BIOSTAR TFORCE 550 and Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane 1.9GHz OC!!!

[birdie800]

Hey guys, I just got my delivery a couple of days ago and noticed that the Tforce is V5.0. Has there been any difference between the different versions of this mobo yet? What's the best BIOS so far to load on for stability at high HTT?

[akijikan]

Hey guys, I just got my delivery a couple of days ago and noticed that the Tforce is V5.0. Has there been any difference between the different versions of this mobo yet? What's the best BIOS so far to load on for stability at high HTT?

Check out the 4th page for v 5.0 vs 1.3, etc.

[what?]

Do you guys happen to know which bios allows past 300htt?

I can't get my system to budge past 300, I can get it to post up to 304 but it will reboot. I've tried everything, upping all voltages, even upping the pci-e freq a mhz or two.

I switched to the latest bios from biostar a few days ago, I'm wondering if this bios sucks. Any help would be great.

[derektm]

Do you guys happen to know which bios allows past 300htt?

I can't get my system to budge past 300, I can get it to post up to 304 but it will reboot. I've tried everything, upping all voltages, even upping the pci-e freq a mhz or two.

I switched to the latest bios from biostar a few days ago, I'm wondering if this bios sucks. Any help would be great.

What divider are you using? Try 533 as that works best on this board. Also, did you set your HT multi at 3x?

[what?]

Ya ,I've done everything right. It just won't budge.

Guess I'm content for now at 2.85ghz (300x9.5), at least I got to drop my ram from cas5 to cas4 and its stable at 407mhz. Good enough until they release a new bios or something.

PS, does anyone elses vcore jump when they turn orthos on? Mine goes from 1.38 to around 1.41.

[derektm]

Ya ,I've done everything right. It just won't budge.

Guess I'm content for now at 2.85ghz (300x9.5), at least I got to drop my ram from cas5 to cas4 and its stable at 407mhz. Good enough until they release a new bios or something.

PS, does anyone elses vcore jump when they turn orthos on? Mine goes from 1.38 to around 1.41.

I wouldn't trust onboard sensors. Even if it is a jump, .03 is not bad at all. Better than a vdroop!

[funnyperson1]

I have had great success with the 207 modded bios from RebelsHaven, but it only changes default bios settings.

Have you made sure all the Spread Spectrums are turned off?

[what?]

Every spread is off for sure.

Im not worried about it. Its just weird because a few nights ago I was able to at least boot at like 314, then I updated bios because my system got f'd up. Now I can't boot past 304, either way I'm not hitting 3ghz yet. If i need more performance maybe I'll install the old bios from rebels haven.

Thanks guys.

[birdie800]

It seems like the 533 divider works the best for this mobo/cpu for high HTT, but then most people aren't overclocking their ram at all? If you're at 300x9.5, then the RAM is only running at about 407mhz, right? What if I wanted to push my ram to 500mhz+, will I have to change the divider and sacrifice HTT and cpu frequency in order to do this with this board? I've got 2x1gb firestix that should hit about 1000mhz, but it's sounding like I may not be able to do this with this combo at high HTT/frequency. Ideally, I'd like to be somewhere around 300x9.5 (2.85ghz) and 500mhz (1000 effective) on the ram at cl4.

[derektm]

It seems like the 533 divider works the best for this mobo/cpu for high HTT, but then most people aren't overclocking their ram at all? If you're at 300x9.5, then the RAM is only running at about 407mhz, right? What if I wanted to push my ram to 500mhz+, will I have to change the divider and sacrifice HTT and cpu frequency in order to do this with this board? I've got 2x1gb firestix that should hit about 1000mhz, but it's sounding like I may not be able to do this with this combo at high HTT/frequency. Ideally, I'd like to be somewhere around 300x9.5 (2.85ghz) and 500mhz (1000 effective) on the ram at cl4.

With the 667 divider and 316x9.5 my ram was around 479mhz working fine. I think the 667 divider works great too.

[TEDY]

amd needs to implement higher divider as 800 asap... or do something about it...

[falqon]

It seems like the 533 divider works the best for this mobo/cpu for high HTT, but then most people aren't overclocking their ram at all?

overclocking the RAM really doesn't do jack for me. I 300mhz to 450mhz is really not all that different on most benches, or games for that matter.

My guess is the higher latency of the brisbanes combined with a very efficient memory controller means that clock speed is a much bigger factor.

I'm hoping this will allow the K10's to perform well in my AM2 HTT2 mobo as opposed to that HTT3, it just doesn't seem like the HTT is the bottleneck.

[birdie800]

Derektm,

Can you post or PM me your system specs and settings? Voltages, timings, CnQ, etc...

Anybody else agree with falqon? From every overclocking guide that I've read, memory freqency is actually a major contributor to system performance. If ram frequency wasn't that important in overall system speed, then why would there be premiums for higher rated DDR2?

p.s. Anybody try this mobo/cpu combo with 800 divider? Just curious....

[falqon]

then why would there be premiums for higher rated DDR2?

It starts with I and ends with ntel

[derektm]

Derektm,

Can you post or PM me your system specs and settings? Voltages, timings, CnQ, etc...

Anybody else agree with falqon? From every overclocking guide that I've read, memory freqency is actually a major contributor to system performance. If ram frequency wasn't that important in overall system speed, then why would there be premiums for higher rated DDR2?

p.s. Anybody try this mobo/cpu combo with 800 divider? Just curious....

The 800 divider doesn't work at all for me. 400/533/667 all work perfectly. I'm still doing finishing touches on my voltages and other settings and should be done by tommorow evening and I'll PM you my voltages and timings. I have CnQ disabled.

Basic specs are this board, 3600+ brisbane, and G.Skill 2GBHK (ProMos).

Basic settings:

Memory running at 4-4-3-5 like their rated @ 1.950v. I'm running 2 kits of the G.Skill for 4GB. I'm not sure if the 800 divider won't work for me because I'm using 4 modules or not but like I said the other ones work perfect. 296*9.5 (Memory at 402 MHz and CPU at 2815 MHz). CPU is at 1.350v in bios. CPU-Z reads around 1.392 or 1.4x idle and 1.456 or 1.472 load (jumps around, can't trust onboard sensors).

Do your actual volts read higher than the exact setting in the BIOS?

[birdie800]

What temp/volt monitor program are you guys using? The one that comes with the Tforce 550SE is difficult to read and has very little options. Also, which BIOS is best for stability and high frequency so far?

Also, does this motherboard come with the little internal speaker for post beep codes soldered on or loosely in the package at all? I think this little part normally comes with the case, but my P180B did not come with one, so I wasn't sure if one was supposed to come with the motherboard (either soldered or loosely to plug directly into header on mobo). Any idea where I can get one of these things from?

[funnyperson1]

Speedfan works fine for me.

I agree with falqon about memory speeds, and empirical evidence backs it up. I just went from some Kingston Value Ram to Crucial Ballistix and went from DDR2 860 6-4-4 to DDR2 1000 5-5-5, and my Sandra bandwith benchmark gained a couple thousand points. However when running real-world benchmarks the improvement was minimal. Sure my SuperPi time dropped 1-2 seconds (about 5-7% faster), and I gained like 30 3DMark points (.6%), but you can't notice that improvement in actual usage at all.

[Skillz]

Apparently this is going to be more difficult than I had though.

I can't seem to have hit a brick wall at 250.

I am running with this memory.
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820145034

Both in Slots #1 and #2.

I tried setting the volts to 1.47, and the CPU frequency to 255 and it will just reset itself.

Any suggestions?

[Skillz]

Oh, and I am pretty sure I am running the newest BIOS dated in 02/07

[derektm]

Oh, and I am pretty sure I am running the newest BIOS dated in 02/07

Thats not the newest. It goes 0207, 0510, 0521. You can get 0521 from Biostar.cn here, and this bios includes half multiplier options in the bios.

Apparently this is going to be more difficult than I had though.

I can't seem to have hit a brick wall at 250.

I am running with this memory.
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820145034

Both in Slots #1 and #2.

I tried setting the volts to 1.47, and the CPU frequency to 255 and it will just reset itself.

Any suggestions?

This board will not clock for crap if you don't set each individual memory timing. Leave DDRII timing option off. Set your async latency to at least 12 to start off with. Also about the memory slots. I'm running 1x4GB and had no problems going to 340 FSB so I doubt it is your mem slots. Also don't use the 800 divider, it doesn't work so well. Try using 533... was the sweet spot for me.

[funnyperson1]

Oh, and I am pretty sure I am running the newest BIOS dated in 02/07

What are your other settings ie HT divider, memory divider, etc.

Also have you changed the NPT FID Multiplier (CPU multiplier) most of those settings really killed my HTT oc, so I just left it on auto.

derek is right, you need to manually set the memory timings, otherwise they will be too tight when you start raising the htt speed.