ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 - Socket 939 with PCI-E and real AGP and Socket AM2 upgrade path

[imported_DarkPenguin]

I don't know but you might want to start by pulling everything but the processor and memory and see if you can get into the bios. If so start re-adding things one by one.

Oh, and double check your wiring.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: DarkPenguin
Anyone try the 1.50 BIOS that they put out there today?

I tried it earlier, (very) briefly. It didn't seem to want to boot over 270 HTT (same as version 1.20), so I got rid of it and I'm using OCWB1 now

 

[martman]

Thanks for replying DP...tried your advise still no keyboard lights nor monitor..everything else seems fine.. processor fan runs.. case fans..I'm totally at a loss here... starting to think I may have fried something on the board.. may hafta look at buying another mobo.. "another brand".. sheese.. got this brand new stuff.. amd 64 4000+.. 4 gig of ocz memory ..250 gig western digital sataII HD..evga 7800gt..I wanna get this puppy up and flying !!..hehe... Anyone got an idea on how to get my keyboard and monitor working?( with my ASRock mobo).. I know they work ..I am useing them now to type this reply on my "other" pc

 

[imported_DarkPenguin]

If it started working and then stopped one wonders if something didn't bake. Can you swap power supplies? Other than that I'd try to get hold of ASRock or RMA.

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: DarkPenguin
Anyone try the 1.50 BIOS that they put out there today?

I'm trying it out now. 1.40 never let me properly set the core voltage -- I could change it, but every Windows app would detect it as 1.4v no matter what I set it to. Then I'd go back into BIOS and it would be set to defaut.

1.50 seems to have fixed that -- I set the vcore to 1.45v right off the bat and it actually stuck! CPU is also running a tad hotter with the extra volts, but it's still ~46c under load, not too bad. (Of course, it is freezing in here.)

Testing stability with OCCT. So far so good.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Can't get over 253MHz FSB on this thing. Have an E3 Venice 3200+
This bios is very confusing.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Can't get over 253MHz FSB on this thing. Have an E3 Venice 3200+
This bios is very confusing.

Are you lowering the HTT multiplier to 4x or even 3x (since you want to use speeds >250)? It's called 'CPU-NB Link Speed' or something like that, and 3x is shown as 600MHz in the BIOS (Chipset config page). I agree though, it is confusing - I didn't know what I was doing either at first

 

[thirdlegstump]

Problem really is the fact that I don't know what settings/speeds link to what other parts of the system.
I have the vcore set to max at 1.45V which runs the CPU pretty hot at 47c under full load.

Why should I lower the HTT and what exactly does it do?

Why isn't it simply called "HTT multiplier" in the BIOS and instead called "CPU-NB Link Speed"?

Specs include:

Athlon 64 3200+ Venice E3 w/stock cooling
2x512MB DDR400 Corsair Value RAM (going to upgrade to 2GB soon)
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 board
ATI 9700 Pro 128MB AGP
2x200GB Seagate IDE

Any insight?

 

[imported_DarkPenguin]

Lots of good overclocking information in this thread ....

http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/30/5271.html

BTW, is 47C hot under full load? My p4 I use at work sits at about 47 under idle.

 

[thirdlegstump]

This bs is quickly turning me into a Dell dude. Pentium D here I come.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Problem really is the fact that I don't know what settings/speeds link to what other parts of the system.
I have the vcore set to max at 1.45V which runs the CPU pretty hot at 47c under full load.

Why should I lower the HTT and what exactly does it do?

Why isn't it simply called "HTT multiplier" in the BIOS and instead called "CPU-NB Link Speed"?

Specs include:

Athlon 64 3200+ Venice E3 w/stock cooling
2x512MB DDR400 Corsair Value RAM (going to upgrade to 2GB soon)
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 board
ATI 9700 Pro 128MB AGP
2x200GB Seagate IDE

Any insight?

You want to keep the total HTT speed under 1000MHz, since that's what the spec allows for (or so I've read anyway) - once you go above that speed, it may not be stable. So the total HTT speed is defined by the HTT ("FSB") speed you change for overclocking, and the HTT multiplier (called CPU-NB Link Speed on this board; not sure what it's called on other boards). 1000MHz is 5x, 800MHz is 4x, and so on. So if you're going over 250MHz HTT/FSB, you should probably lower that setting to 600MHz to keep the overall HTT speed under 1000.

Hope this helps...I'm still learning as I go along too. I've only had the board and my CPU for less than a month; used an Athlon XP before that.

Edit: You might already know this, but just in case - since you have PC3200 RAM, you'll need to lower your RAM speed (divider) to '166MHz' or '133MHz' (meaning 5/6 or 2/3) to keep your RAM near it's spec of 200MHz as you increase the HTT/FSB speed.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Interesting......but do you know exactly how it's calculated? How does changing the FSB (in my case 253MHz) change the actual HTT speed? It's currently set to 1000MHz..but based on my CPU FSB of 253MHz, the HTT is NOT 1000MHz, but in actuality it's higher? How can I see the actual HTT speed in this case? What sort of setting would provide the best overall system performance without inducing much of a bottleneck somewhere? Why the hell can't Assrock use standard BIOS feature naming conventions?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Interesting......but do you know exactly how it's calculated? How does changing the FSB (in my case 253MHz) change the actual HTT speed? It's currently set to 1000MHz..but based on my CPU FSB of 253MHz, the HTT is NOT 1000MHz, but in actuality it's higher? How can I see the actual HTT speed in this case? What sort of setting would provide the best overall system performance without inducing much of a bottleneck somewhere? Why the hell can't Assrock use standard BIOS feature naming conventions?

Now that you mention it, I don't know how you can see the actual (multiplied) HTT speed once you've set it. But yeah...if your 'link speed' is set to 1000MHz, then the actual speed will be higher than that. I'm not sure exactly at what point it starts to become unstable, I've just read that you don't really want to exceed 1000 by much. It's also my understanding that speeds lower than 1000 don't negatively impact real-world performance (I would guess that the hypertransport link is not saturated).

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Interesting......but do you know exactly how it's calculated? How does changing the FSB (in my case 253MHz) change the actual HTT speed? It's currently set to 1000MHz..but based on my CPU FSB of 253MHz, the HTT is NOT 1000MHz, but in actuality it's higher? How can I see the actual HTT speed in this case? What sort of setting would provide the best overall system performance without inducing much of a bottleneck somewhere? Why the hell can't Assrock use standard BIOS feature naming conventions?

Now that you mention it, I don't know how you can see the actual (multiplied) HTT speed once you've set it. But yeah...if your 'link speed' is set to 1000MHz, then the actual speed will be higher than that. I'm not sure exactly at what point it starts to become unstable, I've just read that you don't really want to exceed 1000 by much. It's also my understanding that speeds lower than 1000 don't negatively impact real-world performance (I would guess that the hypertransport link is not saturated).

Crazy. Not even a ubergeek like yourself fully understands this thing

 

[McArra]

1000Mhz means x5 multiplier, so if you are at 250FSB your HTT is at 250*5=1250, which is clearly out of spec.
800Mhz=4x
600Mhz=3x

So whichever the FSB you use you get this: FSBxHTT link in BIOS/200= HTT real speed
Simplified: @800Mhz---> HTT real speed= FSBx4
@600Mhz---->HTT real speed= FSBx3

Is not that difficult, you have only to get used to A64 OC. The same goes with every other A64 chipset, sometimes multipliers being shown with Mhz and other times in real multiplier numbers

Great board, mine is doing superb.

 

[grooge]

There is not one clock generator for each bus, but one to drive all the buses that use multiplier and divider to set proper speed. The main clock is 200MHz, you use the multiplier a 5x to get the 1000MHz HTlink or a divider to set the memory bus a 166MHz. The memory bust don't have multiplier, so, if you want higher speed memory bus, then you increase the main clock(200 MHz), which increase all the other bus speed, so the need to either change multiplier or use divider.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Ok so I just read this:

What memory dividers are available?
Memory dividers can be set in BIOS.
In BIOS, goto "Advanced" -> "CPU Configuration"
set "Memory Clock" to
200MHz = 1/1
166MHz = 5/6
133MHz = 2/3

You can utilize 3 more dividers using a tool called A64Tweaker.
In A64Tweaker, look for the drop down box named "MEMCLK Frequency", set it to
183MHz = 11/12
150MHz = 3/4
100MHz = 1/2

The formula for calculating memory speed:
MEM Speed = HTT * divider

So what am I supposed to be hoping to achieve here? Any examples showing combinations of existing working OCs?

 

[McArra]

HTT is one thing and mem clocks are another. You have chipset multipliers and mem multipliers.
If your mems don't OC well you can give them a divider, so they will run slower than the FSB.
ie: @200Mhz FSB with 5:6 mem divider de mems will run@166Mhz (333DDR).

 

[thirdlegstump]

So if I'm using DDR 400 memory, shouldn't I be running them at 1:1 @ 200MHz regardless of my HTT and CPU FSB settings?

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
So if I'm using DDR 400 memory, shouldn't I be running them at 1:1 @ 200MHz regardless of my HTT and CPU FSB settings?

Depends ... at 1:1 the mem speed will scale upwards with the HTT. See my sig for an example. If your mem can't handle it, set the divider lower.

I have HTT set to 218, so memory speed is (218*2)=436. It passes Memtest86 for 8 hours at that speed so it's stable. If it weren't stable I'd set the divider lower.

 

[pkrush]

Hey Martman, did you remember the extra 4 pin 12 volt connector? I know I forgot that when I upgraded my system.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Hmm..would reducing the CPU multiplier from 10x to 9x and then increasing the FSB to something a bit higher actually improve performance EVEN if the total CPU speed is pretty much the same?

(ie: 10x200MHz = 2GHz vs. 9x222MHz = 1.99GHz)

Also if I do 9x222MHz, what should I set my memory speed if I do not have high end RAM? (I currently have 2x512MB Corsair VR PC3200)
In the same case (9x222MHz) what should I set my CPU-NB (HTT) multiple to? Somehow these formulas are not counting up.

 

[thirdlegstump]

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/athlon64oc/

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Hmm..would reducing the CPU multiplier from 10x to 9x and then increasing the FSB to something a bit higher actually improve performance EVEN if the total CPU speed is pretty much the same?

(ie: 10x200MHz = 2GHz vs. 9x222MHz = 1.99GHz)

Yes -- higher FSB would increase performance in that case because your RAM is running faster. Use an app like Memtest86 or Prime95 to test your memory stability at the higher speed and if it passes, you're good to go. You don't necessarily need high-end ram -- but you may need to use default timings (CAS, RAS, etc.). The only real benefit of high-end memory in most cases is that you can use lower timings.

I'm using Corsair ValueRAM and it runs at those speeds just fine (218/436 effective). But I have to use default timings (2.5-3-3-8).

In the same case (9x222MHz) what should I set my CPU-NB (HTT) multiple to? Somehow these formulas are not counting up.

CPU-NB does not care what your CPU multiplier is set at. It takes the HTT and multiplies it by the CPU-NB setting. So whatever your HTT is set to, use a CPU-NB setting that puts it under 1000MHz or as close to that as possible.

 

[imported_Woody]

These last few pages are like a goldmine of info on using the BIOS with this board. Does anybody know if you need to adjust the Southbridge link speed as well as the Northbridge link speed to adjust the HTT multiplier? The available settings are the same (1000,800,600,400,200).

I ran some experiments with my memory speeds that will be useful for answering some of the above questions. I'm running BIOS v1.20 and 2x1GB Corsair XMS Pro (the ones with the LEDs) at 3,3,3,10.

What I found is that changing the Command Rate from 2T to 1T gives me about a 20% increase in measured memory bandwidth but relatively small gains in real world performance. I also found that I have some strange stability issues at 1T regardless of RAM speed....i.e. I get the same errors with RAM at 180MHz as I do at 250MHz with 1T but completely stable at 2T all the way up to 250MHz.

I also found that setting a memory divider (setting RAM speed at 166MHz in BIOS) with 1T gives me almost identical memory bandwidth as a 1:1 divider (200MHz RAM speed in BIOS) with Command Rate set to 2T regardless of the HTT speed used. Although you get a significant increase in bandwidtch by increasing the speed of the RAM with the command rate unchanged. Running lower latencies (2,3,3,10) gives me a less significant increase in bandwidth.

In all cases I found that overall system performance was far more dependent on CPU speed than on memory bandwidth so it seems clear that setting a memory divider to squeeze a little extra speed from the CPU would be worthwhile in most cases. What you set command rate at will be entirely up to how well your memory performs at given speeds but if you find you can't hold a 1T command rate at high RAM speeds you may find it more beneficial to lower your RAM speed and use 1T than to use 2T in order to push your RAM to it's limits. Running your RAM at lower speeds will of course be less stressful if it is stable at 1T.

Hope this helps.

BTW...running my 3700 San Diego at 2.75GHz is incredible....I'm getting near FX-57 performance out of a 3700. The CPU isn't even breaking a sweat so I'm sure I can go higher now that I understand better how to lower the HTT bus multiplier, and RAM speeds while pushing the CPU higher.

Excellent thread everyone!