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Help Please - Squeeze some life into a 3 year old system - Asus M4A 785-M

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DustyChip

New Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Thank you for these forums. This is my first post and if I have not posted in the correct forum I apologize.

I want to squeeze a couple of more years out of this system. My primary focus is 3D gaming.

Windows 7 Pro 32Bit
Asus M4A 785-M (BIOS V02.61 / 0906 04/14/10 - AMI)
4GB Ram: 2 x 1GB(400Mhz), 1 x 2GB(333Mhz) Kingston chips.
AMD Phenom II X2 559 (Stock 3410 Mhz)
600W Power Supply(new purchase)
MSI Nvidia GTX 560 Ti (new purchase)

The MB is supposed to have all kinds of jumperless overclocking potential but currently it is stock. I am willing to spend ~ $100 but not more.

How best to begin overclocking to get some more juice please? My current 3d Mark11 score is P3600, it really fails during the Physics testing. Thank you.
 
Welcome Dusty! AMD isnt my thing, however in my signature is a link to overclocking AMD CPU's. I would take a look at that. Im not sure how far you will be able to overclock considering the motherboard is a budget board and I dont see any heatsinks in the power delivery area.

As far as the Physics test, it will drag (fail means something else, like it doesnt work). That test needs more than 2 cores for significant improvement.

You will likely need another cooler, and keep temps at 55C or less.
 
Get HWINFO, and monitor your core and cpu temps when running prime95, which you can download for free too...Just select the test small fft's, that will give you a quick idea of your stability and temps before testing more thoroughly. Core temps should be below 55c and cpu temps shouldn't be more than 10c higher than core.
Refer to Dolk's guide as suggested.
 
Is that an X2 555 BE? I don't know what a 559 model chip is. If it's the x2 555, just up the multiplier in BIOS to overclock. You could also try using core unlocker to see if it can unlock additional properly working cores (key words being properly working) to increase performance.
 
...
The MB is supposed to have all kinds of jumperless overclocking potential but currently it is stock. I am willing to spend ~ $100 but not more...

Your board is rated 125w... check out this if you're willing to put money into it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808

The next thing would be memory: that board only supports ddr2 memory, dual channel. That means the two one gig 400 (DDR2-800) sticks should each be in one of the channels and the other 2 g stick of 333 (DDR2-666) should be removed to get optimum dual channel performance. 2 gig isn't much these days if you've a 64 bit OS but you're running 32 bit.

To improve on your memory if you wanted to use a 64 bit OS you should dump all the memory and buy a 4gig, 2 sim kit of DDR2-1066 or 1200. Stay to a two-sim kit cause that's what the Asus web site suggests. I'm really not sure how cheap that is 'cause obsolete memory is generally more expensive. At any rate, those are the choices with your money today!

I suspect that with 4 gig of DDR2-1066, that 955be and everything properly configured your machine would be like a new computer to you, that's before you started experimenting with OC's!

Be careful overclocking 'cause you can easily exceed the power rating of your motherboard. But at least it's an Asus and not likely to smoke on you!
 
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That board does have several useful features for overclocking. I've managed to get some pretty good numbers out of a notoriously difficult chip with the same mobo. Even waited a month for the RMA process to get me a new one , LOL. You can get a manual here http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=1&m=M4A785-M&hashedid=ef0qgvMIwOUagAVl That will cover what the features are , but you'll still want to come back here for how to use them effectively as the manual doesn't cover that. If you can print it out and hit 'Delete' while your computer boots you can familiarize yourself with the BIOS. You'll be spending some time there in the near future. :D

But at least it's an Asus and not likely to smoke on you!
+1 on that. I beat mine like a rented mule for two years before it died-and ASUS gave me a new one. :clap:
BTW , the current BIOS for that board is 1006. The EZ Flash feature makes updating it pretty easy.
 
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+1 on that. I beat mine like a rented mule for two years before it died-and ASUS gave me a new one. :clap:
BTW , the current BIOS for that board is 1006. The EZ Flash feature makes updating it pretty easy.

Thanks everyone for the replies and suggestions. I have upgraded to latest BIOS, thank you Alaric.

I have done lots of reading here and everywhere and I have a beginners knowledge now of where I stand. In my original post I said I was running at 3410 Mhz as stock but I see now that is actually an Overclock Profile of 10% which works out to multiplier on the CPU of 15.5 which is max. I'm not sure if I should proceed to OC it more. This is a Black Edition chip and I fiddled around with the AMD AOD tool but did not get very far with it on my first attempts.

The chip apparently has 2 locked cores but I have not read any compelling arguments yet that unlocking them results in much of a boost, that idea is on the back burner.

BuddyWh suggests I could put in a bigger chip and I did source the same one local to me for $89 plus taxes.

Now which upgrade would give me the most bang? The bigger 955 quad core CPU or faster matched DDR2 or DDR3 RAM do you think?
 
That motherboard is DDR2 only , but should support DDR2 1066 before OC. I would imagine the P II X4 would show a more noticeable gain , though.
 
I would try to unlock your chip before you look to purchase a new one. Unlocking from a x2 to a x4 will give you the most noticeable performance increase. Then look to upgrade your ram to 4Gb in a 2x2Gb setup. Also if your still on the stock cooler look to upgrade that for more overclocking headroom as well.
 
...Unlocking from a x2 to a x4 will give you the most noticeable performance increase...

How do you propose unlocking the extra core(s)? Not saying there's no way... but my understanding is the MoBo BIOS has to support doing this and I didn't see anything about it on Asus' web.

Is there a software-only method?
 
How do you propose unlocking the extra core(s)? Not saying there's no way... but my understanding is the MoBo BIOS has to support doing this and I didn't see anything about it on Asus' web.

Is there a software-only method?

It is in the bios. I tried it last night and it was easy enough but it resulted in screen artifacts and instability all around. I probably need to fiddle with some voltages to get it smooth. I'll Google around tonight and give it another go. Thanks
 
Welcome to the forum Dusty. Gauging by your needs and your upgrade options with your current setup and that you are in the mood to spend "About $100 " I would take $80 and buy this 120 GB 500 MB/S R/W SSD. I am not trying to discourage you from OCing your rig to squeeze a couple percent more out of it, I actually encourage you to do so, but in the end the difference you will experience compared to what you have now will be really hard to notice in actual in game performance.

What you the user will experience as the biggest change for $100 would in my opinion be to grab an SSD. It will change your entire Gaming experience. I would not waste money getting more/faster DDR2. It is way expensive and slower compared to what you can get DDR3 for. You could literally get a cheap Open Box DDR3 Mobo and 8 GB of DDR3 for about what you would pay for some good DDR2, and the difference between the speeds would of course be night and day. In your case I would probably keep your Page File on and have it on the SSD only. Don't have Page on a spinner. This alone removes a constant *tick* in games when the Page is written to an old spinner. The best option is to go with no Page File, but IMO you don't have quite enough RAM to do that - depending on what games you play. The second best option is to keep your Page File and write it to SSD. A 500 MB/S Page Write tick is hardly noticeable compared to the snag created when writing it to a spinner. Disregard those who jump in and say you are going to wear your SSD out by writing Page to it. That is the "Plastic Seat Covers on the Furniture" mentality. The reality is that your SSD will likely be as obsolete as a Comoodore 64 by the time it wears out.
 
Welcome to the forum Dusty. Gauging by your needs and your upgrade options with your current setup and that you are in the mood to spend "About $100 " I would take $80 and buy this 120 GB 500 MB/S R/W SSD.
Thank you for your reply.

Interesting, I had not thought of that. So the SSD is for the swap only or should I put the OS and/or game files on it too? I don't mind reformat of the OS, it could probably use a good scrub.
Thank you.
 
The SSD is for your OS and then some games. W7 usually takes up ~25-30 GB, then go ahead and let it have a good 4 GB or so Page file on it for your setup, and then you will still have about ~90 GB on the SSD. If you play Steam games and your folder will fit on there I would do that, or just stack your favorite games on there. OS boot and Game load times will of course be off of the charts fast, but adding an SSD really makes everything snappier. When you upgrade to a new mob/CPU eventually, the SSD will still be there regardless of whatever gear you go with. I recently upgraded this rig and used the parts of my last incarnation (M5A97 EVO/ AMD 555BE Kingston SSD) to build a new Print Design rig for the wife, and she is amazed at the speed of browsing pictures- etc when using an SSD based system compared to the antique crap she has to use at work or her old home rig- an old bulbous Mac thingy. If your current OS is on a huge drive partition that will not fit on the SSD or could just benefit by being re-installed I would go ahead and do it. And then just migrate your favorites and playlist-etc from your current one and you are good to go. Whatever choices you make to upgrade in the future you won't regret getting an SSD and you will wonder why you waited so long- AND I bet you never own a system that is all spinners ever again.
 
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