EX58-UD3R latest F6b bios messed up all stable OCs

[Dixit]

So originally when I got this board I updated it with the latest F5 bios that Gigabytes website shows and got 3.55ghz, 3.66ghz, and 3.78ghz stable on this F5 bios. Ran 50-100 passes of LinX and my coretemps were never above 70C.

Now with all of those the Vcore was between 1.20 and 1.27V and QPI VTT was between 1.20V and 1.29V.

Now before I updated the bios to F6b, I went through every screen and wrote every setting down because I knew the bios update would wipe out my saved profiles. So I recreated them, without missing anything.

Now I went to do a little more Overclocking past 3.8ghz and started hitting errors way too early. So I stepped back to one of my saved profiles (which again I recreated in the new bios) like the 3.78ghz and I could not even get past 3-4 passes on LinX where before it sailed straight through 50-100passes. Stepped down to 3.66ghz and same issue.

So I sat with my 3.66ghz and seems like the vcore and QPI/VTT is completely off, whatever I had it set to before, such as on 3.66ghz I had 1.225vcore and 1.195 QPI/VTT and it was fine. Now Ive pushed QPI/VTT to 1.335 (last setting before bios shows the purple settings) and LinX is still crashing with BSD 124 errors (which are normally attributed to QPI/VTT).

I just dont understand how the bios update has made almost all my profiles not stable anymore with the exact same settings as before. Dont make sense to me. I dont understand how that would cause me to now increase QPI/VTT that high and even have to increase VCore for the same thing that was stable before the bios update.

Im watching to just give up on this and go back to F5 (not sure if there is a way to downgrade or not) as this is really just set me back to square one. Makes me believe this Bios has some serious bugs in it or Im missing something.

Dixit


PS here is the 3.5ghz (before 21x turbo kicks in to take it to 3.67ghz) settings which again worked flawlessly before on F5 bios, ran 100passes on LinX at 3000mb Memory size (problem size at 20014). Ive even changed items like PCI Express Speed from auto to setting it to 100mhz, no change, setting QPI to x36 instead of AUTO still no change.

Advanced CPU Features:
CPU Clock Ratio ................................ [20x]
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech .................. [Enabled]
CPU Cores Enabled ............................ [All]
CPU Multi Threading .......................... [Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) ................... [Disabled] <----- ENABLED
C3/C6/C7 State Support .................... [Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor ......................... [Enabled]
CPU EIST Function ............................ [Disabled] <----- ENABLED
[URL="http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/any-way-disable-overclocking-error-bios-31763/#"]Virtualization Technology[/URL] ................... [Enabled]
Bi-Directional PROCHOT ..................... [Enabled]


Uncore & QPI Features:
QPI Link Speed .............................. x36  <----- AUTO (6.48Ghz)
Uncore Frequency ..........................   <----- 17x (2975 Mhz)
Isonchronous Frequency ..................[Enabled]


Standard Clock Control:
Base Clock (BCLK) Control ................ [Enabled]
BCLK Frequency (MHz) .....................  <----- 175
PCI Express Frequency (MHz) ........... [100]  <----- AUTO

C.I.A.2 [Disabled]

Advanced Clock Control:
CPU Clock Drive ..............................[800mV]
PCI Express Clock Drive ................... [900mV]
CPU Clock Skew ............................. [0ps]
IOH Clock Skew ............................. [0ps]


Advanced DRAM Features:
Performance Enhance ...................... [Standard]  <----- TURBO
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P) ......... [Disabled]  <----- OCZ Memory doesnt support this
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) ........ [AUTO]  <----- 8.0 (1400Mhz)
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) .......... [Manual]  <----- EXPERT (new for F6)

Channel A + B + C

Channel A Timing Settings:
##Channel A Standard Timing Control##
CAS Latency Time ...................... <----- 8
tRCD ....................................... <----- 8
tRP ......................................... <----- 8
tRAS ....................................... <----- 24

##Channel A Advanced Timing Control##
tRC ........................................  Shows 27 on left but set to AUTO
tRRD ....................................... Shows 4 on left but set to AUTO
tWTR ...................................... Shows 4 on left but set to AUTO
tWR ........................................ Shows 8 on left but set to AUTO
tWTP ....................................... Shows 19 on left but set to AUTO
tWL ........................................  Shows 7 on left but set to AUTO
tRFC ....................................... Shows 60 on left but set to AUTO
tRTP ....................................... Shows 4 on left but set to AUTO
tFAW ...................................... Shows 16 on left but set to AUTO
Command Rate (CMD) ................ <----- 1

##Channel A Misc Timing Control##
Round Trip Latency ................... Shows 59 on left but set to AUTO



Advanced Voltage Control:

CPU
Load Line Calibration ................. [Disabled]
CPU Vcore ............................... <----- 1.2255
QPI/VTT Voltage 1.150v ............  <----- 1.195
CPU PLL 1.800v ....................... Shows 1.800 on left but set to AUTO

MCH/ICH
PCIE 1.500v ........................... Shows 1.500 on left but set to AUTO
QPI PLL 1.100v ....................... Shows 1.100 on left but set to AUTO
IOH Core 1.100v ..................... Shows 1.100 on left but set to AUTO
ICH I/O 1.500v .......................Shows 1.500 on left but set to AUTO
ICH Core 1.1v ........................Shows 1.100 on left but set to AUTO

DRAM
DRAM Voltage 1.500v .............. <----- 1.640
DRAM Termination 0.750v [AUTO]
Ch-A Data VRef. 0.750v [AUTO]
Ch-B Data VRef. 0.750v [AUTO]
Ch-C Data VRef. 0.750v [AUTO]
Ch-A Address VRef. 0.750v [AUTO]
Ch-B Address VRef. 0.750v [AUTO]
Ch-C Address VRef. 0.750v [AUTO]

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: EX58-UD3R latest F6b bios messed up all stable OCs

ALL BIOS's are different, and you cannot expect them to be the same as they change many things trying to correct issues. You also should not use different BIOS profiles from one BIOS to the next

Now, moving from BIOS to BIOS you may need more or less voltage or timings on your ram on certain things. If you find a BIOS you like stick with it, unless you are having issues there is no need to try a Beta unless you expect it to be a beta and possibly have issues.

Of course if you are having issues with something I do suggest using the latest Beta's but do expect a difference between all BIOS.

50-100 passes of Linx could have damaged your CPU, so that could be part of your issue! 5-10 passes is plenty, maybe 20 if you feel you need to push your CPU but not 50 or 100, there is no need to stress your CPU like this unless you are ready to by a new one

Are you testing your memoryt with Memtest86+ before running IBT? If not you should be as many memory timings hidden and advanced subtimings change between version and your memory may just be the unstable issue not your CPU or QPI voltages. They of course could be the issue though, just reminding you that you need your memory stable before you are going to pass anything else

On to the next thought.....

Using C1E and EIST is only asking for issues when overclocking, and will cause you to have to use way more voltage to be stable. It is not advised to use energy saving features when you are trying to overclock as that is not a energy saving function. Sounds like you know how to overclock, so you already should know you cannot reliably use Speedstep when overclocking

Yes, you can go back to F5 very easy, just flash from what you are using now, do not use @BIOS. I am not sure of that board and it's beta BIOS's, but you may have to flash using DOS but go ahead and give Qflash a shot first if you do go back to F5

That is any awful lot of Auto's in your voltages, this is likely a big part of your issues. And of course some look to be very low, the ones you set anyway I mean. Aside from that, I do see a few settings (If they are even applied as you see them, they normally are not) in the advanced memory timings that are very wrong for triple channel

If you would like to stick with F6b a bit and see if you can get it going and would like my suggestions please let me know and I will provide them for you. I would like to see a screenshot of CPU-Tweaker as well at your overclock speed you want help with so I can see what you are getting for all those Auto's in your memory.

[Dixit]

Re: EX58-UD3R latest F6b bios messed up all stable OCs

Thanks for the info. Yeap I definetely did not use the original BIOS profiles, thats why I hand wrote all the settings and recreated them.

Last night I finally got the 3.67ghz (21x175bclk) stable after having to bump QPI/VTT to 1.335v and vcore to 1.250v. (compared to before which is above in the template).

Now on LinX, I was on a few other forums and it seems to be the new tool that people use to stress their cpu's and see if its stable. I only started using this as it seems it finds issues much quicker than say having to wait 24hrs on Prime95 before it craps out, where in LinX it may crap out after the 25pass or so. Im not sure I understand why using LinX will cause damage to the CPU? Shouldnt I be safe as long as my CPU core temps are not rediculously high? The highest Ive seen them in my 3.67ghz 50pass (3000mb size) test was 69C coretemp. Im open to any info on why using LinX is bad, I just started using it as people seem to be moving to that on some forums and recommend just doing 50 pass or so and you can deem it stable.

I havent run Memtest yet as Ive been still messing with the OC but I will start on that next. I will try to get that screenshot of CPU Tweaker. I tried to get OCZ support to give me the damn timings for the advanced items (all the ones you are referring to as being set to AUTO) and they insisted that there is nothing specific and leaving them at AUTO is fine.

Good to know that I can possibly downgrade without issues, and yes Ive always been doing it via QFLASH, much easier and safer than @Bios.

Here is some screenshots as you asked for.
This one is the CPUID showing the voltages an temps while running Prime95 x64 on Blend Test.



Here is the CPUTweaker shot at the same time on Prime95 load

Dixit

[profJim]

Re: EX58-UD3R latest F6b bios messed up all stable OCs

Check out this post for preserving bios settings in case you want to revert back to a previous bios version. This technique can also be used with a floppy or bootable USB storage.

[Dixit]

Re: EX58-UD3R latest F6b bios messed up all stable OCs

Thanks profJim, I did that when I saw the post a few weeks ago. I saved my existing profiles on the USB just incase I wanted to roll it back.

Now I tried Memtest86 which didnt work, kept getting stuck at 7%, googled around and seems like many are having this problem they suggested Memtest86+ 2.11, well tried that and it begins the load the CD "Loading........." and thats all I get, never get anywhere. Tried 2.10 on Memtest86+ and same thing. So basically I seem to be stuck on the memtests, cant seem to use either one. I even reverted all the settings to "load optimal defaults" and still no go.

Dixit