P8P67 LE overclocking

[d33pblue]

This didn't seem to fit in any of the existing threads, so I felt it deserved it's own.

I put together my new Sandy Bridge machine last night with the Asus P8P67 LE motherboard. Everything went flawlessly and I'm up and running with no issues but one.

You can't seem to overclock the processor ratio!!! The ratio is limited to 34 in the bios. You can go lower, but not higher.

I absolutely cannot believe this. I bought the board for overclocking and i'm limited to increasing the BLK a couple mhz??? Is this right? Please tell me I'm missing something.

I've combed over everywhere I know to look and can't find anything to rectify this. Is there a BIOS somewhere or am I stuck? There was NOTHING in the board's description or specification to indicate crippled overclocking.

 

[d33pblue]

Someone wrote a review on Newegg complaining about this as well. This is the manufacturer response:



Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for any confusion regarding overclocking this motherboard. This board does allow the ratio to be changed in the Ai Tweaker tab of the UEFI BIOS, however you don't overclock by changing the Core Ratio, but rather by increasing the Turbo Ratio. You may first need to set 'Ai Overclock Tuner' to manual. Then set the 'Turbo Ratio' to "By Per Core (Cannot Adjust in OS)". You will then see 4 boxes below this option where you can enter the Turbo ratio that you would like to use on each of the 4 cores.

Best Regards,
ASUS Support Team

 

[icemule1]

I've been having similar overclocking issues with this board. There is also no setting in the BIOS to be able to manually adjust CPU Voltage (Vcore). You have to rely on the built-in auto-vcore which has been known to over-volt. Nice job ASUS.

 

[d33pblue]

That's not the biggest deal breaker to me. I mean, heck, you can get to 4.2Ghz or so on stock voltage. However to completely disable multiplier overclocking on a P67 motherboard is absolutely unforgivable. Whatever genius at Asus that made that call should be fired.

If they don't issue a BIOS fix to this nonsense soon, I'm picking up an ASRock board and sending this one back to Newegg.

Edit: If anyone is able to achieve a higher than stock multiplier with this board, I'd love to hear about it. All the "auto overclock" feature does is raise the BCLK 2-3%.

 

[Manticorps]

I have a P8P67 Pro, but I bet the BIOS is pretty similar. Make sure you are trying to change the multiplier in the advanced tab, not the AI tweaker tab. You are using a "K" series processor right?

If the BIOS is similar, this might be helpful.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/07/how-to-overclock-the-intel-core-i5-2500k/3

 

[d33pblue]

After doing more digging and sleuthing, I believe I've found the workaround.

The multiplier is indeed limited to stock (34) in the EFI with the 2600K. However, the processor can be successfully overclocked in Windows with the AI Suite II utility. The utility seems to use the "turbo" feature of the processor to kick all of the threads up to full speed (base * multiplier, whatever you choose). I'm stable at 4.4Ghz on stock voltage right now. Frankly I'm so relieved I don't have to send the board back that I haven't even bothered to push it any further.

You can also tweak the Vcore in the utility as well, which is good since you can't seem to do this in the BIOS.

So in a nutshell, as things stand now, EFI overclocking on this board is all but disabled. However the software overclocking utility seems to work well. I'll be sure to report back if I find out any different.

Hopefully this helps somebody.

 

[Dadofamunky]

I ran into the same thing, but I would never OC with a Windows utility. That's similar to flashing the BIOS in Windows, you're just asking for trouble. Here's what you do:

1) Make sure you use EZ Flash in the BIOS to update to the current version from the Asus Web site. (1053? Not sure.)
2) Enable Turbo. Set its multi to whatever.
3) Raise the CPU PLL to ~1.9V, non-auto setting.
4) Set the CPU voltage to manual and to 1.25V or whatever.
5) Turn off CPU Spread Spectrum.
6) Check the CPU Ratio setting under Advanced -> CPU Configuration. It should now be set to the same value as you set the Turbo multi for.
7) Reboot. You should be on your way.

I just did all this. There are some other Advanced voltage settings you can play with that will also help. I found that it didn't make any diff whether or not I set EIST or C1E, so I turned them off.

 

[d33pblue]

I'm not sure if you read everything I wrote here, but you absolutely cannot set the CPU ratio to anything higher than stock on this board.

Also, this BIOS is different than the regular, Pro, Deluxe, etc versions of the board. The only BIOS for this one is the initial one (0710).

 

[Zap]

Whatever genius at Asus that made that call should be fired.

Asus has around 5 tiers of P8P67 (not counting micro ATX). You want more features? Gotta go up a tier.

 

[MrTransistorm]

Asus has around 5 tiers of P8P67 (not counting micro ATX). You want more features? Gotta go up a tier.

There's a difference between a board lacking a few features and being intentionally crippled. There's no good reason for any P67 board to not have full Vcore control in BIOS.

I was puzzled when icemule1 stated that Vcore is not settable in the P8P67 LE BIOS. I compared its manual with the one for the Deluxe, and indeed it's true. You can only adjust the offset for the auto Vcore mode. There is no way to force a fixed Vcore. That's ludicrous.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Ah, so the "LE" board, which I've never seen before, is very likely the entry-level board. Yeah, you'd likely need to go up a step to get OCing flexibility. If you can, I'd return it and go up a step. Did you buy it under the impression you'd have all the normal tweaking features of the other boards? I think you'd have a case. Especially if the vendor knows you'll pay the difference to get the P8P67 standard or Pro board.

 

[d33pblue]

Given that I can get 4.4Ghz+ without breaking a sweat, I won't be returning the board. It's still bizarre how they handled this BIOS though.

 

[Gtruck]

Given that I can get 4.4Ghz+ without breaking a sweat, I won't be returning the board. It's still bizarre how they handled this BIOS though.

So the OC dosent go into affect until the AI suite it loaded in windows everytime? Or does it mod hidden features in BIOS to get OC values?

 

[Masonw@ASUS]

I'm not sure if you read everything I wrote here, but you absolutely cannot set the CPU ratio to anything higher than stock on this board.

Also, this BIOS is different than the regular, Pro, Deluxe, etc versions of the board. The only BIOS for this one is the initial one (0710).

That's correct, you can't set the CPU ratio higher than the stock multiplier, however, like you mentioned in your reference of our manufacturer reply to a Newegg post, P67 boards do not overclock by increasing the CPU ratio but rather by increasing the "Turbo Ratio". The Turbo Ratio option has been in the AI Tweaker tab of the UEFI BIOS since the P8P67 LE board was released.

AI Tweaker tab -> set "Turbo Ratio" to "By Per Core (Cannot Adjust in OS)" -> this will give you 4 entry fields: 1-Core Ratio Limit, 2-Core Ratio Limit, etc. Set each of these to 44 for example.

You're correct in that there is no manual vCore setting for this board, however you do not have to rely on Auto as there is an offset vCore option. Using offset voltage can actually be advantageous and is quite conducive to overclocking. With offset vCore the VRD will scale down during idle states helping to extend the life of the VRM area due to less voltage and less stress. This will also lower the temps. and could increase the lifespan of your CPU. You can also enable load-line calibration to compensate for under/overshoot and Vdroop.