ASUS A8R-MVP stable @325MHz HTT

[Ryan Norton]

So I put together my system with new mobo and boot things up. First, I admit I didn't reinstall WinXP.

Anyway, when trying to install Asus Update, I get errors about NT services, BS_Def.dll, and a warning that no ASUS mobo was detected. Googling indicates that many other ASUS mobos have had issues like this. Pretty soon I'm going to start searching through this forum for a solution-- I've already tried installing it in Safe Mode while logged on as Administrator.

EDIT: I should have known better than to hope, even for a second ,that I could get away without reinstalling OS. Now I'm just posting results of my tinkering in this thread. Anybody else who has one, join in!

 

[n7]

WTF d00d, don't be silly...reinstall XP


Then tell us how high you can get the HTT

 

[Ryan Norton]

Ugggghhhhhhhhhhhhh

I *hate* reinstalling bill's damn OS. takes forever. oh well, I went into this hoping I wasn't going to have to do it, but resigned to it in the end. Not happening tonight though! Will report on HTT tomorrow. What do you expect to see? 325? heh

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Ryan Norton
What do you expect to see? 325? heh

I expect to see this or higher (what i can currently do with my Neo2)
Don't care what divider you have to use to get that.

 

[mamisano]

Repair install works for me every time, and I don't lose a thing

My board should be here on Monday, good luck getting yours up and running.

 

[Muggy]

U have to do something abt the OS. Using the same OS would mean that device drivers from the old MOBO would still be present. Same happened to me when I got my A8N-E. I completed the rig late in the night and was feelin' lazy to install the OS. Tried installing the drivers and started using the rig and it took the OS 3 mins at the minimum to reach the login screen !!! Once into the OS too, everything was soooooooo slow. So did a complete install and everything worked like a charm. So do it to unleash the power of ur board !!!!

 

[Capt Caveman]

Asus update doesn't work b/c you haven't reinstalled your os. Asus update is associated with your old mobo. It's probably something that can be fixed in the windows xp registry but I've found reinstalling windows is always best.

 

[computergeek22]

*bump*

 

[Stoneburner]

will my 3 year old enermax 431 watt PSU work with this board?

 

[Ryan Norton]

Alright... broke down and reinstalled XP. Like I said, I was resigned to doing it if necessary, but I did uninstall every device driver/hardware profile before I swapped boards. It actually worked for everything except Asus Update =)

Taking the day off tomorrow, so I should have time to tweak. I'm really not an OCer-- I understand the fundamentals but HT vs HTT always screw me up. Given the review, what I should probably try to hit is something like 325 FSB, 7-8x ish CPU multiplier, 1:1 RAM at loose timings like 3-4-3-8, and 3x HT?

 

[Tweakin]

Follow the golden rule if you can...here is a Link for the post.

Good luck, I'm waiting for the same board to get back in stock.

 

[n7]

LOL, you aren't gonna hit 325 with your RAM.

Just set the divider to 100 (or some boards, 200 or 1:2), & gradually raise her up.

On my Neo2, i can't raise it all at once, i have to gradually go up to 330+.

 

[Ryan Norton]

Playing with the BIOS now... how the various dividers are represented are different than my last board so I'm having to deduce things again. I'm assuming, for example, that setting "HT Link Speed" to 800MHz (200 400 600 800 1000 are the options) means HT runs at at FSBx4 instead of FSBx5, which would be 1000MHz.

I also can't seem to get more than 1.45V to the CPU. That's the highest choice in "Processor Voltage;" the only other thing that looks relevant is VCORE Over Voltage, and that's just Enable/Disable.

 

[computergeek22]

Damn can't go above 1.45 volts eh? That's a bitch...

 

[Ryan Norton]

Also, the SPD tab in CPU-Z won't populate. I thought that was supposed to be the detailed info carried in the DIMMs... Here's where I'm at right now, slowly cranking things up, and a DIMM of OCZ Platinum Rev 2 TCC5 in slots 1 and 3 dual channeled:

CPU
Memory
SPD

 

[mamisano]

Ryan, mine will be here tomorrow - I will post my results in here.

 

[Ryan Norton]

@280MHZ HTT right now... only hitch that's occurred so far is when I tried to go from 270 to 280 instead of the increment of 5MHz I've been using. I'm going to keep going up, and from the review I expect to hit the 310s before I start failing to boot.

280MHz HTT and counting

 

[Ryan Norton]

Well... here it is, 325MHz HTT without failing to boot or Windows acting otherwise crazy at all.

325 HTT

Tomorrow, I'll be taking on the CPU and memory.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Ryan Norton
Playing with the BIOS now... how the various dividers are represented are different than my last board so I'm having to deduce things again. I'm assuming, for example, that setting "HT Link Speed" to 800MHz (200 400 600 800 1000 are the options) means HT runs at at FSBx4 instead of FSBx5, which would be 1000MHz.

I also can't seem to get more than 1.45V to the CPU. That's the highest choice in "Processor Voltage;" the only other thing that looks relevant is VCORE Over Voltage, and that's just Enable/Disable.

Enable that Over Voltage option, & it should give you more options for higher vcore by percentage or increments of some sort.

AT's review states:
Core Voltage options
Auto, 0.8V to 1.45V in 0.025V increments
PLUS 0.2V with vCore Over-voltage
(Maximum vCore 1.65V)

You just need to use the Over Voltage option.

Nice HTT too, thanx for humoring me

Good luck!

 

[AllanLim]

Unfortunately enabling VCore overvoltage on my A8R-MVP did nothing, ie max VCore remained at 1.4v as reported by the BIOS as well as various programs in Windows.

As an aside, populating the DIMMS with 1GB-512Mb-1Gb-512Mb dropped Memory CLK from 200 to 100. Dual channel with only two sticks works at 200.

I already wrote ASUS on both issues


PS. 1.4v is the max on my BIOS

 

[Ryan Norton]

Now, here's something unusual. First, I ran Memtest all night @325HTT, 3x HT, 7x CPU multiplier, and around PC3200 2-2-2-5 1T and things are still rock steady.

What's interesting is that, with VCORE Over Voltage enabled, ASUS PC Probe reports Vcore as 1.55v, while CPU-Z is sticking to 1.45v. I look forward to hearing what ASUS says.

EDIT: Speedfan is also reporting Vcore @1.53-1.55V with VCORE Over Voltage enabled. My guess is that that setting applies a flat 7-8% boost to whatever Vcore voltage you select.

 

[Stoneburner]

Thanks for the the info Ryan. It greatly helps me in settling on a mobo. Just a question though, how much space is there between the PCI-E slot you use for you video card and the next lowest PCI slot?

 

[Ryan Norton]

Ahhh... Anandtech readers might recognize this pic, since I don't have a digicam:

Board layout

There's maybe 1.05cm between the blue, primary PCIe 16x slot and each of the three PCI slots. They're each about 1cm wide. For what it's worth, I have my gfx card in the blue PCIe and an Audigy 2 in the next to last PCI, WITH a Zalman VF700Cu on the 7800, and there's plenty of room. Close, but nothing is bonking into anything else.

I'd say my biggest surprise, clearance-wise, is how easy I was able to fit my Scythe Ninja mammoth heatpipe cooler with 120mm fan on. Clearance around the CPU socket vs. the voltage regulators, that silver heatsink, etc. looked tighter than on my Neo4 Platinum, but the heatpipes' upwards curve at the bottom of the cooler is actually farther away from other mobo components. Real nice physical design, if nothing else! And I like the yellow!

 

[AllanLim]

Ryan, which bios do you have? I'm wondering why I don't have the 1.45v option.

 

[Ryan Norton]

I have 0201... I've dug through Asus's FTP server and their web pages and that's the only version of the BIOS I found. I was hoping for a beta one.