Jimmy Question

I'm getting ready for my second new build. The last one was around the Opteron 165; This time I'm going CONROE, baby ! Decided the E6600 was the best CPU for me in terms of performance & value, so the next question is which Motherboard ? Overclocking is something that I intend to do, but no more than moderate as I intend to NOT blow huge amounts of money on bleeding edge memory, nor huge amounts of time messing with weird and exotic BIOS settings. My excess money is going into a Silverstone Power Supply (or equivalent), and I am trying to keep the budget in the $1000 range. So, with moderate overclocking ability, durability and reliablity as the top qualities I am after, what is the best Motherboard for me ? Ideally what I would like is a quiet, invisible performer that I never notice once the system is running. Thanks, Jimmy

I've never even heard of a "locked" SATA channel. It's pretty simple. Plug in the drive, enable the BIOS, install the drivers and that's that.

I am in the process of gathering information on the "Advanced Chipset Features" (BIOS settings) of the RS482 (thread found here) and have a question for the "Async GFX Clock" setting. I run the board OC'd to about 2700 Mhz, and have noticed that BattleField 1942 (the first one) seems to "hang" more often at higher overclocked speeds than it does at lower speeds, and I believe the problem is (on-board) video related. Today while reading this article I found a passage that seems to indicate that the Video speed was somehow connected to the System Bus speed, and it occured to me that it was possible that overclocking the CPU might be causing the video to run faster than it was capable. An excerpt from the article: The BIOS default is to run the "GFX Mode" in "Sync", and the article says that the "Clock Mode is in sync with System Bus" at 200 Mhz. But what if the System is overclocked ? Does this mean that the System Bus (and therefore the GFX clock) is running faster than 200 Mhz ? TBH, I'm not sure what they mean by "System Bus". I assume this is the FSB (now called "HTT"), which on my overclocked system is usually somewhere between 270 and 300 Mhz. If the graphics is in "Sync", doesn't this mean that it is overclocked as well ? Possibly TOO fast ? If so, then my second question is, if I set the GFX mode to "Async" and select a lower speed such as 200 Mhz (which incidently is the "Sync" settings default), wouldn't this then isolate my graphics speed from whatever I might do to the CPU/HTT ? Anyways, this is the limit of my understanding. Any help would be appreciated. Jimmy

Before I purchased mine, and for about 2 months after I looked for and read several reviews of the RS482, and was not particularly impressed by the level of technical details. However, just now I found a review which looks promising, as it seems to have more technical details (particularly BIOS) than the others I have found. http://sg.vr-zone.com/?i=3213&s=5

This post may be where the hyperlinks for the above list "go to". Can't say for sure yet, but I'd like to leave this post in reserve just in case. 09 Dec 06 - I am adding the information (Post #3) from "Poisonsnak" (Thanks!) Any additional help would be much appreciated. 09 Dec 06 - Added information (Post #5) from "Poisonsnak" (Thanks!) Any additional help would be much appreciated. Jimmy Sources: http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ing/vidcard/43 http://www.bleedinedgesupport.com/ocz/foru...ead.php?t=20506 http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/Speed_Demon...S_Guide_02b.htm http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showd...spx?i=2269&p=17

Due to a lack of documentation of definitions for BIOS settings for the RS482, I have made digital photos of the "Advanced Chipset Features" sub-section of the (BIOS data here), have transcribed them to text and am posting them here in the hopes that others may be able to help define what these settings mean and do. Please cite references if possible, and if you are guessing please mention that as well. Eventually, what I'd like this document to evolve to is a comprehensive list of all the BIOS settings, each one hyperlinked to a "guide" style document. Any suggestions on errors made, or ways to improve the document are welcomed. Jimmy Phoenix – AwardBIOS CMOS Setup Utility Advanced Chipset Features PCIE Reset Delay Disabled / Enabled PCIE GFX Core Payload Size 16 Bytes 32 Bytes 64 Bytes PCIE GPP Core Payload Size 16 Bytes 32 Bytes 64 Bytes GFX- Link Width - specifies the number of lanes allocated to the PCI-E x16 slot. The slot is physically an x16 slot but may be configured down to any of the above values. The setting is useful if your chipset has, say, a maximum of 20 lanes to divide between two x16 slots but on this motherboard just leave it at x16. Applies PCIE Video only; Does not apply to On-board Video. (Need Source.) X 1 X 2 X 4 X 8 X 16 ASPM GPX Disabled L0 L1 L0 & L1 ASPM GPP Disabled L0 L1 L0 & L1 ASPM NB – SB Disabled L0 L1 L0 & L1 ASPM GPP Disabled L0 L1 L0 & L1 TXCLK Gating Disabled / Enabled - setting this to "Enabled" may improve video performance the CFX3200-DR, possibly the RS482 as well. (from Tony's guide here: post #4) PCIE Common Clock Disabled / Enabled - setting this to "Enabled" may improve video performance the CFX3200-DR, possibly the RS482 as well. (from Tony's guide here: post #4) GFX Multi Function Mode Disabled / Enabled UMA Frame Buffer Size - The following link explains that it means the Onboard Video is accessing System RAM though the Athlon64's Universal Memory Architecture (its memory controller), as opposed to having dedicated RAM (to video only ?) on the motherboard. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2269&p=17 (Is more better ? What's a recommended setting or formula (percentage or total RAM, maybe?) for the RS482 ?) 32 MB 64 MB 128 MB VGA Aperture Size - Sometimes referred to as AGP Aperture Size (even on boards with no AGP slot). (A setting of 128MB is recommended for "all cards with 64 MB to 256 MB Video RAM." (see link below) However, I do not know how (or if) this applies to the RS482's Onboard Video.) http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ing/vidcard/43 32 MB 64 MB 128 MB 256 MB 512MB 1 GB 2 GB None Memory Hole - This must be enabled when using 4GB of RAM or you will not be able to use it all. (Need Source. Are there any consequences/benefits if this is enabled and you have less than 4GB of RAM ?) Disabled / Enabled System BIOS Cacheable - Places a copy of the System BIOS in the CPU's L2 cache. Speeds up BIOS access, but this is usually a waste of cache as the BIOS is not accessed often. http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/Speed_Demonz/BIOS_Guide/BIOS_Guide_02b.htm Disabled / Enabled Init Display First - Tells the motherboard which video card to use as primary, if you have more than one. (Does this setting matter if you only have on-board video ?) PCI Slot Onboard PCIEx ********************* On-Chip VGA Setting ********************** GFX Clock Mode Sync/Async xAsync GFX Clock ??? Mhz xAsync GFX Clock Source ??.??? Mhz OSC MCLK Spread Spectrum Enabled/Disabled Boot Display - (Applies to Onboard Video only) Tells the motherboard which display port to activate. If set to Auto it will attempt to detect attached devices. Useful if you sometimes boot your computer with no display attached, and want to attach one after it's done booting. (Will setting this to a "manual" setting speed-up boot time ?) Auto CRT DFP TV Only TV Standard - (applies to Onboard Video only) Specifies your region for TV-out. TVs in different regions use slightly different signals. NTSC is North American, PAL is European, and I have no idea for the rest. (I would assume "NTSC-JAP" is for Japan.) NTSC PAL PAL-N PAL-60 NTSC-JAP PAL-CN PAL-N SCART_RGB

Last night I ran my G. Skill DDR400 "HX" memory at 3-4-4-8 all night long at DDR550. Not really knowing what I was doing, I set the divider on a 1:1 and then adjusted the CPU/HTT until the DDR was at 550. I left the voltages & everything else alone. Now I don't know what to do next.

I've got the 3 1/2 floppy made and booted into MemTest, but I'm not quite sure what I am doing. First, does memtest test the memory at the CPU speed and timings that are in the CMOS ? If so, then why does MemTest allow you to change the timings. What about voltage ? I couldn't find anywhere in MemTest to adjust voltage, so does it use what is set in CMOS ? If there is no connection between the CMOS and MemTest, then how can you change the DDr to see how it overclocks ? Is there a guide on this somewhere ? Thanks in advance, Jimmy

I've been taking photos of the RS482's Video BIOS settings, and plan to write them all down and post them here on the chance that someone might know at least what some of them are, as none of them appear on rojak's site.

Could the USB cables be plugged in wrong on the motherboard ? Maybe a wrong jumper setting ? Could another device be causing the problem, and it just looks like it's the USB controller ?

Isn't it odd that motherboard/bios manufacturers put out all kinds of new BIOS settings and there seems to be no documentations available as to what they do ? Am I the only one that thinks this ?

No Help ? I've taken detailed pictures of all the Video BIOS screens and plan to make a complete outline of all the options.

SiSoft Sandra lite also reports 2 cores, each running at significantly different temperatures.

For what it's worth, I wrote a little batch file to launch two instances of Prime95, each configured for each core. It also launches the taskmanager so you can see both cores in action. The little bit of knowledge this batch file took (and may provide) is the use of the command "start". Without this command, the batchfile will wait for the first instance to finish before launching the second. "Start" only starts the executable before moving on to the next line. The next thing I'd like to do is find switches for taskmgr.exe, so that I get the GUI display showing the cores running at 100%. Looked around but couldn't find any. If anyone knows I'd be very appreciative.

Bump !