GA-EP45-UD3R OC Help

[rsetter1]

I have recently switched to a GA-EP45-UD3R with a Q9650 from a GA-P35-DS3L with Q9650.
G-Skill 4 X 2 GB DDR2 800
WD 640 black
Corsair 550
GT 9600
AC Freezer7

The Bios are similar but the UD3R has alot more features. I was running the DS3L set-up at 3.6GHz
Temps with Prime95 Small FFT were 61-59-59-60 Room temp @ 80*

Does someone have some suggestions for settings on the UD3R to kinda smooth things out and a
3.8GHz to 4.0GHz over clock.

Im not stupid or lazy it just that there are so many more features on the UD3R that I am not familiar with
and would like to learn more......thanks



Edit: OS is Windows 7 if that is important.

 

[bilbat]

Will post OC settings in a bit - have to run out to drug store due to 'teething' problems - new dentures, complete w/gum sores

 

[bilbat]

Oops! Read your desired target - no workee! Maximum overclock is limited by 800 RAM, to a 400 (plus a little, probably) system clock, which gives you a 1600 FSB, and a 3.6 GHz CPU. Need some 1066 to take it where it would like to be (~4GHz); lowest memory multiplier (on any northbridge) is 2.0x... G.Skill F2-8500CL5D works well on that series boards, is reasonably priced, and will get you where you want to go!

 

[rsetter1]

Thanks, I'll post back when I up to speed with the Ram.

R-

 

[bilbat]

Here's a little write-up concerning selection:

You can always use faster RAM with any modern CPU/MOBO setup - you're just likely to have to set it up manually in the BIOS to take advantage of it. Pretty much all DDR2 ram is actually DDR2/800; they 'speed-bin' it, i.e., test and select the sticks that will work at either lower (faster) latencies, or higher (faster) speeds, or both, and sell it at a premium as 2/1066, 2/1200, and so on. JEDEC spec'd RAM has a little EEPROM chip in it that stores the set-up information/tables for running it at 800 at various FSB (Front System Bus) speeds - has the preferred memory multiplier and timing info - this is called an SPD (Serial Presence Detect) just to confuse us; faster, higher rated sticks may (but don't necessarily) contain another set of tables (called an EPP - this one makes sense - Extended Performance Profile) that will tell the BIOS what multiplier/latncies to use at its higher rated speed - BUT - not all BIOS are created equal: some will read this EPP automatically, and set the RAM at the higher speed; some will require intervention (on a lot of GBs, it's "Load Optimized Defaults" [but, to keep it more confusing - not all BIOS with the "Load Optimized Defaults" fuction actually use it to set the EPP]), and some just plainly don't know the EPP exists (if it does) and you have to set the higher speed manually!

Now, you have control over the basic system clock (I'm going to cal it B_CLK), once you start manually timing the MOBO through the BIOS. B_CLK times four is your FSB (once again, Front System Bus); B_CLK times your memory multiplier is your DRAM rate; B_CLK times your CPU's multiplier is your CPU frequency.

Examples: if you set your system clock to 333, you will need a 2.4 memory multiplier (333 x 2.4 = 799.blahblahblah) to run your RAM at 800, and if the CPU multiplier is, say, 8.5, you will get a CPU clock of 2.83GHz; at that same B_CLK you would need a memory multiplier of 3.2 (3.2 x 333 = 1065.6) to take advantage of 1066 RAM. Now, lots of CPUs that are rated at a 1333 nominal FSB will run a lot faster, sometimes with a little more 'oomph' from a voltage increase; for example, I run a Q9550 that is rated at 1333 FSB (333 B_CLK) times an eight point five multiplier, for a 2.83GHz speed. It will comfortably run with the B_CLK well over 450 - and here's where faster RAM comes in. The smallest RAM multiplier available from a MCH (Memory Control Hub - or 'NorthBridge') is 2.0, but, with a 2.0 multiplier, that means at a 450 clock, your RAM will need to run at 900 (again, 450 B_CLK x 2 = 900), which most 800 RAM just won't do! This is referred to as a 'RAM limited bus', meaning the CPU can't run a B_CLK any higher than (roughly) half the RAM's available speed - and thus, the need for faster RAM. Mind you, this only applies if you both can, and intend to, run your FSB above 1600 (once again, a B_CLK of 400+ times 4 gives you a 1600+ FSB)...

To further complicate matters, people often misunderstand the actual quantitative speed improvements inherent in faster ram... Here's the mistake: 1066 is 33% higher than 800 ([1066-800]/800 = 266/800 = .33), so 1066 RAM must be a third faster than 800, right? Not so! You have to figure in latencies. Most 800 will run at 4-4-4-12, while most 1066 is rated at 5-5-5-15, or, even worse, 5-5-5-18. Here's how to appraise the situation in reality: at 800 MHz, a RAM bus cycle is 1.25 nSec long (1000/800); at 1066 (1000/1066), it is roughly .938 nSec long - so, with an 800 stick at a 4 average latency, a RAM bus transaction takes 1.25 (cycle time) times 4 (latency), or 5nSec, while at 1066 it is .938 (cycle time) times 5 (latency), for a transaction time of (roughly) 4.7nSec - so you see, by going to nominally 33% faster RAM, you actually gain three tenths of a nSec per transaction: .3 (transaction gain) over 5(transaction total) = .06, for a real-world improvement of 6%

 

[Pointertovoid]

The Bios (I guess, the P45 Mch) has only about a dozen possible ratios between Fsb and Ram frequency, and this must be checked when pushing the Fsb. These are unclearly named by the Bios, like "2.66D"... By combining three choices in this vicinity, you define the Ram frequency, with the foreseen result being displayed.

I don't remember for sure if my GA-EP45-UD3R achieves Fsb=1600MHz with Ram F<800MHz. Anyway, my G-Skill runs above 1100MHz with its announced voltage.

I still haven't tuned any voltage. Everything runs at +33% up to now. I got the impression that the Mch got to its limit before the Cpu (E8600 stepping E0 of renown lot).

Ram frequency has a direct impact on latency but timings have nearly none, at least if we're to believe Everest. A possible explanation is that the Mch introduces much more latency than the Ram. Another explanation would be that Everest tells bullshit. But as performance in SuperPi and 7zip doesn't change with timings (as opposed to the i815ep, where Ram timings were very important) I incline to believe Everest.

 

[Pointertovoid]

I've just had a look at the Bios of my GA-EP45-UD3R.

And now I'm happy to have written "I don't remember for sure", because Bilbat was perfectly right: the Bios - and I guess the P45 Mch - imposes a minimum Ram frequency of half the Fsb frequency.

The Bios (...the P45) imposes a limited choice of Fsb:Ram ratios which are available in "System Memory Multiplier" under unclear descriptions. Needs to unlock from standard values before. Try, and look at the predicted Ram frequency displayed in the Bios settings before exiting the Bios applies the choices.

I tried to see the impact of Ram performance on a Core 2 Duo and chose 7-zip 4.62 benchmark for that, as its dictionary doesn't fit in L2 and isn't accessed linearly I guess. Well, the impact is faint. +33% more Ram frequency gives +2.5% compression-expansion speed. In comparison, +33% Cpu frequency gives +27% speed there. Ram timings are even less important.

However, Ram throughput must be much more important on a Core 2 Quad - in fact, a quad core deserves a socket 1366. A bit like with my Tualatin: with a Cpu at 1400MHz and an Fsb and Ram at 133MHz, any gain at the Ram translates almost 1:1 on performance.

 

[rsetter1]

Thanks Bilbat and Pointertovoid.

Wow! great information. I am goint to try a 425 FSB while waiting for Some 1066 Mhz Ram, that will be several days. In the mean time I be checking back, or would it be best if I start a new thread when I get the new Ram in place?
I am really busy at work and home, too many irons in the fire.
Thenks again for the input...

R-

 

[bilbat]

The multipliers, though they are expressed as decimal numbers, are actually integer divider ratios, so you only 'gets what you gets' - here are the ratios available on the Intel northbridges:

Here is a table, illustrating 'walking up' the system clock, while reducing multipliers to keep the RAM within functioning limits:

 

[rsetter1]

I am going to hold off on the 1066 Ram for a while. I am going to see if I can make a 425 'System Clock' setting work with what Ram I have.

 

[bilbat]

Might want to start here:

If you haven't yet done it, put in one DIMM, start with a BIOS' "Load Optimized Defaults"... Save, exit, reboot; power down and insert the rest of the RAM

Before we start ramping things up, I want to teach you a new skill involving the BIOS: Do the <DEL> at the boot to enter the BIOS;
notice, at the bottom, the <F11> "Save CMOS to BIOS" - hit this, and you should get a menu that will show a number (the count varies by BIOS) of empty 'slots', each of which will store an entire set of BIOS parameters, to be re-loaded from the corresponding <F12> "Load CMOS from BIOS"; this is a wonderful overclocker's feature. What I do with it, is to save my 'baseline' working parameters, so if I change something that 'irritates' the board, and forces a reset of all the parameters to defaults, or, even worse, get so screwed up I need to do a 'clear CMOS', I can get back to my starting point with no effort, and without having to remember 85 separate settings! Another thing it prevents is two hours' troubleshooting, having forgotten a change to a crucial parameter - like, "wait a minute - didn't I have the Trd at seven?!" It's pretty self-explanatory, and I alway urge people to start right away by taking the time to give the 'slots' names that mean something: in two hours, "Try2" and "Try3" will not be very helpful, but "450@+10MCH" and "450@+15MCH" will! Another use is for 'green' settings; overclocks, as a rule, do not 'play well' with green features, such as 'down-clocking' and 'down-volting'; with the storage slots, you can set up one profile, say "Green", with all the settings at 'stock' values, and all the 'green' features enabled; another, say "Balls2Wall" with a full overclock, and all the 'green' stuff turned off... Another neat feature of this 'slot' system is, for most BIOS, the mechanism itself will keep track of which ones have booted successfully, and how many times (up to, I believe, a max of five)!

On to the BIOS!

On the "Advanced BIOS Features" page:

"CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)" to "Disabled"
"C2/C2E State Support" to "Disabled"
"C4/C4E State Support" to "Disabled"
"CPU Thermal Monitor 2 (TM2)" to "Enabled"
"CPU EIST Function" to "Disabled"
"Virtualization Technology" to "Enabled" - this allows use of Win7's fantastic VirtualXp feature...
"Full Screen LOGO Show" to "Disabled"

On the "Integrated Peripherals" page:

Your manual shows "Legacy USB storage detect", but later BIOS say "USB Storage Function" - either way, set to "Disabled"

On the "Power Management Setup" page:

"ACPI Suspend Type" to "S1(POS)" (for now...)
"HPET Support" to "Enabled"
"HPET Mode" to whichever OS type you're running - "32-bit" if an x86 version, "64-bit" if an x64 version...

On the "MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)" page:

"Robust Graphics Booster" to "Auto" (I've always loved the name of this one - just sounds cool to me...)
"CPU Clock Ratio" to "9"
"Fine CPU Clock Ratio" to "0"
"CPU Frequency" - this one can't be set, it's calculated, and will change when we set the next few items...

******** Clock Chip Control ********
>>>>> Standard Clock Control

"CPU Host Clock Control" to "Enabled"
"CPU Host Frequency (Mhz)" to "400" (start here - 'bump it up' 5 at a time, 'till it fails to boot - then 'back down' the whole 5, and start 'bumping it up' 1 at a time, till you find the limit...
"PCI Express Frequency (Mhz)" to "100" (not auto...)
"C.I.A.2" to "Disabled"

******** DRAM Performance Control ********
"Performance Enhance" to "Standard"
"Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.)" to "Disabled"
"(G)MCH Frequency Latch" to "333"
"System Memory Multiplier (SPD)" to "2.0D"
"Memory Frequency (Mhz)" - again, can't be set, it's calculated...
"DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD)" to "Auto"
You can leave the rest of the memory settings alone, for now - once you find the limit with the stock timings, you can start to puzzle whether there'll be any advantage to 'loosening ' the timings to get the speed higher - gets complicated at that point...

"Load-Line Calibration" to "Disabled" (this works differently on different boards - on mine, it's worse "enabled" than "disabled" - the function is supposed to cure a phenomenon called Vdroop - the CPU voltage regulation circuit causes the CPU core voltage to sag, or 'droop' under high loadings; hopefullt, we're going to be at a low enough voltage to just ignore this...)
"CPU Vcore" to "1.3250V"
& "MCH Core" to 1.200V" if you intend to add more than two sticks of ram...

And that should do it!

I should point out that getting two reboots in a row here is perfectly normal behavior; it seems that, when you change certain settings (and we don't exactly know which ones - the only sure one I know is Trd - if you change it, I think you get the 'twin' reboot) it boots once to 'see where it's at', recalculates its remaining 'auto' settings, saves them, and then boots again. Three reboots in a row, however, usually indicates that the board was 'given indigestion' by your settings, and is going back to defaults. This sometimes goes astray, and it doesn't get back into proper operation - for example, at this point, mine will sometimes 'lock' itself into 111MHz x a six multiplier - and take a week to do a whole boot - that's time to do a CMOS reset, and use your 'stored' <F12> profile to get back to where you were...

Good luck!

Bill

 

[rsetter1]

The Q9650 and the 8 GB of ram I am using came from another set up that I had been running at 3.6GHz for the last year. The only thing new is the motherboard,
(EP45-UD3R) and a WD 640 Black.

I saved <F11> CMOS to Bios. Thats real cool..8 different entrys available.

On the "Advanced BIOS Features" page:

"CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)" to "Disabled"
"C2/C2E State Support" to "Disabled"
"C4/C4E State Support" to "Disabled"
"CPU Thermal Monitor 2 (TM2)" to "Enabled"
"CPU EIST Function" to "Disabled"
"Virtualization Technology" to "Enabled" - this allows use of Win7's fantastic VirtualXp feature...
"Full Screen LOGO Show" to "Disabled"

................DONE.....................


******** Clock Chip Control ********
>>>>> Standard Clock Control

"CPU Host Clock Control" to "Enabled"
"CPU Host Frequency (Mhz)" to "425" (400 was proven to work with the CPU and RAM so I went to 425)
"PCI Express Frequency (Mhz)" to "100" (not auto...)
"C.I.A.2" to "Disabled"

.......................DONE.........................


******** DRAM Performance Control ********
"Performance Enhance" to "Standard"
"Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.)" to "Disabled"
"(G)MCH Frequency Latch" to "400"
"System Memory Multiplier (SPD)" to "2.0D"
"Memory Frequency (Mhz)" - again, can't be set, it's calculated...
"DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD)" to "Manual"
I set the DRAM to 5-5-5-15 and the voltage 1.9(My Ram is rated at 4-4-4-12 @ 1.8v)
All the other settings I left alone.

"Load-Line Calibration" to "Disabled"
"CPU Vcore" to "1.2875V"
& "MCH Core" to 1.200V"( I didnt change this, I left it at default)


........................DONE.......................


Saved changes...Booted up fine. I ran Prime95 Small FFT for @ 15 minutes with no errors. Temps on the cores all stayed under 62*

Thanks Bill. Also I did find some of your other threads and gleaned from them. Today I saw and copied your "How to post an Image". So much I dont know. I will post some shots of the above when I figure it out.

On another topic..With the P35 board all drives(SATA) were masters. On this P45 board I have the Internal SATA HDD in SATA 0, an external SATA/E-SATA pluged into SATA 1 and the DVD drive pluged into SATA 2. In BIOS it says the DVD drive is a Slave to the SATA 0 but it is actually pluged into SATA 2....Normal?


EDIT: I changed some settings you posted. I would highlight but I cant, dont know how.

What next?

 

[rsetter1]

I posted some images but ending up deleting them. Something was not right.
If I left them in the forum and logged on to ImageShack anyone could axcess my account...not good.

 

[bilbat]

"(G)MCH Frequency Latch" to "333"

was posted in error - you have it right at 400, which gives you access to the multipliers on the 1600 FSB 'strap': 2.00 (1:1 ratio), 2.66 (4:3), and 3.33 (5:3)...

I posted some images but ending up deleting them. Something was not right.
If I left them in the forum and logged on to ImageShack anyone could axcess my account...not good.

I think people have gone, head over heels, nuts over the whole issue of internet security and theft. Often, people here comment in amazement that I'll post my email address, like it's somehow equivalent to posting my credit card number with my social security number... My experience has been that people here are infnitely respectful of my privacy; the average 'tech support' email I'll get generally starts with words to the effect of "I hope you don't mind me bothering you, but..."; and all the spam I get, I know the source of: I'm using job sites to find one, so I get a ton of 'online university' and 'we'll hire you to sit in front of your computer, at home, and do nothing' scams; and I use a market watcher, and get a couple Wall Street tip rags, so I'm deluged with bogus 'investment opportunities', but, otherwise, I don't believe I've gotten anything from anyone who simply 'harvested' my email off a posting here...

The whole idea of ImageShack, MediaFire, RapidShare, and the like, is to give others access to your files! If you're looking for a place to store your child porn, I'd not choose ImageShack; if you need to share the plans for your dirty bomb with the members of your terrorist cell, MediFire might be a poor idea... Were I a director with, say, Galleon Group, and felt the (obviously self-destructive) need to document the emails containing my insider trading tips, I'd put them on a mil-spec, encrypted, self-destructing flash drive:
https://www.ironkey.com/
But I don't really have any secrets - and I wish more people would keep their own! I have a Tweet account, as I'm job-searching, but the whole idea strikes me as ludicrous: "what are you doing now?", seems to be their mantra - well, I don't give a tinker's damn what you're doing now, as, if you had anything useful or productive to be doing, you certainly would not be bothering me with a hundred thirty six characters to elighten me regarding the idiocy! And don't even get me started on YouTube - "last hight we put Rodney of the hood of the car, on his skateboard, drove fast down toward the roundabout, and hit the brakes, launchuing him at high speed diagonally into the traffic! What a rush! We put it up on YouTube to ammuse our (equally stupid) friends WooHoo!" Then, the sane family across the street recognizes Rodney, (who is a destructive, threatening little punk to have next door, anyway) and calls the cops, who call the sherrif, who calls the FBI field office, to decide who will incarcerate them, hopefully past the the age of breeding, to help staunch the overwhelming flow of new idiots!

 

[rsetter1]

Are these correct in form?

How do I just post the image like yours, without the ImageShack stuff.