ASUS AMD Beta BIOS

These BIOS are designed to help with the Thuban X6 Support. They are unofficial Beta Bios releases provided by Bingo (who works for Asus).

These are Beta BIOS, please use caution when using

This thread is for officially released Beta BIOS' for ASUS AMD products. These BIOS releases are not fully QC validated yet but are final release candidates with fixes to address user problems. As always, use at your own risk and we will track problems reported for analysis and replication.

01/10/2011 Update - Starting to get releases out of qualification testing now.

ASUS M4A89TD-Pro - Release 1102

1. New CPU Support
2. Improved Voltage Support
3. Improved Clocking
4. Minor Bug Fixes
https://www.yousendit.com/download/RlRyUWV0bTg5eFZjR0E9PQ
http://www.mediafire.com/?caa1dvi1oic9tcn

ASUS Crosshair Formula IV - Release 1304

1. New CPU Support
2. Improved Voltage Support
3. Improved Clocking
4. Minor Bug Fixes
https://www.yousendit.com/download/RlRyUWVnNDQ5eFh2Wmc9PQ
http://www.mediafire.com/?udbzz4b6pj94kkk

Beta BIOS Releases in Validation Testing as of 1/10/2011-
Just about all of them.

Quick Overview of Critical 1304 BIOS Settings -
PWM Phase Control:
- This option allows user to choose whether or not the CPU VRM power phases should change dynamically with respect to the change of CPU load. This option along with CPU and CPU/NB LLC will allow the user to fine tune the PWM and CPU voltages for improved overclocking or limiting voltage overshoots during overclocking.

CPU Voltage OCP:
- This option allows the user to disable the “Over Current Protection” of the CPU. Enabling this option may allow the CPU to consume more current than the safety range defined by AMD, but might assist in high overclocks, especially under extreme cooling. Please treat this option with extreme care to prevent permanent damage to the CPU.

CPU PWM Frequency:
- This option allows user to override the switching frequency of the CPU PWM controller. Raising this option may assist in ensuring power delivery is more stable under overclocking conditions but with the cost of higher operating temperatures of the CPU PWM controller.

CPU Load-Line Calibration:
- This option allows user to decide whether or not the motherboard should lower the CPU Vcore as the current consumption of the CPU voltage raises to meet the CPU load-line spec defined by AMD. Users can now choose other levels of Load-Line Calibration in the 1304 BIOS to lower the amount of voltage the Vcore is raised up to or over normal load line voltages as CPU loading increases. Most air/water overclocks should use 50~75% levels for maximum clocks along with tuning of the VRM options. Due to the design of the AMD Phenom series, realize that certain voltage overshoots will be present in Core 0.

CPU/NB Load-Line Calibration:
- This option allows user to decide whether or not the motherboard should lower the CPU/NB voltage as the current consumption of the CPU/NB voltage raises to meet the CPU load-line spec defined by AMD. Users can now choose other levels of Load-Line Calibration in the 1304 BIOS to lower the amount of voltage that CPU/NB is raised up to or over normal load line voltages as the CPU/NB loading increases.

CPU/NB Voltage OCP:
- This option allows user to disable the “Over Current Protection” of the CPU/NB (i.e. the memory controller). Enabling this option may allow the CPU/NB to consume more current than the safety range defined by AMD. Please treat this option with extreme care to prevent permanent damage to the CPU.


Original Thread provided by XS Forum: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=252772

(This was not created by me, it is a copy from XS, but I will keep the first post up to date for the convenience of this forum.)

Is the 0901 for the M4A89TD-Pro the same one listed on the ASUS site? If so I have been using it for a bit now and everything seems fine. I didn't see any effect of updating but it seems stable for me.

I believe some of these BIOS have gone into the final stages by now.

Updated original post to reflect XS thread.

I've been subscribed to that for weeks now; I think they forgot about it.

No, I keep in touch with Bingo and they are doing pretty well with beta testing.

Speak of the devil:

bingo13 said:

7/30/2010 Update

I will be posting several new BIOS releases late today for the 890FX and 890GX motherboards based on a completely new AGESA code base. I will warn everyone now that updating to this BIOS code means you cannot flash back to a previous BIOS and we will not have a tool to do it. That said now that we over this programming exercise there will be enhancements to the new code in the future but more importantly the BIOS team is back to work on the 790/780/785/880 chipsets.

Click to expand...

Seems there is a good reason for the wait, they re-wrote the whole darn thing!

EDIT - I got curious and searched around. Per this forum post from two years ago, AGESA is:

"...The AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA) is a library of validated processor procedures designed to aid customers with quick adoption of AMD technology into their products...this agesa code was responsible at power-up, for changing the CPU "P-state" from Min P-state, (minimum frequency, reduced power consumption) to the maximum performance max P-state..."

Click to expand...

Also, here's wiki:

AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA), is a bootstrap protocol by which system devices on AMD64-architecture mainboards are initialized. The AGESA software in the BIOS of such mainboards is responsible for the initialization of the processor cores, memory, and the HyperTransport controller. AGESA documentation is available only to AMD partners that have signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Click to expand...

...potentially fixed Turbo issues? I sure hope so! (Fixed voltage issues would be nice as well.)

Any news on an updated BIOs for the M4N98TD EVO?

im confused which ones are for the crosshair IV???

There was a cross IV BIOS up there, but Bingo took it down. Let me see if I can't dig it up.


NVM, the latest BIOS for the IV is 0905 which is on their website. www.support.asus.com

Speaking of the Crosshair IV, is the vDrop and VDroop issues still around? Did the 0905 fix the issue?


Edit-Thanks Dolk, you are the man when it comes to this AMD overclocking stuff!

Yes It did, let me update this thread.

im hoping the new bios for ch3 is good for me...
1702 stole my xmp1600 profile cant make it work like that now for nothing....

ok dolk im a little lost i have a M4a89gtd pro usb3 what would be the best bios for overclocking??

New betas up from Bingo:

bingo13 said:

01/10/2011 Update - Starting to get releases out of qualification testing now.

ASUS M4A89TD-Pro - Release 1102

1. New CPU Support
2. Improved Voltage Support
3. Improved Clocking
4. Minor Bug Fixes
https://www.yousendit.com/download/RlRyUWV0bTg5eFZjR0E9PQ
http://www.mediafire.com/?caa1dvi1oic9tcn

ASUS Crosshair Formula IV - Release 1304

1. New CPU Support
2. Improved Voltage Support
3. Improved Clocking
4. Minor Bug Fixes
https://www.yousendit.com/download/RlRyUWVnNDQ5eFh2Wmc9PQ
http://www.mediafire.com/?udbzz4b6pj94kkk

Beta BIOS Releases in Validation Testing as of 1/10/2011-
Just about all of them.

If your board is not on the list, it does not mean we are not looking at improvements, just that we have not reached beta release and validation test process.

Click to expand...

Oohh.. gonna have to try out the new BIOS for the CHIV. Thx for the update Hokie.

Updated

Notes on the new CIVF BIOS from bingo:

bingo13 said:

Quick Overview of Critical 1304 BIOS Settings -
PWM Phase Control:
- This option allows user to choose whether or not the CPU VRM power phases should change dynamically with respect to the change of CPU load. This option along with CPU and CPU/NB LLC will allow the user to fine tune the PWM and CPU voltages for improved overclocking or limiting voltage overshoots during overclocking.

CPU Voltage OCP:
- This option allows the user to disable the “Over Current Protection” of the CPU. Enabling this option may allow the CPU to consume more current than the safety range defined by AMD, but might assist in high overclocks, especially under extreme cooling. Please treat this option with extreme care to prevent permanent damage to the CPU.

CPU PWM Frequency:
- This option allows user to override the switching frequency of the CPU PWM controller. Raising this option may assist in ensuring power delivery is more stable under overclocking conditions but with the cost of higher operating temperatures of the CPU PWM controller.

CPU Load-Line Calibration:
- This option allows user to decide whether or not the motherboard should lower the CPU Vcore as the current consumption of the CPU voltage raises to meet the CPU load-line spec defined by AMD. Users can now choose other levels of Load-Line Calibration in the 1304 BIOS to lower the amount of voltage the Vcore is raised up to or over normal load line voltages as CPU loading increases. Most air/water overclocks should use 50~75% levels for maximum clocks along with tuning of the VRM options. Due to the design of the AMD Phenom series, realize that certain voltage overshoots will be present in Core 0.

CPU/NB Load-Line Calibration:
- This option allows user to decide whether or not the motherboard should lower the CPU/NB voltage as the current consumption of the CPU/NB voltage raises to meet the CPU load-line spec defined by AMD. Users can now choose other levels of Load-Line Calibration in the 1304 BIOS to lower the amount of voltage that CPU/NB is raised up to or over normal load line voltages as the CPU/NB loading increases.

CPU/NB Voltage OCP:
- This option allows user to disable the “Over Current Protection” of the CPU/NB (i.e. the memory controller). Enabling this option may allow the CPU/NB to consume more current than the safety range defined by AMD. Please treat this option with extreme care to prevent permanent damage to the CPU.

Working on a tuning guide with a retail 1100T now.

Click to expand...

Was just about to put that at the top

wise words from chew

OCP DISABLED disables Overcurrent protection.

Most common place that you would run into OCP is on ln2 running say wprime 1024m.

Symptoms of OCP is a complete powerdown where board will not fire back up without the PSU being cycled on and off.

If you think OCP is kicking in on air/water/phase/DI you are surely mistaken, it takes over 6 gig all cores loaded to trigger OCP in my experience.

I highly suggest if you do not experience these symptoms that you do not disable OCP.......OCP protects your hardware.

Commonly people hard mod boards and or video cards for this, in fact I originally requested a mod only after speaking with some reviewers who tested on ln2 however ASUS chose to do it via bios.

In most cases overclockers will not notice OCP on air/water/phase/DI.

Yes it is very easy to mess up an X6 with excessive cpu_nb volts.

I reccomend for safety no more than 1.35 on air......

LLC enabled is out of SPEC for AMD cpu's, intel for that matter to. Use it with caution, its always better to have a little droop than none at all.

I have experimented with the PWM frequency on cold and normal temps, I really saw no major gains and reccomend auto for most users.

My personal reccomendations for 24/7 users is 50% core only LLC and leave the rest auto only on thuban, its not needed for deneb.

My personal reccomendation for ln2 users is 100% llc cpu, 50% llc CPU_NB and OCP disabled for NB and CPU, if you must for whatever reason feel the need for PWM run 500K while on ln2...............

Click to expand...