Unofficial Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR thread

[Massive Overkill]

I believe it's only about 3megs, which my regular email account should handle. Can you email it to me please? Thanks.

 

[Megatomic]

I sent the program to you, but you may want to delete your addy. Bots crawl forums and scavenge email addresses for spammers.

 

[Brule]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Hi Massive Overkill, welcome to AnandTech. I've reported all those problems to Lydia only it was in another thread. I showed her screenshots from my own system so she's aware of the problems.

Here's a question for you: did you know that there is a beta version of EVEREST Home Edition that actually recognizes our boards and chipsets properly? I found it on the web somewhere and I hope Lavalys releases it to the public soon. And I, too, am waiting for an updated BIOS. I'm hoping to be able to select between 1T and 2T command rate, currently I can't. I don't know if it's my CPU (3400+ Clawhammer 1MB L2) or my RAM (2 x 512MB Geil Ultra Value PC3200).

The beta Everest is great in recognizing my board, but it doesn't seem to find the CPU temp. Right now I have to use Speedfan to find out that one bit of information. It does go up and down as expected with load but I don't know how accurate it is. FYI, I'm also using the beta bios with default 200 FSB support.

Right now I'm running at a gentle overclock of about 215x10 1:1. The memory is winbond BH-5 and certainly could handle more. I'm planning on moving up on the memory as I have 2x256 pc3200 without taking advantage of dual channel or raising the dimm voltage much. I'm thinking a 1 gig stick of pc3200 (or higher) may be the best upgrade considering the mobo's need for DC but 1x1024 is staying quite a bit more expensive than 2x512. Any other thoughts on the memory issue by others in this thread? (single-channel, 2 dimm spots, OC'ing ability, etc)

 

[Massive Overkill]

The memory I'm using is down to $212 http://www.komusa.com/1gbkit5pc53d1.html

Make sure you specify Adata chips in the dropdown box.

 

[Megatomic]

This is what I'm using right now. I've considered getting lower latency stuff but I've reconsidered. Zebo's recent work validates my hesitation, too.

I've yet to try to overclock my system, it's so fast already. I have no idea what I can get out of it or even how to do it at this point. I was a bigtime NF2 overclocker but NF3 and A64 is a whole new beast.

And I've had the same difficulty as you with the temps. I use EVEREST for everything but temp. readouts, for those I use the SoltekHM app. V1.26i is pretty good.

 

[Megatomic]

EVEREST Home Edition v220 Beta

I found the link I stumbled across a few weeks ago again, if you use that version of EVEREST, you'll see your chipset and motherboard recognized properly. Enjoy guys.

 

[cyberknight]

hey guys, I just did my first overclock ever. It's a mild one, and I don't have like l33t overclocking RAM and such. but anyways
I left all the voltages at stock (i don't wanna deal with the additional heat in my already poor airflow Sonata). I changed my Samsung memory to 2.5-3-3-5 (default 3-3-3-8). And raised the FSB to 218. (but the Soltek naturally overclocks your FSB by 2MHz, so it would be 220). I have Prime95 stable for 8 hrs.

I can't seem to push it any more than 220 without getting an error in Prime95 within 20 minutes.

I'm thinking of possibly increasing the voltage of my DIMM slots. How much of a heat increase is there really? the default is 2.6, with an option of 2.7 or 2.8. Would it be worth it?

---------------------
Another topic. Anyone know where the temp sensor on this mobo is? I installed the Thermalright XP-90 heatsink. And I noticed my mobo temps are like 3 degrees higher than they were at stock. I'd imagine the massive XP-90 is screwing up my airflow a bit. But I also notice that my thermally controlled fans are spinning about 100RPM slower than before, so either the PSU or mobo isn't reading as well. The XP-90 hangs over my DIMM slots, so I'm thinking the mobo thermal sensor has to be close to there somehow. My guess anyways, cuz I think the area where the XP-90 is hanging over probably doesn't have very good airflow at the moment...

and yeah, I too woulld really like to see the CPU temp sensor issue addressed. My CPU temps also report 10 degrees higher when I activate Cool'n'Quiet, which obviously makes no sense at all. Soltek really seems to like to update the Soltek Hardware Monitor though. There is like a new update for that every month.

 

[Massive Overkill]

You actually want to leave your CAS latency at 3. The socket 754 and 939 CPU's don't really benefit from lower CAS latency, and raising it will allow you to get higher FSB (HTT). Your CPU fan should give your RAM some cooling, so you could up your voltage to at least 2.7V

The motherboard thermister is located below your CPU, close to your CPU fan header.

 

[okietex]

I'm getting ready to order this board and trying to find out what memory would serve it well. I found some memory that Lydia recommended but I'm really wanting 1 stick of 1 GB DDR400. Is there any recommendation on this from Soltek or have they only approved the 2x512s? (as well as 256s)

I'm considering this -- if it should work well with the board. Also, no OC'ing on this system.
PDP SYSTEMS DDR Memory 184-Pin 1GB PC-3200, Model PSD1G400 - $157

Any help would be appreciated. I'd like 1 stick of 1 GB so I can expand to 2 GB if I ever need too... THX

 

[cyberknight]

So looser timings will theoretically allow me to raise my FSB more? But how does that fare for overall system performance though? Is like loosening my timings to like 3-4-4-11 worth the FSB increase?

 

[Massive Overkill]

The only timings that really made a difference for me was going from 2T to 1T. Other than that, the higest HTT I could get my CPU at performed the best for me. actually 3-4-4-10 is where I'm at right now. I would loosen your timings as much as possible, get the highest HTT you can get, and then start tightening your timings until they're unstable. I would leave your TRAS betwen 10 and 12, regardless of your other timings.

 

[cyberknight]

Hmmm.... I've tried loosening my timings, raising my VDIMM, and everything else inbetween and I still can't get my HTT past 220. I'm pretty sure it's my generic Samsung RAM I'm using. No worries, I'm happy with the extra free performance considering I paid so little for this RAM. I'm back to 218 HTT (with the +2 boost of course) and using my 2.5-3-3-5 timings again.

The tighter timings do improve my Aquamark3 score a bit, so I might as well use'em since I can't go over 220 anyways.

 

[Massive Overkill]

Under Advanced Chipset Features, go to DRAM configuration and choose max memory clock of 133 and go from there. If no success try max memory clock of 100.

 

[cyberknight]

What does that do exactly? Doesn't that cap my RAM speed while letting my HTT raise? Doesn't that create a messed up ratio and potentially reduce the overall efficiency of the system?

 

[Massive Overkill]

Running your CPU and memory asynchronous doesn't have the performance hit on the socket 754 and socket 939 CPUs as it does on the Nforce2 chip. It's nice to run 1:1, but if your memory is limiting you, you cap it and run your HTT as high as it can go.

 

[jmethodius]

I purchased this board in the beginning of December and I thought I'd share my experience. I'm running a dual boot system with WIn 98 and Win xp64(I have some issues with it but that can wait).

My system(budget)

Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR
AMD Athlon 64 2800+
Ati Radoen 9600 XT 128 MB
Rosewill 512 PC3200/400 DDR

I have experienced the RAM problem that others have talked about; it registers in POST and in Everest as 333 not 400. I contacted Soltek(Ring) and they basically told me they didn't have that brand of RAM to test and couldn't help. Next step contact Rosewill. Takes 3 email to 3 different places to get a response which was "It's impossible for it to be a BIOS problem. You must have a bad module. Request an RMA from your retailer and replace." I just sent it out yesterday and I have a feeling after reading through this thread that I'll have the same problem when I get the new stick. I will go off on Soltek and Rosewill for having to take my system down and spend money on shipping.

RE overclocking. I'm totally new to this so if you see errors in what I'm saying please point them out. I had no problem taking the FSB up to 248(Soltek adds an extra 2) for a total of 250x9 with an HTT of 4x. I didn't need to increase vcore at all and the system was stable. I didn't try to take it further because I have read that taking the FSB total speed beyond 1000 would cause the system to crash. I have seen others who have exceeded this number and want to know if you had to decrease the HTT to 3x to achieve. What would be the advantages of increasing the processor speed while sacrificing the FSB total speed? Also, Everest didn't acknowledge the HTT multiplier. It reported FSB clock at 250 and effective clock at 250. I thought the effective clock should have read 1000. Is this a prob with Everest or with soemthing that I've done? Finally, for now, wouldn't the best bios tweak for OC be adding fractions to the HTT multiplier? Like having multipliers of 3.5 or 3.4. Then you could take the FSB to the limit and still adjust the multiplier to get as close to 1000 as possible? Thanks in advance for any comments.

 

[Brule]

jmethodius- I had the problem of ddr400 running as ddr333. With the beta BIOS from Soltek I was able to run it at 400. (although it still shows as pc2700 with ID programs) FYI.

 

[a3des]

hello guys!
i have just upgraded to soltek nforce3 mobo. i have two 80 Gb sata Seagate drives in nvidia raid array (stripped). also have a dvd-rw on primary master ide channel. promise controler is disabled. everytime the computer boot it take a long tine to detect nvidia raid array and usually get an raid array error message, or if detected corectly computer will reboot when looking for boot drives. after reseting the pc (not powering off) nvidia raid array is detected corectly, computers boot up and running smooth, like the wind . does everyone experienced this kind of problem? it is a little anoying to watch over the boot attempt and reset everytime the computer is powered on. i hope i have made myself understandable, my english knowledge is poor.

 

[Massive Overkill]

You're using the native SATA ports?

 

[a3des]

I am using SATA1 and SATA2 ports , those controled by nvidia raid controller

 

[Rukkian]

I seem to be having a wierd problem, not sure if it is a mb problem or what, so here goes.

I had my rig up and running great, but I wanted to replace the maxtor 160gb HD with a Seagate 160gb that I just bought. I tried to plug in the seagate to copy over all the non-windows partitions and data, but windows will not boot. Anytime I have both drives hooked up, no matter what configuration (same id, different, changing slaves to masters, and so on) the computer will not boot to the maxtor. The bios always sees them perfectly fine unless they are on the same channel, then only the seagate shows up as master, even though it is set to slave and shows up as slave in any other configuration. With both on the same channel, the bios doesnt even find the maxtor. As soon as I disconnect the seagate, the maxtor works fine. I have even tried to hit esc at boot to choose a boot device and it allows me to pick HD, then gives me the option of either one, but no matter which I choose, it will not boot to the maxtor.

TIA for the responses.

 

[wpenhall]

Rukkian - I had a problem not too dissimilar to this when I was trying to add a drive to the Promise controller (IDE3), but I don't think it's applicable to the main channels. You sure you're setting the drive jumpers correctly?

 

[a3des]

Problem solved! I have downgraded the bios version to T1.1 and i have no more nvidia stripe detection problem. I have an 3200+ (2200Mhz) NewCastle cpu on this mobo and 1 512 Mb dimm (400MHz, SPD 2.5 6-3-3 2T, Chip 5ns, Voltaj 2.55 ? 2.65). Any OC-ing tips to try with this configuration?

 

[Gil554]

a3des, I've recently begun playing around with mild OC'ing on a 3000+. I have remained at stock voltage and been able to raise to 2.2 comfortably. With the 3200+ NC there have been several people on this thread go to 2.5 Ghz. If you read back several pages you'll probably come across them! Best of luck and let us know how it goes...G

 

[Gil554]

I recently started using Everest v2.00.220 and was curious if anyone else is able to see their cpu temps? I am able to see GPU, GPU Ambient, Mobo, and HD but not CPU. Seeing as the soltek HW monitor is suspiciously low, I would like to have a more accurate reading. Any suggestions? G