Holst try this to corrupt your bios.

[dresuk]

Right me and my friend have the 8rda+, we both have XMS3202ver1.1 modules and both have a XP1700+ tbred 'b' exactly the same stepping JIUHB0302.

Whilst I was pushing the new 8rda+ I had recieved (and boy is this a golden sample or what 225mhz @2.9v 3-2-2-2 NO MODS!! Sandra benchmark!!!)

My friend got jealous and tried to push his. His is good for 217mhz that is his max. Anyways he was trying to run at the settings I had and was not having much luck but his bios was intact. After a while he calls me up and say he now has code 'FF' I tell him he screwd the bios and would need to order another one so we could hotflash and then he would have a spare. i asked him what he had done and he explained what settings he was pushing but didnt mention one of the settings which i will come back to later to.

I wasnt planning on really pushing my system until i got another bios in but I couldnt help me self when me friend got on the phone and started taunting me that i should @ least push me new XP1700 processor. So i thought what the hell and started to raise the core speed. I reached a bottleneck @ 2440mhz with voltages @2.05, i didnt want to raise the volts any higher on the air cooling I had even though temps were arnd 36 degrees celcius (so abt 46-48 on the core i guess)

So i though i could change another setting in the bios to let me go higher. At the time my CPU Interface was set at 'Aggressive' so I thought ok lets set that to 'Optimal'maybe i could get a bit more mhz out this baby. So i set it F10 saved and exited and bang............I also go da 'FF' code . No real complaints I know the score got another bios hopefully arriving in the next few days.

Back to the story I rings me mate up and told him abt the setting i changed. Then he says *hit thats what i changed be4 I got the 'FF' code!! Unlike me my mate was pushing his ram I was pushing my CPU, but we both got a corrupt bios from changing cpu interface from aggressive to optimal! This is with the new bios.

Has anybody else who come across the dreded 'FF' code changed the cpu interface whilst overclocking something heavily?

Holst I know u were trying to corrupt yours and wasnt successful, can u try changing the cpu interface whilst overclocked and let us know if you manage to corrupt yours. im hoping you do cos then you will have something to work with solving this problem

Oh and any ideas when the new nvidia kernal for the bios will be updated so us peeps with XMS modules can stop worrying abt the 'C1'/'01' error code and having to replace our XMS ram with other ram just to be able to boot?

Thanxs for all your hardwork and i do hope you try this, hopefully we can solve this this bios corruption thing bit by bit.

Gluck

Cant wait to get me 'Golden sample' up and running agian. maybe its what I deserve after going through the 'Dark times' just a week ago.

l8rs

[ReallyUgly]

I got mine on FF i think i was on Optimal setting since i was pressing my CPU (2440 Mhz) same cpu as yours. I was holding my ram back so. (133 Mhz)
My vcore was 2.175 Volt !
Bios i used was 3117
maybe u'r right about the optimal setting.. i se3nd my board for RMA.. Getting a new board next week yeah i just found out that its the Bios chip..

Question: a dealer told me .. find a second same board take its Bioschip insert into u'r board.. boot to dos (so u can flash) Remove the chip while PC is on and than insert the bad (unflashed chip) and Flash it .. i am sceptic will this work ??

[dresuk]

I have done this with 2 8rda+ no problem at all worked fine. I tried to do it with a different mthbrd but it was a no go.

Come on peeps with da 'FF' codes think, did you change the CPU INTERFACE setting and get corruption. We could be close to finding the cause!!!!

[Holst]

I think ive tried that allready, but ill give it another go tonight.

I have on several occations got FF and "bios checksum" but pressing Insert has allways brought the board back again, when I was trying for 250fsb I did this more than 5 times in a row...

I got your letter today and your new bios will be posted soon.

[Uncle Bob]

Thanks, we'll all look for it!

[sotti]

quick question what does your bios read for your vdd voltage?

[dresuk]

Thanxs Holst I didnt think you would receive my letter personally guess we are buddies now

Sotti my vdd is at 1.60-1.61 but lots of peeps are, i just got VERY lucky i think



Thanxs peeps to all the responses

Hopefully very soon I will be on my 8rda+ again.

Oh and Holst ive tried the insert, reset button, drain capacitors stuff plus other stuff but have not been able to revive my bios.

Ill try again tonite any other tips are appreciated.

L8rs

[dresuk]

Oh Holst are you not able to comment on the revised nvidia kernal????

Hope this fix appears soon.

[Holst]

I tried it and it didnt work.

Booted at 235fsb (with my HDD unplugged) entered the bios and changed to optimal decode and it still booted up.

If I go for 240fsb fastest timings I get C1 and insert brings it back..
It sometimes posts at 240 slow timings wiht 3.1 vdimm.

It seems by bios is unbreakable :P

Might be the 1.85v VDD, might be my good PSU (sparkle 400) it might just be that im lucky......

[Holst]

As for new bios, once we get one we will let you know.

[dresuk]

Cheers for trying, maybe it has something to do with us not having the hard drive unplugged.

And probably not.......we will probably never find out.

Wish things were more straight forward but this will never be the case.

Im off me friend needs his PC

L8rs

[clockedOut]

I can tell you how I corrupted my bios...

My 8RDA+ rev1.0 has NO vmods, NONE.
And I tried booting my new 2100+ "B" core at 13x200
got the bios checksum error, the insert key would not bring it out. All it would do is act like it was booting, would check memory and then stop and give me a checksum error.

I put a new bios chip in and it fired right up.
I should note my board will run that same chip 11x200 & 11.5x200 but if I put my FSB over 200 its not stable and no amount of vcore will help. (maybe vdd would)

[ayankdownunder]

"FF"

Why is FF a bad thing? My board always shows FF after booting?

--Nick

[Uncle Bob]

You're right. "FF" is the code for 'attempting to load operating system' [paraphrasing here]. When it normal to see it is after all the other boot sequences have occurred. When it is the last one you see and the OS loads, it's a good thing. When the OS does not load, the BIOS has done all it can and you may have a bad boot sector, corrupt OS, etc. When you see "FF" at the beginning of the boot sequence, it's a bad thing. The board is attempting to load the OS without accessing the board or booting....a bad thing. So when fellas say they have "FF" usually it means the latter.

[Jasonx5213]

I had got a corrupted bios, and I didn't not change the cpu interface settings....I was just pushing the board pretty hard....
I did find out on cold boots that I would get bios checksum errors if overclocked enough @200fsb or more until I tweaked my 5v line up a little...It might have something to do with your powersupply....I have a enermax 431watt p.s., but when overclocking the 5v line sure is able to drop more than I excepted... I have noticed that alot of enermax power supplies are in systems with cold boot problems or bios checksum errors...
Just maybe....

[likwid]

weird. I couldn't get above 185 fsb with it set to aggressive and was getting checksum errors and beeping up the arse. Insert brought me out, and I changed to Optimal, and I have booted up to 200(with the screen flick), and 193 purely stable. Couldn't do it on aggressive. Makes me wonder. Holst what is actually the "optimal" setting here? I am not brave enough to try aggressive again without a new bios chip!

BTW this is with no vmods

[Holst]

I allways run mine at agressive.

It seeme that the trick is to use a good PSU and to avoid going for overclocks that are too big... go up 2-3 fsb at a time dont just jump in at a high number.

[dresuk]

Awaiting bios chip, awaiting bios chip, awaiting bios chip.........

the suspense....



Hope its here soon Im gettin itchy, wanna push for more

On a serious note could be to do with power supply, could be to do with vdd voltage, could be to do with the ram. Is there no way to log the boot sequence from when the bios is first initiased so when the bios gets corrupted again (and it will) we have some sort of info which may help us find a cure for this problem.

Hope so

In a bit

[likwid]

so Holst you really like those Sparkle PSU's hugh. I am thinking I may go for a 400watt one. Right now I have an Antec Smart Power 350 watt and it serves me fine, but I know a few oc'ers whom I respect that like the Sparkle.

So know real idea on what is better, Optimal or Aggressive? Well, I am running better at Optimal so I guess I'll keep it there for now.

[Holst]

I use agressive as its faster..

If you dont have an obvious PSU problem then I wouldnt upgrade for the sake of it.