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*UPDATE* - GA8RIXP - New beta bios to fix VCore and 2/3 clock bug. Link inside :)

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From what you guys are saying im thinking that these problems are highly likely the boards fault, yeah?
It disheartens me as i hate having a rig that leaves doubts in the back of my mind 🙁

This Intel Northwood switch for me has been a bit dissapointing - how about you guys?

My 1.6A just does not want to overclock 🙁
I was really hoping that i would see 2.1gig like everyone has been putting about but i cant even get my PC to boot over 114 fsb.

I was half thinking of trying another board, but with the cost and all im thinking i may be better going back to AMD setup after this.

Question for you guys - Do you honestly at face value feel that changing from an AMD rig to Intel Northwood was a waste of time besides chasing a few bench marks?
 
For me I am happy with the change. I got tired of 4-in-1s and various latency patches. It was a chore. This setup has been rock stable since I built it out, the only reason I noticed the reboot issue is when I put in a hard drive. Far less issues than I had with my Kt266a setup.

Definately not as perfect as the BX setup was back in the day, but a far sight better than any Via system I have worked with. Just for the record I have had many many many via boards, and know those systems inside and out (just so someone doesn't say "You just don't know what you were doing")

EtOH
 
I've had great fun and success with my OC. My first try with the Gigabyte board was a pain but that's not too unusual in a cutting-edge situation like this. Hell, I got my 1.8A on January 28th, one week after it was released, I messed with the 8IXRP for a few days, learned a few things and RMA'd the board. I got a full refund so I wasn't out any money and I got an Asus P4B266 to replace it . Tried again with this board and have had a lot of fun with it.

I LOVE this P4 compared to my AMD Tbird. I've been an AMD guy for a while now, but I've always had a difficult time with all the fan noise you have to put up with to cool these beetches off. I've spent a lot of time/money on various HSF's, Panaflos by the butt-load, reostats, etc. It's also a little disconcerting to know that if any of your CPU cooling burps even a little bit, your chip is going to go up in smoke!

The Northwood on the other hand, runs cool as a cucumber with the standard VERY quiet retail HSF and a few quiet case fans. You also don't have to worry about the chip melting down if something goes wrong with your cooling setup. It will just throttle back to save itself. Here's a real wild idea that AMD should think about looking at.

Another great thing about this Intel setup is that it absolutely stable right out of the box. No VIA crap to worry about, no new chipset drivers released by Intel everytime the wind changes direction. Just plug the processor into the MoBo, load your OS and you're ready to rock.

It's fun to OC, but so what if you can only get 1.8Ghz? you've got a box that's as quick as an AMD 1800+ for about the same money, that runs way cooler, needs less fans, and won't self-destruct if something goes wrong with your HSF, and is completely stable right out of the box. I'd say hang in there. I'd ditch the Gigabyte and get (at least) an Asus P4B266-C, if not the full P4B266. Unless you've got a bum chip you should be able to get at least 2.1Ghz with this setup.

 
RalfHutter - Thanx for your encouragement 🙂
Yeah it does seem strange that i can only hit way below 2 gig yet everyone else is doing better than me.
Im sure if a few people like me were not getting very far with their overclock we would have seen some posts in this forum by now, yeah?
When my board rejects my overclock im wondering if its the board that sensing a failure earlier than it should? Faulty motherboard?
 
Sorry guys, im going back to AMD 😀
Ive just found the perfect board for me.
Asus A7V333 - yum 😀
Promise raid, Firewire and USB 2.0 🙂
Also the board has onboard thermal protection that DOES work according to the reviews so the Intel not burning up with broken cooling is now mute for me.
Also i can now think about upping my ram to 1.5 gb which would definately be useful in the future as the kind of apps i run eat memory like its going out of fashion.
The only niggle is the PCI latency patch that i may need to apply for the Promise raid, but im sure i could get over that once ive applied it and forgotten about it 🙂
 
Well guys, there goes one back to the dark side.

Good luck rockhard, just make sure you keep a glass of water handy in case you have any trouble with your chip overheating!
 
hehe, thanx 🙂
Ive just ordered my A7V333 and Thermalright AX7 and will pop my old TBird 1.4 in there till Thoroughbred is available for now.
I dont mind the extra heat if my work gets done quicker/smoother 😉
My VMWare lab does not like my P4A like it did my XP - dunno why.
Actually i faxored up a bit when i got the 845D as i really need to use 1.5gb ram and having 512mb dimm sitting next to me doing nothing has me hopping mad with myself for not doing more intense homework on the 845D platform before ordering.
Shame about the GA8IRXP as Gigabyte could have really done some damage with the board.
At least i will have an easier time overclocking once ive joined my L1's 🙂
 
Good luck rockhard. Let me know how you end up liking that asus a7v333... I am toying with the idea of switching back as well.
 
Hehe, another one thats seen the error in their ways? 😉

The board is due in stock on Tuesday, so should see it Wednesday or Thursday all being well 🙂
I'll post a thread with some info on the board when i get it up and running for anyone thats interested.

Ive been looking throught the specs of the A7V333 and one thing that caught my eye was that it supports CPU throttling?
Could this be a board for the K7 that at last supports the Halt command that this chipset supports but noone has bothered to implement yet?
If it is, then should be as cool running as a comparable P4 rig IMO, and with the Thermal Protection that this board supports should at last bury the advantage the P4 has over the XP im hoping 🙂
 
One bad thing I noticed about that board though is that it supposedly doesn't support DDR voltage adjustments.

Also, in regards to what this thread is actually about... I sent an email to gigabyte saying that f6 hasn't solved the reboot issues yet.
 
Yeah i saw that in TBreaks review, but ive never been a fan of overclocking the memory as i like my rig to be uber stable, thats why im going back to AMD as i then dont feel the need to overclock as much with me being able to afford nigh on the fastest processor available 🙂
Memory overclocking i feel is a waste of time on the XP anyway as it cant utilise the extra bandwidth very well as is.
Id feel happier buying the PC2700 DDR and lowering the multiplier on the XP and then running a 166 fsb to the CPU so that the 166mhz DDR dimms were running synchronously with the ram. This i reckon be much better on performance than just trying to clobber the ram, yeah?

I looked at the price of them high end P4's and nearly fell off my chair 🙁
I could build a complete kick ass rig for the price theyre going for! :/

Back on topic 😉 :-

When i emailed Gigabyte about the F6 bios they seemed quite happy with it and said they were happy that it solved the problem hence putting the F6d bios to F6 final.
This i was not impressed with after all the feedback ive had from you guys so the boards coming out this week.
There appears to be some issues with this board that theyve just tried to glaze over with a bios patch.
Im afraid i cannot live with a mobo thats done like that 🙁
Maybe im expecting too much of my mobo maybe?
 
No, I think that's a reasonable expectation for a motherboard. I remember coming from my stable 8kha+/1800+@2000+, that I had mass reboot issues with that as well (lots of people did) before they fixed that with a bios patch. That setup was stable for me but I worried about if it would overheat in the summer or not. I'm not worried about that on my p4 setup but I have to admit it doesn't "feel" as fast but that could be my imagination.

I guess oc'ing for me is about getting something for nothing, pushing my stuff as far as it'll go for something that i'd be willing to pay, since i'm not made of money. I'd love to get ddr333 and push it as far as it'll go but it seems so expensive. I dunno.. maybe my whole thinking is outta whack.

I just don't know what to do about my setup right now, still toying with the idea of going back but that means more money out (another loss), etc... argh.

 
Decisions, decisions - grrrr 🙁
Maybe you and i should spend more time actually using our rigs than trying to get the most out of them all the time? 😉
If only they would lock both the multiplier and fsb on all platforms. Sure would make my life a lot easier.
 
hmm? U...S...E... rig? I don't understand? 🙂

Still a tough decision and looking around at getting a good amd board back, since I still have my processor and swifty462.

Hey, what would you have done if the board didn't have any reboot issues? Would you have kept the p4?
 


<< hmm? U...S...E... rig? I don't understand? 🙂 >>


Dont know about yourself, but when I go through this motherboard changing mullarky i seem to spend more time testing, benching, tweaking, etc for about a week or two than actually using my computer for its intended role as a workstation :/


<< Hey, what would you have done if the board didn't have any reboot issues? Would you have kept the p4? >>


I think i would have gone back anyway as i have noticed a perceiveable difference in the P4A's ability to heayily multitask over my older XP 1600+.
When i run loads of heavyily IO intensive apps and a few IE windows, Outlook etc it does not feel as snappy as my old XP.
The XP seemed to scale a lot better in this regard.
Im thinking its the lower IPC thats causing this maybe?
Its fine when only 2 or 3 apps are running, but when their loads of threads running i think the XP was the better solution for my useage.

Im afraid ive been suckered into this P4A hype thats floating round here lately 😉
If i had used my head i feel i should not have bothered in hindsight.

Doesnt help though when a motherboard that as packed with features as the A7V333 comes around though - the upgrade gremlin in me couldnt resist 😀
Im really looking forward to seeing how this new CPU throttling and Thermal protection is going to pan out.
Maybe at last will see a cool running XP with no worries about fans packing in etc? 😀
 


<< Dont know about yourself, but when I go through this motherboard changing mullarky i seem to spend more time testing, benching, tweaking, etc for about a week or two than actually using my computer for its intended role as a workstation :/ >>



Yeah, me too. It's sooo frustrating when things don't quite work properly, or you'r so close to a certain speed, but then not quite, and you have to start all over again... and yet... i do it about once every 2-3 months. I think i'm sick.



<< I think i would have gone back anyway as i have noticed a perceiveable difference in the P4A's ability to heayily multitask over my older XP 1600+. >>



I think I notice that too. My p4 @ 2.35 just doesn't feel as fast at all... and I'm totally like yourself, didn't use my head when thinking about all this stuff. I think I've found a buyer for my p4 stuff that'll set me back only about $20, then my replacement amd board. I'm just gonna go with a MSI Pro2-RU for now. Considered the KT333 but can't justify the extras for the money (yet, give me a few more weks 😉 ). So yes, I'm switching back. and I'm blaming you! all you!! hehehe... 🙂
 
Hehe, good luck with going back to the dark side 😉
Though im sure you wont need it.
At least now you will have Throughbred to look forward to 🙂

All the best,

rockhard =)
 
Yep, Thoroughbreds sure sound promising; what's it, May? I see a new bios for 8k7a/8kha+ that adds support for a dif athlon cpuid. I wonder if that's for thoroughbred?
 
I think that bios update was for the XP 2100+, yeah?
May sounds about right for Trbrd.

If your still planning on getting that MSI, may i recommend a visit to the MSI tech support forum first so you may see any possible problems the board may have.
I have had a few MSI boards, and now will not buy any more 😉
That, and Anand having to take MSI's out of his servers because they were falling like autumn leaves has left a sour taste in my mouth.
Heh, this coming from the guy who bought the ill fated GA8IRXP, hehe.
Better take my advice with a pinch of salt perhaps.
 
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