new A7V333(raid) all-inclusive thread

[onelin]

update: Anandtech now has a review of this and other KT333 boards, which can be found here

well, my Corsair mem is finally working at spec (in DIMM slot 1), but with other faults. 4:5 cpu/mem divider, Turbo "System Performance" option. (this does give noticeable boost over Optimal even with manual mem timings not by SPD) cas 2.0/3/3/5 1T auto (thanks mechBgon!) Seems like this MB has a lot of annoying quirks, the main one being the memory overvoltage/undocumented jumpers. add in the fact that they are very difficult to reach without removing cards from your system (or some serious tweezers) and it is worse Anyhow, when I keep the jumpers on to get my mem to run at spec, my USB hub doesn't work! Which is unfortunate, considering I need it to use two gamepads to play games on a TV, and use it frequently with digital cameras.


BIOS Flashing
I've seen a lot of feedback about NOT flashing from windows if you are at a BIOS of 1004 or earlier. There's a serious bug of sorts if you don't have 1005. Of course windows flashing in general is risky, but with 1005 I flashed to 1007 just peachy. If unsure, it's worth it to buy a BIOS savior IMHO...especially with MyLogo.

The BIOS Savior RD1-2M is NOT compatible with this board. (but the RD1-8X is)
Nowhere on Asus site/manuals have I seen it documented, nor the RDI site (only says A7V) ...it uses a smaller, different shaped BIOS chip and I believe you need the (newer) RD1-8X 32-pin 4Mbit. (mwave has both, I got the wrong one ) If flashing bothers you, get an RD1-8X

Boot tab
At least with the 1005 BIOS, I experienced some problems dependent on boot order. booting from CD with my HDD freshly formatted (#1 in order, CD #2) hangs after my NIC boot-on-lan ... possible issues with SCSI/RAID if orders are wrong? solution was to move the CDROM to #1 in order (+/- on numpad) until OS was installed. board seems a bit fussy. Might also want to make sure bootup virus detection is OFF since this is usually at an OS install.

feel free to add any comments and I'll edit them to show up top, I'll be adding a lot once I fiddle w/ these timings a bit more though.

this thread will be filled with lots of general help information and links as the day goes by and I (hopefully) manage to get this memory to run. This board has a lot of strange undocumented quirks but when it works, it is SOLID. (read: if you make it into windows, sandra & Q3 run ok... you're good) I felt the need to start it because I've read/replied to info in well over 10 threads in the past 2 days.

Full system specs:
Asus A7V333-raid (flashed to 1007 BIOS)
Athlon XP 1900+ w/ retail HSF & AS3 running cool @ 49C max load (or so the sensor says, 55 tops I'd say)
512MB Corsair XMS PC2700 @ cas 2.0/3/3/5 w/ 1T 4:5 turbo
MSI Geforce4 Ti4400 @ stock speeds w/ MSI drivers (ref 29.42's now)
Antec True430W PSU
3com nic, SB live value, USR 56k ext. (woot)

link to compare with my Sandra scores (which compare decent to this review) when you consider the timings. and yes, I don't like to read into these marks too much but they are the best measure for this kind of rapid-reboot testing. Basically this is for reference of what to try and what not to try. I found this thread which makes me believe it's probably the memory, as opposed to this board (which is quite nice!)
update: I setup 98SE and it was just as fussy as XP, sandra rebooted when I tried w/ fastest timings...gotta be the mem good news for A7V333 owners though. update2: It sounds like this board's strange voltage settings have something to do with the mem not going it's fastest...when I leave the jumpers ON it works, but other stuff stops. (ugh)

for all settings, 4:5 is CPU/mem divider, Optimal/Turbo is for SPD settings (even when I'm not using it, it seems to do other changes as well) ..auto means dimm bank settings (4-bank,2-bank, auto), 1T/2T is precharge time. A indicates memory now in bank 1, not 3.

Sisoft Sandra Memory Benchmarks (sort of in order of speed/tested)
config div- SPD CAS PRE BANK INT FLOAT STABLE
num ider ------------------------------------------------ (y/n/?)
1 ----- 4:5 opti - 2/3/3/6 2T AUTO 1952 1848 y
2 ----- 4:5 opti 2.5/3/3/6 1T AUTO 1976 1881 y
3 ----- 4:5 opti - 2/3/3/5 1T AUTO 1992 1902 n not fully
4 ----- 4:5 turb - 2/3/3/6 1T AUTO 2032 1945 n bluescreen on 2nd test (IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL)
5 ----- 4:5 opti - 2/3/3/5 1T AUTO 1995 1900 n not fully, oddly it works better than the above but Q3 fails after 2 benchmarks. (very high ones!)
6A --- 4:5 opti - 2/3/3/5 2T AUTO 1950 1875 y fully
7A --- 4:5 turb - 2/3/3/5 1T AUTO 1975 1883 n no 3dmark
8A --- 4:5 turb - 2/3/3/5 1T AUTO 2016 1935 n no 3dmark
9A --- 4:5 turb - 2/3/3/5 2T AUTO 2002 1906 y fully (so far)
currently stuck @ 4:5 turbo 2/3/3/5 2T auto (manual not by SPD) ^^
10A-- 4:5 turb - 2/3/3/5 1T AUTO 2026 1945 y fully *
3dmark2001SE (1024x768 defaults) scores for setups:
#6A: 9616
#9A: 9852
that's about 250 3dmarks going from optimal to turbo (harder to get stable, but it is ) ... worth noting I guess ^^

#10A in 3dmark: up to 10064 (with 29.42's)

1007 BIOS and OPTIMAL/TURBO "System Performance" Setting
This BIOS flash adds this option, and turbo has a positive influence on performance and with the new BIOS I believe it was a lot easier to get stable at lower timings (that and DIMM bank 1)

setting lists that DO NOT WORK (erased, it's my mem) update: If anything, I am guessing this is a problem with my memory. Especially because neither Corsair's site, nor Mwave could tell me the exact specs of this mem. I'm going to email Corsair today. It isn't XP, 98SE is the same way.

Q3 numbers (v 1.31, 28.32 dets) more soon):
most surprising and identifiable hint of hidden power:
4:5 optimal 2/3/3/5 1T auto
1024x768 max settings
193.1 fps, 175.5 fps, crash
vs
4:5 optimal by SPD (2.5/3/3/6) 1T auto
167.5 fps, 168.2fps, 172.5fps (169.4 avg)

more Q3
Q3 (cont) same drivers/version/etc still, took 3 timedemos in a row and avg'd together
comparison of turbo to optimal...
both are 4:5 2/3/3/5 2T auto (not by SPD), in 1024 max settings
optimal || turbo
172.2 || 179.0
I'm not sure what these settings change besides SPD, perhaps AGP speed? /boggle ...finally some solid higher performance (it's just 10fps...but once I turn on 8-tap anisotropic filtering and/or quincunx FSAA that gives me more headroom)

update: SoFII has no benchmark yet, demos are broken. JKII all settings (even 8-tap aniso + quincunx @ 1280x1024 down to 640x480 w/o) get 70fps...very odd. vsync is definitely off, both in and out of game.

conclusions so far:
1) that 1T precharge helps a lot, as does (not surprisingly) the initial cas 2.0, and also the fourth number (SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay) when it is at 5T. 6T seems less stable than 5T. The middle two 3's (RAS to CAS, and RAS precharge) seem to be the least important. the final 1T is proving to be the most stubborn, and that I *KNOW* Corsair says it can do. update: works with Asus' DIMM overvoltage, but that makes my USB hub conk out *searches for it's external power adapter*

2) WinXP Pro and 98SE both act funky with low timings...and in the aftermath, XP handles memory issues a lot better mem-related, not board related, IMO. (!voltage probs are board related though!)

3)I did some serious DV camera w/ firewire editing on this box today (w/ the stable settings) and divx encoding speeds were unbelievable... near real-time... I can only imagine if this memory would work at spec and I setup RAID.

4) MSI vs 28.32's don't make a huge difference until the memory timings are really up there. I haven't posted 2 pages of Q3 benchmarks yet because most of them are near identical...except when you pimp out the 28.32's with my as of yet unstable config. I can't wait to try the new 29.42 WHQL's once my rig arrives here in Washington those 29.42's add some serious performance.

5) Asus overvoltage to DIMMs is not a good thing. With it, USB acts strangely. Without it, mem won't work at full timings. If you don't have good mem, supposedly it could fry your DIMMs at default configuration. I have no other explanation, as my PSU should be MORE than sufficient, yet not on this board.

I've tried my DIMM in the third bank, and now I am keeping it first bank with slightly better results. I am starting to like this board a lot!

HTH

 

[mechBgon]

Great idea, here are some contributions:

Asus' A7V333 page

Do you own an A7V333? Check here to make sure you know what your DIMM voltage is! :Q

Does the A7V333 give users access to the on-die temperature readings? Nope, read here for the full scoop.


How to use the MyLogo feature, which isn't documented in the Asus manual1) get the image you want, and use a quality image editor to reduce its size to 640x480 pixels, then convert it to 16 colors. You can do this using popular photo-editing software such as Paintshop Pro or something similar (you can download a trial version of PSP if you need to). After getting it into 16-color mode to your satisfaction, save it as a BMP file.

Update! Here are instructions for using Paintshop Pro for this task:

• Start Paintshop Pro and open the image you want.
• Look at the image?s dimensions in pixels. It?s going to have to be 640x480 pixels when you?re done, which is a 4:3 ratio of width to height. Start by adjusting your desired image to some kind of 4:3 ratio. You can do this by cropping or expanding the canvas using Image > Canvas Size on the menu. If this causes blank areas at the top, bottom or side edges, use the Paint Bucket tool to fill them with black paint so they?ll blend in with the black bootup screen.
• Once the image?s height is ¾ of its width, use Image > Resize to make the image 640x480 pixels in size. At this point, click File > Save As? and save it under a couple of different names so you have a backup copy if you mess up on the next parts.
• If the image was sized up from a smaller size, it may look pixilated. You could try some of the filters in Effects > Blur such as Soften or Average.
• Goof around with any customizations you want to make to the image at this point, then click Colors > Decrease Color Depth and choose 16 Colors (4 bit). In the panel that appears, what worked best for me was to use Optomized Median Cut and select Error Diffusion but leave Reduce Color Bleeding unchecked. Click Ok and see if it looks halfway decent. If not, click the ?Undo? icon and try some other color-reduction settings.
• When it?s looking right, click File > Save As? and save it as a BMP file, and you?re ready.

2) download the BIOS from Asus, even if you don't need to update to a new version. Save it on your hard drive.

3) After installing the Asus Update utility from the CD that comes with the motherboard, go to Start > Programs and launch the Asus MyLogo utility. Tell it where to find the BIOS you downloaded to your hard drive, and then the image you've made. It will replace the stock a7v333 logo with your own logo.

4) Now you have a customized BIOS file, and you just need to run Asus Update from Start > Programs and install your custom BIOS.



With all the onboard stuff it's got, what about IRQ's and such?Look at page 17 of the manual and see if you're as confused as I am. It appears that PCI slot #4, the second one from the bottom, is the only one that doesn't share an IRQ. If you have a troublesome card, try putting it in there.


How to disable the Promise RAID controller so it doesn't take such a long time to bootUse the jumper. At this point, there's no such option in the BIOS. Look at page 21 of the manual for documentation/location.


Are you SURE it doesn't read the on-die thermistor on the CPU? Asus' site says it does!Yes and no. Although the C.O.P. function watches the on-die thermistor for unsafe temperatures and will cut off power to the CPU if necessary, the readings it's getting are NOT passed on to the BIOS nor to the Asus Probe utility. Those readings are from a surface-mounted thermistor beneath the CPU, on the surface of the motherboard. Asus' site says they wanted C.O.P. to be a hard-wired solution that would work even if the board had already crashed from overheat, more or less, and evidently it is independent even of the BIOS itself.

People are finding that the A7V333 gives higher CPU-temperature readings than other boards do, when using the same CPU/heatsink/fan. This is apparently because Asus has calibrated the socket-thermistor readings higher, in an effort to approximate the real CPU core temperature. Temperatures in the 50C to 60C area are to be expected, please remain calm! In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the cei-- ... no wait, wrong script... sorry. Uh... oh yes, if the CPU is legitimately overheating, C.O.P. will detect it via the CPU's on-die thermistor and cut power to the CPU.

The above are my own deductions, not "official" Asus info, so take it as such.


All I did was select the "Turbo" setting in the BIOS and now the system won't boot to my operating system!If your video card is a bit older, refer to pages 65 and 66 in your manual, and set "Video Memory Cache Mode" to "UC." Switching the memory timings on your RAM to use 6T Active Precharge Delay and disabling the 1T Command Rate may help also.


Why doesn't the Power LED work, I've tried it both directions in the position silkscreened on the motherboard!The motherboard markings are incorrect, at least on my board. Refer to page 44 of the manual for the correct position.


Tell me about iPanel. Asus says this board supports it, but there's NO info about the iPanel at Asus' site!iPanels are sold separately and there are two versions. Asus' iPanel Basic includes a red LED digital display, some buttons you can program using the included software, and two USB ports. The readout can give socket-thermistor temperature readings (NOT true on-core diode temps), voltages, fan RPMs, baseline CPU MHz and baseline FSB MHz (if you overclocked via the FSB, it will not reflect that). It can be set to update its readings every 8, 16 or 32 seconds via a setting in the BIOS, or updating can be disabled.

iPanel Deluxe adds a front-mounted COM port (not a joystick port), an IrDA transciever, and front audio jacks. You cannot use the front and rear Audio-In and Microphone jacks simultaneously, and Asus includes plastic plugs to insert into the rear jacks to prevent this. I own an iPanel Deluxe and it has an unsightly number of ribbon cables sprouting from it, so if neatness is a concern, think twice.

The iPanel produces stuttering problems in Windows, unless the display updating is disabled in the BIOS, which seriously affects its usefulness. Thanks to the knowledge of Tates, I found out there are possible solutions for the truly determined. Read more about it here. From what I hear, the iPanel is a headache for the Asus tech-support folks. This could explain why it is totally unlisted on Asus' site as a product.


Will the front-mounted FireWire connector in an Antec PerformancePlus-series case connect to the FireWire jack on the A7V333-RAID?Not very well. The Antec connector is split into eight individual sub-connectors so it can be plugged into the motherboard correctly, no matter what pinout pattern was used on the motherboard. The problem is that the pins on the A7V333-R are not very tall, so the Antec connectors fall off of them at the slightest provocation. You could solder them on if you really wanted to, or preferably solder the stock A7V333 FireWire cable's connector to the Antec wiring. The Antec front USB wiring works great, however, and AntecCSR said he/she didn't see any reason why their wiring wouldn't work with the USB 2.0 connector.


More about the FireWireThe onboard FireWire controller can be connected to either the Sony iLink outlet or to the standard-style FW outlet, but not both at once. Judging by photos of the non-RAID A7V333 at Newegg, the non-RAID version of this board does not have the FireWire chip nor the connector.


Six-channel sound, w00t! But where is the SPDIF thingie?It doesn't seem to come with the boards. Hopefully someone will point out a cheap source for it.


Heatsink compatibilityThe board takes Alpha PAL8045 with no hangups, although it sits less than 1cm from the closest DIMM, inhibiting airflow on that side somewhat.

 

[onelin]

good stuff I'm a bit wound up after 4 days of hassles, but I should be able to add it all in today (or most of it) ... I've been doing some serious videoediting with the software that came with the MSI board & a Sony DV camcorder w/ my cousin and all is great. This is before nvidia reference drivers, too. **edit, just keep your big post next to mine, it's easier ** Thanks for the first post w/ all that info, I'd have jumped out my window if it wasn't for your helpful posts in the past few days.

 

[mechBgon]

Sweet, I'm glad to hear it's finally living up to expectations! Would you mind going over what I wrote to look for errors, particularly the part about setting the BIOS to "Performance." I think the two settings were "Optimal" (meaning, default SPD timings) and "Performance," but I don't have my system here at home to confirm that.

 

[onelin]

yeah, it should be in the cases/cooling forum but... the 1007 bios adds optimal/turbo memory by SPD settings. turbo still never worked (but I will give it a try soon) but that was the change.

 

[ViperZ]

I just fisinished setting up my A7V333 with Raid.

I can't seem to get the Raid recognized as the boot device. The boot always shows that there is no IDE devices connected.

The "promise lite" BIOs (ctrl+F) builds the array and shows that there is indeed an array striped as 0.

When the system boots and checks IDE devices, it sees the array and states it's "Functional" hoever I can't seem to initilize it in the bios and i have tried almost everything I can think of...

• Raid jumper is enabled

• On board ATA device first is set to yes

• I have flashed the bios to av33307

• Both Maxtor 740's have been set to CS and master, neither positon makes a difference.

• I don't seem to see the the "enable Raid array" in the bios under Advanced PCI Configuration like the manual states on page 87

The problems seems to be that the raid device is built and recognized, I just can't seem to be able to find anything in the Bios to initiate it.

Help please...

 

[onelin]

check the BOOT tab in the BIOS? only thing I can think of, as I don't have a 2nd drive for raid just yet. I remember there was one for IDE boot devices, then there was a separate one for the promise controller, one for cd, etc... ??

*edit* I was not 100% sure, it's the 'other boot devices' tab like he said. also, I realized this motherboard has some issues with boot orders, it will hang on certain settings (even just trying to boot from CD) ...make sure your SCSI setting is at the top of the list (select it and hit + on the numpad, - to go back down) and move your disabled IDE to the bottom (or at least below it) ...try varying those a bit. HTH, also FYI: I know for a fact that WinXP Pro's install also has F6 for 3rd party SCSI/RAID drivers ...so that is how you'd go about it.

 

[mechBgon]

ViperZ, the motherboard considers the Promise controller to be a SCSI controller, so you should tell it not to boot from onboard ATA first, and then go to the Boot Options and disable all the options except for Other Boot Device Select, which you should set to SCSI Boot Device (see page 78 of the manual). That ought to get it rolling, assuming Windows has the Promise drivers installed already.

 

[ViperZ]

onelin0, I searched every available tab but did not see the one you mention.


mechBgon I had tried starting it with the onboard ATA selected as "no" and it did not work. I did not think to disable everything else as the boot device. I have selected SCSI Boot Device in the 4th boot item. Does this not show up in the IDE Hard Drives 2nd boot line? I mean should the Maxtors (in the Raid array) show up as a selectable device in # 2 - IDE Hard Drive?

If all other boot options other than the SCSI Boot Device are disabled, how does one go about installing the OS from CD?

Right now the boot looks like this;

1. Removable device (Disabled)
2. IDE Hard Drive (none)
3. ATAPI CD-ROM (Pioneer 106 DVD)
4. Other Boot Device (SCSI Boot Device)

So I use the CD to boot Windows XP, only to have install fail for it sees no connected hard drives.

 

[mechBgon]

If you're installing the OS from CD, then put your hard drive on the standard IDE controller and re-enable booting from the IDE drive. After you have the OS fully installed, and have installed the Promise drivers in Windows, you can switch the hard drive to the Promise controller and go back to booting from SCSI.

The motherboard BIOS can't see any hard drives attached to the Promise controller, which has its own BIOS. So nope, the Maxtor won't show in the list of IDE drives.

There might be another way to do this (with Windows NT or Windows2000 you would press the F6 key when setup began, indicating you had a SCSI controller driver on floppy that you wanted to install), but I don't know if XP has such a feature or not.

 

[ViperZ]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
If you're installing the OS from CD, then put your hard drive on the standard IDE controller and re-enable booting from the IDE drive. After you have the OS fully installed, and have installed the Promise drivers in Windows, you can switch the hard drive to the Promise controller and go back to booting from SCSI.

The motherboard BIOS can't see any hard drives attached to the Promise controller, which has its own BIOS. So nope, the Maxtor won't show in the list of IDE drives.

There might be another way to do this (with Windows NT or Windows2000 you would press the F6 key when setup began, indicating you had a SCSI controller driver on floppy that you wanted to install), but I don't know if XP has such a feature or not.

mechBgon Thanks but this confuses me... I want to use the Raid array as the main drives that holds the OS, what is the point of installing the OS on 1 drive when I want to stripe the OS and data across 2 drives? How does installing the Promise drivers in Windows XP help if the SCSI needs to be bootable from a systems level?

Am I missing something here?


Windows XP does have F6 for the 3rd party SCSI controller, however there was no setup disk for this other than the CD that came with the MOBO, that is windows based and will only run in windows. If I need to download software to initiate this Asus should have pointed this out or included it for systems starts.

The Asus manual states that after Raid construction you can install the OS from a bootable CD onto the array, however my problems is somehow the array is not seen as a valid Hard drive.

 

[mechBgon]

I see. In that case, could you maybe create the striped array using Promise's utility, then put the Promise driver on a floppy, and use the F6 feature to install WinXP onto the striped array? You can get the Promise driver from here. edit: that link doesn't seem to work, try the A7V333 page I haven't tried this myself, so please report what happens if you give it a shot!

BTW, are you sure you want your OS on a striped volume? If one HDD fails or has an error... :Q

 

[ViperZ]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

BTW, are you sure you want your OS on a striped volume? If one HDD fails or has an error... :Q

Yeah, I may have to try that, but I suspect the problem is at a bios level of it not using the SCSI to boot or some invaid Bios parameter...


Well I have been thinking long and hard about this as my Abit KT7-A is in a RAID stripe 0 now with 2x40Gb Quantums. I have been burnt 2 times now with a broken stripe. Last time I was able to recover most of the data using a program called Restore Pro 2000. The biggest difference I notice with a Raid array on the Abit is the Hard drives only pulse for short burts rather than grind away forever with a single drive. Performance does seem snappier with the Raid vs the single. The big thing is to back up important data off of the Array and onto a single drive.

For my new PC I have 2 Maxtor DL740 40Gb drives for the array, and 1 Quantum Fireball 40Gb for back-up. It would seem my choices in hardware would be wasted if I was to not use the Raid as the main system. Put another way, I would have 40gb for the OS and basic storage, then 80Gbs for what? Maybe I should have bought 20GB drives for Raid?

I just hope I can sort this out, if this is an indicator of what's in store, I think using RAID 0 could burn me again

 

[mechBgon]

Well, I have installed Win2000 on a SCSI hard drive before, and it should be sort of similar. Your selection of boot devices in BIOS will tell the motherboard where to look for the bootable drive. If you pick SCSI, it will look for PCI controllers that have their own BIOS, whether it is a SCSI card or something like your Promise onboard RAID controller.

• So basically, you first create your array, which you already did.
• Next, you boot from CD and install WinXP using the floppy with the Promise driver.
• To WinXP, the array looks like a single hard drive, and it treats it like one and makes it into a bootable device by partitioning, formatting, etc, and after that, as long as the motherboard is set to boot from SCSI instead of an IDE hard drive, it will go to the Promise controller, find the now-bootable array, and WinXP will take it from there.

 

[ViperZ]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
[*]To WinXP, the array looks like a single hard drive, and it treats it like one and makes it into a bootable device by partitioning, formatting, etc, and after that, as long as the motherboard is set to boot from SCSI instead of an IDE hard drive, it will go to the Promise controller, find the now-bootable array, and WinXP will take it from there.[/list]

There is a problem there in it's self... Win XP does not recognise the array, and quits the set up because it sees no drives. I will try the floppy to see if XP needs the Drivers for it.

 

[mechBgon]

I think that's normal. Without being fed the driver on a diskette, Windows2000 doesn't see my SCSI card or SCSI drive either, during Setup. Try feeding it the driver on a floppy and I bet you'll be on your way.

 

[ViperZ]

mechBgon i was hoping the same, however the Asus download site is down or somthing. Promise does support the onboard RAID devices and states to use the Mobo makers downloads...GrRRRR!

 

[mechBgon]

Grrr indeed, their download site is, uh, down! :| But their German site is up...

German FTP site!

 

[onelin]

that's where I got my 1007 BIOS from the other night because the main was down too woot Germany! I won't be able to do any more tests until at least Thursday... comp is being UPS'd to follow me when I fly out tomorrow.

 

[ViperZ]

mechBgon Thanks for the support! The driver did the trick, the RAID is up and running. I was finally able to get on to the Tiawan site.


With my Abit KT7A and Windows 2000 I had to insatll the driver, however with Windows XP, I did not. I guess the A7V333 is newer than XP

 

[mechBgon]

SWEET! Glad to hear it's up and running!

 

[anjara531]

onelino, this is one hell of a job you did here. shall I say for mechbon too.

Good stuff for my new(er) mobo.

 

[mechBgon]

Thanks Took me a long time to figure out how to use the bulleted-text feature!

 

[onelin]

thanks

There's still a lot more that needs to be said, I just need to get around to it now that I'm (finally) back home.

more mem/voltage stuff... the info that the box is running ALL of my stuff without issue (even the USB hub and burner) ...and this box has gone from shore to shore (USA) twice. Also the info mechBgon said in another thread about the BIOS doing thermistor readings, not internal diode... that was new to me, and I don't think the current post(s) mention it in this thread.

mechBgon has done a hell of a job, too. damn, even bulleted text! I missed it till now

 

[mechBgon]

Ever since I figure out how to do bulleted text, I've been on a rampage! Great effort onelin0 for the thorough documentation of your experiences, maybe we should try to make this an "official" A7V333 thread?