A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 and mobile 2600+

[shaked]

Alright, here's my dilemma. I currently own an A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 paired with a 2600+ (non-barton). It runs stock at 12.5x166 and I run it at 11x200. Lately I've been thinking about getting a mobile 2600+ and trying to push it to 2.5ghz. Last night, to see if my board could actually handle it, I set my FSB to 215x10.5. I gave the chip 1.8v and it booted. Shortly thereafter I got the "Fatal error your computer will restart in 60 seconds" message. Now first of all, what caused this? I had previously booted 210x10.5 at 1.75v. Now I'm not sure if that was stable, because I was just screwing around, but I've never been able to even get it to boot. If it was the chip, I understand. It could have easily been undervolted. But could it be the motherboard? I am strongly considering the mobile chip to up my FPS. My chip only has 256kb of L2 cache and I can really tell sometimes. If I get a mobile, will the board be able to handle it or do I need to buy a new board? I'll probably buy an SP-97 to throw on the mobile and possible an NB-1 to cool the northbridge. Is this even necessary? If I need a new motherboard, I don't think the upgrade is really cost effective. But if my board can handle it, I think it's a decent upgrade which will last for a while. Oh yeah, I'm using 2x512 Corsair XMS PC3500 (BH-5) and I'm really not utilizing it to its full capabilities and I'd like to. Any help or input would be greatly appreciated. I'm probably going to migrate to a Lian Li case, so I figure now is the time to get everything so I can install it all at once. Thanks.

Rich

 

[oldman420]

i have had two of those boards and here are a few pros and cons to what you are thinking and this board from my expereince.
pros
1 th a7n8x series is a great nf2 board stable at stock.
2 the chipset is well integrated and the bios allows quite a lot of adjustment.
3 great sound
cons
1 the board is rated at 200 mhz and will stabily with extremely good ram get to 210 i have heard stories of 250 mhz but i am not convinced.the dual channel memory controller is a wee bit buggy and the board runs more stable in single chhannel mode than in dual channel
2, the sata controller onboard is not well integrated and causes system instibility at times.
3 the multiplier in bios will go no higher than 12.5
4 there is not enough range in vcore adjustment to compensate for mobile cpus it goes from 1.625 to 1.8

keep in mind that the mobile 2600 is rated at 1.45 vcor 133 x 15
so even 200 is considered high in those terms

the thing that a mobile cpu gives you is the ability to do the same work at a lower vcore and as a bonus has an unlocked multiplier thats where the power comes in i have taken my 2600 on asus hw to 2.5 ghz stable but it was at 200 mhz and 1.8 core way too much for more than a minute due to heat but after playing and experimenting with different benchmarks i came to the conclusion that 166 mhz is the way to go with a ramped multi for higher stability at least for ocing.
so in conclusion yes it was the motherboard and in order to really oc that cpu past 12.5 200 you will need another board
but at 200 x 11 that board rocks the casba and with a mobile you should be able to do it at 1.3-1.4 vcore.
happy computin

 

[shaked]

Yeah, I was afraid that it wouldn't be able to get up to high FSBs. I wanted to hear from people who have owned the board. One thing I did read about on the Asus FAQ website, in regards to the vcore was that there's a jumper on the board that switches it from 1.65-1.85 to 1.75-2.05 or something like that. I have yet to look for this jumper, but if it does in fact exist, then the voltage problem is solved. I really don't want to run a mobile higher than 1.8v anyway. I figure I can get 12.5x200, but I was looking for something like 218x11.5 so I can utilize my RAM. I don't know if it requires chipset cooling or what, but I'd really like to accomplish this. My board obviously wasn't stable at 215, but it did boot. At 210, it appeared to be fine, but I didn't benchmark anything. Like I said, I don't know if it was my T-bred chip or if it was the board. Would board instablity cause windows to corrupt? Or would cpu do the same? I guess I'd have to assume it was the board though.

Rich

 

[Pilsnerpete]

I'd be interested in finding that jumper too, Shaked; although, I don't think it would improve the fsb much. The most I can get out of mine (completely stable) is 203 with Mushkin 3500 lvl 1. That should be good for at least 217!

 

[shaked]

Over at amdmb I was told to do a few things to see how my board faired. I ran memtest at 215x10 @1.8v with my memory at 11-2-3-2.5 @ 2.9v. Only ran it for ~30 minutes. 2 errors on test 5 of the first run. None on the second run.

I then ran ANOTHER test at 210x10.5 @ 1.75v and memory at 7-2-2-2 @ 2.9v. 11 passes, 8 errors. ALL of the errors were on test 5 of pass 2. I'm not really sure what this means in terms of stability of the board vs stability of the chip, but I'd be interested to find out. All of the errors were on ONE pass. I assume that means it wouldn't pass a prime torture test, and probably wouldn't calculate in superpi. If I throw a mobile in there, I am curious if it would make a difference. What do you think?

Rich