ASUS A8R-MVP stable @325MHz HTT

[Westmassguy]

Had this board for 2 days, and am generally happy with it.
I migrated from the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, and this board is a bit more stable.
BTW, I played with Motherboard Monitor, and finally got it to work with this board (I hate SpeedFan, and the Asus probe sucks).
Select Asus A7N8XLA in the configuration wizard.
You'll need to adjust a few of the sensors to properly read volts and temps, but it works perfectly.

 

[seymourman]

I just built a system with this board. I have been reading up on OC'ing but havent tried it yet.

So my system is default with a AMD 3700+ CPU. Both Speedfan and ASUS probe say my Vcore1 is 1.46. Is that normal?

 

[Westmassguy]

Running 270 MHz X 10 @ 2.5,3,3,7, with an X2 3800 Toledo.
Enabling overvolt increases VCore by .07.
The ASUS probe verifies this, as well as Motherboard Monitor.

 

[dadach]

westmassguy...hi what other sensors did you adjust to get the MBM working fully...thanks

 

[Westmassguy]

For Motherboard Monitor, run the configuration wizard, and choose "ASUS A7N8XLA.
Start MBM, and open the settings and dashboard.
Open the "Temperatures" tab.
Set "Case" to ITE8712F-2
Set "CPU" to ITE8712F-1.
Hit thew "Apply" button.
Open "Voltages".
Set "Core 0" to ITE8712F Standard 2.
Set "Core 1" to ITE8712F Standard 2, and under the "Visual" tab, change it to read +3.3.
The +3.3 MBM shows by default does not show the actual 3.3 volt rail.
Mine shows 2.7 volts, so the only other value that was close to 3.3 was "Core 1".
All other voltages should read properly when set to ITE8712F Standard 2.
Try it and eperiment a bit.
If you can find any other tweaks for it, let us all know.

 

[rbV5]

it seems this board is having a lot of issues and it worries me that it might not all be corrected through bios updates.

Issues? Is there something other than more Vcore settings? I've got my board, but won't be ready to build until I fill out the rest of my parts list over the next week or so. What are the issues with this board so far?

 

[vlads stuff]

OK - I just started tinkering with OC'ing - I'm not a noob at OC'ing BTW. Using the new 0309 BIOS. With the new BIOS, RAM speed goes all the way up to 250MHz.

Anyway - 2.76GHz - RAM 2.5-4-4-8 2T. HT @ 800MHz, 11x CPU multi. I tried 2.5-3-3-7 1T but the best I could get is 240MHz FSB @ those settings. RAM @ 400MHZ. I might do some more tweaking tomorrow, but now it's time to play Quake 4

Also, previous system I had was an Asus A8N-Premium with X2 3800+ & could only get to 2.4GHz with 2GB (2x1GB) of Corsair RAM, so I'm pretty happy right now.
I wouldn't mind if Asus added more Vcore options in the next BIOS update. I'm @ 1.4 with the VCore overvolt (or whatever it's called) enabled. PC Probe II shows shows Vcore fluctuating between 1.44 - 1.50. My +3.3V showing as 4.08, but it shows a solid 3.3V in my BIOS - strange.

Overall, liking this board alot more than nForce SLI - more stable & OC friendly. We just need to give Asus some more time to tweek the BIOS options. I paid about $115 for this board and it's easily the best bang-for-the-buck mobo I've ever bought

 

[Westmassguy]

Anyone else having issues with the onboard lan?
Mine keeps dropping out under heavy load.
I first tried the Marvell driver off the ASUS install CD, then the Generic Marvell Yukon driver included with Windows XP SP2, and finally the latest driver directly from the Marvell website.
All of them fail within a half hour or so under heavy load. forcing a reboot.

 

[vlads stuff]

Not sure what you consider heavy load.
I'm just basically using it for internet access with my Comcast cable modem & haven't seen any problem. Just using the driver off the Asus CD.
I did transfer files from my old computer & didn't see any problems.

 

[Westmassguy]

By heavy use, I mean P2P, and USENET.

 

[the Chase]

Anyone using crossfire with this board? If so- impressions? What are the refresh rates for 1024 and 1280 resolutions? Not sure what to make of this board- sounds pretty decent but would probably limit my O/C some. For the price I could handle that.

 

[althes]

Iused x1600xt crossfire with this board and it is really good.
The cards dont oc that good.
It is fast

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: althes
Iused x1600xt crossfire with this board and it is really good.
The cards dont oc that good.
It is fast

So you dont need a master card, but do you have to buy a dongle/cable for 2x X1600's?

 

[rbV5]

So you dont need a master card, but do you have to buy a dongle/cable for 2x X1600's?

There's nothing to plug the dongle into without a mastercard. It works through the PCIe bus.

 

[feelgood]

Originally posted by: Wesley Fink
ATI fixes PCI frequency in the chipset, so this sounds like it could be a power issue. What Power Supply are you using to drive your system?

Tagan 430W
It's not a power supply...

 

[Hoodlum77]

has anyone tried using 4 dims in 1t?

As i understand from the review it should be possible any users expierience>?

 

[AllanLim]

Originally posted by: Westmassguy
Had this board for 2 days, and am generally happy with it.
I migrated from the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, and this board is a bit more stable.
BTW, I played with Motherboard Monitor, and finally got it to work with this board (I hate SpeedFan, and the Asus probe sucks).
Select Asus A7N8XLA in the configuration wizard.
You'll need to adjust a few of the sensors to properly read volts and temps, but it works perfectly.

Nice...unfortunately ignorance was bliss. Now that I've got MBM running, the VCore alarm keeps going off at 1.6v when I've got it set at 1.47v with 8% error (the max the boards sets for the Opteron 165 w/ overvolt enabled). Interesting is with MBM CPUZ voltages now report the fluctuations real time. I've read that the volt mod reduces these spikes at XS.

Anybody else?

 

[Alaric360]

Hi. I've been following this thread cuz I'm going to buy this mobo, but I saw something in here that caught my eye.

althes
well I have mine running and so far crossfire is working with 2 x1300pro cards.

Do you have to have a "Crossfire Edition" Radeon to act as the master controller with this motherboard? Or is that requirement eliminated with this motherboard? (I'm wondering, because the last time I checked, all of the Crossfire master boards took up both the PCIe and an expansion PCI slot. I'm wary of buying a motherboard with only 2 PCI expansion slots available) Did you have this configuration without a master board? Thanks

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: Alaric360
Do you have to have a "Crossfire Edition" Radeon to act as the master controller with this motherboard? Or is that requirement eliminated with this motherboard? (I'm wondering, because the last time I checked, all of the Crossfire master boards took up both the PCIe and an expansion PCI slot. I'm wary of buying a motherboard with only 2 PCI expansion slots available) Did you have this configuration without a master board? Thanks

Not with the X1300 or X1600. These do not require a Master card.

 

[Alaric360]

I just called Asus and they confirmed that even with an X1300 or X1600, a "Crossfire Edition" Master card is required to set up a Crossfire configuration

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Alaric360
I just called Asus and they confirmed that even with an X1300 or X1600, a "Crossfire Edition" Master card is required to set up a Crossfire configuration

No it's not. Apparently, even Asus doesn't know what they are talking about :laugh:
There are people running those setups w/o master edition cards.

It's only on the X1800s that you need the master card.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: Alaric360
I just called Asus and they confirmed that even with an X1300 or X1600, a "Crossfire Edition" Master card is required to set up a Crossfire configuration

No it's not. Apparently, even Asus doesn't know what they are talking about :laugh:
There are people running those setups w/o master edition cards.

It's only on the X1800s that you need the master card.

Actually, x800 and x850 cards require a Crossfire Edition card as well. Asus is incorrect about x1300/x1600 like you said however.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: rbV5
Actually, x800 and x850 cards require a Crossfire Edition card as well. Asus is incorrect about x1300/x1600 like you said however.

Thanx for the correction, yes, sorry, i forgot about that series.

 

[Alaric360]

Yeah. I called ATI and they just told me that the Asus rep was probably referring to the x1800 cards and that he was mistaken. You guys are correct in saying that the x1300 and x1600 series cards do NOT need a "Crossfire Edition" master card in order to work in Crossfire. (that's kinda sweet...I was thinking I was only gonna have 2 PCI slots free when my new box gets built)

 

[SuperU21]

Hrm, Well I got this board last week as well as my X1800XT, A64 3800+ Venice, I've got 2 gigs of PC4000 HyperX, I've also got some 550 watt BFG power supply (wondering if that is iffy?)

Anyways, I've got all 4 memory banks populated and I cannot run @ 2T what so ever. As for overclocking the new bios update helped get my memory reading @ 200mhz on boot, but I can't even use the PC4000 RAM to its full potential @ 1:1. 1:1 @ 250 would take me to approx 2900~ mhz and it will post and auto reboot after a little bit but I figure thats probly the max I'd ever get out of the chip let alone with only 1.45 vcore.. yuck.

I lowered the multiplier to see how far I could take the FSB and 250 still wasn't stable. Right now I'm running @ 223 1:1 and I still get a random reboot here and there I assume due to voltage fluctuation.

Its an alright board but I think more vcore would make it solid and this voltage fluctuation people are talking about makes me nervous about overall stability.