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I've had a pentium 4 processor for a while now, but decided to get an opteron 165 this time because of their reputation. Now I am having more trouble then i ever thought i would, even mildly overclocking. here are my specs:
-Asus A8R32 MVP Deluxe (updated to newest bios, .311)
-ANTEC Trupower 2.0 550 watt, 2 12V rails, EPS12V 2.2 compliant, ATX12V 2.01 compatible
-AMD Opteron 165
-1 Gig of Kingston HyperX pc3200 ram, 2 512 MB dimms for dual channel - (purchased in dec. '03, everything else is new)
-1 Sapphire ATI X850xt overclocked at 550 mhz gpu, 1230 mhz ram
-1 Soundblaster audigy 2 ZS platinum with front panel "drive"
-2 DVD Burning Drives, one by Plextor, the other by Pioneer
-1 SATA2 hard drive, 16mb cache, 320 gig, booting drive (all drives are Western Digital)
-1 SATA1 hard drive, 250 gig, data only
-1 ATA-100 100 gig hard drive, data only
-1 ATA-100 20 gig hard drive, data only
-1 Floppy/flash card reader + writer combo drive
-Windows XP pro SP2 (not that it matters i guess)
Now my problem is i can't get the thing to post under hardly any circumstances, some that should be easily attainable with this processor. I'm pretty sure its not that i got a dud opteron since i was able to boot with a 2600mhz clock speed, problem being i had to change the memory divider to 100 mhz, giving a 147 mhz speed for the ram, way underclocked. Now the circumstances that don't work are when i try to do a mild overclock with a mild divider, say a 2200 mhz processor speed, with a 166 mhz divider to give a 200 mhz memory speed, which is what this ram is rated for anyway....no overclocking on the ram whatsoever. In circumstances like this i cannot post at ALL, even after extensively playing with the HTT speed settings, memory timing settings, over/under volting settings, just nothing whatsoever will work. Only when i underclock the ram to a very extreme extent does overclocking the processor work rather easily, also it seems i need to under-time the ram even, giving it timing specs way higher that its default settings for certain speeds, like say 3-5-5-8. The HTT bus doesn't seem to be the problem at all, i underclock it mildly to make sure, so its always between 800-1100 effective speed. Other odd things include the south bridge ALWAYS wanting to overvolt itself when left in the {Auto} setting, whenever i go back into the bios, its set to enabled by itself after that. Also the 12v voltage when looked at with asus PC probe 2 is always under 12v, around 11.918 to 11.891, never attaining a 12v or higher voltage while all the other ones, 5v etc, always do. So my question to all of the overclockers out there, what am i doing wrong? Is there a setting i overlooked? I came to these conclustions:
1. I heard there is a problem with this motherboard overclocking when the power supply has 2 12V rails, not sure if that is true as i read in just one of the many reviews about it.
2. I have too many hard drives, etc. hooked up, but i don't why that would effect power going to the processor/ram/motherboard since they use a different voltage for power comsumption right?
3. Maybe i shouldn't have bought an EPS12V 2.2 compliant power source? after i read up on what that is i found that it is a server standard, not a home computer one.
4. The power suppy and/or motherboard is messed up somehow
5. I heard there are memory clock problems with this board, but that is for 1:1 ratios only i thought, which i obviously can't use since i have a 9x multiplier on the operton
6. The ram is seriously messed up for some reason
7. The memory controller in the processor is sub-par
8. I made a mistake in the settings that I'm unaware of
Well I'm not sure what the problem is though, i need to figure it out fast though, because if i am to return anything i need to do it soon, like in 3 days fast, they were all purchased online at new egg. So are any of my assumptions correct you think? anything else that could be wrong? I think i may try to find a 24 pin power supply with only 1 12v rail to see if that rumor maybe true, but i doubt it..............also i may try to purchase more ram, what ram do people recommed, i'm completely lost on ram......i'm running out of money and time here............so help please
-Asus A8R32 MVP Deluxe (updated to newest bios, .311)
-ANTEC Trupower 2.0 550 watt, 2 12V rails, EPS12V 2.2 compliant, ATX12V 2.01 compatible
-AMD Opteron 165
-1 Gig of Kingston HyperX pc3200 ram, 2 512 MB dimms for dual channel - (purchased in dec. '03, everything else is new)
-1 Sapphire ATI X850xt overclocked at 550 mhz gpu, 1230 mhz ram
-1 Soundblaster audigy 2 ZS platinum with front panel "drive"
-2 DVD Burning Drives, one by Plextor, the other by Pioneer
-1 SATA2 hard drive, 16mb cache, 320 gig, booting drive (all drives are Western Digital)
-1 SATA1 hard drive, 250 gig, data only
-1 ATA-100 100 gig hard drive, data only
-1 ATA-100 20 gig hard drive, data only
-1 Floppy/flash card reader + writer combo drive
-Windows XP pro SP2 (not that it matters i guess)
Now my problem is i can't get the thing to post under hardly any circumstances, some that should be easily attainable with this processor. I'm pretty sure its not that i got a dud opteron since i was able to boot with a 2600mhz clock speed, problem being i had to change the memory divider to 100 mhz, giving a 147 mhz speed for the ram, way underclocked. Now the circumstances that don't work are when i try to do a mild overclock with a mild divider, say a 2200 mhz processor speed, with a 166 mhz divider to give a 200 mhz memory speed, which is what this ram is rated for anyway....no overclocking on the ram whatsoever. In circumstances like this i cannot post at ALL, even after extensively playing with the HTT speed settings, memory timing settings, over/under volting settings, just nothing whatsoever will work. Only when i underclock the ram to a very extreme extent does overclocking the processor work rather easily, also it seems i need to under-time the ram even, giving it timing specs way higher that its default settings for certain speeds, like say 3-5-5-8. The HTT bus doesn't seem to be the problem at all, i underclock it mildly to make sure, so its always between 800-1100 effective speed. Other odd things include the south bridge ALWAYS wanting to overvolt itself when left in the {Auto} setting, whenever i go back into the bios, its set to enabled by itself after that. Also the 12v voltage when looked at with asus PC probe 2 is always under 12v, around 11.918 to 11.891, never attaining a 12v or higher voltage while all the other ones, 5v etc, always do. So my question to all of the overclockers out there, what am i doing wrong? Is there a setting i overlooked? I came to these conclustions:
1. I heard there is a problem with this motherboard overclocking when the power supply has 2 12V rails, not sure if that is true as i read in just one of the many reviews about it.
2. I have too many hard drives, etc. hooked up, but i don't why that would effect power going to the processor/ram/motherboard since they use a different voltage for power comsumption right?
3. Maybe i shouldn't have bought an EPS12V 2.2 compliant power source? after i read up on what that is i found that it is a server standard, not a home computer one.
4. The power suppy and/or motherboard is messed up somehow
5. I heard there are memory clock problems with this board, but that is for 1:1 ratios only i thought, which i obviously can't use since i have a 9x multiplier on the operton
6. The ram is seriously messed up for some reason
7. The memory controller in the processor is sub-par
8. I made a mistake in the settings that I'm unaware of
Well I'm not sure what the problem is though, i need to figure it out fast though, because if i am to return anything i need to do it soon, like in 3 days fast, they were all purchased online at new egg. So are any of my assumptions correct you think? anything else that could be wrong? I think i may try to find a 24 pin power supply with only 1 12v rail to see if that rumor maybe true, but i doubt it..............also i may try to purchase more ram, what ram do people recommed, i'm completely lost on ram......i'm running out of money and time here............so help please