High overclocking success w/ cooler chipset

I was having great success overclocking 845G MaxL just by putting a small (approx. 0.75x.075x0.25 inch) copper slab underneath the chipset heatsink and an ordinary white goo thermal compund.
I already tried three (yes, 3) Pentium 4 1.6As  on this mobo before modding the chipset HS. All CPUs uses 1.52-1.54 volt Vcore actual and was run at 2.464GHZ 154x4 FSB. Each cpu was tested for about 10-12 hrs for 3 days and fortunately run rock stable (using 2 hrs prime95, quake3, 10 loops sandra 2002pro, 10 loops 3dmark2001se, 15 loops PC Mark 2002,played SOF2 game,etc.). Then, I tested all CPUs at 157-160 FSB and all failed to run stably.
Now, I decided to mod the chipset HS (its very hot to touch).....wow! rock stable at 160FSB(2.56GHZ) without increasing Vcore!(I was wondering why most overclockers out there with P4 1.6A needs Vcore higher than 1.6v. According to intel P4 northwood manual, 1.6A northwood needs at least 1.36-1.45v to run. SO 1.52-1.54 IS ENOUGH TO OVERCLOCK.) Ill test 162FSB this weekend.
Spec:
BOXED P4 1.6A (man. Jan 25, 2002 Costa Rica) best
BOXED P4 1.6A (man. May 04, 2002 Malaysia) v.good
BOXED P4 1.6A  (man. March 2002 Malaysia) v. good
Samsung PC2700 256mb @ DDR426 2.6v 2.5,3,3,6
Inno3d GF4 ti4200 @ 300/600
SBLIVE player
WIN XP pro
Scores: 2.56GHZ@160FSB
SANDRA 2002 PRO CPU 5015/3118
                              Mult  10106/12635
                              mem 3220/3238
PCMArk 2002         CPU  6309
                              mem 6548
3D mark 2001SE build 330:  11965 mark
QUAKE3 v1.17 Demo 1 normal :345.7fps

"btw also whats your memory again samsung ddr333 or ddr400 or ddr420 jus what u mentioned... "
I'm using single-sided 256MB Samsung DDR333.  
I tested  845G Max-L at 162FSB (CPU 2.592GHZ) these past few days  and it's rock stable!(although, I have to increase Vcore just a bit to 1.57-1.58 actual). Cooling I845G chipset  really helps a lot in overclocking.
BTW, EmAzY, if you were still there...what mobo are u using?... and the details about your CPU.
I read somewhere in the net that SIS645DX and Intel 845E are bad chipsets for overclockers who want high FSB (above 133MHZ) simply because these chipsets are “overclocked versions” of older SIS645 and I845D respectively which were meant to run only at 100MHZ QPB(i.e 400FSB). I'm not sure with these though.
SPECS:
P4 1.6A at 2.592GHZ (now cooled by Tt Volcano 7+)
256mb Samsung at 213.3333MHZx2 or DDR426 using 2.7volts
MSI 845G Max-L w/ modified chipset cooler (Bios 1.4)
Inno3D GF4 ti4200 at 300/600 (AGP at 1.6 volts)
SBLIVE Player, Maxtor DX740 40GB.
WIN XP Pro, Detonator 30.80, IAA 2.2, Inf 4.13.

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    Okay, one last thing to consider before the overclocking starts.  Cooling is important in general and especially if you are going to be overclocking.  While a 90 nm Athlon64 performs rather admirably from a thermal perspective even when only stock cooling components are used, some simple modifications can drop your idle/load temps by 5+ degrees, which can give you a bit more overclocking headroom and which in any event will make your CPU happier. 
    Case Fans - The first thing you want to do is make sure your case is adequately ventilated...in general a single 120 mm exhaust fan will do the job just fine.  If your case does not support fans this large, use at least two 80 mm fans, either both as exhaust, or one as exhaust and one as intake (if they perform differently, use the more powerful one as the exhaust fan to avoid overpressuring your case).  If noise is a concern, the Vantec Stealth (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-999-614&depa=1) series of case fans are affordable, come in a variety of sizes, perform quite well, and do not make much noise at all (though you might want to consider doubling up on the 120 mm's just to be on the safe side).  This can lower your CPU temp by about 2 to 5 degrees over a poorly ventilated case configuration using the same CPU fan.
    CPU Fan - As I mentioned earlier, the default CPU fan that comes packaged with the retail Athlon64 chips is perfectly acceptable for overclocking use in my opinion.  The only complaint I have is that the thermal compound that comes preapplied to the HSF is fairly cheap and does not perform that well.  I *very strongly* recommend replacing it with Arctic Silver (http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm) before ever installing it on your CPU.  To remove the default thermal pad, you can use a razor blade to get most of it off, and then hot soapy water (or denatured alcohol I've heard) to remove any remaining reside.  Be sure that the HSF is free of any cleaning residue and also of any moisture before going to install it on the CPU, and then just apply the Arctic Silver and then complete the HSF installation, and you're good to go.  Arctic Silver is relatively cheap (the tube you'll get will do several CPU's, and it doesn't go bad), and by replacing the thermal pad that comes on the stock HSF with it, you should be able to reduce your idle/load times by at least 5 degrees, and with this plus the added reduction you get from having a well ventilated case, you should have enough headroom to pull off some pretty aggressive overclocks.
    Overclocking:
    Finally, on to the good (and Neo4 specific) stuff.  Hopefully at this point you have a freshly built Neo4 based system with an Athlon64 CPU that provides a large headroom for overclocking.
    Initial Setup - Okay, the first thing you're going to want to do once the system is built and powered on for the first time is enter the BIOS and configure everything to run at its *default* settings.  It's not quite time to overclock yet.  First, you want to install Windows, patch it to SP2 if necessary, and then install some benchmarking, stress testing, and monitoring software.  SiSoft Sandra is a good benchmark suite, as are FutureMark's PCMark and 3dMark lines of software.  For stress testing you can use SuperPi and Prime95 (and Memtest86 if you don't mind the tedium of having to reboot in order to use it, which I do so I don't bother with it).  For monitoring you can use SpeedFan or Motherboard Monitor 5.  At the very least you should install one application from each category, and configure your monitoring software to launch when Windows loads.  One you have all this configured and working right, it's time to start overclocking (don't install too much else, in case of the worst case scenario in which an instability causes your HDD to become corrupted, requiring a reinstall of Windows and all the software, which is admittedly very unlikely, but unfortunately possible if you're unlucky enough).  For comparison purposes you may want to run some benchmarks and record the results before you start.  Additionally, you may want to install something like ClockGen, which will let you tweak your FSB/CPU coltage on the fly and which can make it easier to zero in on a stable configuration without having to reboot every time an instability is found.
    BIOS Layout - Just to save some time, I'll describe where BIOS options that we'll be using are all in one place, so that when I reference something you can just look up here and figure out how to find the appropriate setting in the BIOS.  Basically, there are two pages that we're interested in for overclocking (note that the Neo4 manual is actually extremely well done, and describes pretty much all of the BIOS options, so you can use it as well).  The first is the "Advanced Chipset Features" page.  Going "Advanced Chipset Features" -> "DRAM Configuration" brings up pretty much all of your memory related options (divider, timings, etc.), *except* for the RAM voltage.  The RAM voltage option is on the "Cell Menu" page, which happens to also contain all the other settings we are interested in, including FSB speed, HTT multiplier, CPU multiplier, vcore, vmem, chipset voltage, etc..  Basically, if it's not memory related, it's on the "Cell Menu" page.
    HTT Speed - As mentioned earlier, your HTT speed pretty much has no performance impact on the system once it gets to 800+ MHz, so the very first thing you can do is select the 4x HTT multiplier in the BIOS.  Note that as the HTT speed gets above about 1100 MHz, it will probably start to make the system unstable.  Therefore, you should keep track of the product of your FSB setting and your HTT multiplier, and whenever it gets to be above 1100, decrement the HTT multiplier to the next lowest setting.  at a 4x multiplier, you should be good up to about 275 MHz on your FSB.  Because the HTT's impact on performance is negligible, you do not need to worry about trying to maximize its value during overclocking.
    CPU speed - Onve you've reduced your HTT multiplier, it's time to find your max stable core speed.  To do this first go to the memory page and select a memclock index of 100 MHz.  This will run your RAM it half the FSB speed, and the reason for doing this is to ensure that as we raise the FSB, any instability the occurs is a result of the overclocked CPU and not a result of overclocked RAM, so that we can be sure that we have indeed found the maximum stable CPU speed when we are done.  Leave your other RAM settings at their defaults, we'll come back and tweak these later.  Now go to the CPU page and select "Manual" for the "High Performance Mode" option if necessary to enable editing of the settings.  You should disable Dynamic Overclocking (since you are doing this manually) and I recommend disabling Cool'n'Quiet, though you don't have to if you really don't want to.  Disable all the "... Spectrum" settings (what these do is kind of complicated, but the manual plainly states that they should be disabled if you are overclocking, so heed its advice).  Also disable "Aggressive Timing", as this will decrease your RAM overclockability substantially without providing any real benefit (and may make it unstable even at its rated settings).  Now, what you want to do is, leaving the other CPU settings (i.e. vcore and multiplier) the same, start raising your FSB Frequency in 10 to 12 MHz increments, depending on your multiplier (basically you want to raise it about 100 MHz at a time).  Some people feel this is a fairly large jump to do at a time, but I've found that the Athlon64 handles it just fine.  If you get up above about 2.4 GHz, then you might want to only go by half of this at a time though.  Remember to decrement your HTT multiplier as necessary.  Basically, every time you raise the FSB, test for stability by letting the system try to boot to Windows.  If it is successful, return to BIOS and raise the core speed some more.  Once the system fails to boot, you have two options, either raise the CPU voltage (use the "CPU VID" setting in the BIOS to adjust the voltage directly, or the "CPU Voltage" setting to specify how much over the specified amount of voltage to apply...personally I prefer the "CPU VID" route, but it's really a matter of personal preference, and yes, both can be manipulated in unison...one thing I've noticed here is that the "CPU Voltage" settings seem to allow for less variance in the final vcore setting, keeping it very close to the specified voltage at all times, whereas increasing via the "CPU VID" option lets the voltage decrease a bit from the specified value when the system is not under load) and try again (and keep repeating until you have given the CPU as much voltage as you are comfortable with and the system can no longer be made stable), or return to you last stable setting and let it boot.  Once you have done this, use your benchmarking and stress testing software to make sure you really are stable at your settings.  If the system crashes or the test reports errors, you will either need to raise the voltage a little, or lower the FSB a little (this is where ClockGen can be a big timesaver).  While some people swear by Prime95, my opinion is that if you can get through the largest SuperPi test without any errors, your overclock is stable.  Monitor your temps while you do this.  If you notice that the CPU temperature is getting above 60 degrees, you are running a bit too hot.  Generally speaking, about 55 should be considered the threshold of safety here.  If you're running hot, you can either decrease the voltage and FSB settings, or get a better cooling solution.  Once you have determined that your setting is stable and not overheating your CPU, record your core speed (not your FSB speed, the total CPU speed) and voltage settings for later.  You should probably be shooting for a target clock speed of around 2.4 GHz, or more if you have good cooling, or if you are interested in doing a "safe" overclock, just shoot for as high as you can get without raising the voltage.
    Memory Speed - Now that you know your CPU's limits, it's time to work on the RAM.  First restore your FSB to 200 MHz and your CPU voltage to its default, and specify a CPU multiplier of 6x to make sure that the CPU will not be stressed as your raise the FSB.  Go to your RAM page, and manually specify whatever timings are appropriate to your RAM modules.  Also be sure to set "1T/2T Memory Timing" to 1T (set the "... Mode" setting to Manual to make the RAM settings editable).  Leave the rest of the settings alone, except for the "Memclock Index Value".  Here, you have a choice to make.  If you have high quality RAM, or your target CPU speed is not too high (like < 2.3 GHz), you can try to run your RAM synchronously, which will give you somewhat better latency.  If this is the case, select an index value of 200 MHz (note that on the Neo4, when you select a memclock index what you are really specifying in the ratio at which the RAM operates relative to the FSB...the memclock index option is basically just obscuring this setting.  To calculate your ratio, divide whatever the index value is by 200, so an index of 200 MHz is a 1:1 ratio, an index of 150 MHz is a 3:4 ratio, and so on).  If your RAM is not of very high quality (for example, it's only rated as PC3200), or your target CPU speed is high, you will likely need to run the RAM asynchronously, so select the next highest index value of 180 MHz.  This will let you get slightly higher RAM clock speeds, at the cost of a little bit of added latency (the performance hit isn't much...you'll be much faster running asynch at 2.4 GHz than synch at 2.2 GHz).  Now you do the same thing that you did with the CPU, gradually increasing the FSB (you might want to use smaller increments this time though) until the system will no longer boot (remember again to decrease the HTT multiplier if necessary), and then returning to your last stable setting (or increasing the voltage and repeating) and booting to Windows and running stability tests.  You do not need to monitor your temps while doing the RAM tests (unless you want to).  Generally I find that Sandra's "Cache and Memory..." benchmark works well for detecting memory instability, and you can also use SuperPi, Prime95, or Memtest86 as well.  Once you have tested stable, record your memory clock speed (use the formula:  memory speed = FSB speed * memclock index value / 200) and voltage and reboot to the BIOS settings menu.  Note that while you may be able to attain a higher memory clock speed by selecting a higher CAS latency, it is not generally advisible to do so, as from what I've seen, although memory bandwidth remains about the same as CAS increases (as far as Sandra is concerned anyways), the lower latency provided by CAS2 improves the system score by 5% in PCMark 04, and given that RAM performance scales pretty much linearly relative to the clock speed, unless running at CL2.5 lets you get *at least* 10 to 15 MHz higher than at CL2, it is not worth it overall.
    Run the Numbers - Believe it or not the performance of the Neo4 system is dictacted pretty much entirely by the core and memory clock speeds (given identical memory timing settings).  The only other real factor is whether the RAM is run synchronously or not, which you just decided in the above step, so all that's left to do now is find the combination of memclock index, FSB, and CPU multiplier that allow you to get as clost to both your target core and memory speeds as possible.  If you are running synchronously, your task is simple, just keep your memclock index of 200 MHz, specify your target FSB speed, and your default CPU multiplier (unless your RAM is so good that the CPU is not stable at the default multiplier and the RAM's top FSB speed, in which case drop the multiplier accordingly).  If running the RAM asynchronously your task is a bit more difficult (having a calculator for this part will help), basically you have to go through the list of memory dividers (memclock indexes), and for each one calculate the ratio of memclock index / 200, and then divide your target memory clock speed by that ratio to get the FSB needed to attain your target memory speed (for example, if the target is 230 MHz, for a memclock index of 150 we get a ratio of 0.75, and 230 / 0.75 = 307 MHz, so running the RAM at 230 MHz with an index of 150 MHz requires a FSB setting of 307 MHz...pretty good if your target clockspeed is 2.45 GHz, as selecting an 8x multiplier will pretty much hit this exactly), and then go through the available *whole* CPU multipliers (I've heard that the half-multipliers should be avoided, as they cause the memory to get clocked incorrectly) and see if any multiplier times the FSB you calculated hits (or comes reasonably close to hitting) your target CPU speed.  Go through all of them until you get an exact (or very close) match, and pick whichever one ends up matching most closely.  Note that there is no benefit in this case to a higher FSB speed configuration over a lower FSB speed configuration, provided that both produce the same core and memory clock values, so you should not favor configurations with needlessly high FSB settings unless they produce a better fit than the others.  Apply whichever settings are closest, and then apply the appropriate CPU and memory voltage settings that you got from the previous steps.  Also apply whichever HTT multiplier will put you closest to 1000 MHz without going over 1100 MHz.  After this, your system should be ready to boot, overclocked and stable.  Be sure to do additional benchmarking and stress testing to make sure that you really are stable (if you saved your scores at the beginning, compare them to your scores now and marvel at the improvement...and post the results for people to see), and be sure to monitor your temps for a bit to make sure your cooling is working adequately.
    Post Overclock Overclocking:
    There's not a whole lot to do now, but if you want to try to tweak your memory timings to get a little bit of extra performance, now is the time to do it...just remember to record your stable overclock settings somewhere (*not* on the computer) in case the tweaking forces a CMOS reset and you lose all your settings, and enjoy.  Also you can overclock whatever video card you have, a process that's much easier and faster than overclocking your CPU/RAM/FSB.
    In Closing:
    I hope someone out there finds this useful, given how long it took to write up.  Maybe I'll get lucky and this will end up as a sticky...we'll see.  And just to start things off, here are my benchmark scores, at stock and at the overclock described in my sig:
    Stock:
    3dMark05 = 3141
    PCMark04 = 3589
    Overclocked:
    3dMark05 = 3704
    PCMark = 4805
     

    Just started ocing the system, I'm new at this so these are where my system stands and the results
                                  --------[ EVEREST Home Edition (c) 2003-2005 Lavalys, Inc. ]------------------------------------------------------------
        Version                                           EVEREST v2.20.405
        Homepage                                          http://www.lavalys.com/
        Report Type                                       Report Wizard
        Computer                                          HOWARD-4B304E62
        Generator                                         Howard
        Operating System                                  Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 (WinXP Retail)
        Date                                              2005-09-16
        Time                                              16:14
    --------[ Overclock ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        CPU Properties:
          CPU Type                                          AMD Athlon 64
          CPU Alias                                         Venice S939
          CPU Stepping                                      DH-E3
          CPUID CPU Name                                    AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
          CPUID Revision                                    00020FF0h
        CPU Speed:
          CPU Clock                                         2456.56 MHz
          CPU Multiplier                                    9.0x
          CPU FSB                                           272.95 MHz  (original: 200 MHz, overclock: 36%)
          Memory Bus                                        204.71 MHz
        CPU Cache:
          L1 Code Cache                                     64 KB  (Parity)
          L1 Data Cache                                     64 KB  (ECC)
          L2 Cache                                          512 KB  (On-Die, ECC, Full-Speed)
        Motherboard Properties:
          Motherboard ID                                    03/15/2005-MS-7100-6A61FM4BC-00
          Motherboard Name                                  MSI K8N Diamond / K8N SLI Platinum (MS-7100)  (3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
        Chipset Properties:
          Motherboard Chipset                               nVIDIA nForce4 SLI, AMD Hammer
          Memory Timings                                    2-4-4-6  (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)
          Command Rate (CR)                                 1T
        SPD Memory Modules:
          DIMM1: GeIL CL25-4-4DDR 500                       512 MB PC4000 DDR SDRAM  (2.5-5-5-9 @ 250 MHz)  (2.0-5-5-9 @ 232 MHz)
          DIMM2: GeIL CL25-4-4DDR 500                       512 MB PC4000 DDR SDRAM  (2.5-5-5-9 @ 250 MHz)  (2.0-5-5-9 @ 232 MHz)
        BIOS Properties:
          System BIOS Date                                  03/15/05
          Video BIOS Date                                   06/27/05
          Award BIOS Type                                   Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
          Award BIOS Message                                W7100NZ1 V9.0 031505 14:17:53
          DMI BIOS Version                                  6.00 PG
        Graphics Processor Properties:
          Video Adapter                                     nVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT PCI-E
          GPU Code Name                                     NV43GT  (PCI Express x16 10DE / 0140, Rev A2)
          GPU Clock                                         299 MHz
          Memory Clock                                      522 MHz
    --------[ Power Management ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Power Management Properties:
          Current Power Source                              AC Line
          Battery Status                                    No Battery
          Full Battery Lifetime                             Unknown
          Remaining Battery Lifetime                        Unknown
    --------[ Sensor ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Sensor Properties:
          Sensor Type                                       Winbond W83627THF  (ISA 290h)
          GPU Sensor Type                                   Driver  (NV-DRV)
          Motherboard Name                                  MSI MS-7046 / 7100 / 7125
        Temperatures:
          Motherboard                                       32 °C  (90 °F)
          CPU                                               35 °C  (95 °F)
          GPU1: GPU                                         56 °C  (133 °F)
          GPU2: GPU                                         50 °C  (122 °F)
        Cooling Fans:
          CPU                                               3444 RPM
          System                                            2637 RPM
          North Bridge                                      7337 RPM
        Voltage Values:
          CPU Core                                          1.38 V
          +3.3 V                                            3.34 V
          +5 V                                              5.08 V
          +12 V                                             12.04 V
          +5 V Standby                                      5.17 V
          VBAT Battery                                      3.10 V
          Debug Info F                                      40 31 17
          Debug Info T                                      32 35 157
          Debug Info V                                      56 D1 C6 BD 1C 14 34 (01)
    --------[ Debug - PCI ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Benchmarking     PCMARK04/score:4684      3DMARK03/score:15075 
    got any suggestions, Im just trying to learn how to do this, any help would be greatly appreciated
     

  • Unboxing MSI Z97 Mpower Max AC Overclocking Motherboard

    Intel Z97 chipset based motherboards is already out and I’m glad that Intel decided it to make the CPU socket the same LGA 1150 as before. Backward compatibility for the current CPUs and at the same time will have support for the upcoming Haswell Refresh and Broadwell (14nm) processors. More importantly, the chipset has three new features and these are:
    •SATA Express – PCIe M.2 support. Can deliver data speeds up to 10Gb/s
    •Boot Guard – serves as a shield against low-level malware attacks using Intel device protection system
    •Upgraded Intel Smart Response and Raid start technologies. Now with Dynamic Cache Sharing
    Few? yes, but don’t get disappointed about it yet, as I heard that the Z97 will be good at high memory frequencies and has better CPU overclocking.
    That’s it for the review and thank you … just kidding hehehe. The main gist of this short review is on MSI’s Z97 MPower Max AC and it’s such a good looking motherboard. It has new features, heat sink design and OC essential tools which will be further discussed later on. Before that, let us take a look at the packaging first.
    Black and Yellow ~~black and yellow…box is same as the Z87 Mpower Max before except for the OC Series logo design.
    Flipping the front cover will give you some short info on Military Class 4 components (Hi-c Cap, Dark Cap, SFC, OC PCB), Guard-Pro (Circuit Protection, Humidity Protection, High Temperature Protection, ESD Protection, EMI Protection & Eco Power), OC Essentials (tools for overclocking), Enhanced Thermal Solution, Enhanced Power and Enhanced BIOS. Then to your right is a clear plastic window which will give you a sneak peek on the actual unit. Drools…
    The Z97 Mpower Max AC is OC certified as it passed the Prime95 24-hour burn-in stress test with a liquid-cooled overclocked CPU.  This is to ensure the board’s overclocking stability.
    I/O overview is also shown here and Intel’s Wi-Fi AC module.
    Specifications:
    •CPU
    Supports 4th and 5th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors, and Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® Processors for Socket LGA1150
    •Chipset
    Intel® Z97 Express Chipset
    •Memory
    4x DDR3 DIMMs 1066/1333/1600/1866*/2000*/2133*/2200*/2400*/2600*/2666*/2800*/3000*/3100*/3200*/3300*(OC) DRAM, 32GB Max
    •LAN
    Intel I218-V Gigabit LAN controller
    •Audio
    Realtek® ALC1150 Codec
    •Video
    3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (support x16, x8/x8, x8/x4/x4 modes)
    •Peripheral Interfaces
    6x SATA 6Gb/s ports from Z97 with RAID Support
    2x SATA 6Gb/s ports from ASMedia ASM1061
    6x USB 2.0 ports (2 Rear / 4 Front)
    12x USB 3.0 ports (8 Rear / 4 Front)
    The package is full of bundles and some new stuff included
    •Z97 Mpower Max AC Overview Map
    •Z97 MPower Max User Guide
    •Software & Application User Guide
    •Overclocking Guide
    •Quick Installation Guide
    •OC Door Message Hanger
    •SATA Cable Label Stickers
    •MSI OC Badge
    Closer look on MSI’s new OC case badge
    •WiFi and Bluetooth Antenna
    •Intel Wifi/Bluetooth Module
    •MSI SLI Bridge
    •IO Backplate
    •M-Connector for Easy Header Installation
    •V-Check Points Cable
    MSI so extravagant with the bundles!!! Keep ‘em coming
    •6x SATA 6GB/s Data Cables
    •E-SATA PCI Expansion Bracket
    What you will notice right away is the new water cooling heat sink for the VRM area. Enthusiasts will like this very much as they don’t have to worry on buying water blocks for this section. But even on stock, the heat sink is efficient to cool down the VRM chips. It is composed of heat pipe and ceramic materials.
    PCB is matte black and is using dark solid capacitors. Layout is clean and organized especially on the area of the multi graphics card slots. OC button tools are placed on the upper right area of the board for easy access. The 8pin and 4pin power connectors on the upper left area are used to supply power to the CPU and it also helps achieve higher overclock potential and stability to the processor.
    MSI also included an integrated Clock Generator chip called OC Engine (located below the CPU socket). Having this will support more BCLK adjustments from 100 / 125 / 167 MHz straps. The more flexible the strap is, the more doors for maximum OC potential.
    12Phase DigitAll power design. Powerful enough to break OC world records and dominate benchmarks.
    You also have the Military Class 4 components SFC chokes and Hi-c caps surrounding the CPU socket.
    On the area in between the two heat sinks connected by a heat pipe is an additional 6pin power. It provides more juice and stability in multi-graphics card configuration.
    The first two buttons on the left are the Base Clock Control Buttons. These buttons are used to increase or decrease the base clock frequency in real-time. At the bottom, you have the Discharge button and it allows you to fully discharge the motherboard and even removes information from the Z97 PCH. Next you have the Reset and Power buttons and lastly the most valuable button of them all – OC Genie for auto overclock.
    To the farthest right is a switch. This is the OC Genie Mode switch which provides two overclocking modes. First mode is the Gear 1, the default automatic overclocking setting while Gear 2 is a higher auto overclock tweak than Gear 1. This goes hand in hand with the OC Genie Button.
    V-Check Points is now version 2 with 2 extra ground connectors, allowing overclockers to use 3 multi-meters at the same time. You can check the VCCIN, DDR, Core,IGP, Ring Bus and System Agent voltage on the fly.
    Audio Boost is also been upgraded. It has Dual Amps now and is using better Nippon Chemi-con filtering capacitors.
    Here comes one of the major features of having Z97 chipset based motherboard, SATA Express. M.2 slot transfers data through a PCI Express 2.0 x2 interface which can reach up to 10 Gb/s speed. That is 67% much faster than your regular SATA 3 solutions.
    Two more switches are to be found at the bottom of the board. First one is the Multi-BIOS Switch. This model has two built-in BIOS ROMs labeled as A and B (Default is BIOS ROM A). If one crashed, you can shift to the other for booting or perhaps use the other one for test purpose of new BIOS available in the net.  You can also use this feature to fix corrupted BIOS. Next switch is the Slow Mode Booting and mostly used during LN2 or extreme overclocking situations.  What it does is it will temporary decrease the CPU Ratio to 8x and after successfully booting to Windows you can flick the switch back again to apply your high overclock frequency settings.
    Done with the switches and now for the small black button called Go2BIOS. Pressing this button before turning on your computer or right after a system restart, will go straight to your board’s BIOS.
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    SATA ports 8 and 7 on the left are controlled by ASMedia ASM1061 while the rest are from the Intel Z97 chipset.  There also 2x USB 3.0 internal headers available and also controlled by Intel Z97.
    •PS2 Combo Port
    •2x USB 2.0
    •Empty space for Intel’s WIFI/Bluetooth AC Module
    •6x USB 3.0 by ASMedia ASM1074
    •1x Intel I218-V Gigabit LAN Controller
    •1x S/PDIF Audio Output by Realtek ALC1150
    •1x HDMI Port
    •1x DisplayPort
    •2x USB 3.0 by ASMedia ASM1042
    •6x Analog Gold Plated Audio Ports by Realtek ALC1150
    This is it for now and I don’t still have the right parts to run the motherboard to its max potential. I will update you guys as soon as I get my hands on the stuff I needed. Benchmarks and overclocking results will be made.
    Long live MSI OC Series!!!

    It is interesting MSI chose not to incorporate dedicated SATA Express port(s). Some manufacturers even incorporated that on it's Z87's.
    Quote
    Few? yes, but don’t get disappointed about it yet, as I heard that the Z97 will be good at high memory frequencies and has better CPU overclocking.
    If Intel didn't increase the useable RAM bandwidth with Devil's Canyon, those higher RAM frequencies are going to do nothing! With a VRM still in the CPU, even with the improved TIM, it remains to be seen how much of a better OC'er Devil's Canyon will be on conventional cooling solutions. Anything above Z97 Gaming 7 or 9 is kind of overkill for an average non exotic cooling pc user. If anything like the Z87 Power Max I got to work with, most of those OC settings on these class boards was a total waste. Z97 better OC'er for normal users? Time will tell.

  • 990XA-GD55 Bios downgrade or Overclocking

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    Stands on the MSI website: There is no way to reflash back to BIOS version Mxx if you already updated to version Nxx.
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    Can I flash back to the Flash tool forum?
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    Need your help. Sorry for my English.

    Well what other mentioned works and I can swear by it is use the ClickBios II ( you can select after bringing up ControlCenter and right click on the upper right tab ).  There you can set the voltages with no limits, to a point.  Again as the previous post, watch your temps closely as you OC.  Generally 62C is the safe max temp (tech 65C but having a cushion doesn't hurt).  The voltage it self isn't the concern.  But be forwarned, High voltage will spike temps quickly with lack luster cooling equipment.  Guideline as such: Air max is 4.6ghz with great air cooling, 4.4ghz with moderate air.  Water nets 4.6 at low end to 5.4ghz with custom loops and 240+ thick radiators.
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  • Cant get decent overclock on Venice 3000, no matter what settings I use

    I re-visited my overclocking on the Venice 3000 chip and still have very odd problem that no amount of fiddling seems to cure.
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    But that gives me only 2116 cpu, which is quite lame given that EVERYONE seems to get 2400  or MORE out of the Venice core.
    I've had this up to 2200 or so, but basically as soon as the cpu clock gets over 255 mhz or so, I get instant lockup. (using ClockGen from within windows to test).
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    I have noticed 'fluctuating' voltage ( .05 v diff) but I suspect its the built in measuring of the mb , but who knows.
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    Quote from: qwertyasdf on 25-March-07, 03:10:41
    But that gives me only 2116 cpu, which is quite lame given that EVERYONE seems to get 2400  or MORE out of the Venice core.
    you may just have a bad core.. it happens. just because others get high overclocks in no way guarantees you - or anyone else - will achieve those speeds. processors are binned and sold at speed grades thay have been tested at and are guaranteed to work at. sounds harsh i know but you bought a 3000+ and it works as a 3000+ if you get a decent overclock out of it thats a bonus and a bargain 
    anyway good luck in your endeavours hopfully its something other than the processor holding you back but bear in mind that your processor simply may not clock any higher 

  • GeForce FX5200 Overclocking

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    I haven't yet heard of anyone frying a fx5200.  The thing is, those cards have really slow memory, so I figure by inching up the 3d clock speed you'll notice screen corruption or temporary freezes due to the slow memory before the card gets close to the point of no return. I suppose the best thing to do is google around for overclocking success stories of FX5200 owners, like this one.
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  • Maximum stable overclocking for 1.8a

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    I've seen some results (shots from wcpuid) from a 1.6A going as high as 3.1GHz with just normal watercooling and 1.9Vcore.
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