8RDA6+ Pro Romsip Mod

[MietmaN]

Some comments? Yes, I've got some, for sure - I'm gonna edit this post and write some more in the morning

@ treeninja
Plz, never trust all those voltages readings in bios nor in Windows - most of them are far from reality. But, on the other hand, with that 300W PSU I wouldn't dare to overclock, if I were you. Honestly, it's like a ticking bomb, which may explode in one year or in one minute.

As to Sandra results - low memory bandwidth - seems to be typical for 8RDA3+ PRO and stock bios - you should normally get like 100-200MB/s more.

"Stock BIOS | 200x11 | 1,6V | 2,76V | 3 2 2 7 (turbo mode) | 3006/2734"
Plz try 200x11; 1.6v; 2.76v; 2-2-2-11 - your memory sticks are capable of such timings.

@ Wolf2000me
I'm already in Germany - mobile mode - I don't think I'll try the stock bios with FSB166 L12 - I got the same instabilities with 3D2001SE while running the stock one (simply, sometimes it passes and sometimes not); I haven't got the faintest idea, why it is so. I think I don't care anymore - got whole lot of work to do and no time for tests anymore.

Btw. Aqua 3 and other benches seemed to be alright.

[treeninja]

Hello

Thanx for comment, Mietman. I have try your settings. here are results:

Stock BIOS: 200*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-2-2-11 | 2996/2747
as i was changing tras to 6 there was no big difference. i will try now with FSB one step at a time and see what happens. I'll report

---edited-------
i tried:
Stock BIOS: 201*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-2-2-11 blue screen
Stock BIOS: 202*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-2-2-11 blue screen
then tried:
Stock BIOS: 200*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-3-3-11 it was OK
Stock BIOS: 201*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-3-3-11 blue screen

Blue screen appeard at varius timings, even if i have 2,5-3-3-11. What is wrong?
------------------

what is changed in modded bios? can somenone explain me in few words?

l8r

Thanks
Miha

[MietmaN]

Originally Posted by treeninja

i tried:
Stock BIOS: 201*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-2-2-11 blue screen
Stock BIOS: 202*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-2-2-11 blue screen
then tried:
Stock BIOS: 200*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-3-3-11 it was OK
Stock BIOS: 201*11, Vcore:1,6V, Vdimm:2,76V, 2-3-3-11 blue screen

Blue screen appeard at varius timings, even if i have 2,5-3-3-11. What is wrong?

Hiya,

There shouldn't be so sudden change in stability while raising the FSB - I mean from "Ok" to "blue screen" 1MHz higher. As you may have noticed, timings don't seem to have any influence here - your memory should be capable of doing 2-2-2-11 up to FSB 210-220, especially with just one stick 256MB (the less memory the better FSB overclock).

I know two possible reasons for such a situation :
1) Your PSU is giving it's last breath - OC just a little more and it will die in flames (I'm more serious than kidding).
2) The Lack of L12 mod - some timings for nForce2 chipset are set to FSB133, even when you raise your FSB in bios - just because FSB133 is the default one for your CPU. FSB200 is like a threshold - one step further and you get instability.

A friend of mine has had similar problem with Athlon XP T-bred 1700+ and an Epox 8RDA3+ rev.2.1. At FSB200 everything was fine, at FSB201 his PC was unstable, no matter what he did to change that situation. With L12 mod and just one stick of RAM (256MB) he achieved then FSB240 with ease (stably!).

Originally Posted by treeninja

what is changed in modded bios? can somenone explain me in few words?

L12 mod bulit in (soft L12) => more on it you can find here :
http://www.geocities.com/trats102002/nf7sFsbsense.html

Changed FSB 133&166&200 ROMSIP tables (some chipset timings and more - don't ask me for details! )

Different alpha memory timings - sort of hidden memory timings (some of them can be set in bios on DFI motherboards).

If I recall something more, I'll make an update.

cheers and good luck!

[Wolf2000me]

Hey, I received my Psu today. All problems seemed to have vanished. I'm running at 212.5x12 again, still with my old corsair. I'm still waiting on RMA for the VX but the booster is still here and working. Problems were caused by undervolting cpu and HD's getting not enough power.

[treeninja]

Hi!

Again, I tried modded BIOS. The voltages were again red, ok I ignored that. I boot into windows, with no problems. But the modded bios is not completely compatible with my mobo. LAN settings have collapsed, my MAC address changed, and stuff. The menus are different as with stock bios (some settings in on board devices...). well ok, i ignored that and just procede with testing, again, as i changed fsb for a few mhz, the computer reseted. I'm a bit confused right now. my cousin told me that he has 300W PSU nad succesfully overclocked it at 220 FSB stable. is there any modded bios for 8RDA3+ PRO version. i know that this board is almost the same, if not identical in almost all things with 8RDA6+.

----------edited later----------------
ok, finally i flashed bios with this version 8RDA6+_PRO_TaiPan_0.1_E4_ED_Bpl_3.19_17.01.05.rar
the menus are the same, as in stock bios, no more LAN problems (of course, becouse it is 6+ pro version, which is the same as 3+ pro) and no more red V values in boot screen. ok. now i have tried to overclock. it's the same situation as before. as soon as i raise the FSB, blue screen appear. hm, so maybe is the PSU the problem here?
more specific list of my computer:

Epox 8rda3+ PRO
Athlon 2500+ XP-M + Zalman 7000
1x 256mb Apacer PC4000
Radeon 9000 64 MB AGP
LAN card PCI
1x FDD
2x IDE hard disks
1x NEC 2510 DVD-RW
Rhoebus fan controler (powered by molex)
usb front panel (powered by molex)
PSU 300W

any suggestions?

THANX
Miha

[MietmaN]

Originally Posted by Wolf2000me

Hey, I received my Psu today. All problems seemed to have vanished. I'm running at 212.5x12 again, still with my old corsair. I'm still waiting on RMA for the VX but the booster is still here and working. Problems were caused by undervolting cpu and HD's getting not enough power.

I'm glad you've solved your stability problems - how is that new OCZ Modestream of yours in terms of silence (my mental disease )?

As to my problems I'm out of ideas - I could say my mobo don't like G.Skill TCCD memory sticks, but it wouldn't be true, since at FSB220 all possible stability tests pass easily (Prime95 Blend and Large FFTs, Memtest86+, SuperPI 16M) and all other 3D benchmarks, including Aquamark 3 (there seemed to be some conflict between this bench and an older version of ATITool I used - hence my former problems). Only 3D2001SE crashes at random - it used to be the most basic and first stability test I had always done while OCing. ##$%^^n' magic!

When I come back home again, I'm gonna try 3 more things :
- my old Twinmos PC4000 mem sticks, which I have borrowed to a friend of mine (poor guy had been running A64 Socket 939 system with just one memory stick),
- connecting my Radeon to another molex connector (although it is now connected in the best possible way - to a molex directly from my PSU, no other hardware on the same line),
- reinstalling my passive NB cooling.

@ treeninja :
Despite what your cousin has told you, I would blame your 300W PSU - FSB133 ROMSIP table isn't the problem anymore, since you're currently using Merlin's bios with L12 soft-mod built in.

[Wolf2000me]

MietmaN...

I was too fast in believing i was in the clear. I crashed after a whole day of system operation without errors. Again Hard disk issues. This time no vcore or vdimm drops. Then after 15 minutes I crashed again! This makes me frown severely because i have no idea what makes a system run smoothly for more than one day and then all of the sudden making the OS crash after 15 minutes. Even my other OS on a different drive crashed. So now i changed the power saving to S3 and my agp aperture size to 64mb. The aperture size thing was set to that value when i had no crashes and i do remember changing that half an hour before the first crash. Perhaps we have some similar problems...
The OCZ makes less noise as my previous PSU. The previous one was a Thermaltake purepower silent 480W which was far from silent and not very stable. If i crash again, i'm going to errorcheck and correct my disks again (which is my standard procedure after a crash like this) and flash to the official bios with hard L12 mod. I still have the mod. If the situation improves there may be more work for Merlin and there fore you as well.
The thing is that indeed on my system, the stability in memtest and prime are the same as you. Fully stable. And i'm out of ideas as well if this won't work.

[treeninja]

It's me again.

Finally i managed to get this computer to higher levels
I'm currently runing at: 235*9,5
timing: 3-3-3-11
vcore: 1,6V
Vdimm: 2,63V
sandra (mem test): 3518 / 3150

i tested more in memtest, with no errors after one run, but the pc did not boot. what should i change?

BDV: I have new PSU, 420W

Treeninja

[Wolf2000me]

Hey Miha

Try running memtest 5 a few times and/or memtest 4. If both pass you make a good chance of having a stable OC. Did you try upping the vcore some? It is not because your cpu can handle 200x11.5 that it will be able to pull off 235x9.5 at the same voltage. Cpu's tend to heat up some more upon upping the fsb as well so carefully watch your temps. My cpu can do 213x12 at 1.87v and it won't get unstable till 59°C. Though it will get unstable at 214x12 the second it hits 50°C.
And be careful on what you buy. A 420 Watt PSU of no brandname might as well be as crappy as the one you had before. It costs much less but lot's of OC'ers buy the moderate priced component, then hungering for more power end up buying the more expensive one.

As to the problems i have had, it seems i'm once again stable. The S3 and AGP aperture size of 64mb seem to have done it. I haven't crashed since i tried those settings. With the booster again in place. Though i used to be stable using 128mb aperture size together with the Merlin taipan mod bios before i tried playing with the booster. Now it won't seem to do that anymore at exactly the same specs as i had before, as still in sig. With the booster and 20 pin ATX cable extention for the booster plugged out. These strange things keep sneaking up on me with this board

[MietmaN]

Originally Posted by Wolf2000me

Hey Miha

Try running memtest 5 a few times and/or memtest 4. If both pass you make a good chance of having a stable OC. Did you try upping the vcore some? It is not because your cpu can handle 200x11.5 that it will be able to pull off 235x9.5 at the same voltage. Cpu's tend to heat up some more upon upping the fsb as well so carefully watch your temps. My cpu can do 213x12 at 1.87v and it won't get unstable till 59°C. Though it will get unstable at 214x12 the second it hits 50°C.

Exactly, I can't add anything more - the CPU's temperature seems to be some "magic" factor while overclocking and it's always good to keep it beneath 50°C. All those readings come from socket and not from the CPU's thermal diode, so they must be lower than in reality, especially under heavy CPU's load /stress.

And be careful on what you buy. A 420 Watt PSU of no brandname might as well be as crappy as the one you had before. It costs much less but lot's of OC'ers buy the moderate priced component, then hungering for more power end up buying the more expensive one.

I can't disagree!

As to booting - Merlin's bios has a so called "cold boot issue" - you can reboot dozens of times and everything is fine as long as you don't shut down your system. Mobo won't boot then, until you turn off your PSU for a few secs and turn it on again.

As to the problems i have had, it seems i'm once again stable. The S3 and AGP aperture size of 64mb seem to have done it. I haven't crashed since i tried those settings. With the booster again in place. Though i used to be stable using 128mb aperture size together with the Merlin taipan mod bios before i tried playing with the booster. Now it won't seem to do that anymore at exactly the same specs as i had before, as still in sig. With the booster and 20 pin ATX cable extention for the booster plugged out. These strange things keep sneaking up on me with this board

Well, huh, what can I say - strange, wierd, magic - I've never heard of any similar situation, in which AGP aprerture size would have an influence on stability. Must check it on my PC, although I don't see any logic in this

cheers, mate

[grandmaster_b]

Anyone know if the cold boot issue is cured in the latest version ?

[Barix]

... or what must be set/unset in the bios to have the pc booting without problems?

I think it's sufficent to set S1 instead of S3 and not to use hibernation .. can I have a confirmation?

Tnx all in advance

[MietmaN]

Originally Posted by Barix

... or what must be set/unset in the bios to have the pc booting without problems?

The cold boot issue has not been resolved - btw. I've heard of someone with the stock bios from October having exactly the same issue. I don't know, it might be stock bios related issue - I haven't checked, 'cause I don't use the stock one.

I think it's sufficent to set S1 instead of S3 and not to use hibernation .. can I have a confirmation?

Tnx all in advance

S1 works fine for me. When I set S3 in bios, it also works fine, but I don't use hibernation nor suspend-to-RAM anymore.

News (bad) : Merlin's son pulled out a part of Merlin's WC about a month ago (the case was simply opened) and the water destroyed the whole PC, including HDDs and all data on them. Merlin's gonna build a new system soon, but it will most probably be nForce4. He won't do any bioses for nForce2 motherboards anymore.

[Áedán]

In that case, it'd probably be good to gather as much information from Merlin as to what he was adjusting in the tables. However, I'm unlikely to have any time to look at BIOSes or anything else in the near future.

[Wolf2000me]

I seem to be having the same kind of "lack of luck" as some seem to get here. I just got my VX memory back from RMA and guess what. In the meantime my DDR Booster gave up on me. It constantly goes from booster set vdimm to bios set vdimm. Which is rather destructive at 232 mhz fsb @ 2 2 2 11

[Áedán]

Hmm, I've not even tried a booster, so I'm not sure how helpful they really are?

[MietmaN]

Originally Posted by Áedán

In that case, it'd probably be good to gather as much information from Merlin as to what he was adjusting in the tables. However, I'm unlikely to have any time to look at BIOSes or anything else in the near future.

The only thing I know is that he has applied some settings from his custom DFI Lan Party bios and rebuilt the 133/166/200 ROMSIP tables in his own way. Everything now is in his mind, but concerning the fact, that he has done plenty of bioses for Abit, DFI and Epox, I would suspect he can't recall everything.

@ Wolf2000me : yeah, exactly, lack of luck - I've marked my rev.1.4 is undervolting V-dimm a little bit, while the "old" rev.1.2 was actually overvolting. So how high you can now go with the FSB and your memory sticks?

As you probably know, my G.Skill sticks seem to don't like my mobo - some folks here with G.Skill's memory haven't got such problems and some have even worse issues. I've already given up - can't do more in theory - I'll be home in a few days and check everything with my old Twinmos PC4000.

[Daniel ~]

MietmaN, Do please pass along out continuing appreciation for all the work Merlin has devoted to making O/Cing better and more fun for everyone fortunate enough to have been able to use one of his BIOS's.