I finally decided to join the nforce 2 club and even though DFI was expensive, I couldnt say no to the gigabit lan and added IDE cables that came along with it (probably worth 15 bucks each), and heck even a carrying case.... sweet.
One of the first things I did was install the 1/31 beta bios, and it gave me nothing but problems. Anything 200Mhz+ even at cas 3-4-4-4-8 would fail in memtest tests 5 and 6. I changed every voltage imaginable, even put the core voltage to 1.9 briefly and still the machine would hardlock in tests 5 and 6 running just 8x200. (Regardless of CPC enabled or disabled) This led me to believe something was definately not working right.
After installing the latest official bios release 11/27 from here all of my problems went away. I could run cas 3-4-4-4-8 at 220Mhz stable now if I wanted to... Dont laugh at my timings its crappy ram lol.
One thing I noticed while tweaking was memtests 5 and 6 gave me the most problems, and I found that if I didnt have enough voltage to the CPU, it would hardlock and I'd have to reboot. If I didnt have enough voltage to the memory, or the memory was set too fast, it would just give me some memory errors and not hardlock at all. Either way knowing the difference between the hardlocking and memory errors would let me know exactly which is responsible - ram voltage or cpu voltage. In my experience with this board, the cpu and ram voltage are truely independant of each other. So just change one setting at a time.
-If you're getting tons of memory errors, change the timings, add voltage, or lower the overall fsb speed.
-If you are hardlocking, the CPU might be the culprit. Maybe it needs more voltage, or maybe you need to lower the overall cpu speed.
In my opinion its easier to get the memory set up stable while using a low multiplier, (even running the cpu a little lower than its rated speed), and then once it passes memtest at least a few times through go ahead and work on upping the cpu speed via multiplier because you KNOW the memory is good to go.
Anyways to sum it all up, its running looped memory testing at 2-3-3-3-6 200x11.5 with 1.75vcore, needs 3.1vmem, and running 1.5vagp/1.6chipset just for good measure. No problems as of yet. I choose to go with a lower fsb speed because it gives me more headroom as far as overall overclock goes. 220x10 requires more vcore power than 200x11, just to run at even ~1.8Ghz. These Durons really dont like higher fsb speeds unless you pump a lot of voltage through them. So I figure if I lower the fsb I can probably squeeze more out of the top end with the same vcore voltage. Maybe I will try for 2.4Ghz soon.
I hope this might help for any other Applebred users out there... Not sure why the beta bios didnt work for me, maybe something to do with running a Duron?
I've pushed a few older A7V-133's a little too far, and they have toasted/fried easily so on bootup they wont post at all no matter what. This board has handled most everything I throw at it, and when I had deja vu with the DFI not posting, a good solid cmos clearing was all it needed (which happens very rarely) Very robust board. You done good DFI.
DFI Lanparty 2 Ultra B
Corsair XMS PC2700 rated 2-3-3-6 2.6volts
Geforce 2 ti200 (I'm poor)
Nforce2 audio blows my santa cruz out of the water! No offense santa cruz fanboys
Applebred 1.8Ghz frys special, with Thermalright AX7
350watt enermax PSU
One of the first things I did was install the 1/31 beta bios, and it gave me nothing but problems. Anything 200Mhz+ even at cas 3-4-4-4-8 would fail in memtest tests 5 and 6. I changed every voltage imaginable, even put the core voltage to 1.9 briefly and still the machine would hardlock in tests 5 and 6 running just 8x200. (Regardless of CPC enabled or disabled) This led me to believe something was definately not working right.
After installing the latest official bios release 11/27 from here all of my problems went away. I could run cas 3-4-4-4-8 at 220Mhz stable now if I wanted to... Dont laugh at my timings its crappy ram lol.
One thing I noticed while tweaking was memtests 5 and 6 gave me the most problems, and I found that if I didnt have enough voltage to the CPU, it would hardlock and I'd have to reboot. If I didnt have enough voltage to the memory, or the memory was set too fast, it would just give me some memory errors and not hardlock at all. Either way knowing the difference between the hardlocking and memory errors would let me know exactly which is responsible - ram voltage or cpu voltage. In my experience with this board, the cpu and ram voltage are truely independant of each other. So just change one setting at a time.
-If you're getting tons of memory errors, change the timings, add voltage, or lower the overall fsb speed.
-If you are hardlocking, the CPU might be the culprit. Maybe it needs more voltage, or maybe you need to lower the overall cpu speed.
In my opinion its easier to get the memory set up stable while using a low multiplier, (even running the cpu a little lower than its rated speed), and then once it passes memtest at least a few times through go ahead and work on upping the cpu speed via multiplier because you KNOW the memory is good to go.
Anyways to sum it all up, its running looped memory testing at 2-3-3-3-6 200x11.5 with 1.75vcore, needs 3.1vmem, and running 1.5vagp/1.6chipset just for good measure. No problems as of yet. I choose to go with a lower fsb speed because it gives me more headroom as far as overall overclock goes. 220x10 requires more vcore power than 200x11, just to run at even ~1.8Ghz. These Durons really dont like higher fsb speeds unless you pump a lot of voltage through them. So I figure if I lower the fsb I can probably squeeze more out of the top end with the same vcore voltage. Maybe I will try for 2.4Ghz soon.
I hope this might help for any other Applebred users out there... Not sure why the beta bios didnt work for me, maybe something to do with running a Duron?
I've pushed a few older A7V-133's a little too far, and they have toasted/fried easily so on bootup they wont post at all no matter what. This board has handled most everything I throw at it, and when I had deja vu with the DFI not posting, a good solid cmos clearing was all it needed (which happens very rarely) Very robust board. You done good DFI.
DFI Lanparty 2 Ultra B
Corsair XMS PC2700 rated 2-3-3-6 2.6volts
Geforce 2 ti200 (I'm poor)
Nforce2 audio blows my santa cruz out of the water! No offense santa cruz fanboys
Applebred 1.8Ghz frys special, with Thermalright AX7
350watt enermax PSU
