The mobile Athlon 64 and motherboards

[DAPUNISHER]

One addendum I'd suggest adding to the FAQs is that some boards such as my Shuttle AN50R offer a voltage range that goes below 1v so the CG B2 35W Mobile's default 1.2v should not be an issue for some boards.

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: oralpain
My motherboard has been able to do 420x5 with clockgen totaly stable. Just needed to lower HTT to x1, and memory to ddr200. Definatly noth the fastest setting but it proves PCI/AGP lock beyond a doubt.

You can't run the memory 1:1 with an athlon 64 anyway, it's divided down from the cpu speed. I sold my pc3200 bh-5 and made more than enough money to get some decent pc4000. My baord only goes to 2.85vdimm wich was only enough for me to get my bh-5 to around 210-215MHz. Running the memory with slightly worse timings, but with 25% more MHz should give me a small performance increase.

I have decided to get a 1.2v 2800+ mobile. I'm betting it will overclock better on the voltage my motherboard can give it (only 1.55 vcore). It should be here friday I'll see how/if it works then. I'm hoping to run at 300x8 or better, 325x8 or 300x9 would be ideal.

Edit: My motherboard is an AOpen AK89 MAX btw.

That's interesting, I haven't heard of anyone getting that high. How does the 1x HTT affect performance?

Also interesting re the memory divisor. That would explain why there is no difference in the setting the memory at 200 or 166 as the Athlon 64 is not very bandwidth dependant. I'm thinking of doing the same thing actually depending on what I want to do. I know I can get $400 for my Mushkin :Q

Well, let us know how the mobile works out. I've been curious myself.

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: Diogenes2

Originally posted by: djm68
Hey Bar,

Question about the no 1:1 ratio with 2 dimms. Unless I am missing something, I am running the memory on my vnf3-250 1:1 @ddr500 -- 2 sticks of OCZ 3700EB. Any way to verify this for sure?

Cheers,
DJM

Bar might want to respond, but I have tested 2 x 512 @ 250 1:1 also... I have gone up to 260 with one DIMM.. Not sure if a BIOS change would improve this..


This is with the memory set to Auto.. Whenever I try to set the memory to 166 or 133, lower the HT, multi, and up the FSB to 270 or higher, I get a CPU fault and it won't boot..

The problem is specifically with the beta BIOS, 2 DIMMs, and the 1:1 setting. The board simply will not work above DDR400 with those settings. Using the 166 setting I have gotten memory up to DDR500 speeds so it's just apparently a quirk at this point in time.

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
One addendum I'd suggest adding to the FAQs is that some boards such as my Shuttle AN50R offer a voltage range that goes below 1v so the CG B2 35W Mobile's default 1.2v should not be an issue for some boards.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Diogenes2]

Originally posted by: Bar81


The problem is specifically with the beta BIOS, 2 DIMMs, and the 1:1 setting. The board simply will not work above DDR400 with those settings. Using the 166 setting I have gotten memory up to DDR500 speeds so it's just apparently a quirk at this point in time.

Maybe it is with certain parts..

As I said:

I have 2 x 512 of the following:

Komusa Hyperram PC4200

HardcoreCooling PC4200

Adata PC4000

All running stable at 250 - 255 1:1 on VNF3 with Beta BIOS

 

[Bar81]

Really. Maybe, it's just OCZ and Mushkin then. Very strange as they're the best but maybe they've tuned their RAM a little too aggressively?

 

[Diogenes2]

I am using Auto timings, and they default at 8 - 4 - 4 -3..

2.8 - 2. 9 v...

 

[dimasukr]

Again, I tried 2x512MB OCZPC4400 EL GOLD and no matter what timings I choose (even the slowest ones - 3-6-6-15 2T) or whether I do load safe settings or optimized beta BIOS will not work with 1:1.
The problem goes away with 04/30 BIOS (btw it is also BETA - official one is 03/08 version).
1 DIMM will work stable up to 275MHz - I could even boot it up to 290 (need some memory cooling for this to work).
The biggest problem with 05/07 BIOS is that you cannot force you memory to 1:1 ie. 200Mhz option disappeared from the menu (it was there in 04/30 version).
I hope this is not how production BIOS will look like.

 

[Diogenes2]

Originally posted by: dimasukr
Again, I tried 2x512MB OCZPC4400 EL GOLD and no matter what timings I choose (even the slowest ones - 3-6-6-15 2T) or whether I do load safe settings or optimized beta BIOS will not work with 1:1.
The problem goes away with 04/30 BIOS (btw it is also BETA - official one is 03/08 version).
1 DIMM will work stable up to 275MHz - I could even boot it up to 290 (need some memory cooling for this to work).
The biggest problem with 05/07 BIOS is that you cannot force you memory to 1:1 ie. 200Mhz option disappeared from the menu (it was there in 04/30 version).
I hope this is not how production BIOS will look like.

I notice whenever I change any settings or even plug in a diff stick of RAM, the POST halts
with a Screen that says something like " CPU fault press F1 to enter BIOS or ESC to continue "


If I continue ( ESC ) it boots at 5:6 .. If I hit the RESET switch on the MOBO, it reboots with
the new settings..


Maybe you could give this a try..

 

[imported_oralpain]

Originally posted by: Bar81

Originally posted by: oralpain
My motherboard has been able to do 420x5 with clockgen totaly stable. Just needed to lower HTT to x1, and memory to ddr200. Definatly noth the fastest setting but it proves PCI/AGP lock beyond a doubt.

You can't run the memory 1:1 with an athlon 64 anyway, it's divided down from the cpu speed. I sold my pc3200 bh-5 and made more than enough money to get some decent pc4000. My baord only goes to 2.85vdimm wich was only enough for me to get my bh-5 to around 210-215MHz. Running the memory with slightly worse timings, but with 25% more MHz should give me a small performance increase.

I have decided to get a 1.2v 2800+ mobile. I'm betting it will overclock better on the voltage my motherboard can give it (only 1.55 vcore). It should be here friday I'll see how/if it works then. I'm hoping to run at 300x8 or better, 325x8 or 300x9 would be ideal.

Edit: My motherboard is an AOpen AK89 MAX btw.

That's interesting, I haven't heard of anyone getting that high. How does the 1x HTT affect performance?

Also interesting re the memory divisor. That would explain why there is no difference in the setting the memory at 200 or 166 as the Athlon 64 is not very bandwidth dependant. I'm thinking of doing the same thing actually depending on what I want to do. I know I can get $400 for my Mushkin :Q

Well, let us know how the mobile works out. I've been curious myself.

At 400MHz+ 1x HTT doesnt hurt performance all that much, but at much lower it defiantly gets noticeable. I don't intend to set it lower than 2x for any real use.

I sold my 2x512 mushkin BH-5 2-2-2 PC3200 promo build for $230. I though could have gotten more, but 400 seems rediculous to me, is it really in that high demand? Oh well, I had no references and sold it online in less than a day, payment in advance. I suppose the lack of hassle was worth some money.

I've got my fingers crossed, hoping that the mobile will work. I'll post friday or saturday with my results.

 

[Bar81]

Well, considering my RAM can do DDR500 speeds I'm hesitant to give it away just because Chaintech is incompetent. I ordered the new MSI board; the more time I spend with the Chaintech, the more it pisses me off.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Bar81
Well, considering my RAM can do DDR500 speeds I'm hesitant to give it away just because Chaintech is incompetent. I ordered the new MSI board; the more time I spend with the Chaintech, the more it pisses me off.

this just proves my theory of not wanting to get one of these "lower tier" company's products

I'll stick with what works
never had problems with:

Asus
Soltek
DFI
MSI

 

[Bar81]

Originally posted by: CraigRT

Originally posted by: Bar81
Well, considering my RAM can do DDR500 speeds I'm hesitant to give it away just because Chaintech is incompetent. I ordered the new MSI board; the more time I spend with the Chaintech, the more it pisses me off.

this just proves my theory of not wanting to get one of these "lower tier" company's products

I'll stick with what works
never had problems with:

Asus
Soltek
DFI
MSI

I agree fully. I usually stick with Asus/ASRock because I want to avoid the headaches but I'm in a mode of trying other vendors. I've pretty much seen that I wasn't missing anything. Crossing my fingers that this MSI turns out well.

 

[djm68]

Hey Bar,

Yeah, I am running ddr500 x 9 with the 5/7 beta bios.

When I pull up the nvidia nvsystem util I see:

Hypertransport link: 500 Mhz
Memory bus: 500 (DDR) Mhz
AGP Bus: 66.0 Mhz
CPU multiplier: 9.0 x
CPU Speed: 2250


Unless I am mistaken, that is 1:1, correct?

I am running Athlon 64 3200+ (C0 stepping), 2x512 OCZ 3700EB.

My mem setting are set to AUTO in the bios, but I have set vdimm to 2.8.

With this setup, I am running totally stable for a week.


Cheers,

DJM

Originally posted by: Bar81
With the beta 5/7/04 BIOS???

 

[Bar81]

If it's set to auto in the 5/7 BIOS it's my understanding that it defaults to 166 unless you manually select the 1T option. When you boot up does it say DDR400, then below it DDR 500?

 

[imported_oralpain]

Take a look at AMDs Athlon 64 data sheet...http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/24659.PDF specifcally page 14.

That is 1:1 with the clock generator but not the memory controler. It's 9:1 (CPU:MEM), the newest version of cpuid will confirm. The Athlon 64s do not have a FSB as it is commonly defined. All memory speeds are obtaind from a whole number divisor of the full CPU speed.

 

[djm68]

Hey Bar,

Yes, when I boot up, the BIOS splash screen says DDR400, then just below that is says something like "Memory frequency DDR500". I will double check this evening when I get home from work and post what I see.

Also, let me know if there are any settings you'd like to know in my BIOS.

Oh, one other thing -- when I first flashed my BIOS to the 5/7 beta and booted, my mem *did* default to 333. I then entered the BIOS and selected "failsafe defaults", then set up my desired frequencies, saved and rebooted. If you do not load the failsafe defaults, the BIOS does not work correctly, at least in my case.

Cheers,
DJM

Originally posted by: Bar81
If it's set to auto in the 5/7 BIOS it's my understanding that it defaults to 166 unless you manually select the 1T option. When you boot up does it say DDR400, then below it DDR 500?

 

[xXMVWXx]

I'd be careful when looking into using a DTR. My DTR will not run pc3200 at 400, it runs at 157x2=314. The revised DTR runs at 160x2=320. DTR's are known to have this memory controller issue. I found it once at AMD's site, but have since not had any luck. The MOBILE 64's are good to go, their controller runs 400 just fine. I'm just waiting to drop in a mobile into my laptop.

 

[Bar81]

That's simply not accurate. Your DTR first off isn't CG. My DTR controller was running just fine at DDR420 in my ASRock. I'll have to do some more cross testing with the ASRock and the MSI K8N Neo when I get it. I just don't trust the Chaintech to figure out the limits of my CPUs; it's got too many quirks.

 

[jkresh]

if theres no difference between the dtr and mobile, how come newegg charges $10 more for the mobile then for the drt?

 

[Bar81]

Ask newegg

 

[jkresh]

I don?t think I will because they probably will just raise the price of the dtr to match the mobile. Any idea if the retail desktop chips (3200 to be specific) are CG or CO, they don?t give that info for retail, and even though I am going to over clock and hence void the warranty I would feel more comfortable getting a retail desktop chip rather then an oem dtr (30 warranty makes me nervous).

 

[Bar81]

You can buy a 1 year warranty on the DTRs from newegg.com if you buy it through them. No way to know CG or C0 unless you have the code but with the clawhammer desktops its almost always C0, CG are hard to find. However there are new 3200+s that are 2.2Ghz with 512k L2 cache and those are CG. I got one from Frys last weekend.

 

[jkresh]

guess i will go with dtr and add the waranty, any ideas if the new asus nforce3 250gb board will work with the dtrs out of the box? I would guess it would since it is an asus, but would be nice to know before ordering (not that its available yet).

 

[Bar81]

Buy it and let us know