A8N32SLI bios 1205, now overclock unstable

[keldog7]

Anyone else having this problem?... I had the rig working nicely, but since upgrading the bios from 1009 to 1203 (and swapping the 6600GT for a 7900GTX), the machine is no longer stable in overclock. Appears to be stable if I reset the whole BIOS to "default values".

Obviously, either the 7900GTX or the bios flash may be causing the problem. However, does anyone else have experience with this BIOS flash leading to overclock instability?
-A

PS Right after flashing the BIOS, I *did* reset the settings to default, reboot, and the adjusted the various settings...burned by that omission in the past.

 

[keldog7]

Bump... serves me right for posting at 3 AM...

 

[keldog7]

Update... Prime 95 @ 2.5 GHz, with RAM underclocked...12 hours stable.
Memtest1.65+ at 1.2 GHz (way underclocked) and RAM UNDERclocked to 100...fails at test #6 with hundreds of errors. Turn out this happened on this board with bios 1205 and Legacy USB enabled. Will disable and update.
Interestingly, after bios flash, re-install of 84.21 driver, I'm not seeing much artifact lately - even when clocking the RAM at a speed where Memtest would fail. Furthermore, Oblivion running marvelously with all the eye-candy on. Of course, since the bios flash, I can't get my X server to run, and am forceed to do linux stuff from runlevel 3... Usually hangs at the nVidia logo if I try "init 5".

 

[Sunday Ironfoot]

Originally posted by: keldog7
Memtest1.65+ at 1.2 GHz (way underclocked) and RAM UNDERclocked to 100...fails at test #6 with hundreds of errors. Turn out this happened on this board with bios 1205 and Legacy USB enabled. Will disable and update.

Yeah tyrns out there's a compatibility problem with this motherboard and Memtest86 where tests 6, 7, and 8 cause 100's of errors, nothing to do with stability. Disabling Legacy USB support in the BIOS stops these errors, more here --> http://www.houseofhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48914 (second post from bottom)

BTW, I'm running that exact same board, processor and BIOS version, and can't get it to run stable at 2.4GHz (Prime95 fails). What settings do you use?

 

[keldog7]

That did it...USB legacy disabled, she's now stable under memtest.
As far as settings go, its pretty straighforward... I'll try and recall from memory...
FSB set to 250, multiplier at 10X. CPU voltage set to 1.225 volts, and the "overvolt CPU" option is ENABLED (enabling the 8 phase power). Obviously, disable Cool-n-Quiet if you volt this way. The RAM is presently set to 2.5-3-3-7 and 1T command rate, with 1.7V to the DIMMs, and the divider (under LIMIT of the memory settings screen) set to 200 (so that the RAM effectively is running at 250MHz).
Oh, the hypertransport bus is set to a 4x multipler (so that 4xfsb doesnt exceed 1000), and 16->16.
If you have problems, PM me, and we'll see if we can't fix you up.
-Adrian

 

[Sunday Ironfoot]

I've started another thread about my motherboards overclocking problems here --> http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1872491&enterthread=y

Basically I'm using similar settings to you except FSB @ 240Mhz (for 2.4GHz), memory divider @ 166 to keep memory speed at 200Mhz. I think there is a fault with my motherboard.