The EPoX 4G4A+ seems very promising.

[etrin]

Muadib I am in the same boat. I have a 1.8a week 52 malay. I hope it does something good.
I get my board tomorrow its on fedx truck right now.

Did you have any luck setting the 133 jumper on board to get 4:5, I am not sure if thats how it works
or not. But I am sure the people here know.. I will post anything I find as soon as I can. Please let me
hear anything you find out. What are your initial settings on the board?

By the way not board specific but HOW can I set up this board to run (forget speed) to check the max on the cpu or memory....not to post 3dmarks but to say hey this cpu is capable of doing 133 fsb or this memory can go to 150....

just a thought

etrin

if this 1.8 is a lemon did anyone find any GOOD OC 1.6a for sale at this time?

 

[Muadib]

Epox got back to me!! They gave me a beta bios, 4g4a2620, which gave me back the raid controller setting , but I still can't get the 4:5 setting.

I look forward to your posts, etrin. To answer your question, you will see your cpu speed in the bios, and motherboard monitor.

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: etrin

By the way not board specific but HOW can I set up this board to run (forget speed) to check the max on the cpu or memory....not to post 3dmarks but to say hey this cpu is capable of doing 133 fsb or this memory can go to 150....

Gosh. Now wouldn't that be nifty-keen. Ain't gonna happen.

If that were available anywhere, people would be flocking to it and talking about it. They aren't because it doesn't exist. The CPU tells the motherboard what it is spec'd for. Anything over that is up to you.

 

[turtlepower]

well i just ordered it today from mwave... alls i need now is ram... i'll probably be posting tons of questions later as this is also my first build

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: kgraeme

Originally posted by: etrin

By the way not board specific but HOW can I set up this board to run (forget speed) to check the max on the cpu or memory....not to post 3dmarks but to say hey this cpu is capable of doing 133 fsb or this memory can go to 150....

Gosh. Now wouldn't that be nifty-keen. Ain't gonna happen.

If that were available anywhere, people would be flocking to it and talking about it. They aren't because it doesn't exist. The CPU tells the motherboard what it is spec'd for. Anything over that is up to you.

Heh, that's for sure.

 

[etrin]

Sorry I read what I posted and I see where this did not make since.
What I was saying was are there settings that can push the cpu without
taxing the rest of the system, or max the memory without pushing the cpu
to its limits...

mainly after all the post on the 1.6a and the few 1.8 I have read that are
having problems going to 133 I wanted to know if its my 1.8a cpu that will be the
problem.

etrin

 

[kgraeme]

Ah. Yes, that's the beauty of these new boards. They give you that control. You can lock the AGP/PCI to their standard 66/33MHz, bump the FSB up to 150, but set the memory divider to 3/4 to keep it down at 225MHz.

Much better than in the past when pushing the FSB on the CPU also meant overclocking the PCI and AGP.

 

[anazoal]

About the hanging boot issue...

I'd posted earlier that I was having problems with a USB keyboard, and a hanging boot after the Highpoint controller intializes.

(Also, the Highpoint BIOS does not reconize the letter keys from the USB keyboard which is very strange).

Anyway, even after removing the USB keyboard the system will hang up after the Highpoint initializes unless you clear the PCI assignments. In BIOS, into PnP/PCI Assignments, and change Reset Configuration Data to Enabled. Save, & reboot. (This will reset you PnP/PCI configuration and hopefully...) No more hangups while booting.

BTW, thank you Johnnychangs!!! If you're having problems getting WinXP to correctly install USB2 drivers checkout his sticky post at {H}ard Forum here.

 

[audscott]

I love this board bump!!!

 

[sickNtired]

Maudib,

I have a 1.8 running at 2.4 using 1.7 volts. I alsohad trouble getting the 133 bus using the 4:5. What I did to get it to work is to set the voltage higher,reboot then turn off. Then remove the jumper and then reboot. This worked for me..

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: sickNtired
Maudib,

I have a 1.8 running at 2.4 using 1.7 volts. I alsohad trouble getting the 133 bus using the 4:5. What I did to get it to work is to set the voltage higher,reboot then turn off. Then remove the jumper and then reboot. This worked for me..

I'm running the same, but I also had to up the Vdimm to 2.8 which scares me. Did you have any success using the 4:5 setting, or was 2.4 the best you could do?

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: anazoal

Anyway, even after removing the USB keyboard the system will hang up after the Highpoint initializes unless you clear the PCI assignments. In BIOS, into PnP/PCI Assignments, and change Reset Configuration Data to Enabled. Save, & reboot. (This will reset you PnP/PCI configuration and hopefully...) No more hangups while booting.

Lucky you. Didn't work for me.

 

[Doomguy]

The bios only gives me a 4:3 memory option, I see no 3:4 or 5:4 options. How do I get them to show up? Thanks.

 

[Johnnychangs]

You have to set the FSB Jumper. When you remove the jumper completely, FSB default is 133, and you should have 1:1, 4:5, and 5:4. With the FSB Jumper on (pins 1+2 I think), FSB default is at 100, which gives you 3:4, 1:1 and 4:3 I think. The other setting is AUTO, which seems to work for some and not others. I have my jumper off, since I use the 4:5 ratio.

 

[etrin]

Just got my 4g4A board in and opened the box. Weird pink box well
not weird but a little surprised, with the nice pink carry strap...haha

ok enough giggles...I got a board, backplate, cables. No manual, or driver
disk. I called MWAVE and they said they would get one and send it to me
what files are on the disk?

I need to get them so I can install.

Do I just need the intel file or is there something else I need?

by the way does Ghost still come with Epox boards?

thanks for any help I hope Epox has the files I need on their site for DL

etrin

 

[anazoal]

etrin

1 - Follow my link (a few posts above) to {H}ard Forums. There you'll find all the Intel/chipset related files and installation steps.
2 - Intel.com --> support will have the latest drivers.
3 - Download the Realtek, AC97, Highpoint drivers from Epox.com (Windows will have already installed it's own drivers for the Realtek network chipset, so you should be able to do steps 1 & 2 first).

The Epox CD includes Ghost 7... Worked great ghosting my WinXP installation to my CD burner.

 

[Doomguy]

You can download all the drivers from Intel. Epox does still include ghost on their driver cd.

 

[sickNtired]

Maudib:

Actually, I am running at 2.4 with the 4:5 setting. I have the AGP/PCI bus locked at 66/33

 

[canadianpsycho]

Well I just hooked up a 1.6A and a 4g4a+

As we speak I'm running 150 fsb, but only 1:1 ratio on my memory. So I'm 2.4GHz with 300 DDR. CAS 2.5-6-3-3. I'm using 2 sticks of 256MB Micron PC2400 DDR. 1.65 Vcore, 2.70 on the DDR. Retail Heatsink. Going to run Prime 95 overnight to see if the system is stable. MBM5 is reporting 47-53 C on CPU and 30C at the start of my torture test of Prime95.

So far I'm pretty pleased. I was hoping for 2.4 to be stable. Everything else will be gravy, I might just keep it at 2.4 (if stable), as I don't want to run 1.7 vcore.

Next step is to wait for some deal on a nice 512MB Stick of XMS memory to get myself better bandwidth. This Micron was doing OK before at DDR 286-ish with aggresive (Turbo, 2,6,2,2) settings. 374 DDR with 2.5, 6, 3, 3 froze up in windows. I definitely want to take advantage of the other FSB/Mem ratios, so better RAM appears to be a must have.

Quick questions...

-Is 2.70v considered a bit high for memory voltage? Or should I be ok?

-I'm kind of new to Prime95. If the stress test halts, is my system considered unstable? I basically just set the CPU to 2400MHz, gave it as much RAM as I could (459). Prime 95 has halted once, 5 min in.

-If the stress test does halt (making my system officially "unstable") any suggestions? If my only option is running a higher vcore, I may just back off the fsb

-Also, what is this about CPU throttling in the BIOS?

Thanks.

 

[HigherGround]

I finally got my stuff together and managed to play with some o/c options. Looks like my CPU is a champ ( 2.4Ghz @ 1.5V ), however I some issues with memory, as it will not boot to Windows at anything higher than 360Mhz DDR ( 144Mhz FSB *5/4 * 2) and that is only achievable with the slowest timing settings. I'm trying to figure out if the problem is really memory related, or maybe the OS/motherboard is to blame.

relevant specs:
---
P4 1.6A
1x512MB Samsung CTL DDRAM in slot #2 ( tried 2.5V-2.8V )
Epox 4G4A+ BIOS date ( 04/24/02 )
Windows XP /w Intel INF driver installed
Disabled onboard video and sound

 

[canadianpsycho]

I'm almost positive my memory is holding me back... I can boot and run some games for a bit at 2.4, but its not stable. I need to pick myself up a single stick of XMS... I'm really tempted to go ahead and order some right now... I'm basically stable at 143 MHz, anything higher I'll crash frequently, similar to problems other have been havign w/ 2 sticks of RAM.

 

[HigherGround]

canadianpsycho: in your case memory looks like an obvious candidate for upgrade, however I'm sitting with a stick of "the best stuff around" or so they say, which does not even come close speeds posted around the web. I'm still wondering if it's the memory or the mobo or maybe something else

 

[anazoal]

HigherGround, you need to burn-in your memory: lower your FSB to get DDR 333 using 4:5, and increase the FSB in 3 - 5 MHz increments. At each stage run Sandra memory burn-in for ~ 5 loops. This worked for me.

 

[HigherGround]

anazoal: I've just realized that ( after reading the article @vr-zone, to which I have refered in my previous post ). Anyway thanks for setting me straight ... on another note, I've noticed that that the board undervolts under heavy load ( I'm @ 155Mhz FSB @ 1.6V in BIOS, but my Vc is hovering around 1.54 ( even dipped below 1.52 :Q ) while running Prime. It's 1.58V when idling, which is within expected range.

 

[Johnnychangs]

Higherground -
Just because you can post with your 1.6a @ 2.4ghz (150FSB) with default voltage doesn't mean a lot. I can do the same with my P41.6a. I can post at 160FSB with 4:5 ratio, but I sure as hell can't boot into WinXP at that setting.

You may want to try and bump your Vcore up to 1.60 - 1.70v and your Vmem at 2.6-2.7v at speeds of 140-150FSB@ 4:5. If all your system parts are new, burn them in. Try 1.60Vcore and 2.7Vmem and see if you can boot into Windows. If you can, then run Sandra Burn-in (check off the CPU and Memory benchmarks) and let it run for a couple hours, while monitoring your temps and voltages with Motherboard Monitor. You can also use Prime95 or SuperPi.

Canadienpsycho brought up a good question about Prime95....Under the CPU option, obviously you have to set the CPU speed to the speed you are running, but what about the Memory settings? I have left them at 8MB, which is default. Should I bump up this setting for more stability? I have 512MB of ram, so shoud I set it at 400 or something?

Thanks