
Hi everybody

My first time in this Forum.

I am upgrading my old AMDXp2400 based machine to a Intel Core2Duo6600 based machine using this motherboard. At this stage, all I want to do is use my existing AGP 8X vid card, 2x512 Mb of DDR 333 Ram and IDE drives. I built the old machine 4 years ago and another P3-1000 machine a few years before that - so I only know enough to be dangerous. I have never done any overclocking.

The previous 2 machines I built pretty well ran on default BIOS settings - but this MOBO covers such a wide range of CPU and RAM speeds , that I am a bit lost as regards the BIOS settings to use. Should I simply leave everything on default settings? - could anybody give me some advice regarding suitable settings for the CPU and RAM listed above. The RAM is Kingmax DDR-333 (PC2700). I believe it runs on 2.5V and has a CAS latency of 3@333(whatever that means??)

Thanks for any help. I will be building this new machine over the next couple of weeks - so you can expect some stupid questions to follow

Barry

Hi,

There should not be many settings. If you are not overclocking you can just keep the default / auto settings, except that you may want to specify that you are using DDR333.

BTW I suppose you use this board with your old peripherals is to save money. So I was wondering why you would like to use E6600 (or Q6600?). It still costs around US$225 or more.

You might as well get a quad (Q6600) after the 22 July price drop, for $42.00 more than the current E6600 you get a 4Core cpu that should provide more future proofing options.

Prices after July 22nd.

CPU Clock Speed FSB L2 Cache Availability Pricing
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.00GHz 1333 4MBx2 Now $999
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 2.93GHz 1066 4MBx2 Now $999
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz 1066 4MBx2 Now $530
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz 1066 4MBx2 Now $266
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00GHz 1333 4MB Now $266
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz 1333 4MB Now $183
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33GHz 1333 4MB Now $163
Intel Core 2 Duo E6540 2.33GHz 1333 4MB Now $163
Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 2.40GHz 800 2MB Q4 $133
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.20GHz 800 2MB Q3 $133
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 2.00GHz 800 2MB Now $113
Intel Pentium E2180 2.00GHz 800 1MB Q4 $84
Intel Pentium E2160 1.80GHz 800 1MB Now $84
Intel Pentium E2140 1.60GHz 800 1MB Now $74

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3038&p=2