400FSB Bartons on 195ddr bus?

[Hikari]

Hey all!

I have the A7N8X Deluxe 1.04 w/the latest BIOS, but it's really flakey at 200ddr, so I'm stuck at 195 unfortunately. Anyone know if the newer 400 Bartons can run at a lower speed? I know there may be a multiplier problem, but I wasn't sure if just a 5mhz drop would cause a problem in this case.

Thanks!

 

[Doh!]

It should run w/o much difficulties.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Doh!
It should run w/o much difficulties.

Try a 202 Mhz FSB... mine was unstable at exactly 200 too because the A7N8X automatically turns on Spread Spectrum, which, if I remember correctly, varies the CPU frequency slightly to reduce EMI. Although, when you're overclocking a chip and pushing it near it's limits, that creates instabilities, cause momentarily it may jump 10 mhz and cause something to crash or lock up.

 

[Hikari]

Wow, it does that automatically at 200? They let you actually turn it off in bios now, so I thought they'd listen... Oh well. I'll give that a try tonight, thanks! It's amazing how much more stable 195 is than 200 was for me though!

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Doh!
It should run w/o much difficulties.

Try a 202 Mhz FSB... mine was unstable at exactly 200 too because the A7N8X automatically turns on Spread Spectrum, which, if I remember correctly, varies the CPU frequency slightly to reduce EMI. Although, when you're overclocking a chip and pushing it near it's limits, that creates instabilities, cause momentarily it may jump 10 mhz and cause something to crash or lock up.

 

[Jeff7181]

It appears as though they let you turn it off... but it keeps turning itself back on every time you use a standard FSB speed, like 200 or 166 or 133. I've turned it off, rebooted, gone back into the bios, only to find it turned back on. I haven't done a BIOS update, so maybe that has been fixed in a BIOS update, but I know I can run the FSB at 202 and not 200, and the only difference is Spread Spectrum is on at 200 and off at 202.

 

[pspada]

Another point against the Asus mobo compared to the 8DRA+!

 

[infinite012]

Do you know which BIOS you have, exactly? If it is the 1004 BIOS then you should be able to turn spread spectrum off. If it's the Uber 1004 BIOS (by demolus from nforcershq.com) then you should be able to turn spread spectrum off [and up the chipset voltage up]. Also, try what Jeff did and up the FSB by 1 or 2 MHz to see if that makes a difference.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

run a bit more than or less than 200 and it should be fine
or go back to bios 1002.A
or flash to 1004 uber as mentioned above

also, i don think any rev less than 2.0 (if that even) actually changes the Vdd....it makes the change in the bios, but i think someone checked to make sure and found no extra voltage going to chipset

 

[TerryMathews]

2.0 doesn't affect the chipset voltage, when using the uber BIOS. There has to be a component level change, that ASUS isn't going to do as it would be more costly for them. So that feature isn't going to work with anything except preproduction boards. Or modified boards.

 

[Jeff7181]

Actually I was using 1003... I just upgraded to 1005 today, and now it's always off by default.