Wheres my Q9450 FFS

[weldzilla]

Why do you keep referring to the processor as junk?
There are no core duo processors that are junk at any price. As you said yourself it completely dominates the competition.
I have used both the award and the AMI bios setups i find neither to be easier than the other. My P5E is so far superior to any board I ever had or used to dream of having that it is just ridiculous.

The P5Ke-wifi is a fabulous board also. The X38 chipset is faster clock for clock.

Good luck on this new adventure dsio you will soon be in the Intel groove.

Then you won't look like this guy any more!!

The picture (photochop was submitted to Xtreme systems by, "samhughe" Xtreme member and photochopper!!

WZ

[dsio]

ok, FSB 400Mhz Multi 8, 3.2Ghz stable, standard NB voltage and 1.4V CPU.

What are safe voltages for NB and CPU?

[weldzilla]

Well it depends on your cooling. If your temps are good I have no problems going to 1.6v on the cpu and up to 1.7 on the NB. As you know I have great cooling on my machines. Right now running at 512 fsb for a daily clock of 4608mhz on my P5E my idle temps are 28C That is with my V-core set to 1.6185 in the bios which gives me an actual voltage of 1.5680. and my NB is set to 1.55v. So, if you can keep the temps down then your volts can go up!!

WZ

[dsio]

Sitting on 300X11 atm, interestingly when I had it at 400fsb, it was actually running 350mhz. whenever I try to go over 350, it actually gives me something near 350, like 349 347 etc.

I've read of several people getting over 520Mhz on this exact board. I'm using the F2 bios, gigabyte claim the F3 overclocks better. But I'm thinking it could be that I have no clue how to OC an intel system.

For time time being, 3.3Ghz @ 300X11 isn't bad though, 50% OC.

I'm using about 1.55V atm and its full load temp peaks at 60C, more commonly around 58C. Water temp is about 30C. I don't think I cleaned enough of the old thermal goop off the waterblock before replacing it, don't think the AS5 was spread very well, and I don't think its pressured down enough, because teh backplate is wood atm I didn't put much pressure on it, previously I had it torqued down really hard on the AMD to the point where the steel bracket had a slight bow in it.

[dsio]

Just noticed that this board has 2X12V header on it, the lower half of it being blocked off I only connected the top 12V block. Maybe the limit i'm hitting is because of that.

[ccperf721p]

Supplying power to all available connections is always a good thing.

Is there a review on the board that would show me the bios screens, specifically cpu and memory settings? I can run through the options and give you a quick description, and a range of values that would get you in the ballpark.

[dsio]

Motherboard manual linked here.

Plugged in the 2X12V 8 pin cable now, no difference, still when I go over 350Mhz it posts at 350mhz.

GIGABYTE - Support - Motherboard - Manual Download

[dsio]

this computer is way down on performance.

Doing a memory speed test, its pulling about 1300MB/s.

By comparison this laptop is doing 4600MB/s and even my servers are doing 6.2GB/s.

Something's seriously wrong.

Won't go over 350fsb (its meant to do 400Mhz standard), memory performance thats crud for DDR1 standards, and completely unstable if I set it to anything more than 'standard' mode for the 'performance level' setting. Either this is a bad board or I've done something very wrong.

[ccperf721p]

I'll take a look at that manual in a few, but first thing I would look at is divider and strap ratios.

[dsio]

I'm wondering if this deceptively cheap PNY DDR2-800 RAM might be the issue. BTW tried out the intel onboard sound to see how its come along in recent years.

It hasn't. Narrow soundstage, tinny, muffled mids, about as bad as they get. Using an old Audigy 1 for the moment.

I've got a copy of windows around here somewhere, and I might install that, then use it to flash the bios with teh new version.

Amazing that after all these years you still need a floppy drive to flash BIOS.

[ccperf721p]

I never did get a look at that manual, Had to go out to dinner with the parents. I'll try to check it out while I'm at work.

I doubt it is the memory causing the 350FSB issue. DDR800 is way more than enough for a 200FSB chip. Which divider are you on?

I tried the onboard sound once with my board, yes it sucks..

[dsio]

The dividers are in groups, A, B, C, and D.

Each group corresponds to a FSB speed. So there's like a 2.0D and a 2.0B etc.

I've tried every possible divider that would keep DDR speed below 800Mhz, both A B C and D, all are much the same, always capped at 350Mhz.

Some of the bios options are very ambiguous. Very non specific, and I really don't know enough about intel chips still.

[ccperf721p]

I know a little about intel chipsets, but a,b,c carp is a little frustrating. Why couldn't they just use a frequency like everyone else.. I'll get it figured out..

[ccperf721p]

I guess first thing would be to ask if you are hitting CTRL+F1 while in the bios to open up the submenus for OC.

[dsio]

Man, that CTRL+F1 thing is not very obvious, I didn't even know about it =\ Having a look now.

[dsio]

GTLRef1 voltage ratio
GTLRef2 voltage ratio

are the only two added options in the overclocking section with CTRL+F1

Still tops out at 350Mhz.

[ccperf721p]

You don't have any of the auto OC stuff enabled do you? They will have names like turbo and/or similar

[dsio]

All set to disabled.

[danrok]

Have you managed to update the BIOS program?

[dsio]

Still limited to 350Mhz fsb. Think I know why though. Someone told me that the ASUS Maximus Formula has the same problem, as does the P5E. Apparently its a limited imposed by X38 boards when running low memory dividers which allow DDR2-800 ram to be used at high fsb speeds. Using DDR2-1066 or DDR2-1200 ram at higher dividers releases the limiter.

Edit: this occurs on X38s at 4:5 or lower (currently trying to use 1:1 and failing)