? for torgo, or anyone who knows ASUS A7N8X

[flyboy320]

I just purchsed the ASUS A7N8X deluxe m/b with a AMD +2400, 512 D400 ram .

When I boot the computer, the startup bios screen shows the cpu as a AMD +1800, and the ram speed as 200mhz.

Do I have to flash the bios with the latest version? I assumed the board would be good to go with this cpu, or is there a possibility that the cpu really is a AMD +1800?

 

[JSanguancheu]

Hi,

Most motherboards come set at 100Mhz FSB. Which is why your CPU and memory are showing lower ratings than expected.

You need to go into BIOS and change it to 133Mhz for the CPU and 200Mhz for the memory.

Here's a chart:
DDR RAM is only made for the following FSB's (MHz)

100Mhz: (200 DDR) PC1600 & 200Mhz FSB Athlon <=1400
133Mhz: (266 DDR) PC2100 & 266Mhz FSB Athlon, XP Tbred <=XP 2600
166Mhz: (333 DDR) PC2700 & Athlon XP Tbred >=XP2700
200Mhz: (400 DDR) PC3200

Hope that helps..

 

[flyboy320]

JSanguancheu,

Thanks for the reply.

I did as you suggested, and now the cpu reports as AMD +2400

As far as the memory speed goes, I thought DDR400 (pc-3200)should run at 400mhz, and not 200mhz as reported by the bios?

 

[JSanguancheu]

DDR memory is a bit tricky. It stands for Double Data Rate. So when they rate the memory, they use a multiplier of 2.

I know, the memory speed rating system is all botched up, but thats the way it is.. Just have to know what it all means.

Where they get the PC# rating is an even more fun story...lol
Take the DDR speed and multiply by 8. Why you ask? Search the internet..

It's all marketing to make the product sound bigger and faster..

Just like the Athlon XP ratings..they're not the real Mhz speed of the CPUs either.

 

[flyboy320]

OK, Thanks.........

So on boot when it shows the memory at 200mhz, that is correct for DDR400?

 

[torgo]

yep, your memorys o.k. Sorry I forgot to tell you about the 100/133 fsb thing.

-how do you like the speed?

-the soundstorm sound is pretty good too.

-I wouldn't bother with sata hd yet till they get better at it.

 

[flyboy320]

torgo,

thanks for all your help in the forums here.

the system a7n8xdelux, AMD xp2400,512mb(2x256) DDR,MSI TI4200 8X 128MB DDR rocks

you mentioned you did some tweaks. are there any that are easy to do to get the most from this system?

I just ran 3Dmarks 2001SE, and got a score of around 6,700. How the heck did you manage over 11,000?

 

[torgo]

wow you must have run it with high res and antialiasing on.

what settings did you use in 3dse?

as far as tweaking the easiest quick teweak is to use the 3dturbo program that came with you msi card to set the core at 250 and the mem at 533 which will speed your graphics up some. (the temp of the card will rise about 10 degrees as well so you might want additinal cooling from either

http://www.1coolpc.com/

or

http://http://66.70.212.146/ which is crazypc.com

-in the bios try setting performance to "aggressive"

-check out the forums at http://www.nforcershq.com/ the folks there do some crazy stuff and are as friendly as folks here. the a7n8x faq is awesome!

when you see marks like 11000 and up it's usually in 800X600 with AA turned off.

in higer res with AA on I get like 8 to 9000


my cpu's are not overclocked since they are palomino's and I don't wanna do the wire trick.

did you check out http://www.americasarmy.com/ yet?

pretty cool for a free game.

I'm going to trick one of my machines out with lights and crap this week and add a video cooler so I may try to bump up the video card speed a tad.

Good luck & glad your happy with the board. they can be flackey but once you get em going they rock!

 

[flyboy320]

Great sites, lots of info....

Even with the resolution at 800*600 16bit, the best score I can get is 9200.

here are my bios settings

Advanced chipset

cpu external frequency 133
cpu frequency multiple setting auto
cpu frequency multiple 12.5*/13*
system performance optimal
cpu interface optimal
memory frequency BY SPD
resulting frequency 200
memory timing optimal
sdram active precharge delay 8
sdram ras to cas delay 4
sdram ras precharge delay 4
sdram cas latency 3T
fsb spread spectrum disabled
agp spread spectrum disabled
cpu vcore setting auto
cpu vcore 1.65
graphics aperature size 128mb
agp frequency auto
system bios cacheable disabled
video ram cacheable disabled
ddr refeance voltage 2.6
agp vddq voltage 1.54
agp 8* support enabled
agp fast write enabled

The only other setting I think may be a problem is when i right click on the desktop, select "properties", "MSI information", inside the "AGP information" box, I cannot check off any of the boxes. ie., AGP traffic enable, SBA enable, 8*,4*,2*,1*. The boxes are not grayed out, but none are checked off, and I cannot check them off myself. Seems to me that the 8* should be checked off as thats what's set in the bios.

Anyway, getting late, gotta get some sleep, and thanks again for eveyones help................

 

[torgo]

set system performance to aggressive

cpu interface to aggressive

memory timing to aggressive

memory frequency to auto


you should see a jump to @ 11,000 at 800X 600 32 bit

hope this helps

 

[flyboy320]

torgo,

Well I tried the settings you suggested, and can only get a little above 8000.

3Dmark under system info shows the AGP as 4x and 8x (4x enabled). Is this what yours shows? I thought it should be 8x.

Also when I right click on the desktop, select "properties", "MSI information", inside the "AGP information" box, I cannot check off any of the boxes. ie., AGP traffic enable, SBA enable, 8*,4*,2*,1*. The boxes are not grayed out, but none are checked off. Are all yours empty as well?

 

[torgo]

try downloading the latest unified drivers from http://www.nvidia.com


enable cahceing of bios and video ram

run 3dse at 800X600 32 bit with AA off

what do you get?


what kind of hdd and memory do you have?

 

[flyboy320]

Well that was my problem. Some of the gart drivers did not install correctly. With them now installed, my score has gone from 7500 to over 12,000

Thanks for all your help................

 

[torgo]

Fast little buggers out of the box, eh?

you might hit 13-14 K with gpu overclocked but heck 12k+ is plenty fast for anything out there right now