Overclocking an A8N32-SLI Deluxe

[Compuzen]

Are there locked SATA Ports on the A8N32? I see an option to change the PCI speed. Do I need to mess with that?


I've had my old Opteron 146 over clocked to 2.9 Ghz (290 FSB X 10) for over a year now without incident, but this weekend, I migrated the 146 from my computer over to one I'm building for my son. I ordered an Opteron 165 for mine to get dual core.

The max multiplier for the DC Opty is 9 though. I found my highest FSB at 315 and I didn't find the max for the processor. I maxed out at 315 x 9 for 2835. I also have my RAM lowered to 133 which should take it out of the equation. I had my Windows drive on SATA port 3 and after I rebooted it didn't see that drive. Not in the BIOS either. So I moved it to port one and my storage drive to port 2. So now I get to the "windows is loading" screen and it just restarts.

I have a good feeling its hard drive related. The CPU was prime stable at its speed, and I had several good boots at the current FSB. I have Corsair 3500LLPro 1028 x 2 set close to stock speeds too(This RAM has overclocked pretty poorly for the model and price it was....but thats for another post).

I'm sure I'm over looking it somewhere, but just am not seeing it. Not sure weather I have locked ports or not or should lower the PCI speed setting (or what would be a good speed with the settings I have now)

Thanks guys for any light you can shed on my problem. Sorry, if its a noob question.

 

[Compuzen]

Bump for a lost soul

 

[lopri]

The board should be capable of higher FSB, but I think your Opteron could be maxed out? 2835 isn't a bad OC at all and many Opterons hit a brick wall somewhere around 2.90GHz.

Wait. Reading more closely, I don't think your problem is overclock/SATA-related. It might be just that the OS doesn't like the change from the different environment. Things like this happen once in a while and I know it's frustrating - seemingly harmless component swap causing OS boot failure. If anything, I'd use SATA 3/4 ports instead of 1/2 like you originally did. But you might want to take this issue to OS forum to resolve.

 

[Compuzen]

Thanks Lopri, I'm going to change it back to 3 - 4. I was doing some reading and saw that they should be locked. I'm not sure it was an OS problem at first though cause the drive wasn't even showing up in the BIOS. And I've read that I probably need to turn off the PEG Link option and USB Legacy support. I see you got a very nice OC from your Opty 165. What kind of cooling do you use? I'll let you know how I end up with this.

Thanks again

 

[lopri]

Ah-ha! Sorry I missed the part that you wrote about HDD not showing up in BIOS! Did you connect the 4-pin molex (EZ-connector or something) to the board? The disappearing HDD could be caused by a few reasons but I'd first check power supply. (especially if the HDDs show up in BIOS sometimes)

 

[Compuzen]

I opened it up and set the drives back to port 3 and 4 and fired it up. I left it overclocked and booted into windows. After getting into windows I got a blue screen. After resetting I lowered the clock speeds down and booted into windows. I went to my drive and set it to run check disk when I restarted. After I restarted it locked up before windows loaded. I reset and it booted into windows and set it to check disk again.....it locked up again. Frustrated I opened it up and cleared the CMOS. It sees the drives but just won't load windows. I get to the loading windows screen for a few seconds, but then it goes off and windows never starts. I'm baffled now. I'm going to try to make a western digital CD to check the drive from a DOS environment.

 

[Compuzen]

Well, I got booted into windows at stock speeds and everything ran fine. For months now when I start windows sometimes the screen would go blank for a couple minutes after the "loading windows" screen and then windows would come up. Never enough to make me tear it down to find the source, but now for some reason its taking a long time. It happens at the same spot, but lasts 5 minutes or more. I'm going to tear it down and boot to see if something is hanging it. If that doesn't show different results, I'll probably have to back up everything and reinstall windows (my absolute last resort).

Anyone else had this kind of hanging problem with this board?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Many, many people have the same issues with this board. I haven't had the "loading windows" hang since I formatted, but it's happened across several installations of Windows. The consensus is it's a flaw in the board, not OS. Since I cranked up the FSB to 300, I also get the "failure to restart".

 

[Compuzen]

Thank you very much Boston for sheding some light on that. I've had it across at least 2 installations, but never trouble shot it while installing all my software. I know on a fresh install it didn't do it, but at some point it crept back in. I'll post if I narrow it down.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Compuzen, where did you dig up the OC information? I left PEG Auto, ports unlocked, etc mostly because I didn't know what I was doing with it.

With basic tweaking, I can get the following:
300x9 = 2700 (+/-1) MHz, 1.175V + overvoltage = 1.36 / 1.375V

RAM 192.8 MHz, set to "133", 2-3-3-8, 2T, 2.9V, Skew Auto

NB, SB 16/16, 3xHTT stock voltage

 

[Compuzen]

I found some stuff about it here: http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t476223.html

I found another more informative thread on just the a8n32, but can't remember exactly what I searched for when I found it. I'll post the link if I come back across it.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: Compuzen
I found some stuff about it here: http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t476223.html

I found another more informative thread on just the a8n32, but can't remember exactly what I searched for when I found it. I'll post the link if I come back across it.

Was this it?
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=468038

 

[Compuzen]

Thanks Bill, that was the exact one I found. It has some pretty decent info specific to our boards.