A8R32-MVP users, tricks and tips here

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Zebbo

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Did some researching about others experience with the new Asus RD580 and I have to say I am a little shocked, not about how the board performs but more like how many user errors I have seen and complaints about the motherboard so I decided to write a little DO's and DONT's guide for you A8R32 users.

Before you read further, I suggest you (if you already haven't) to download and flash new 0404 BIOS which can be found here: ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUS/mb/socket939/A8R32-MVP DELUXE/


Advanced - JumperFree Configuration
VCORE Over-Voltage: Disabled (change to 100mV or 200mV if you need more vcore)
NorthBridge Over-Voltage: Disabled
SouthBridge Over-Voltage: Disabled

BankA DDR Clock Skew: Normal
BankB DDR Clock Skew: Normal

Advanced - Chipset - Hyper Transport Configuration
HT Link Speed: 1GHz (for higher than 280HTT I suggest to go with 800MHz)
CPU:RD580-NB HT Link Width: 16 bit

RD580 HT Drive Strength: Optimal
HT Receiver Comp. Control: Optimal

RD580 HT PLL Control: High Speed


I highly recommend you set these BIOS settings as they are above so you will not face problems when overclocking your system.

For the other notes:
- Processor Voltage is 0.09V-0.1V higher than what you select (ie. 1.400V = 1.490V-1.500V)
- Do not throw the HTT up in steps of ~20MHz
- Do not disable integrated peripherals, even if you don't use them
- TREF and DDR Input Strobe Skew may not work like they should
- You need to change PCI-E frequency to something else than 100MHz to enable overclocking via ClockGen.

Tweaking
Asus BIOS will not let you change all the memory timings you may need for maxing out the memory performance, it is good we have some third party tools for this purpose. Download either A64Tweaker or SysTool.

Memory timings that are not in BIOS (marked with red border):
a64tweaker.jpg


Here's some basic rules:
Twr can be set to 2 with most of the 512Mb and 1024Mb modules
Twtr 1 for 512Mb modules (works with Infineon CE-5/CE-6 die too), for most 1024Mb modules needs to be relaxed to 2.
Read Write Queue Bypass: Bios sets this to 8x, all the memory in 512Mb and 1024Mb flavour should work without problems with 16x.
Bypass Max: Bios sets this to 4x, all the memory in 512Mb and 1024Mb flavour should work without problems with 7x.
Idle Cycle Limit: 0-16 for most 512Mb modules, 16-64 for most 1024Mb modules.
Dynamic Idle Cycle Counter: Enable.

Using this guide, the board has no problems working at HTT of 400.

CPU-Z Validation here

SuperPi 8M @ 400HTT here
 
Just curious, you mention that clockgen doesn't work to overclock this board, yet that is what I used to find my max overclock with the same board...??? Thanks for letting me know about the new bios though...
 
It doesn't work in all cases I've seen. For me it displays always -1GHz lower CPU speed, -100MHz lower HTT/memory speed. I'll edit that a little :) This what the clockgen does:picture.
 
Ok thanks for clearing that up, originally with clockgen I was having a problem that any changes to the HTT was changing the PCI and PCI-E bus freq's as well which would cause the system to crash. I found the PCI lock would re-engage if I raised the PCI freq by 1mhz in bios. So after adjusting the pci freq in bios +1mhz I was able to overclock normally with clockgen.

What if any advantage would be seen running at 400mhz HTT vs 300mhz HTT if the end processor speed was the same...?
 
There's actually no reason to run 400HTT over 300HTT if you can get your CPU speed high enough with lower HTT, only reason I showed it was that at least people can be sure that there's no issues with board to take some HTT speed as I saw some reports where people had some hard times to get past 320HTT.

Thanks for the tip, I'll add it to the first post.
 
hi i got the same mobo and just sucesfully overclocked my 4400+ from 2200mhz up to 2530mhz (for now) with ease. it is a great mobo. the only problem i hav had not really to do with the mobo is asus update. everytime i try to update using that it can never update the bios. anyone else hav same problem? i think ill just download it from the link above thanks for that.
 
I got the update to work now :) i downloaded the file and put it onto a cd-rw and booted that up. Woked fine. Thanks anyway.
 
I have a few questions:
Why wouldn't overvolting the North/Southbridges result in a higher oc? - It seems to make my system more stable at higher overclock (+280HTT)
Why do you recommend <1GHz on HT if you're over 280HTT? (I'm running 285HTT X10 @ 1GHz with a 5/6 divider completely stable right now...)
What's the difference in AI Clock Skew A/B being set at Normal vs. AUTO?
Then, here's a really good question: Using A64Tweaker OR Systool to tweak the latencies, etc. for your RAM doesn't help unless you do it EVERY time you boot into Windows...can you explain your reasoning for going through this extra step, or is it just to show that this board, with the proper settings can hold 400HTT? (I can't imagine having to adjust those settings every time I booted up.)
I'm not trying to be rude...I just don't understand the logic behind some of these settings, so please don't take it that way.
You may want to take a look at THIS thread, Scroll to POST #5 to see what I've been doing with mine...there's pretty much the entire BIOS set out on that thread, so others can see what I've done and how I got there...if you don't mind looking at it and seeing if there's still headroom?
I've had alot of frustration and fun with this board, and I absolutely love it!
If there's a way to get more out of it, you gotta know I'm going to!

Psychlone

**EDIT: I just tried your settings in A64Tweaker. I changed twr to 2 (from 3), Read/Write Queue Bypass to 16X (from 8X), and Bypass Max to 7X (from 4X), [all other settings you advised were already at their proper values] and lost just over 10 seconds in SuperPi 1M.
During clean reboot, running SuperPI to 1M resulted in 30.766 seconds, but with your A64Tweaker settings, it ran at 41.347 seconds.
I know there were no background processes running, I have separate Hardware Profiles to boot into. I'm not sure why, but my RAM didn't like those values at all!
 
You can play along with Northbridge Over-Voltage as much as you like but I found out after leaving Southbridge Over-Voltage: Enabled, I got "ILLEGAL SUMOUT" warnings (it is not error) in Prime95, which indicates that chipset is throttling.

The ClockSkew is the advertised "MemoryBuffer/ClockBuffer" feature that allows you to adjust delays on memory signals. If you leave it to "Normal" it is not in use but changing these values can help once you start overall fine-tuning for your memory. From all the memory I've tried on this board (Mushkin RL XP4000 in 1GB and 512Mb flavours and Mushkin XP4000) the best value seems to be either advance 300ps or 450ps. I have some cherry TCCD coming here so I will need to try what settings TCCD likes most.

If the timing changes gave you 10seconds extra to SuperPi 1M I can tell you there's something not right then, those should be faster than what the board sets. I don't use 400HTT for 24/7, it just shows that board is capable of doing it so it will work for those who wants to do some dry ice runs with a non-FX CPU.

Question for you, where did you get this: "The Max allowable Voltage for your Opty is 1.4" your thread, and post #10. I did some measuring using multimeter almost immediately after I got the board, all the Processor Voltage settings works for Opteron. But there's just a little "bug", board overvolts about ~0.09V from what you set. So 1.450V picked up in BIOS gives reading of 1.54V to multimeter (same thing happens with Venice core).
 
Zebbo said:
You can play along with Northbridge Over-Voltage as much as you like but I found out after leaving Southbridge Over-Voltage: Enabled, I got "ILLEGAL SUMOUT" warnings (it is not error) in Prime95, which indicates that chipset is throttling.

The ClockSkew is the advertised "MemoryBuffer/ClockBuffer" feature that allows you to adjust delays on memory signals. If you leave it to "Normal" it is not in use but changing these values can help once you start overall fine-tuning for your memory. From all the memory I've tried on this board (Mushkin RL XP4000 in 1GB and 512Mb flavours and Mushkin XP4000) the best value seems to be either advance 300ps or 450ps. I have some cherry TCCD coming here so I will need to try what settings TCCD likes most.

If the timing changes gave you 10seconds extra to SuperPi 1M I can tell you there's something not right then, those should be faster than what the board sets. I don't use 400HTT for 24/7, it just shows that board is capable of doing it so it will work for those who wants to do some dry ice runs with a non-FX CPU.

Question for you, where did you get this: "The Max allowable Voltage for your Opty is 1.4" your thread, and post #10. I did some measuring using multimeter almost immediately after I got the board, all the Processor Voltage settings works for Opteron. But there's just a little "bug", board overvolts about ~0.09V from what you set. So 1.450V picked up in BIOS gives reading of 1.54V to multimeter (same thing happens with Venice core).
Click to expand...

To answer your question: I read on several pages that the A8R32-MVP wouldn't allow more that 1.4V for an Opteron (which I don't have - but apparently in BIOS, it won't let you select a Voltage that is dangerous to your CPU, like 1.5 for my ClawHammer 4000+ SH-CG stepping is the MAX I can use with this board, but my A8V would let me do as high as 1.8V), unless you Overvolt...and on that, (I don't have a multimeter) I also read in several forums that the 'Bug" is that the Overvolt doesn't put out the full 200mV, but rather more like 120mV (.12V) - not that their board has MORE Volts than BIOS says.
So what to believe? Does Everest Ultimate Edition and other diag. utilities actually read the volt rails on the board, or is it just reading what the BIOS feeds it? Cause PCProbe2, Everest UE, SpeedFan, and Hmonitor ALL say the same thing on my board... 1.5V + 200mV Overvolt = 1.71V ~ 1.73V (which still equates to .12mV~ from overvolting 200mV)
So far, I can't find any other information anywhere that other people are finding their A8R32-MVP is producing higher volts that what BIOS states...maybe your board or multimeter is defective?
Now, here's the trouble I had with your settings:
1) I have my North&Southbridges overvolted to 1.4 (1.5 on HTBus and 1.5 on PCI-E) and ran Prime95, as well as Memtest (over 17 hours!) and never got that warning you mention.
2) I don't even know how or where to start with ClockSkew A/B...you obviously work for Mushkin, or know your RAM really well, but I don't, and if I change my A/B Skew to ANYTHING other then AUTO (or probably the EXACT setting that my Corsair TwinX PC3200 needs) - I can't even POST. (I'll just leave them on AUTO, unless you can help explain how to figure skew between my 2 sticks...is there some sort of utility that you used?)
3) Those RAM timings (I only had to change 3 of them, all the others already had the values you stated) did indeed result in slower RAM performance. In fact, I did it 4 separate tests since last night, each one giving me roughly 10 seconds longer to calculate PI to 1million places.
** Between setting SkewA/B to NORMAL, and not being able to POST, and setting the HTT to 400 X6.75 (2600MHz) @ 600HT with real loose latencies, (not stable) didn't do anything for me but prove that it could be done...although not with Skew A/B on normal. (I probably need better overclocking RAM, but, the RAM I have overclocks 40% with this board, where it would barely touch 30% with my old(er) A8V, so it's not bad RAM at all...just maybe not enough to get much higher of an oc out of it.

Psychlone
 
Psychlone said:
To answer your question: I read on several pages that the A8R32-MVP wouldn't allow more that 1.4V for an Opteron (which I don't have - but apparently in BIOS, it won't let you select a Voltage that is dangerous to your CPU, like 1.5 for my ClawHammer 4000+ SH-CG stepping is the MAX I can use with this board, but my A8V would let me do as high as 1.8V), unless you Overvolt...and on that, (I don't have a multimeter) I also read in several forums that the 'Bug" is that the Overvolt doesn't put out the full 200mV, but rather more like 120mV (.12V) - not that their board has MORE Volts than BIOS says.
Click to expand...

This is true of all ASUS's newer motherboards. The voltage selection ranges differ based on the CPU type.
 
Dan_D said:
This is true of all ASUS's newer motherboards. The voltage selection ranges differ based on the CPU type.
Click to expand...

I could go past 1.4v on my Opty on my A8N32-SLI, but now on my A8R32-MVP, my limit is 1.4v on the same CPU.

I am also having problems overclocking. With my A8N32 it was so easy, with this mobo there are different and more options, and I havent learned them all yet it seems. Just upping the FSB is not letting me overclock like I want.
 
The original MVP have voltage limitations like that? I've already spent a lot of money to go crossfire. Was hoping I could save some coin and who knows how soon I'll upgrade again. One things for sure, i won't buy the new one with those limitations.
 
well i was one of the unlucky ones to have a defective board...aside from bios issues :confused:

Under cpu stress my chipset makes a loud high pitched whine like its sizzling. It also runs really hot at stock settings which most people say their's runs nice and cool. I can only RMA at newegg without so I hope the boards currently being out of stock the new batch wont have the same issue. This sucks, i really like the board but so many problems....

As far as tips, i need one:

With the realtek HD audio drivers installed it took over five minutes ( yes i timed it) to shut down my computer. When i uninstalled the drivers my comp would shutdown like normal. I had the 0404 bios update.

I thought waiting until april would free me from some of the problems :( Nope lol.
O well i still like the board itself and seemed to BC pretty good. Got 9100 3dmark05 score with my x1800xt at all stock which is much higher than my 6800gt i had.

Im going to write down the serial number on my RMA board and compare it to my new board i should be getting next week to see if i can pick out the week build or not. Hopefully my next post in this thread is all asus goodness :D
 
Wow,,,that sucks!
I've heard of the screaming capacitors before, on just a few rare A8R32s, but not heard of the HD sound causing slow shutdowns.
The only thing I'd suggest is to format/reinstall XP.
I don't have that problem, and I upgraded from 311 to 404 BIOS without ANY issues at all...
I'll do a little searching and see what I can come up with.

And, @texaspete: You can overclock the crap outta your processor/RAM...you just have to know HOW to overclock properly...anyone can just give a component more juice and up the FSB, but it takes skill to overclock properly. (Not saying you don't know how, I don't even know you!)
This board is giving me well over 200MHz easily on 1.55V +120mV Overvolt where my A8V Deluxe gave me at 1.8V with the same CPU, RAM, dividers, etc. Also, my RAM is giving me over 15% more on less juice too, it's just a matter of figuring out the correct way to oc.
**I'm saying that you don't necessarily need to crank up the voltage to insane levels to get great performance out of your system...but if that's your thing, wait until ASUS or someone else releases a beta or tweaked BIOS like what happened for the old A7N8X boards, or just get a DFI, I've heard they're good too.

That's my take on it all, I absolutely LOVE this board, and haven't had any problems aside from my own stupidity right at the first...(Im terribly sorry for those who have really had issues with noisy caps, etc.!)

Psychlone
 
Hey Zebbo! Where are the voltage measurement points for this board? I would also like to know exactly how much juice my CPU is getting.

Has the 166 divider been fixed in the 404 BIOS too?? Was having probs with that too.

Thanks!
 
Here's VCORE and VDIMM measurement points: http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/kirvou/forums/xs/asus_a8r32mvp_points.jpg

What issues with 166 div?

Edit: Can you guys do me a favor and check out these options through Memory Configuration page in BIOS:
MCT Extra Timing Mode: Manual
TREF: 15.6 us, 7.8us
DDR Input Strobe Skew: Slower / 128
DDR Data Driving Strength: Reducded 15% or Reduced 30%

After you have done the changes in BIOS can you go and check what windows based applications shows. There's nice little program called A64Info where you can check did you actually got what you set in BIOS.
 
Thanks for the link:)

I have tried the 166 div with my 2x1G redlines and my TCCD to no avail. Wouldnt even boot. Maybe just have to play with it more. Bought the board for my HTPC and didnt have all the parts so I put it in my main rig to play with for a few days.
 
I have been trying to overclock this board for a few days now (with new Opty165) with limited sucess . Everything has to been through the BIOS as everytime I change the HTT/FSB via clockgen, the system just locks up imediately. Even if I change it 1click.

What are you guys using to overclock, inside of windows?

btw:
0404 BIOS
OCZ5001024ELGE
Opty 165 CCBBE 0610DPMW
 
Whatever I do I can not get over the 300 FSB barrier. I get failure to boot and clear Cmos festivals. Pissing me off.

I have spent many many hours trying to mess with this thing. I have tried all BIOS's and every thing I can think of otherwise.
 
Zebbo said:
For the other notes:

- Do not disable integrated peripherals, even if you don't use them
Click to expand...

Am I the only one that finds this unusual and very counter-intuitive? I noticed no difference myself between disabling unused peripherals and enabling them, but my OC didnt require extremely high HTT. Most boards isn't that one of the first things you do when setting the BIOS up?
I couldnt get this board to clock as good as my Expert with the 170, but no matter now since my 170 is dead :( . New Opt 146 on the way, I have been impatiently waiting for Monarch to process my order since Wed night. :confused: They must be swamped for my order to take this long, it should have ARRIVED by Friday. Maybe this board will shine with a single core chip rather than a dual core, guess I will see how it goes
 
I faced some issues to get system boot properly after I disabled few onboard peripherals (this was when system was overclocked using bios 0311 but 0404 seemed to do some sort of an improvement to this).

After all the tips&tricks list I've done is about my experiences and how I got my board clocking so results between different people will vary no questions about that.
 
I just got this board and am impressed with the obvious quality, but boy do I miss my Phoenix bios! Can anyone give me some analogies comparing Award to Phoenix?

For example:

1) I have my 3500+ oc'd to 2.5 ghz using a 227 FSB. No problem there. But now my ultra low latency Kingston HyperX RAM is running at 166 mhz, and when I try to bump it up to 200 in bios, it won't even post. I end up having to clear the cmos. Does the memclock act more like a divider in the Phoenix bios, or do I have deeper problems?

2) HTT! In Phoenix, it couldn't be more straightforward: FSB x HT multiplier = HTT frequency. Now all I can find for HTT is HT Link Speed, and I can't boot if it is set above 400. How does this setting relate to the FSB/HT multiplier settings in the Phoenix bios?

I know these must seem like stupid questions to those of you familiar with the Award setup, but I'm lost :confused:. Any help would be appreciated, and I'm prepared for the impending sarcasm.

BTW, I've flashed to the 0311 bios. From what I've read, the newer one creates more problems than it solves.
 
Hey there, I am new to this bios as well but as far as HTT: 1000=>5x 800=>4x so if you want the multiplier to be set for the 4x setting then set the HTT to 800.

I am currently running the 0404 and im at 270HTT with 9hr prime and 3d app stable. The only thing my comp does is for some reason i have to unplug and plug my mouse back in every time i restart my comp to get it recognized. This may just be a mouse driver problem though.
 
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