Do VIA KT266A boards need H'ODA's memory tweak ?

[Philibuster]

Hey gang, just wondering if my EPOX 8KHA+ motherboard needs the memory tweak that I had to use on my ASUS CUSL2 when the Front Side Bus was set over 140MHZ? Any help would be appreciated.


Philibuster

 

[whalen]

Don't think so...

 

[DoubleL]

You can get more speed out of the 8KHA+ tweaking the memory than you can over clocking the processor, That is if you have good memory

 

[cavemanmoron]

thanks for the hint,i will have to try it!!

 

[Philster]

Thanks for the responses (Philster and Philibuster are the same person). My confusion is that I know the Intel I815 chipset when OC above 140FSB showed memory throughput losses unless a special registar tweak was applied for this chipset on the Asus CUSL2 board. I am running the most aggressive timing on my EPOX 8KHA+ right now with no OC'ing and the system is totally stable. Iam now at the stage where I would like to begin tweaking this system some more is all. Here's hoping someone knows the answer. Thanks all for your replies so far

Philster

 

[RustyNale]

I'm running the 8KHA+ with 2 sticks 256 Crucial DDR set at turbo, 2-2-5-2-2-1 settings with 4 way interleave. Oc'd to 153 fsb, and system is totally stable. I haven't heard of anyone using the tweak for this board yet...

 

[Philster]

Thanks Rusty! did you use WCPRedit to enable 4-way interleaving or just enable it via the bios? I too am using the same type and amount of ram with the turbo settings. Looking forward to hearing from you on the 4-way enabling.

Philster

 

[RustyNale]

Everything was done in the bios, though I run wcpuid to double check settings (from the desktop).

 

[MistaTastyCakes]

If you flash to the newest BIOS, you don't have to worry about using third party programs to re-enable the 4 Way Interleave after a certain FSB, it's enabled in the BIOS again.

 

[RustyNale]

I never had a problem with not having access to the 4 way interleave, but one of the first things I did when I got my mobo was to flash it to the 11/02 bios, which may have helped. I've also had this system running at 153fsb right from the first day, and always had the option for 4 way interleave...

 

[Philster]

:Q
Okay now I'm really confused! I upped my FSB to 140 and the system will not boot. It simply re-boots on it's own with the option for safe mode etc. I tried upping the Vcore and Vdimm a bit and it made no difference. I then re-set the FSB back to 133 and it wouldn't boot until I set my Vcore and Vdimm voltages back to there original settings. Here are my current settings and also what I did to attempt to reach only 140FSB.

First my cpu temp under full load (being in the bios for around an hour was only 42c) It drops to 36c once windows XP is running and for what it's worth only hits 40c after playing Max Payne for a few hours.

System Specs:

Windows XP Home Edition
Epox 8KHA+ bios 11/30
AMD Athlon XP1700+
2 x 256mb Crucial PC2100 DDr ram
Thermaltake Volcano VI copper core heatsink & fan
Enermax EG365 VE whisper series PSU bottom draw fan and rear exhaust fan
Elsa Gladiac 32mb GTS2/pro video card
Sunon 80mm rear exhaust fan
Aopen 10x DVD
LG 16x10x40 CDRW
Maxtor 20GB UDMA 4 & Quantum 20GB UDMA5 harddisks
Nikao MT2000 Mid Tower case with 4 active USB ports
3Com 3c900B Network Card
Aopen 56K V90 fax modem
Altec Lansing ACS33 speaker system
Samsung 900IFT monitor
Epson Stylus 670 USB printer
IBM Rapid Access USB keyboard
Microsoft USB Intellimouse Optical
Terayon Cable Modem
___________________________________________________

Advanced Chipset Settings are:

System Performance: Turbo
DRAM Clock: 133MHZ
DRAM Timing: Manual
SDRAM Cycle Length: 2
Bank Interleave: 4 Bank
DRAM Burst Length: 4
DRAM PreCharge to Act CMD: 2T
DRAM Act to PreCharge CMD: 6T
DRAM Active to CMD: 2T
DRAM Queue Depth: 4 Level
DRAM Drive Strength: Auto
DRAM Command Rate: 1T
DCLK I/O Timing: 0ns
Fast R-W Turn Around: Enabled
Continuous DRAM Request: Enabled

Frequency/Voltage Control Settings are:

Auto Detect DIMM/PCI CLK: Enabled
Spread Spectrum: Disabled
CPU Clock: 133
CPU Ratio: AUTO
CPU Vcore Voltage: +0.000v
Vdimm Voltage: +0.10v (I believe this was automatically set by the system)

NOTE: at the above settings the system is totally stable and never misses a beat! Gaming or using SiSandra 2002 or 3Dmark 2001 benchmarking.

So now if I go to bump the FSB to 140MHZ I simply entered 140 as the DEC number then tried to boot. No go.
So now I go and bump the CPU Vcore to +0.10v so my Vcore goes from 1.75v to 1.85v and then bump the Vdimm +0.20v so my Vdimm goes from 2.60v to 2.70v. No go.
By NO GO I mean it will not boot into windows it just keeps re-booting and finally asks me to choose safe mode etc.

So now I go and set the FSB back to 133 and leave the voltages alone it's still the same. I have to set the voltages back to the original settings in order to get the system to boot normally. Once done it is totally stable again.

My mind is telling me it's a power supply issue but I am not that good at reviewing the Frequency/Voltage readings I have in the System Health. Here they are:

Vcore: 1.79v
Vagp: 1.52v
+5v: 4.86v
+12v: 12.46v
VIO: 3.34v
VDimm: 2.64v
VBat(V): 3.10v
5vsb(V): 5.48v

CPU Vcore Voltage: +0.000v
VDimm Voltage: +0.10v

Whew....hope I covered everything here! hoping to hear the forums thoughts on what's going on.....Thanks.

Philster.

 

[Philster]

Well it would indeed appear to be a PSU issue. I removed the Enermax and re-installed my Sparkle Power 400w PSU and the system boots fine at 140 FSB with the agressive ram timings:
System Performance: Turbo
DRAM Clock: 133MHZ
DRAM Timing: Manual
SDRAM Cycle Length: 2
Bank Interleave: 4 Bank
DRAM Burst Length: 4
DRAM PreCharge to Act CMD: 2T
DRAM Act to PreCharge CMD: 6T
DRAM Active to CMD: 2T
DRAM Queue Depth: 4 Level
DRAM Drive Strength: Auto
DRAM Command Rate: 1T
DCLK I/O Timing: 0ns
Fast R-W Turn Around: Enabled
Continuous DRAM Request: Enabled

I bumped the CPU core voltage +0.050v to 1.80v and the Vdimm +0.20v to 2.70v. The cpu temperature after running SiSandra 2002 burn in wizard 30 times (man that takes hours) this afternoon only reached 44c.

When I went back into the BIOS to check the system health, these are the changes I noted.

Vcore: 1.79v now reads 1.84v
Vagp: 1.52v no changes
+5v: 4.86v now reads 4.99v
+12v: 12.46v now reads 11.92v
VIO: 3.34v now reads 3.24v
VDimm: 2.64v now reads 2.72v
VBat(V): 3.10v no change
5vsb(V): 5.48v now reads 5.37v

CPU Vcore Voltage: +0.000v bumped up +0.050v
VDimm Voltage: +0.10v bumped up +0.20v

The only odd thing was after looking around in the bios when I was rebooting into windows the system POSTED fine then began to load XP but rebooted on its own and offered the start windows normally option etc. It wouldn't so I just shut the system off for around 10min and it then booted fine and has run good ever since. I'm not sure why that would happen? Thanks to all who offered their help...if anyone wants to comment on why the system would reboot like that .....i'd love to hear it.

Philibuster