Asus P5K-E WIFI guide?

I just got the Asus P5K-E WIFI and an E8400 and I need some assistance. I am not too familiar with the BIOS options of the ASUS board and was wondering if there is a guide I can be pointed to for help. I really just need to know which are the optimal settings for an OC. In other words, which BIOS options should be ON or OFF. The actual process of OCing and voltages I am pretty comfortable with.

Thanks

anyone?

there should be a sticky at the top of the page read that .first thing go in bios set jumper free to manual it opens up setting let us know when you need help
Rich

My default BIOS (603 I believe) does not recognize my CPU, what is the best and safest way to flash the BIOS? I'm asking since this ASUS board has multiple ways of flashing.

down load you bios unzip it rename it p5k.rom put it on a floppy or flash drive on reboot go into bios look for easy flash enable that reboot do as intructed or press alt + f2 on boot it will look for bios
Rich

I am kind of confused about this 'FSB Strap to NB'. What should that be set to, and what does it actually do? Moreover, the 'DRAM Static Read Control', should that be enabled or disabled? Thanks

set your memory to 1:1 far as the 'DRAM Static Read Control' i dont have that on my board test it see whats best for you
Rich

grab the latest bios, the help at the side is much much better. i leave static read control off as it can loosen some timmings, but its just personal preferance. The strap setting just detirmins the dividers the memory can use. if you just leave it at auto, you can see all the potential ram speeds. Transfer boosters (or whatever its called) is used the change the "performance level" setting in the northbridge. using enabled and a boost of 0 is equivlent to auto (took me ages to figure that out) increaseing the boost to 1 will reduce the performance latency by 1. if you don't know what that means, leave it at auto. any other questions, give us a PM.

2nd what Hipcrostino said. Also, I'm not sure what the latest BIOS is but I flashed to 0902 and I'm definitely liking that over what mine shipped with. (0802 or something.)

As far as flashing goes, I'm a risk taker and decided to just flash from Windows with ASUS Update. =P I've read lots of people saying that they've had bad experiences with it but I've been using it for years with my other boards and never had a problem.

24/7 Stable P5k-E, E8400 449x9 @ 1.368v (in CPU-Z. Set 1.475 in BIOS.) 2x2GB G.SKILL PC8000 @ DDR898 5-5-5-10 2.1v

edit: Oops. Using BIOS 0906. Flashed from 0806... Going to flash shortly to 1006 and check that out.

Thanks for the responses guys. I now fully understand the 'straps', and I'm still testing at all default settings except for FSB (I want to see how high I can go on all stock). However, once I get to the point where I need to play around with the voltages and other settings I will need some more help. I particular, I am refering to three things:

1. What are all the stock voltages; Vcore, CPU PLL, FSB Termination, Clock over-charging mode, NB, and SB? My vcore is 1.20 in BIOS, 1.25 CPU-Z and 1.125 in Core Temp., which is the most accurate one? All the others voltages I have no idea.

2. What are the Voltage References for CPU and NB (e.g. 0.61x)?

3. Should I have the Voltage Damper ON/OFF, or AUTO?

Thanks

the latest bios tells you the default for almost everything in bios. As for vcore measurements, i used CPUZ (its interesting yours over volts, mine undervolts by 0.121). Bios is just a setting really, so the number doesn't have to be the same as the output. Coretemp shows your VID, which is differnace to your measured or even current vcore. Its the voltage your cpu requires to Run at default speed (according to Intel, they will almost always run at much less). The most acurate way is to use a DMM to measure it directly. I just use CPUZ.

From memory defaults are as follows:

Vcore: 1.1125 (your VID)
CPU PLL: 1.5v
FSB: Termination: 1.10 for 45nm, 1.20 for 65nm
Clock overcharge: 1.8
NB: 1.25
SB: 1.05
Voltage referances are the % of voltage that the cpu will reguard as being a 1 as opposed to a 0. Or at least thats the way anadtech explains it. Basically 0.61 = 61%. Im not too sure about this setting myself, but apparently setting it to 63 or 67 (these boards only goto 63) will give you more overclocking headroom.

Voltage Damper is really up to you. When you update to the latest bios this will be called "Load Line Calibration". It relates to VDroop. Basically when its set to disabled, the board will use the Intel spec, which increases vdroop in an effort to reduce the split second overvoltage that occurs when changing from idle to load. Enabled eliminates this feature which may give you a more stable overclock. There is some argument as to how much damage this could do to the cpu. In general though, vdroop mods have been done for years without any bad effects. I would leave it disabled untill you start reaching your limits, then enable it an see if it helps.

I also used Asus Update from windows to flash the bios. It works fine, just download the bios manually first and then update from file, and stop all programs you don't need (music players and browers, msn etc etc)

GL! I will be loading my E8400 back in this weekend and pumping it back up to 4ghz. My P5K-E will run 500x8 on stock NB and FSB voltages, although i run the ram slower with a higher "performance Level" settings which pumps up the NB voltage and RAM volts a lot.

After playing around with this chip for the better half of the evening, I am really impressed. My initial Vcore recording were wrong because I did not realize that with everything on AUTO your Vcore automatically increases with FSB increase. I am using the latest BIOS 1006 and with everything including FSB stock, I get 1.20 Vcore in BIOS monitoring and CPU-Z, which equals 1.225 vcore setting inputed in BIOS. With this 1.225 vcore, so far I am Orthos (small FFTs) stable at 3900 MHz. Everything is on auto except the Vcore which is set to 1.225 and the FSB is raised obviously.

I should mention that I have the 'Load Line Calibration' enabled as it reduces vdrop significantly. As I continue tommorow what is the max. vcore I should use? Around 1.4v is what I have read for 24/7 use, is that correct? My temps. during Orthos load @ 3900 are mid 40s for one core and mid 30s for the other. Not sure how accurate they are, but they did not increase much over the stock 3000MHz load. I get 5-6C difference during IDLE between the two cores and 10-12C @ LOAD. Is this normal, or are the Core Temp reading just off?

Still testing this badboy, so far I got stable at 4005MHz with only 1.275Vcore and all else on Auto.

- Just finished priming 4100MHz @ 1.300Vcore. Mind you these ORTHOS sessions are between 30min-1hour and not the 8-12hours I like to run for a final 24/7 OC, but still it's pretty good so far I think.

Pretty good imo that you can even get the 30-60 minutes on Orthos with those voltages. I bomb out seconds (or less) into it with those settings.

same.... sigh!

EDIT: Oh man, i just had a look at the bios downloads for this board. They have been pumping out bios versions for it! When i said latest i meant 0906!

glad you got someone that knows this board king of hard when you havent even owned it to help
Rich

What is the consensus on max. Vcore for 24/7, pending the temps. are fine? Does 1.4 inputed in BIOS sound about right, or can I go as high as 1.45?

I've been wondering that myself. In the CPU section (big long E8400 thread) I've been reading 1.44v. Though, as you specified, I was wondering if it's fine to go higher pending the temps are fine. I know people have been doing over 1.5v for benchmarking, but I don't know how that affects the life of the CPU. (TBH, I don't need a CPU that'll last me 10 years. 3-5 is more than sufficient.)

I'm still jealous that you can run at those speeds with those volts!

I am really surprized myself about the OC abilities of this chip. I just did a 1h 30min Orthos run with 4200MHz @ 1.35V and all else on AUTO. At what FSB do the other voltages come into play because at 467 I still have them all on AUTO ?

Not to change the subject but I just noticed your video card OC too. Are you running after market or stock cooling on that? I have a BFC OC GTS 512 @ 719/1783/2136. Have you tested stable with ATI Tool artifact checking or what? I know I can get that high and run 3dMark06 flawlessly but I'm pretty sure I get errors with ATI Tool at those speeds. Just OC'd to that to double check. =P