*** Official ASUS P4C800/Deluxe (875P) Thread ***

[hipster148]

Originally posted by: Xeon

Originally posted by: Cheval
Has anyone had any problems running dual channel on a P4C800-E Deluxe rev 2.00?

I have 2 sticks of Corsair XMS3200C2 512MB and they run fine one at a time in single-channel mode. They run fine together in single-channel mode. But trying to run both at the same time in dual channel and the computer turns on (all fans running) and just sits there and the monitor stays in sleep mode--no beeps or anything--just in a zombie-like state.

Anyone experienced this? It's a brand new board I just got from Newegg. I've changed power supplies, disconnected all MB accessories, IDE devices, etc. The only thing I haven't done is tried changing ram sticks. I might be able to get someone else to sticks his sticks in there and see if it does the same thing but I thought I'd ask here and find if anyone else has any problems like this.

I run dual channel just fine with my OCZ Gold PC-4000. Are you sure that it's not something else that's set in your BIOS that's not allowing you to post? If so, then your probably right, it sounds like you may have some flaky RAM, or at least one stick that's bad. Your also right in wanting to test another set of RAM to see if it's not something else (MB?). At least then you'd know if it's the RAM or not.

I've never heard of anyone else having this problem, except that their settings in the BIOS weren't right and it was the actual cause of the NO post issue.

I have this board and am quite new to all this stuff, I guess after reading this post I ask myself "Did I have to physically do something to get dual channel" ? I may have assumed it just is, how do you check that spec.?

 

[hipster148]

I have this board and am quite new to all this stuff, I guess after reading this post I ask myself "Did I have to physically do something to get dual channel" ? I may have assumed it just is, how do you check that spec.?

 

[Krellor]

Well this stinks. My system seems completely stable at 1.7v at 250 FSB. I'm guessing it's because the voltage never drops below 1.6v, it's the 1.728 at idle that scares me. :frown:

Anyone here tried the "droop mod" to stabilize the voltage?

 

[Crashman]

My 2.6C is perfectly stable at 1.70v too, but the board can't maintain anything close to that voltage. I posted a full review at sysopt.com explaining the problem. I wish I had an IS7.

 

[hipster148]

Originally posted by: Krellor
Well this stinks. My system seems completely stable at 1.7v at 250 FSB. I'm guessing it's because the voltage never drops below 1.6v, it's the 1.728 at idle that scares me. :frown:

Anyone here tried the "droop mod" to stabilize the voltage?

Hi Krellor, could you list your system specs in your signature in your profile so that others would have a better understanding of how to assist you. It really would be helpful

 

[Krellor]

Well I'm still running at 1.7v and I thought I would mention I just saw the voltage drop to 1.584. Amazing....

 

[hipster148]

Well that sounds good, keep your fingers crossed X:sun: I afraid I wouldn't be able to help you because it's way out of my league, I'm what you would call a NOOOOB. I just scrolled down the page and saw your specs too. I'm still learning how to just navigate on these boards

 

[Krellor]

It doesn't appear that I'm going to get any higher than 250 FSB so I am just gonna back off to 248 and drop the vCore back down to a normal 1.6v. The extra 25 MHz isn't worth the risk of losing my chip due to voltage wackiness. I wonder how much higher these boards would go if the voltage were more stable?

Thanks for the input everyone!

Xeon -- have you been able to get the timings on our memory any tighter? And are you running with Performance enabled or on Auto?

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: Krellor
Well I'm still running at 1.7v and I thought I would mention I just saw the voltage drop to 1.584. Amazing....

What kind of Power Supply are you running? First thing I would check is the Rail voltages with a volt meter. Keep in mind that this could also be from a poor cpu and that the Motherboard itself may not be to blame.

My voltages are spread just like many others out here and I don't have to run 1.7 to boot up. This doesn't mean you don't have a bad MB, but there are a lot of other things it could be.

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: 1Crashman
My 2.6C is perfectly stable at 1.70v too, but the board can't maintain anything close to that voltage. I posted a full review at sysopt.com explaining the problem. I wish I had an IS7.

Here again, this doesn't mean it's your Motherboard that's the problem. What PSU are you running and have you tested the rails?

 

[Krellor]

I'm running an Antec Truepower 480. All the rest of my voltages are stable as a rock. It's just the vcore.

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: Krellor
It doesn't appear that I'm going to get any higher than 250 FSB so I am just gonna back off to 248 and drop the vCore back down to a normal 1.6v. The extra 25 MHz isn't worth the risk of losing my chip due to voltage wackiness. I wonder how much higher these boards would go if the voltage were more stable?

Thanks for the input everyone!

Xeon -- have you been able to get the timings on our memory any tighter? And are you running with Performance enabled or on Auto?

Yeah I could drop the DRAM RAS# Precharge, DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay as well as the DRAM Precharge Delay, but I'm Rock Stable where I'm at so I haven't messed with it again lately.

With the 279 FSB on this 2.4C runing @ 3.4 Ghz, I haven't been motivated here lately to tighten the timings. I had it running at 2.5-3-3-6 for awhile but had to drop my FSB so I pushed it back up and just left it.

For your particular issue the first thing I would do is check your PSU, then identify where your cpu was made, malasyia cpu's are generally better than the rest. At least that's been the case for me and many others. If it continues to be a problem after checking these things out I'd consider RMA'ing your board back to Asus. Is yours a REV2.00 ?

What RAM are you running again? NM I see you have the OCZ Gold.

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: Krellor
I'm running an Antec Truepower 480. All the rest of my voltages are stable as a rock. It's just the vcore.

Well then the other thing I would Identify is where this cpu of yours was made. I run the same RAM and MB, but I'm running the 2.4C and not the 2.6C.

Just another thing to consider.

Do you have another cpu and set of RAM there you can test with? That could really elliminate all the other things I can think of that could cause this kind of extreme problem.

 

[Krellor]

CPU-Z identifies it as a 1.xx. What's the difference?

No other CPU or RAM to test with unfortunately.

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: Xeon

Originally posted by: Krellor
It doesn't appear that I'm going to get any higher than 250 FSB so I am just gonna back off to 248 and drop the vCore back down to a normal 1.6v. The extra 25 MHz isn't worth the risk of losing my chip due to voltage wackiness. I wonder how much higher these boards would go if the voltage were more stable?

Thanks for the input everyone!

Xeon -- have you been able to get the timings on our memory any tighter? And are you running with Performance enabled or on Auto?

Yeah I could drop the DRAM RAS# Precharge, DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay as well as the DRAM Precharge Delay, but I'm Rock Stable where I'm at so I haven't messed with it again lately.

With the 279 FSB on this 2.4C runing @ 3.4 Ghz, I haven't been motivated here lately to tighten the timings. I had it running at 2.5-3-3-6 for awhile but had to drop my FSB so I pushed it back up and just left it.

For your particular issue the first thing I would do is check your PSU, then identify where your cpu was made, malasyia cpu's are generally better than the rest. At least that's been the case for me and many others. If it continues to be a problem after checking these things out I'd consider RMA'ing your board back to Asus. Is yours a REV2.00 ?

What RAM are you running again? NM I see you have the OCZ Gold.

I forgot to answer your other question.

Yes I run with PM and PAT/PAM enabled.

Hope this helps.

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: Krellor
CPU-Z identifies it as a 1.xx. What's the difference?

Well CPU-Z and all the other software tools won't tell you what it really is. You have to look on the actual MB for a sticker between the PCI slots.

 

[Krellor]

Yeah it's a Rev 2.00

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: Krellor
Yeah it's a Rev 2.00

Cool, that's the same thing as I have as well. I just don't get why your having this issue. The only things I can think of that might be causing, I've already mentioned. I mean for cryin out loud you have the same stuff I have except for the cpu and PSU.

 

[jhites]

Originally posted by: Xeon

Originally posted by: Krellor
I'm running an Antec Truepower 480. All the rest of my voltages are stable as a rock. It's just the vcore.

Well then the other thing I would Identify is where this cpu of yours was made. I run the same RAM and MB, but I'm running the 2.4C and not the 2.6C.

Just another thing to consider.

Do you have another cpu and set of RAM there you can test with? That could really elliminate all the other things I can think of that could cause this kind of extreme problem.

The voltage fluxuation on the vcore is a characteristic of this board. You will find that most everyone has a different range for their fluxuation but most are pretty close to the same. 1.600vcore seems to be the safe sweet spot for this board. I am running the Antec Truepower 480 and a 2.6C on mine and do get vcore fluxuation with all the other voltages readings being stable. From the tests that I have run on my board, using 1.5875vcore will hold under full load at around 1.52-.53v. Sounds like your cpu is good up to about 3.2Ghz using the 1.600v and that is most likely where you need to be.

 

[Crashman]

Originally posted by: Xeon

Originally posted by: Krellor
Well I'm still running at 1.7v and I thought I would mention I just saw the voltage drop to 1.584. Amazing....

What kind of Power Supply are you running? First thing I would check is the Rail voltages with a volt meter. Keep in mind that this could also be from a poor cpu and that the Motherboard itself may not be to blame.

My voltages are spread just like many others out here and I don't have to run 1.7 to boot up. This doesn't mean you don't have a bad MB, but there are a lot of other things it could be.

This doesn't seem to be the most likely cause with these boards, there's an interesting review at Sysopt.com you should read.

 

[Crashman]

Originally posted by: Xeon

Originally posted by: 1Crashman
My 2.6C is perfectly stable at 1.70v too, but the board can't maintain anything close to that voltage. I posted a full review at sysopt.com explaining the problem. I wish I had an IS7.

Here again, this doesn't mean it's your Motherboard that's the problem. What PSU are you running and have you tested the rails?

I'll let that one slide since you don't know who I am. Heheh, I'm the motherboard god. Seriously though, I'm the guy who told Carey Holzman about the capacitor issue a couple years ago. I'm also a freelance writer and hardware enthusiast with over 1000 builds for the retail market. So of course the first thing I did was check rail voltages. Of course I can't tell you what brand of power supply I own since I built my own, but I also tested it with a Fortron Source. You'll find the results at My Review, and see that the vCore fluctuates far more than the other lines. I even made a link to the droop mod in that review. Face it, Asus is screwing us.

Sorry to disappoint, have a few :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: on me.

 

[Xeon]

BLAH EDIT

 

[Xeon]

Originally posted by: 1Crashman

Originally posted by: Xeon

Originally posted by: 1Crashman
My 2.6C is perfectly stable at 1.70v too, but the board can't maintain anything close to that voltage. I posted a full review at sysopt.com explaining the problem. I wish I had an IS7.

Here again, this doesn't mean it's your Motherboard that's the problem. What PSU are you running and have you tested the rails?

I'll let that one slide since you don't know who I am. Heheh, I'm the motherboard god. Seriously though, I'm the guy who told Carey Holzman about the capacitor issue a couple years ago. I'm also a freelance writer and hardware enthusiast with over 1000 builds for the retail market. So of course the first thing I did was check rail voltages. Of course I can't tell you what brand of power supply I own since I built my own, but I also tested it with a Fortron Source. You'll find the results at My Review, and see that the vCore fluctuates far more than the other lines. I even made a link to the droop mod in that review. Face it, Asus is screwing us.

Sorry to disappoint, have a few :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: on me.

We've known about this problem for quite awhile now as well. The issue however doesn't explain why some don't have a problem with these fluctuations and for others it's detrimental.

Krellor essentially has the same equipment as I do and cannot run below 1.7, just as you can't, but I'm able to run just about any VCore voltage I want without issues and this machine of mine runs Rock Solid Stable and absolutely screams. There is more to this than just this motherboard having droop problems. As a matter of fact, I've talked to litterally hundreds of users about this VCore Fluctuation issue on other forums, and even though a lot of OTHER Asus boards show this issue (NOT just the P4C800-E) they have no problems with them working correctly.

So slamming Asus for this motherboard is a little presumptuous, especially when the facts show this board does quite well in the benches and with performance for many many people.

Why don't you just RMA your board and get another? I bet if you do you'll have the same problem (as long as you use the same equipment thats in the one you have now), and that's because it's not the motherboard that's causing your problem. Yes this board has a VCore fluctuation and yes Asus should address this somehow, but I believe they engineered them this way purposely and the problem your experiencing isn't the cause of your 1.7 VCore holding issue.

See ya.

 

[Krellor]

I can run stable at 247 FSB with a vCore of 1.600 with PAT/PAM and PM enabled, that is if you consider 12 hours of Prime 95 stable.

I just can't go above 247 without moving the vCore all the way up to 1.7. At 1.7 I'm stable at 250 (and maybe at little higher, but 255 was a no go), I'm just afraid to keep my processor running at that high of a voltage setting when everything I've read says "Don't go above 1.7". Especially since with this particular board 1.7 actually means as high as 1.728 at idle and only 1.6 on load.

I realize 3.2 ghz at a voltage of 1.600 is a decent overclock, I was just hoping for a bit more. It's just frustrating when I can see the darn thing running stable at 250 FSB with an "actual" vCore of 1.6 when it's really set at 1.7 in the BIOS. If it didn't fluctuate so much I could easily do 250 with it set way lower than 1.7 and maybe even go a little higher.

Oh well, like I said 3.2 is a decent overclock and I can live with that I suppose.

 

[rpr]

I have the typical Vcore fluctuations at 1.60v (1.56 - 1.64v), which doesn't seem to affect my performance or stability. However, my 12v rail is all over the place. It swings from 11.5v to 12.3v!!! I can even hear the fans in my system slowing down when it is under load and the 12v rail drops.

How can I figure out if this is being caused by the motherboard or my power supply? If I need to check the 12v rail directly on the PSU, is there a link to a tutorial on how to do this?