Opty 170 with DFI CFX3200 - Round 2!!
Krazeyivan
Newcastle, UK
Hey all following on from my old thread
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44922
I just thought I would bring on the sequel - its going to be about the efforts to get this board running to my satifaction.
Not sure if most of you are familiar with this board - but its one of the best Socket 939 overclockers - let down badly by its main fault the ULI 1575 problem - and a few other nasty issues. Still there is rumours of people with no errors so I am going to go questing for the holy grail
First things first ..... backup - this is my main rig so I am going to backup my files - that will take a few days since I have near 3Tb of files. Once thats done - its action stations!
Going to strip it down to "play" mode with the mobo on its box and everything out of the case, hopefully get a few pics and note useful things I've found along the way. Also a few upgrades will be heading in - my evercool VC-RE will be going in - and possibly the Big Typhoon (cannot get the new VX one over here in the UK at the minute) so I will first off still use my Freezer 64 CPU cooler. Also eying a nice Galaxy 850W PSU (yum)
The starting aim!
We will start with a flash to the latest BIOS (again) and then go wiping the CMOS with killCMOS and f_tester to get back as close as possible to clean and pristine, then its get windows back, hopefully eliminating the niggly faults and then overclocking!! Can we go sail above 300HTT with this rig, I've got a few air cooling ideas up my sleeve. I try and note all my timings and settings I'll use to help anyone else - plus detailed rig info.
Well I've taken your time up so I'll finish. Hopefully this weekend will be backup time then off to the races!
Hope to get to 2.7 minimum - but may see if I can join the 3Ghz club too!
http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44922
I just thought I would bring on the sequel - its going to be about the efforts to get this board running to my satifaction.
Not sure if most of you are familiar with this board - but its one of the best Socket 939 overclockers - let down badly by its main fault the ULI 1575 problem - and a few other nasty issues. Still there is rumours of people with no errors so I am going to go questing for the holy grail
First things first ..... backup - this is my main rig so I am going to backup my files - that will take a few days since I have near 3Tb of files. Once thats done - its action stations!
Going to strip it down to "play" mode with the mobo on its box and everything out of the case, hopefully get a few pics and note useful things I've found along the way. Also a few upgrades will be heading in - my evercool VC-RE will be going in - and possibly the Big Typhoon (cannot get the new VX one over here in the UK at the minute) so I will first off still use my Freezer 64 CPU cooler. Also eying a nice Galaxy 850W PSU (yum)
The starting aim!
We will start with a flash to the latest BIOS (again) and then go wiping the CMOS with killCMOS and f_tester to get back as close as possible to clean and pristine, then its get windows back, hopefully eliminating the niggly faults and then overclocking!! Can we go sail above 300HTT with this rig, I've got a few air cooling ideas up my sleeve. I try and note all my timings and settings I'll use to help anyone else - plus detailed rig info.
Well I've taken your time up so I'll finish. Hopefully this weekend will be backup time then off to the races!
Hope to get to 2.7 minimum - but may see if I can join the 3Ghz club too!
0
Comments
The 1575 problem page on DFI street ran on to 65 odd pages!
You would get an error message in the event log - hard locking for a a few seconds quite a lot. And no system stability - sometimes the system crashed and it's just not very well handled.
Nvidia will obviously not fix a rival chipsets problems (Ati R580) since they bought ULI and DFI have been unable to really resolve it. They claim they have and the updates work, but everything I went through says otherwise. Still thats what I'm aiming for a chance to see if I can get the ULI to work with RAID. And get some stability.
Still major problems - the SIL and ULI cannot work together - you get an envoke error, and certain items in the BIOS default to what they want not what you select, things along those lines
When DFI street returns I will post the link for your reading
Update on the PC - I have started pulling it apart, its very dusty - got some photo's that I will upload tonight - I just noticed that the CPU cooler block is not sitting flush on the CPU, its slightly over to one side - so just under a quarter of the CPU can be seen, I have attempted to photo this (for the upload) and its sort of made my mind up with getting a Big Typhoon now - going to put the order in soon.
Still I reseated the CPU cooler - noticing my awful job before of applying TIM, far too much used, this time I put a grain of rice size dot of Artic Silver 5 on. Until my Typhoon blows into town my testing can be down with this.
I have fitted the new chipset cooler - the evercool VC-RE its rather nice - bit of a pain to fit but will hopefully give me lower temps
I am stripping the rest down (mainly PSU from case) - tonight after work, then I hope to clean all the dust away from all components - case, fans, cables etc. My trusty can of compressed air to the rescue!
Once I'm happy with that - plug it all in out of case and - then its BIOS update and reset time. With the help of some useful programs.
More to come.....
Current Progress............as of now
As mentioned I had a common (with this mobo) ULI error previously, so this is what I have done up to now
1) Re-assembled the kit out of the box - I connected the HDD's to the ULI not the SIL I've been using
2) The mobo had the 25/4/06 BIOS installed and was overclocked, so I turned the power to the PSU off, removed the battery and moved the jumper for the CMOS clear - clicked the power button on the mobo to drain the capacitors then left this for 20 mins, after I moved the jumper and re-installed the battery.
3) Once I turned it on I changed the BIOS to boot from CD first, I then loaded Tmod's DFI Boot CD with loads of goodies on it - I ran KillCMOS
4) I then made sure the floppy was selected as first boot on the restart, and loaded a generic dos boot disk with no drivers (look at www.bootdisk.com) on this disk was the program "F_tester" that OCZTony recommended to use I ran this program and reset.
5) I then loaded the same floppy boot disk and ran the BIOS update from that I loaded the latest one 28/7/06 and then reset.
6) Upon restart I changed the BIOS to the correct settings - removed stuff I do not use, disabling the SIL controller, and onboard sound for instance, I did NOT modify anything overclock wise apart from the "Max Async Latency" which I set at 8 and the "Read Preamble Time" set to 6 because this motherboard runs too tight at stock on these - nearly all the changes were with the rest of the board. So we are now at stock
7) I then entered the ULI BIOS and created a RAID 0 array then put in Windows XP SP2 disk
8) With the PC booting off the CD I then pressed F6 to add additional drivers for the RAID - then installed the latest driver when prompted (check out the link) - Windows installed normally no errors
9) This is where I had to finish last night - checked the event viewer - No errors so far everything is sweet - will keep you all updated
Tmod - http://www.biosmedic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18
F6 Pre-XP Disk - http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/408
F_Tester can be downloaded I have the file at home and can post it if needed
More to come..... including full specs (which should have been first! DOH!)
I never had it running with the stock cooler - but it runs good temps - at 2D speeds I am about 38-40c I think and at 3D speeds flat out - it goes to 61c - going to see what happens when I overclock it - never really tried - but I have the latest ATItool.
Main Systems Spec - long overdue
Antec P180 -- replacing with Akasa Mirage 62 today
(I am sick of the PSU at the bottom of the case hard to route cables)
LANPARTY CFX3200-DR/G -- BIOS (28/7/06)
Opty 170 -- currently at stock
Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler - (Big Typhoon replacement tonight!
Evercool VC-RE Chipset Cooler
2 x 1GB OCZ 4000EB
ATI X1900XT -- with Zalman VF900 Cooler
2 x 250Gb Samsung Spinpoint HDD SATAII (RAID 0 - ULI)
1 x 80Gb Maxtor SATAII
Creative X-Fi
Seasonic S600 PSU
Asus DVD-RW
1.44 Floppy Drive
I have windows XP SP2 back on its feet, I have hammered the system at stock with HD Tune and HD Tach - no errors shown with the ULI problem that plague this board, nothing is reported in the event viewer
3DMark 05 is stable and working great - Super PI runs fine too - No problem with Orthos either.
Stats from HD Tune - on my RAID 0 array
Min Min Transfer rate 71
Max Transfer rate 109
Average Transfer rate 92.3
Access Time 14.3ms
Burst 129.7
CPU Util 7.7%
On HD Tach I'm almost as fast as SCSI 320 by the bar chart which is fantastic
Tonight I fit the Big Typhoon which I hope gets delivered today, and we start to overclock the CPU to see how far I can go with it, then the memory. Will follow lemonlime's legendary guide, and keep everyone (mainly me in this thread
I previously was running 24/7 at 2.6Ghz - but I reckon we can do much better - this board is just about the pinnicle of socket 939 overclocking!
So far so good! -
Also for giggles I am going to point my huge desktop fan (at max speed) at the bare rig later and see what "max" is on CPU and GPU overclock!
OSA170DAA6CD
CCBWE 0609FPAW
I think its a weak stepping - but am not sure.
I reckon i can get 2.8Ghz stable out of this processor - and when I go to quad core this year its going topless to see if I can get more out of her.
Csimon if I recall you use the Asus 939 board correct?? That suffers from Vdroop if i'm not mistaken, have you found that?
:Rocker:
Does this look OK - I have screwed each side down the same number of times I noticed that the pad at the back of the motherboard gives a fair bit on install as it gets squeezed. Was OK install - now to put it back together and see whats what.
What rig are you using at the moment if your dad is getting the Opty?
Shame about the vdroop - spoils the fun
Well I got myself a new Akasa Mirage 62 Case - the Antec P180 was annoying me with the PSU at the bottom. And I should also receive today my enermax galaxy 850W PSU. Future proofing you see - with an eye on DirectX10 crossfire cards!
Tonight I have a lot on so its just going to be installing case fans, maybe the new PSU and setting some overclocking away (the rig is still out of box) - looking forward to seeing what I can get. Yesterday with brand new install of typhoon and AS5 TIM I was getting 42C flat out in Orthos (stock), this should go down when the TIM settles.
Coretemp shows about 5c difference between the two cores (idle) - but they sort themselves out when under load. I think I am quite happy to run this CPU to 55C plus - even though the Tcasemax is 57C - should be fun to reach the CPU max! People have reported this moboboard getting to around 380, not that my Opty will get anywhere near that.
The goal (apart from the RAID fix) is to get a stable 2.8Ghz and hopefully march on to 3Ghz - that would be sweet.
http://www.biosmedic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18
It has amongst others mprime stored on it. Found this great bit of advice out thought it might be of some use
Overclockers have been using this before getting to windows to stress test their systems - sure orthos is great in windows but why risk your windows install - running mprime for a few hours straight from CD is a very good way to check if an overclock is good enough to boot into your OS.
Better instruction can be found elsewhere but you can do the following
1. Start mprime from the systemtools section on tmods cd
2. press Control+C to stop the standard test
3. press alt+F2 to bring up the second console, press enter to activate it, and type mprime -m [enter], to bring up the mprime menu.
4. you will be asked if join want to join GIMPs(y) or just stresstesting(n), type n[enter]
5. now you should see the mprime menu, use option 12 to set affinity to core 0, then use option 16 to set the amount of ram used for testing to about 40% of what you got per core(e.g. 375mb w. 1gb total), then start the test with option 18.
6. press alt+F3 to bring up a third console, press enter to activate it, and type mprime -m [enter], to bring up the mprime menu.
7. this time you only need to set affinity to core 1 with option 12 and start testing with option 18, ram settings will be what you set previously.
8. done, now you are running mprime on both cores. switch between consoles with alt+F2 and alt+F3 to check results, if both screens appear the same you can alternate it with console1 (alt+F1) to make sure it's still reacting. when done use ctrl+c to stop testing and ctrl+alt+del to reboot.
Have left it running orthos max CPU stress - 45c temp at 2150Mhz (stock voltage) - memory is running way down as per lemonlimes guide.
Hopefully this weekend we'll see what the processor can do.
Temps are bad - at 1.475v - Smartguardian is reporting 53c after 3 hours but looking at core temp, I have one core at 57c and the other at 64c. Thats too warm for my liking. You can get this processor to do high and stable but you sure need some vcore.
At the moment I am happy for 2.62 at stock, fairly cool.
Putting in my new 850w PSU should be nice.
Also going to investigate lowering vcore at this sweetspot too. I have seen people over at XS running Opty 165's at 2.8Ghz around 1.2v - they are blessed with good steppings!
When I get back will post my settings from the BIOS, see if anyone can spot any changes that need made.
hi mate .. u seem to know what ure talking about mate,
Ive just bought the DFI LANPARTY UT CFX3200
I GOT A CONROE 6600 DCORE + XT1950 XT/X 512 SILENT SAFFIRE
ZALMAN 9500 CPU FAN + HIPER 580 PSU + 2x ocz 512mb ddr2 5 5 5 15
ive set up the machine and its not well to say the least, after not touching it for a whole day i switch it on and after roughly 2-4 hours it just resets for no reason (no BSOD) then it will go into windows barely then reset again then each reset the time it stays on without reseting gets shorter and shorter untill it comes to a complete halt and then it wont boot at all, getting stuck on nearly every POST code C1 75
i disconected the HDD and the optical drive
the restets still occur when im in the bios screen.
any help mate?
You say you have a Core 2 processor yes?
Your running off the latest motherboard that DFI produce, the one I am referring to is a socket 939 board.
I would definately check out (together with the bright minds here) these sites
http://global.dficlub.com
thats DFI's support site, some great setup guides and you can ask people who have the board and are in the know.
Also check out http://www.diy-street.com
Another good site with excellent DFI archive (it did used to be DFI support)
Other than that I suggest you try 1 stick of RAM to start with, check out the memory timings help from information on those websites
HTH