Tips Section
First I want to thank those of you who have been here for a while and have posted important information and have answered questions that were posted. This thread has grown to be huge. adder1971 and myself sometimes can't handle the amount of new comers and questions that are asked. New Comers Try to review some of the information that has been posted already. Most of the questions have been answered in past posts. You can do a search within this thread for topics that you are looking for. When you have a problem, have you system and setting listed in your signature so members can help you without having to ask you for them.
Thank You,
Core2 ( John )
The first thing I do after the UPS/Fedex/whoever guy drops off my stuff I unbox it and make sure that I got everything and all of it is correct.
Then I only take the parts out of their respective packages when I'm ready to install them. If you bought a shiny new 8800GTX, leave it in the box till your ready for it to avoid any accidents!
I then proceed to inspect my motherboard and take pictures to send to my friends who love hardware as much as me. That's optional But I look for any loose caps or other signs of visual damage. For this board I then popped off the NB heatsink and cleaned it up and applied some arctic ceramique, or whatever paste you like, but I like to use something non-conductive for naked chips, ie no IHS on them.
A good anti-static platform when first setting up your board is those 2ft x 2ft rubber foam flooring that fit like a puzzle that you can buy in most Home Depot stores cheap.
I then open up the new cpu, clean it, then put on the thermal paste. PLEASE leave the little black cover on the backside just in case you have any paste on your fingers. Then drop it into the socket and latch it down. Repeat with HSF, clean, apply paste if needed, install onto mobo.
I usually assemble everything but the video card on the foam and then place it in the case by holding the HSF and the board. Its real easy that way.
With the mobo in I then drop in my video card. Plug in my optical drives into the IDE ports. I'll then hook up my case leads for power, reset, all those. I then plug in all power cables and fans. I then double check that I've got them all properly seated and I didn't miss any like the 6pin to the video card if you need that one. I do NOT plug in the HD's until after it performs its first boot.
With that done I'm ready for a dry run. Plug in the power cord and cross your fingers. I then jump straight into the bios and go to the hardware monitor to make sure my cpu temp isn't running away on me. If its ok, and I need to install an new OS I'll change the boot order while I'm there. I'll then shutdown, plug in HD's and start installing the OS. The reason I don't plug in the HD's right away is to eliminate a potential problem that I might have to deal with later. Boards that don't boot can be very frustrating to diagnose, so I think its a cautionary step. Also notice that I didn't say I changed anything else in the bios, NO OVERCLOCKING till the OS is installed! Borking your OS install cause of overclocking will result in an unstable environment regardless of settings.
Update to the latest
Nvida Chipset Drivers
Use a bic pen to remove push pins from the back of the board when replacing heatsinks. Just take out the ink cartridge and use the small hole section to compress the pin ends and push them out.
Use a plastic knife or a credit card (Genuine Imitation his posted tip ) to scrape off even the toughest thermal junk that's preapplied to the heatsinks or you can do it easier with Arctic Clean (2 step solvents) which makes it incredibly easy to remove that gunk. I'd recommend it, as the small bottles have lasted numerous applications, and only cost about $8.
A Lolly pop stick comes in handy to pop the battery out
Long needle nose pilers make jumping the CMOS jumper easy. You can coat your plier ends with a liquid rubber if you want
Best HSF
The ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler to fit it to blow out the back of the case. You have to trim the fan housing in the lower left hand corner and bend up the bottom fin up slightly to clear the NB easy
Scythe Ninja Plus Rev B CPU Cooler
ZALMAN 9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
Tuniq Tower 120
Thermalright Ultra 120
Best NB and SB Cooling Solutions
Scythe SY124010L Fans I put two of these on the stock NB Cheapest solution and I think it works great NB temps range from 94F stock to 106F OC
I monitor the NB and SB at the base of the heatsink with two of these Scythe TM02-WH KAMA THERMO Thermometer
The COOLER MASTER SLC-S41-U1 Copper Fan&Heatsinks Put the heatsink on the SB use the fan for the NB ( cheapest solution and works )
Thermalright HR-05 SLI For the SB if your running in SLI mode
Thermalright HR-05 Excellent for the NB
Noctua NC-U6 Chipset heatsink Excellent for the NB
ZALMAN ZM – 32K Heatsinks only Excellent for the SB
Trouble Shooting
1.If no power redo all power supply connection make sure there are no bent pins and that they snapped in tight and trace wires back to the case buttons to see if they are in the proper spot and are not loose .
2. Problems booting check your ram timings and voltage set them manually to manufactures spec. Check the Q-connector this has been a problem for me when I do adjustments in the case and accidentally pulled it loose also check that you have the wires on correctly.
3.Ram issues One long beep ( repeated ) means a memory problem
Set timings manual to manufactures spec or 5-5-5-12 2T or 4-4-4-12 2T the rest auto and make sure the Command per Clock is not 1 set it to 2 unless you know what your doing
Set the ram voltage to manufactures spec voltage 1.92 - 2.0 should boot
NB voltage 1.2 should work to boot 1.39 or higher if overclocking
Run MemTest86 v1.7
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool to check ram for errors.
Re-seat your Ram. This board does not have good support underneath where the ram is placed use some hard rubber foam underneath when seating them or use your fingers to support the board and wiggle them in tight and snap the clips in Change slots if you still have problems
4. Switch ram slots if you suspect a ram issue and test your ram with MemTest 1.7
5. Use a volt meter or a power supply tester if you think you have an issue with the power supply.
6. Always do a full reset ( Clear the CMOS )when you upgrade your bios. Check your ram timings and voltage set them manually to manufactures spec and make sure the Command per Clock is not 1 set it to 2
7. install Speedfan v4.32 Final
It is a great program to monitor temps ,voltages, and fan control
To Configure the Program
Just compare temps to ASUS Probe
Click on configure and select the temperature tab if you click on a temp selection and press F2 you can rename it to anything you want CPU, MB core 1 core 2 HD 1
next go to the fan tab and do the same thing fan1 click press f2 and rename it front fan and so on.
go to the speed tab and check the fans you want to control and set the min and max value and check the Auto variated
Select the Advance Tab click the drop down arrow and select the lT8712F at $290 on ISA
This is a little tricky and may vary with different fans and cases. Most import is if you make changes here that work, make sure you check, remember this check box on the bottom for each selection
OK these are my settings
Temperture sensor diode 1 Themister
Temperture sensor diode 2 Themister
Temperture sensor diode 3 Themister
FAN1 divisor 8
FAN2 divisor 2
FAN3 divisor 2
PWM 1- 5 Software controlled
PWMOUT 3M
Temperture offset 1 -3 0
Fan1 mult 1
Fan1 div 1
Fan2 mult 1
Fan2 div 2
Fan3 mult 1
Fan4 div 2
Revere PWM 01 - 05 all off
click ok
check automatic fan speed on the main page
and your pretty much done
You have to disable Q fan and Q chassis fan for this to work properly in the bios under hardware monitor
Pressing F1 while in the program brings up the help file for more options
Tip! Use the events tab to set alarms for Voltage drops or spikes and warnings for high CPU, MB and HD temps
8. Lan problems Update the Nvidia chipset drivers and Ris driversI have link listed above
9. If you are running a dual core cpu and are having issues with stuttering and game hitches, look here, I know its for AMD X2s, so disregard the dual core optimizer from AMD but the MS hotfix and the /usepmtimer fix can be useful and might fix your problem.
BenchMarking Programs
OverClocking
Try all Auto setting on the first startup record all voltages and timings from windows and adjust only what needs to be adjusted. This board does a good job of adjusting the CPU voltage and NB voltage if you leave it on auto. Ram voltage and timings could be a problem, still I would try auto first. Set timings manual to manufactures spec or 5-5-5-12 2T or 4-4-4-12 2T the rest auto and make sure the Command per Clock is not in 1T unless you know what your doing
Set the ram voltage to manufactures spec voltage 1.92 - 2.0 should boot
NB voltage 1.2 should work to boot 1.39 or higher if overclocking
Run MemTest86 v1.7 to check ram for errors
Here's something worth mentioning that may also help when you can't boot. It works great for tweaking. Its from dlxmax ( Who is our electronics Expert )
Some people are complaining about the CMOS reset. I haven't reset the CMOS since I learned two better techniques.
1) Hit the reset button a couple times in quick sucession. Often than will cause it to boot up.
2) Keep the battery out. If you want to save your bios settings, use "ASUS O.C. Profile" tool to write it directly to the NVRAM of the bios. Then start to tweak. If you can't post, just hit the power switch on the power supply. Keep it off for 5-10 seconds and the CMOS will corrupt, causing you to post with default settings when you power up. Then you can reload your basic bios settings profile from the NVRAM. Put the battery back in when you find a stable clock and load your settings from the OC profile.
This is also from dlxmax reporting on the accuracy of the Hardware Monitor in the bios
Hogwash! That's what the Asus voltmeters are. My bios repots my +5v rail at 4.83v, but handheld meter shows it at 5.05v. Bios also reports my 12v at 11.96v, but I metered 12.03v going into the motherboard. My bios also reports my 3.3v voltage as 3.20v, but I'm sure that's wrong. And it reports my moded Vcore at 1.31v--but it's 1.4v.
Asus bios "Hardware Monitor" is rubbish
The actual NB core clock issue. NBCC = (cpu mult default) / (cpu mult actual) x FSB. So with my x9 CPU running at x8, I need to take my FSB speed of 400 and multiply it by 1.125 to get the actual. So a 400 FSB is a 450mhz northbridge core clock (NBCC). That's why a x9 rated cpu is tough to run at a x7 multiplier. Let's make a chart:
X9 DEFAULT MULTIPLER (E6600, E4300)
at x8 multiply FSB by 1.125. Probable max FSB is 422-444 (3552mhz max cpu)
at x7 multiply FSB by 1.286. Probable max FSB is 369-389 (2723mhz max cpu)
at x6 multiply FSB by 1.500. Probable max FSB is 317-333 (1998mhz max cpu)
X8 DEFAULT MULTIPLER (E6400)
At x7 multiply FSB by 1.143. Plausible max FSB is 416-437 (3059mhz max cpu)
At x6 multiply FSB by 1.333. Plausible max FSB is 356-375 (2250mhz max cpu)
X7 DEFAULT MULTIPLER (E6300)
At x6 multiply FSB by 1.167. Plausible max FSB is 407-428 (2568mhz max cpu)
Plausible max FSB's were based on 475/500 fsb speeds. Most everyone should be able to post using the lower fsb number, very few will be able to post using the larger. "Max cpu" was calculated with the larger FSB number and therefore represents the theorhetical maximum attainable cpu speed.
But what does this all mean for max cpu speed?
If you've got an E6600 or E4300, you should stick with the x8 and x9 multipliers.
If you've got an E6400, you should stick with the x8 multiplier.
If you've got an E6300, you should stick with the x7 multipler.
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