Asus M5A88-M: A venting.

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c3k

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One of my sig rigs is running an FX8350 in an Asus M5A88-M mobo. It's set up in a Silverstone HTPC case. Space is tight...so is cooling. (Noctua makes a nice low profile cpu cooler which saved the day.)

On to my gripe/vent/request for improvement. Yeah, this is an old mobo, based on the AM3+ specs. I'm running the 1702 BIOS, released in December of '13.

I cannot disable the on-board graphics. There is an odd setting for GPP-GFX0-iGPU-PCI. Can you decipher that? No? Well, the manual doesn't, either.

FWIW, you need to cycle through the options to have GFX0 as the first option. That's your PCIe discrete card. Is the igpu disabled? Hell if I know. I can drop its speed down to 700Mhz and deny it any extra memory, but, again, it's a mystery if it's still running. Shrug.

How about enabling my XMP profile? THAT is a fun game! You need to go into CPU Overclock...yes, "CPU". And there, you need to find a dropdown selection called "D.O.C.P." Do you know what that means? Get this: "Dramm Over Clock Profile". I kid you not.

C'mon, Asus. If you're going to use bizarre, arcane, acronyms in odd locations, at least define them in the manual.

Seriously. You're driving me towards MSI/Gigabyte.
 
In fairness, XMP profile use, and the clock speeds specified in those profiles are beyond JEDEC specs and is therefore overclocking. So it makes some sense that ASUS puts those there. Although, I've never seen that precise terminology in the ASUS UEFI BIOS before. Then again I haven't touched an AMD processor based system in quite a while. As for the onboard GPU, I'm not sure what the deal is on that. Although older motherboards often required you to specify the discreet card in some way shape or form to prevent the system from going to the iGPU first. Those older configurations aren't the same as today's Skylake / Z170 systems where you can just pop in a discreet GPU and ignore the onboard iGPU entirely.
 
Dan_D said:
In fairness, XMP profile use, and the clock speeds specified in those profiles are beyond JEDEC specs and is therefore overclocking. So it makes some sense that ASUS puts those there. Although, I've never seen that precise terminology in the ASUS UEFI BIOS before. Then again I haven't touched an AMD processor based system in quite a while. As for the onboard GPU, I'm not sure what the deal is on that. Although older motherboards often required you to specify the discreet card in some way shape or form to prevent the system from going to the iGPU first. Those older configurations aren't the same as today's Skylake / Z170 systems where you can just pop in a discreet GPU and ignore the onboard iGPU entirely.
Click to expand...

Dan,

Thanks. I bolded part. The oddity is that the XMP menu (other than being misnamed) is in the...wait for it...CPU menu.

This is old enough that its not a UEFI. Pure old-school BIOS.

And, don't worry: I'll be very discreet about how you meant to use "discrete" in both those cases. ;)

Ken "glad my grammar never picked on me as a kid"
:)
 
GFX0 = Primary video controller on a PCI-e x16 slot

GPP = Primary video controller on a PCI-e x1 slot

IGFX = onboard video display output

PCI = Primary video controller on a PCI slot.

DOCP is because XMP is technically an intel thing.
 
GFXO = Primary video controller on a PCI-e x16 slot

GPP = Primary video controller on a PCI-e x1 slot

IGFX = onboard video display output

PCI = Primary video controller on a PCI slot.
 
c3k said:
Dan,

Thanks. I bolded part. The oddity is that the XMP menu (other than being misnamed) is in the...wait for it...CPU menu.

This is old enough that its not a UEFI. Pure old-school BIOS.

And, don't worry: I'll be very discreet about how you meant to use "discrete" in both those cases. ;)

Ken "glad my grammar never picked on me as a kid"
:)
Click to expand...

I haven't seen the BIOS you are talking about. Even on the old BIOS, I recall everything pretty much always being in the Extreme Tweaker menu.
 
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The default option [GFX0-GPP-IGFX-PCI] is what you want if you are going to use a discrete GPU.
You can also disable IGP in "Internal Graphic Mode" option to disable the onboard gpu
 
LigTasm said:
GFX0 = Primary video controller on a PCI-e x16 slot

GPP = Primary video controller on a PCI-e x1 slot

IGFX = onboard video display output

PCI = Primary video controller on a PCI slot.

DOCP is because XMP is technically an intel thing.
Click to expand...

Reposted as the first, and best, answer.

Yeah, I found all that...but it's not in the manual. That was my point.

DOCP: it should at least reference XMP.
 
Seithennin said:
The default option [GFX0-GPP-IGFX-PCI] is what you want if you are going to use a discrete GPU.
You can also disable IGP in "Internal Graphic Mode" option to disable the onboard gpu
Click to expand...

Thanks. "Internal Graphic Mode" is that the one with "enable" or "disable" in the options?
 
c3k said:
Reposted as the first, and best, answer.

Yeah, I found all that...but it's not in the manual. That was my point.

DOCP: it should at least reference XMP.
Click to expand...

On older boards it didn't, on new ones like my Asus FM2+ it says in the tooltip its like XMP. Probably a licensing problem.
 
Yes, "Internal Graphics Mode": [Auto] [Enabled] [Disabled]
set to Disabled to disable the onboard GPU
and set the Primary Video Controller to [GFX0-GPP-IGFX-PCI]

shCWGO4.jpg
 
Seithennin said:
Yes, "Internal Graphics Mode": [Auto] [Enabled] [Disabled]
set to Disabled to disable the onboard GPU
and set the Primary Video Controller to [GFX0-GPP-IGFX-PCI]

shCWGO4.jpg
Click to expand...

That is an interesting image! It is not what my BIOS looks like. (I'm running 1702.) The menu may be similar. I need to go look...

Thanks.

Ken
 
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