NF7(-S) tweaking guide..to be updated

Hi, so here's the guide I promised you!

If you got any questions feel free to drop me a pm or email !

OK these are the things you should do more or less in a chronological order for a nice stable high oc on nf7(-s).

1. L12 Mod (often needed to get high fsb)

Whether you should take the 166mhz or 200mhz mod is up to you, best is to try both and compare what's best for you.

Here's the link!

2. BIOS

A decent BIOS is one of the most important factors in overclocking and often underestimated. So check
tictac's
and
trat's modded BIOS
My personal favorite is D23-3Dfire Rev.1 ! But that doesn't mean it's the best for you, that's different from board to board.

Important BIOS settings:

APIC disabled (gives higher Clocks and is needed for high fsb and cpu clocks, but a small performance loss)

When enabling/disabling APIC you don't need to reinstall Windows! Just go to device manager->computer->choose between acpi-pc and acpi uniprocessor driver! 'SAE'

All "Spread Spectrums" - OFF
All cacheable things - OFF
CPU disconnect function - OFF
CPU Interface should be enabled (performance loss if not, but maybe higher clocks)
CPC disabled (performance loss, but may help when going for high fsb and using 2 * 512MB. Has less effect on 2 * 256MB. CPC disabled BIOS can be found at tictac's forum)
Turn off all devices you don't need like unused ports or so

3. Sinking !

I think the picture explains itself, these are all the things to sink. The red ones are more important than the green ones.

http://mitglied.lycos.de/sexyfu/nf7_sink.jpg

4. Vmods

There are about 2-4 mods you could need..

- Vdimm
- VTT/VBT (often needed when going above 3.2v, helps stabilizing high vdimm)
- 3.3v rail mod ( Pic ) for PSU (really urgent for high fsb and high vcore. If you're not getting any high fsb try lowering multiplier and voltage of the cpu, leave the vdimm alone and then try again with the fsb that crashed before)
- VDD (resistor)
VDD (with pencil)
(you have to find a sweetspot here, for example 1.6v works much better than 1.8v for me)

I think I don't have to explain anything and just give you the links, they're already well explained.

Voltage readpoints!

VDD

http://mitglied.lycos.de/sexyfu/v_vdd.jpg

Vdimm & 3.3v

http://mitglied.lycos.de/sexyfu/v_vdimm.jpg

12v & 5v can be read at a molex connector.

P.S.: Just use a 1K VR for 3.3v sensemod. Cut the thin brown wire and connect it to pot. Cut the thin black wire and ground it with pot. That's it. No fixed resistor or so needed.
If the line is highly fluctating you might give the fixed resistor method a try.
- Cut the thin brown wire
- Put a 10k ohm fixed resistor in line
- Solder 1k VR to fixed resistor leg
- Ground the pot

Here's a nice drawing from Kameleon :D

Remember this is just a collection of mods, pics, guides and a bit of my experience and knowledge, if anyone feels abused, please tell me and I'll delete his pics or whatever.

Greetings to all the modders, reviewers, hackers, tweakers and especially to tictac, SAE, malves, the guys at motherboardfaqs.com, pc_ice and all I forgot ! ;)

just fix the pics, & THNX! :up: :up:

PS, can you explain/give more info about the vdimm/vbt mod?! please?! :)

i thought that the 3.3v sense line mod made it fluctuate like mad if u dont put a fixed resistor in?

I tested it myself and measured with DMM. Both with fixed resistor and without fixed resistor I'm stable at 3.61v idle and 3.51v load.

btw if one's board does need a heatsink on the southbridge, like mine, it gets BURNING hot, it even makes a passive heatsink pretty hot to the touch

sai, have you considered doing capacitor mods like last viking did with the DFI nF2, when i get my board down here at my dads house im gonna do the capacitor mods, if u dont ill add a guide to this one :)

Elaborate on point One just a tiny bit. While it may be best to try both, it is generally accepted that the ultra boards like chips to be pin modded to 166 while non-ultra likes them at 133. Seems like these boards have a bad wall without these exact mods. Pin modding in some other way for the most part is a waste of time. Or maybe just leave the link... seems to be leading people into messing with it twice as-is.

Here's what I found to be essential in order to run 265FSB, dc, 1:1, cpu int enabled, 2-2-2-5

- L12 mod
- vref = vbt mod
- 3.3V rail = vdimm mod
- 3.3V rail mod
- BH5 ram @ 3.85V
- APIC off
- CPU capable of doing high fsb's

Not every cpu can do high FSB, I have a mobile 2500+ and a 2600+, the 2600+ clocks higher but with a lower FSB, the 2500+ likes high FSB's more.

haldol, care to sell me a mobile?

very nice sai! :)
do you mind if i link peeps from www.amdmb.com to this, or even add a link in one of the stickies?

[EDIT] also, I think the Southbridge should be one of the first things sinked... ive heard of failing LAN, sound crackling, mouse freeze, etc caused by overheating southbridge.

feel free to link ;)

awsome guide man, very good info and great pics.

Congrats to you for that great guide, sai :thumbsup:

That should be very useful for all NF7 owners out there :D

Very nice :) :toast:

I'm so far behind on nf7-s stuff, haven't done any real updates to the site in forever, most of those moddes bioses i've never even heard of (been out of the scene several months now :( )

Nice FAQ sai :)

In regard to turning APIC on and off it is true that under Win2k you can swap between "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" and "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" by using the device manager.
However under WinXP you must use the driver rollback feature to switch back to "ACPI Uniprocessor PC"
Or you can create a system restore point before you change the driver over and use that :)

If WinXP is installed with APIC off in the BIOS I have found no way to turn APIC on in that instance.

Cheers

EDIT: Sorry :p: and fixed ;)

Thanks for info and my name is still sai :p:

sorry sai, when i turned apic off i couldnt boot xp i had to reinstall every thing, did i do anything wrong or?

Ah come one not here please .. pm

sai please add this tweak into your guide... :banana:

Code:

---

                                ****************************
                                * nVidia nForce2 Data Base *
                                ****************************

1) AGP  Controller Latency
  *************************
        PCI Bus#0 Dev#30 Func#0 Offset#0D
       
                      0D
        - 16  clock : 10
        - 32  clock : 20
        - 64  clock : 40
        - 96  clock : 60
        - 128 clock : 80
        - 160 clock : A0
        - 192 clock : C0
        - 224 clock : E0
        - 255 clock : FF


2) AGP  Bus Latency
  ******************
        PCI Bus#0 Dev#30 Func#0 Offset#1B
       
                      1B
        - 16  clock : 10
        - 32  clock : 20
        - 64  clock : 40
        - 96  clock : 60
        - 128 clock : 80
        - 160 clock : A0
        - 192 clock : C0
        - 224 clock : E0
        - 255 clock : FF
       
       
3) PCI Latency
  *************
        PCI Bus#0 Dev#8 Func#0 Offset#1B
       
                      1B       
        - 16  clock : 10
        - 32  clock : 20
        - 64  clock : 40
        - 96  clock : 60
        - 128 clock : 80
        - 160 clock : A0
        - 192 clock : C0
        - 224 clock : E0
        - 255 clock : FF
       
       
4) CPU Disconnect Function
  *************************
        PCI Bus#0 Dev#0 Func#0 Offset#6C,6D,6E,6F
       
                    6C 6D 6E 6F
        - Enable  : 01 FF 01 1F/9F
        - Disable : 01 FF 01 8F
       
       
5) Command Per Clock (T1/T2)
  *******************
          PCI Bus#0 Dev#0 Func#1 Offset#84,85,86,87
       
                    84 85 86 87
        - Enable  : F3 13 0F 03
        - Disable : F3 13 0F 23
       
        WARNING! (Not Editable after boot, Can only be set before memory sizing)
       
       
6) Alpha Memory Setting
  **********************
        PCI Bus#0 Dev#0 Func#1 Offset#94,95,96,97
       
                    94 95 96 97
        - T(DOE)  :            x        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
        - T(RRD)  :          x Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
        - T(W2P)  :      x        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
        - T(W2R)  :        x        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
        - T(REXT) :    x        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3
        - T(R2P)  :    x        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
        - T(R2W)  : x                Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
        - reserved:  -                Selectable Value: -
       
        - Offset 94 = XY
                X= T(R2W)        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
                Y= Reserved        -
               
        - Offset 95 = XY
                X= T(REXT)        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,
                Y= T(R2P)        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
               
        - Offset 96 = XY
                X= T(W2P)        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
                Y= T(W2R)        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
               
        - Offset 97 = XY
                X= T(DOE)        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
                Y= T(RRD)        Selectable Value: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6


7) Normal Memory Setting
  ***********************
          PCI Bus# Dev# Func# Offset#
         
         
          - T(RAS)        :
          - T(RCD-Read)        :
          - T(RCD-Write)        :
          - T(RP)                :
          - CAS Latency        :
          - T(RC)                :
          - T(RFC)        :


8) Side Band Addressing
  **********************
        PCI Bus#0 Dev#0 Func#0 Offset#49

                    49
        - Enable  : 03
        - Disable : 01

---

Where is sai? :stick:

please update the guide...

here i add some more

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postid=501824

perhaps he doesn'T want to make it :-p

Hi Sai! Can you help me?
In my device manager/computer there is= acpi uniprocessor pc but if I disable APIC in bios the pc dont start!!!!!

I dont understand when you say "SAE" ?!?!?!
I dont have this option.....

tks a lot

You must disable acpi before you install windows.

And SAE is a person in these forums, he edtied Sai's post.

Tks CTKC
So....disable APIC isnt possible or else install Windows....ok?

I dont have an NF7S, but most tips you have should work well with any other board.

Does diabling APIC really do that much for higher fsbs and clocks? I disabled mine, but it didnt do anything for me.

Im stuck at 225fsb wont hit 227. One thing I dont understand is that at high clocks I couldnt get those 220+fsbs stable unless the multi was 8 or not much higher. Maby it was the APIC there?

But anyways, I know someone who hit 242 on my mobo and hardocp reviewed it when it came out and did 250fsb. I think it should do more.
Vdimm=3.3rail
vdd=1.7v stock (but guy who modded it same 242fsb guy didnt get an increase from it)
My psu could be a problem. What range should my 12v and 3v stay in?
My cooling is good. I just cut an aluminum northbridge heatsink to fit on my southbridge and used alumina epoxy on it today. It is working good. My nb has a heatsink bolted tight down on it, with as5 and a little tt fan on it (no deadzone kind).
Can't think of what else to add, Im tired.

Oh last thing. I did the L12 mod on my xp-m to 200fsb but I don't know how to try the 166mhz way.
I did ah28-ah30.

thanks, sorry if I'm off, but I thought I could get some ideas here.

Great guide!
Where exactly do I disable APIC?

Btw, are there any BIOS releases that enables raising the VDIMM by less than 0.1V increments? (0.05/0.025)