Nforce4 and PCI & SATA lock???

[anonhart]

I have a question that I was hoping someone could answer. I downloaded and read both the A8N-SLI and the GA-K8NF-9 manuals and saw no reference to clock locked PCI and SATA. Is it a given that all boards after NForce3 Rev. 2 will have the PCI slots and SATA clock locked? I'd hate to OC and fry my PCI cards or corrupt my SATA HD. Please help!

Thanks,
Al

 

[Googer]

If you want a PCI lock get a motherboard based on VIA K8T800 PRO chipset.

http://froogle.google.com/froo...ng=p&price=between

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=13-131-510&depa=1

I Believe because nVIDIA now uses a single chip soloution an AGP/PCI/SATA lock is not possible.

 

[DB27]

It's been brought up on a few other threads. The ASUS A8N auto-locks PCI at 100, there is nothing to set or configure.

Not sure about the SATA interface.

<correction> There is a PCI lock setting in the "jumperless" section for the ASUS boards (based on other posts and pictures of the bios menus. I don't have the board yet).

 

[Nyati13]

Originally posted by: DB27
It's been brought up on a few other threads. The ASUS A8N auto-locks PCI at 100, there is nothing to set or configure.

Not sure about the SATA interface.

<correction> There is a PCI lock setting in the "jumperless" section for the ASUS boards (based on other posts and pictures of the bios menus. I don't have the board yet).

The '100MHz' you're refering to is the PCI-E clock. In the Jumper Free section a user can select the PCI-E clock independently of the HT clock.
There is no viewable setting for the PCI/SATA clock, but Asus has stated that both of those clocks are fixed at the correct clock, independently of the HT clock. Without evidence (as opposed to pure conjecture) to the contrary, I would tend to believe what they said.
I have not yet overclocked the CPU, so I can't say I've seen the lock working, or not working.

*Edit* I looked at the A8N-SLI manual and it is section XII which is the 12th page. It just says " Fixed PCI Express/ PCI/ SATA frequencies "

 

[jbh129]

If the lock works on the Asus why are people having such a hard time getting it over 250 fsb?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I'm currently running the A8N-SLI @ 270 x 9.5 = 2565mhz

the locks work fine. I have 2x74gb raptors, and beleive me, they would not be running if the SATA bus was locked to the FSB @ 270. I have run the FSB to 290.6 (max for this board) with no problems

 

[DB27]

Originally posted by: jbh129
If the lock works on the Asus why are people having such a hard time getting it over 250 fsb?

It might be that people aren't paying attention to the HTT. You need to keep it around 1000 to keep things stable, which means lowering the HT multiplier when you increase the FSB.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: DB27

Originally posted by: jbh129
If the lock works on the Asus why are people having such a hard time getting it over 250 fsb?

It might be that people aren't paying attention to the HTT. You need to keep it around 1000 to keep things stable, which means lowering the HT multiplier when you increase the FSB.

Exactly! plus they don't understand that to overclock your CPU more than 10%, you've got to increase the CPU voltage.