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Biostar TForce 550

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The N5AA stuff that you see inside the bios itself is not your bios version. You can see what bios version is currently on the board on the detailed post screen (if you turn on the detailed summary screen in the bios). Myself and others have had great success with the 207 bios on that page, chances are that the bios that came flashed with your board will be limited to 287 HTT or 2.7ghz approximately.

The auto-overclocking sucks and I wouldn't use it. If its pumping 1.55V through your chip, it better be hitting 3ghz+.

Here are some settings that I have used with success:
http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sisubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=53;t=000255;p=21#000308

You also want to keep your K8-SB multi (HT divider) at 3X, and make sure anything that mentions spread spectrum in the bios is disabled.
 
funnyperson1 said:
The N5AA stuff that you see inside the bios itself is not your bios version. You can see what bios version is currently on the board on the detailed post screen (if you turn on the detailed summary screen in the bios). Myself and others have had great success with the 207 bios on that page, chances are that the bios that came flashed with your board will be limited to 287 HTT or 2.7ghz approximately.

The auto-overclocking sucks and I wouldn't use it. If its pumping 1.55V through your chip, it better be hitting 3ghz+.

Here are some settings that I have used with success:
http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sisubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=53;t=000255;p=21#000308

You also want to keep your K8-SB multi (HT divider) at 3X, and make sure anything that mentions spread spectrum in the bios is disabled.

Thanks funnyperson...My bios screens whip by so fast that I dont even get to see them.. I was able to stop the summary screen with the 'pause/break' key, but all it shows me are the INterrupt values and things like that.. No bios version is shown. So, Im in a bit of a quandry, and seem completely unable to get my bios version number. In CPU-Z, on the Mainboard page, it just shows the bios version as: Phoenix Technologies LTD, ver 6.00 PG, Date 11/16/2006. If there is some other way I can get the bios version, Id sure be happy...
 
Should be at the top of the screen. In any case it doesn't really matter what bios you currently have, just which one you flash it to :p. To see the Summary screen you want to enable "Summary Screen Show" in the bios and disable "Full Screen Logo."

The bios version should be at the top of the summary screen, I can almost guarantee you that it is the N5taab16bs.
 
funnyperson1 said:
Should be at the top of the screen. In any case it doesn't really matter what bios you currently have, just which one you flash it to :p. To see the Summary screen you want to enable "Summary Screen Show" in the bios and disable "Full Screen Logo."

The bios version should be at the top of the summary screen, I can almost guarantee you that it is the N5taab16bs.

Ok.. Got it.. the big Green Tforce logo was blocking it out.. So, yea, it is N5TAAB16 BS. Is that the one that can be upgraded with the one on the biostar site to good OC advantage? If I keep this bios, what downside does it have again?
 
The disadvantage of the current bios is that it won't overclock past 287HTT. Which means that without a bios flash you would be limited to 2.7ghz approximately, and your chip has more than that available.

A bios upgrade will allow at least 300+ HTT allowing you to get closer to maxing out your chip.

Now you don't want to flash the bios off of the Biostar official website, as they only have the same version.

You want to go to the third party website you linked in your first post and flash the bios version that ends in 207.
 
I used the windows flashing prog and the bios that I got is allowing me to get 305.... Almost 315, but gets flaky after a while. Might be my cooling.... Or the crappy mem I got.

Just checked... Its N5TAA807 BS ....WOO HOO!!!! MAYBE I CAN DO BETTER!
 
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Just flashed...

I can't seem to lower my multiplier in the bios and make it stay. I thought you could lower it, but not raise it. Want to see how high I can get the HTT stable so I can guess as to what I would get with better cooling.
 
What cpu temps are you guys who are overclocking the 3600+ to over 2.7 ghz seeing? Also, I left the JDDRII_2.2v Header for Memory Voltage Overclocking jumper in the default pin 1-2close position. The note in the text says that:

1. When “JDDRII_2.2V” jumper cap is placed on Pin 1-2, memory voltage can be manually adjusted under CMOS setup.

>>You want to go to the third party website you linked in your first post and flash the bios version that ends in 207.<<

I was a little scared when it said on the top of that site: "Flash these BIOS's at your own risk. I will not be responsible for any mis-flashes or "DEAD" systems" ... Are there any specifics to look out for?

Which do I use, the rar file or the zip file?
And lastly, even though I have the n5taab16 bios, and they have a zip and rar with the same name, I should be using the lastest 207 one? And, thats the zip or the rar?

thanks..
 
Shroomer, loweing the multi with this board doesn't seem to work very well, at least with the Brisbanes. The half-multi chips don't behave well when set to even multis in bios (and vice-versa).

boostm3, The JDDRII_2.2V jumper is for pumping 2.2V through your ram so that maybe you can get a better ram overclock. I wouldn't recommend this unless you have some airflow blowing over your ram sticks.

The main thing to watch out for when flashing a bios is freezes or power outages. If you are overclocked, set the speeds back to stock for the bios flash, and do NOT under any circumstances reboot or power off the machine until the bios flasher is finished and tells you to do so. If you follow those rules, you will probably never have any issues flashing a bios (although some are unlucky).

The rar file is the bios as released by Biostar, the zip file is a modified version released by Polygon of RebelsHaven. The only differences between them are that Polygon changes some default settings for better overclocking (you can set them manually yourself as well), and he upgraded to a newer version of Memtest86 integrated into the bios. Which one to use is your choice.

I have had some success with the latest one, I can get up to 2.9ghz on the cpu, but not much further. I would flash the latest one and see how high you can go, or heck even see how high you can go on your current bios before switching. Then once you feel more comfortable you can play with various bios versions to see which one is best.
 
I had to reset CMOS with the jumper after flashing... Keep that in mind if you don't post after your flash.
 
funnyperson1 said:
Shroomer, loweing the multi with this board doesn't seem to work very well, at least with the Brisbanes. The half-multi chips don't behave well when set to even multis in bios (and vice-versa).

boostm3, The JDDRII_2.2V jumper is for pumping 2.2V through your ram so that maybe you can get a better ram overclock. I wouldn't recommend this unless you have some airflow blowing over your ram sticks.

The main thing to watch out for when flashing a bios is freezes or power outages. If you are overclocked, set the speeds back to stock for the bios flash, and do NOT under any circumstances reboot or power off the machine until the bios flasher is finished and tells you to do so. If you follow those rules, you will probably never have any issues flashing a bios (although some are unlucky).

The rar file is the bios as released by Biostar, the zip file is a modified version released by Polygon of RebelsHaven. The only differences between them are that Polygon changes some default settings for better overclocking (you can set them manually yourself as well), and he upgraded to a newer version of Memtest86 integrated into the bios. Which one to use is your choice.

I have had some success with the latest one, I can get up to 2.9ghz on the cpu, but not much further. I would flash the latest one and see how high you can go, or heck even see how high you can go on your current bios before switching. Then once you feel more comfortable you can play with various bios versions to see which one is best.

Funny, youre a wealth of info! .. We have the B16 bios... Would the Biostar RAR 207 bios be considered and upgrade over the N5TAAB16 BS bios that came with the mobo? Even if it is I realize the 207 flash should be done.. But i was just surprised my mobo which i just received doesnt have the latest biostar bios... Mine comes from I think it is NOv, 06. I think the 207 comes from 2007.

When I flash my B16 bios with the 207 zip file written by 'Polygon', aside from the upgrades that are listed and removing the parm that limits oc to 2.7 ghz, will I still have to manually make all the bios parm changes myself? I dont suppose there is a good, reliable flash that has all the OC settings entered already for our 3600+/Biostar 550 combo.. After the 207 zip file flash, should I start off by just slowly bumping the settings that directly increase the cpu frequency, and leave any voltage settings alone until or unless I start having problems without doing so?

>>I had to reset CMOS with the jumper after flashing... Keep that in mind if you don't post after your flash<<

Yikes.. rather that didnt happen.. Can I prevent it by enabling Quick POST in the bios settings?
 
Yea you will have to make most of the overclocking changes yourself even with RHs bios. Nobody would release a bios with such settings because every system is different. Hence why even Biostar's automated overclock program only overclocks mildly and does it with insane amounts of voltage.

Generally what I start out with is setting the memory to the lowest possible divider, setting ram timings to something low (5-5-5-15-20 for the major timings), set K8-SB (HT divider) divider to 3X, and then work my way up on stock voltage. You should be able to hit 290-300 HTT with stock voltage. Once I find my highest stable overclock with stock voltage (stable for me means running Orthos blend for 8-12 hours), that becomes my safe point. If I ever get tired of playing with my oc, and need to get back to work, that is a stable point I can fall back on. Generally the increments I move up depend on where I am currently at. For example, I normally go straight to 250HTT, I would be very surprised if these chips couldn't do that with stock voltage. Then I do 20/25 HTT until I encounter instability, and keep moving my increments down until I find my max CPU overclock.

You will probably have to reset the CMOS after bios flashing, its not a big deal so don't worry about it.
 
Funnyperson, is the cmos reset procedure just, remove ac power, place cmos jumper on pins 2-3 for 5 seconds, replace back on pins 1-2 and reboot pc, 'DEL' into bios, and reset date or pswd settings accordingly... ?

>>setting ram timings to something low (5-5-5-15-20 for the major timings)<<

My ram's timings are 4-4-4-12. When I set it to automatic, the bios came up with something entirely different, and much higher for some reason.. So I forced them to 4-4-4-12. That was with the otherwise stock settings.. When I oc, what are the advantages of forcing the higher 5-5-5-15 settings? Im using Corsair XMS2 C4 1GB DDR2 800 ram..

>>set K8-SB (HT divider) divider to 3X<<

what is advantage to lowering the bus divider to 3, from, what is it stock... 5 I believe? And, this is a different than the 9.5 multiplier?

>> For example, I normally go straight to 250HTT, I would be very surprised if these chips couldn't do that with stock voltage. Then I do 20/25 HTT until I encounter instability, and keep moving my increments down until I find my max CPU overclock.<<

beware ****beginner warning here******* Ok.. HTT is the FSB measurement isnt it? my stock HTT measure is 201.. 201 x 9.5 multiplier gives me my cpu's 1909 mhz speed. So, going right to 250 gives me 2350 or something like that. In the right direction at least. Then you up the htt by 20 or 25 units at a time? Thats cause there isnt a parm for directly increasing cpu freq, so the way you do it is to increase the htt setting, and then it times the multiplier gives us the cpu frequency we're after? I should be able to do that.. But why is the FSB called 'HTT'.. Hyper Transport something? Dif name for the same thing? INcedentally, if we can get to htt of 300 before raising voltage, does that mean cpu temperatures wont rise either? IOW, do cpu temps rise mainly after we increase voltage? Is that called 'vcore'?

I have a Windows bios flasher called Winflash from Award. Should I use this, or need I use something else?

Again, sorry for all the questions, but this is such a good site for exactly these concepts, particularly because theyre put in terms of our cpu/mobo specific combo.. This is the best info Ive found for my setup, and I intend to compile a log of all the instructions and then, my resuls, maybe to assist others. BTW, I see you use a stress program called Orthos? Better than Superpi or Prime95? Heres a list of OC tools Im told are very good for all OCers to have in their toolkit:

CPU-Z - system info
Everest Home* - system info, temp monitor, benchmark
SpeedFan - temp monitor
MotherBoard Monitor - temp monitor
Prime95 - system stability testing
SuperPi - system stability testing
Memtest86 - RAM stability testing
SiSoft Sandra* - benchmarking suite
PCMark 04* - system benchmark
PCMark 05** - system benchmark
3DMark 01 se* - system benchmark

* - requires registration for all features
** - registration required to use at all
 
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You really dont even have to remove power (but of course the computer should be off). Just move the jumper and keep it there for 5 seconds and then move it back. Then you go back into the bios and reset your parameters.

I take it your ram is rated for 4-4-4 timings at DDRII800? Basically the lower the timings are, the higher the performance, but the more you are asking of your ram. When you have low timings set for the ram, it is possible that the ram holds back your overclock because it cannot run at the timings you set at the overclocked speeds. Higher timings are less stressful on the ram and allow you to sometimes get higher overclocks, while sacrificing a bit of performance.

You should be fine with just setting the divider to 400 though (only while you are trying to find your max CPU speed, once you do this, you can play with ram settings to find the highest performance memory timings you can achieve). If you keep the 4-4-4 timings and set the memory divider to 400, your ram will be running at/below its rated settings all the way up to 4ghz on the CPU (not that the CPU is actually capable of this.

The idea is not to overclock two things at the same time, so that it is easier to troubleshoot what is holding you back.

Memory speed in Athlon 64s is determined by CPU Speed/ Memory divider. For example if you were running at stock speeds, with the 800 memory divider your ram would be running at 1900/5 = 380Mhz (DDR2 760). Now lets say you kept the ram divider at 800 and set the HTT to 250 and your CPU was running 2350Mhz, then your ram would be running at 2350/5 = 470 (DDR2 940). At this point, the C4 timings might be too tight for your ram to handle.

You do have a good understanding of what the HTT speed does for us as overclockers, since we cannot increase the CPU multiplier, we increase HTT speeds to overclock the CPU. HTT is called so because it is based around the Hyper Transport bus. The reason it is not called a FSB (Front side bus) like Intel's and older AMD systems busses is because the memory controller is built into the cpu itself, so there isn't really a true FSB in the traditional
sense of the word.

Now the reason that you have to muck around with all these dividers is that the CPU is not the only thing that relies on the HTT speed, as indicated above, the ram indirectly relies on it, and the HT bus itself uses the K8-SB multiplier to determine what speed it will run at. The bus is rated for 1ghz, with a 5x multiplier, the bus quickly gets overclocked beyond its capabilities (5*250 = 1250. The object is to get the HT speed as close to 1ghz as possible to maintain stability without losing performance. The 3X multiplier allows you to oc to 333HTT wihtou overclocking the HT bus.

I believe you can flash this board with the Award flasher, I have been using the Biostar windows flasher (not recommended, the program is incredibly sketchy) and it has worked fine, but ultimately the best way to flash a bios is still to boot off a dos floppy or USB drive and flash the bios using the dos flasher as its the most secure. If you don't have a floppy drive or USB drive you can format, the windows flashers have worked fine for me, I would just suggest the Award one over the Biostar one.

Orthos is based on Prime95, it is a gui frontend that will essentially run two versions of prime 95 in one window with one click so that both cores can be tested at full load at once.
 
Funnyperson.. Youve been so incredibly helpful, I cant thank you enough.. Once I start in, Im sure Ill be coming back to this thread many times, posting results, and more questions. Any future users of our mobo/cpu combo should find this Invaluable. Maybe it should be made into a forum stickie, your info has been so thorough, and your technique for explaining so effective.

Have you figured out what our cpu running at, say, 2.9 ghz, looks like in terms of the common benchmarks relative to the other athlon x2 cpus, and relative to the core 2 duos? ie, wrt the latter, does it slot somewhere near the 6300? higher? what about on the amd line?

What do you do with the setting, listed under ' Advanced Chipset Features' under PMU for 'K8<-> MCP55 HT Width'? One setting I saw someone had looked like '[ {downarrow}16 {uparrow}16]'? Do you basically leave the settings NOT included under the 'Overclock Navigator' engine in their default settings as you get them from your downloaded flash?

Seems to me anybody interested in puzzles, electronics, performance, computers in general, would find this whole overclocking arena really intriguing. I bought my bmw M3 new in 1999, and 5 mos later, proceeded to almost double its horsepower by adding a supercharging system and upping the boost.. kind of like overclocking.. you try larger intake, higher boost, larger manifold, valves, etc, etc.. do one thing at a time, take it to the dyno to benchmark, and then try something else.. Eventually, people build up a recognized, most effective, best practices upgrade path for various configs that future users benefit by. Ive had other computers before.. several, but this is the first build Ive done myself, and its the first time overclocking has been so publicized on the net.. I could hardly do any research on my cpu and mobo components as I was planning my build without reading all about overclocking. Thats how big its become.. And its no wonder why, with people able to relatively easy get themselves a 50% bump in cpu frequency like you guys are doing with the 3600+ x2 cpu, going from near 2 ghz stock, to near 3 ghz overclocked. Hell, on our cars, when we get a 30% increase in power, thats considered Huge, and here you guys are, getting 50% boosts on this cpu/mobo combo, without spending any extra dollars hardly at all.. With the cars, I dont have to tell you how many 10s of thousands are required to do what we're talking about!

So, as soon as I solve my little Windows xp pro activation issue, on my new pc, Im going to get started, armed with the info youve given me. :D
 
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No problem bro, just post back with the results and any issues you run into because as you said, this thread could be a great resource for others curious about this motherboard.

The X2 at 2.9 performs somewhere in between the E6400 and E6600 at stock speeds (closer to the 6600 though). Of course that isn't the best comparison because both of those chips can easily do 3ghz+ and crush us :/. Compared to other X2s a clock to clock comparison is pretty fair, the only exception would be the Opterons, FX, and select X2 chips with 1MBx2 cache which can be 5% faster in some applications. So at 2.9ghz we are sitting between the FX 62 and the X2 6000+.

I have a lot of those set to auto, just make sure that anything that includes the words Spread Spectrum is disabled.

A lot of people do find overclocking and tweaking computers analogous to doing the same to cars. When it comes down to it, the general idea is the same, getting more out of your machine. I stick with PCs because im poor :p (and my car is leased). We have a couple threads in our General Discussion section about cars and you will see a lot of unique vehicles many with a ton of time and money invested in them.

Good luck.
 
What kind of temps are you getting with that ultra90?

Those are pretty light and cheap. I'm thinking I may be able to do 3ghz with the voltage you're running. Looking for temps from coretemp and "temp3" in speedfan with full dual prime95.

Boostm3... You've only just begun. Wait until your cpu starts getting a little "thirsty." Can't justify the price anymore for myself, but I've had a lot of fun with watercooling in the past.
 
Shroomer said:
What kind of temps are you getting with that ultra90?

Those are pretty light and cheap. I'm thinking I may be able to do 3ghz with the voltage you're running. Looking for temps from coretemp and "temp3" in speedfan with full dual prime95.

Boostm3... You've only just begun. Wait until your cpu starts getting a little "thirsty." Can't justify the price anymore for myself, but I've had a lot of fun with watercooling in the past.

Oh man.. reminds me of my supercharger.. First got it to run 8 psi boost with no intercooling. But on hot summer days, the thing slowed to almost stock-like. So, in went an intercooler, but not air to air; nope... water to air! Plus I have water injection, so, i aint exactly new to water cooling... on car engines, that is! embarking on this doesnt feel very different from how it felt to suprcharge my M3 :D btw, does cpu temp increase only in so far as your cpu voltage is bumped up? that is, if youre able to get get speed increases out of your cpu without raising voltage, will temps stay the same as they are now?
 
No doubt if I didn't have one I would hook up an Ultra-90 for this price:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=505160

CoreTemp is way off, it reports temps ranging from way below ambient to slightly above (like 15C at stock, 30C overclocked to max). Temp3 reports temps from 40-45 at 2.9 1.375V (set in bios, CPU-Z and other programs report 1.44V) depending on ambient. Most of the time I am running at 2.8 stock voltage, and temp right now is 35C according to Speedfan.

Mind you even my SpeedFan temps might be low, I had a Rev1 mobo before this (rmaed when NIC died) and temps with that were around 50-55C load at 2.9ghz.

boostm3 (I just understood your username, heh) the CPU will heat up with overclocking whether you change the voltage or not. Although generally temperature increases from voltage changes are more significant, and it is more important to have lower temps when voltage is changed. BTW, what kind of cooling do you have?
 
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