Man, does this Expert have me puzzled.

[NEODARK]

Hey guys,

 

First of all, I'm new to the forum... ( I lurked a bit when deciding to go the DFI route)

 

I always heard good things from my friend about these boards. You guys have a great community here :nod:

 

Now, let me get to the point. I recently did the jump to PCI-e. I previously owned an MSI NEO2 AGP, in which I was able to hit a really stable O/C (24h Prime) with my opteron @ 1.42vcore with my same gskill's @ 1:1. (same PSU). I did all the necessary things, like HT link @ 3x, cpu multy manually @ 10x, necessary vcore, vdim, etc. The timmings I was running on the neo were 3-4-4-8

 

When I first got my Expert, I figured I would at least give it a try out of the box to see if "it ran" @ 270x10 1:1 and it did beautifully. (primed for 12 hours fine with bios 12/07)

 

But as soon as I started testing the ram timmings and the different voltage options, everything goes haywire, and my chip isn't even stable @ 2.4. I'm definitely not a noob to overclocking, just to DFI boards. But it seems that if I touch anything, I loose stability really fast, and even if I set it back to what it was before the instability, I dont get it back, unless I reset to defaults. (then it works again like nothing @ 2.7)

 

I know its not the mem crapping out, because I tested with the 100 divider and the cpu still crapped out way under its normal limit and with more volts. but, again... when I reset to defaults, it runs peachy.

 

Im on the orange ram slots if it helps any. Thanks and let me know if you need more info/.

 

Also, I searched the forums to see if I could find a thread that listed all the little quircks about this mobo (kinda like the awesome thread @ xtreme for the NEO2 that tells you not to use certain sata ports, or ram slots, etc)

[Burky]

Are you enabling anything you shouldn't be like cool n quiet, or thermal throttling.

 

Also, when you type in you ram timings, remember that to make them run 2-3-2-5 you need to enter 2-3-5-2 into the dram config (NB I make no mistake). If you enter your timings incorrectly then there's no change you are stable.

 

Hope something works there, else good luck.

[NEODARK]

Nope, I definitelly know to stay away from that stuff (CnQ and TT)...

 

I dont get what you are saying about the ram timmings, Im making sure I use the correct things. aka, TREF to TREF, TRCD to TRCD, etc from values others have posted. And I know all setups are different, but Im sure its the CPU becoming unstable, as it does it with a divider or without.

 

There is one more weird quirck that I've found.

 

In the BIOS when I setup the BOOT order, and make my boot drive the primary its weird, because it doesnt find it. I have to make it secondary (yet under boot config "del key" at post) it shows them inverted, so making it secondary in BIOS works lol..

 

Im just puzzled that changing something like different vcore combinations via percentage or cpu vid make it so unstable (even if its the same volts) and then going back to the previous stable config doesnt work even though everything is the same as before when stable. It all goes back to normal when I reset to defaults.

[Burky]

I think you're running your hard disk as a slave then.

I only know how to change it with IDEs, but check that out.

[NEODARK]

the raptor is SATA, and my other 250gig is SATA as well, so no slave or master. Thanks for the help though, this seems like a great board, but really quircky

 

There is one new thing on this mobo that I forgot to mention... Why is there two voltage controls for the CPU, well 3 with the percentage one..

 

CPU VID STARTUP VALUE:

CPU VID CONTROL:

CPU VID SPECIAL CONTROL:

 

I've been using just the "CPU VID SPECIAL CONTROL" with 107% (1.43vcore BIOS)

[ICON57]

the special vid with %'s is for anthing above 1.55 volts, there are many different combo's of settings you have to choose from to get the voltage you need/want.

 

the start up applies that amount just for a brief moment right before post...some leave it on start up, or just set it to 1.50

 

what sata ports are you connecting your hd's to?

 

and i think what burky was telling you...in other bios's you set you cas etc... 2.5.3.3.7

for instance...but in the dfi bios the "7" would be your "3rd" setting in the bios not the 4th...did that make sense...lol

 

oh, and btw.....welcome to the street

[NEODARK]

Thanks.

 

Well, I must've been changing something I shouldn't have. for now I left the ram @ auto in most of the settings I wasnt too sure about.

 

so far, its rock solid. 270x10 1:1 Not sure what caused the instability, but hey, its running like a champ now (primed for about 4 hours with no issues), so no need to mess with it too much.

 

I'll leave all night tonight to be sure.

 

 

I also figured the volts thing. This mobo has so much better power delivery. On my Neo2 the vocre would fluctuate a lot, in this expert it hardly ever changes, load or not. :nod:

[bestmancajun]

Configure your OCZ PSU rails in bios.

[ICON57]

just be carefull useing the special vid %'s....there is a chart giving all the values.

it is very easy to fry a cpu by overvolting it.

[jsluk]

Hey Neodark,

 

I am the guy you help out last evening when A64 Tweaker messed up my BIOS. I also have the Expert and I am new at overclocking. I been following the guides and got my Corsair PC3200 DDR400 memory to DDR 450. I gained about 80 MB/sec on the memory per memtest. I read on this forum that our board is different than the rest of the lanparty series except maybe the new Venus board. The forum members says that the Expert was real sensitive to memory drive strength and the data drive strength settings. I havn't messed with them yet but maybe I get a little better memory bandwidth once I got the sticks optimized. Good luck.

 

p.s. I ordered a pair of 2x1G Gskills (PC4000) from the egg and will be starting with the tweaking again.

[NEODARK]

just be carefull useing the special vid %'s....there is a chart giving all the values.

it is very easy to fry a cpu by overvolting it.

 

yup, no prob.. Im only using 1.41vcore

 

@ jsluk

 

cool, glad you got it sorted out.