ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Discussion about AMD CPU Motherboards
Post Reply
Clouseau
Legit Aficionado
Legit Aficionado
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:04 pm

ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by Clouseau »

Working for the first time with an APU. Need help getting a basic build stable.
Rig:

CPU: A10-7700K
MB: Asus A88X-PRO (bios 1401)
RAM: Corsair Vengance (CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9R) @1866 and 1.5V hard coded all timings according to the XMP profile
HDD: WD Black 1TB SATA6
PSU: Corsair HX620 (been around along time but still rock solid)
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit

Have manually set the CPU multiplier to 38 and the NB freq. to 1800. Does not matter what settings have been set in the bios, cannot get the rig stable; not able to run Prime95 past 1Hr 18-20Min. Have tried complete auto, letting the UEFI bios handle all the settings. When on complete auto either at power saving mode, normal mode, and even performance mode, Prime95 will not last more than 20Min. RAM, have tested with memtest and the like and no errors at settings stated above. PSU rails are rock solid and do not fluctuate one bit: 5V - 4.96 | 3.3V - 3.36 | 12V - 11.94. When running Prime95 the temps have never gone above 53C so throttling never took place. According to the HRDWIFO monitoring utility, the CPU core vid never budges from 1.3375v and the NB Voltage never moves from 1.188 no matter what is set in the bios.

Settings I have tried:

CPU: from 1.3375 to 1.38675 along side NB voltage set from 1.1375 to 1.19375
All the other voltages have stayed at their defaults.
Have also ran the tests with AMD Power Now, SVM, and CPB (settings under Advanced>CPU Configuration) all enabled, and all disabled.

This is all to get the crazy thing to be stable at its max speed. Should the SB, VDDSB, APU1.2V settings be increased from their default values? Am I going about it all wrong? Any and all help will be appreciated. At this point it feels like I am lacking some APU 101 basic knowledge. Cannot find any combination that works.

Thanks in advance
Antec900 case|PhenomII 940 (3.57Ghz @ 1.4625v)|Zalman CPNS9700NT|M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi/AP|Bios 1903|MSI HD6950 Twin Frozer III|Catalyst 11.11|8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800@840 G.Skill PI-Black (4-4-4-10 @ 1.82v)|2xWD1600YS in Raid0|Antec HCP 1200|Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-ray ROM|ASUS E616A3T DVD-ROM|ASUS DRW-1814BLT DVD-RW|VISTA Ultimate x64 SP2
User avatar
KnightRid
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:21 am
Location: Dallastown, PA

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by KnightRid »

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2 ... i-review/2

I found that online as I do not have any experience with AMD chips in the past couple years as Intel just wipes the floor with them (at a higher price of course).

Read down through and it tells exactly how they did theirs. maybe reset everything on yours and try what they did.

Also, the big one, all processors will not overclock to the same numbers!!! Some processors will not overclock hardly at all even with an unlocked multiplier. There is no "max" for a processor that is true for every one out there as each could be able to hit varying degrees of overclocking.
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
Clouseau
Legit Aficionado
Legit Aficionado
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:04 pm

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by Clouseau »

Thanks for the link. Spent all weekend at the attempt. Followed their methodology but still no luck. Not one single review, online article, or forum contribution (that I have read) has revealed what their settings were for the NB frequency or voltage. Overclockers was not of use either. Something is off, not sure what. Most likely bkac.

Saturday and Sunday was spent trying to get the dang thing "stable" at the rated speed of 3.4GHz. Manually set in bios:
CPU multiplier: 34
NB Freq.: 1800
DRAM Freq.: 1866
DRAM Voltage: 1.5000
DRAM Timings: 9-10-9-27-2The power scheme in Windows reflected this as processor minimum was set to 100% as was the maximum.
AMD Power Now: Disabled
SVM: Disabled
CPB (core power boost): Disabled
APM Master: Disabled
C6: Disabled
All other settings were left alone (remained at default)
Within Windows Power Scheme: Processor Min-100% | Processor Max-100%

The auto voltage as read by AIDA64 and HWInfo was initially tried. CPU Voltage was 1.33750 and VDDNB was 1.18750. Prime95 would error-out in 23 minutes with those settings. I then intentionally found the lowest voltage settings that literally just let Windows boot: CPU-1.18750 and VDDNB-1.0500, and walked those settings up from there. The longest Prime95 ran was 50 minutes. I gave up, due to frustration, with CPU-1.30625 and VDDNB-1.06875. The 50 minute run was achieved with CPU-1.26250 and VDDNB-1.06250.

Is there a methodology about how one walks up the CPU and NB voltages? Literally about to use the Normal setting in EZ-Mode, even though I know it is not even stable with that. Is there a better stressing program than Prime95? Last time I tried OCCT, it was a joke. What passed that would error out in Prime95 in 30 minutes.
Antec900 case|PhenomII 940 (3.57Ghz @ 1.4625v)|Zalman CPNS9700NT|M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi/AP|Bios 1903|MSI HD6950 Twin Frozer III|Catalyst 11.11|8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800@840 G.Skill PI-Black (4-4-4-10 @ 1.82v)|2xWD1600YS in Raid0|Antec HCP 1200|Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-ray ROM|ASUS E616A3T DVD-ROM|ASUS DRW-1814BLT DVD-RW|VISTA Ultimate x64 SP2
Clouseau
Legit Aficionado
Legit Aficionado
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:04 pm

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by Clouseau »

Finally found this on XtremeSytems: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ts-coming!

Now everything is heading in the right direction. This and finding out that my chip's NB frequency of 1800 loves just 1.05625v. So once I get 3.4GHz stable; darn close now, will be able to start going from there. Could take a short cut and start higher, but then...no fun either.
Antec900 case|PhenomII 940 (3.57Ghz @ 1.4625v)|Zalman CPNS9700NT|M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi/AP|Bios 1903|MSI HD6950 Twin Frozer III|Catalyst 11.11|8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800@840 G.Skill PI-Black (4-4-4-10 @ 1.82v)|2xWD1600YS in Raid0|Antec HCP 1200|Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-ray ROM|ASUS E616A3T DVD-ROM|ASUS DRW-1814BLT DVD-RW|VISTA Ultimate x64 SP2
User avatar
KnightRid
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:21 am
Location: Dallastown, PA

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by KnightRid »

Glad you found something to help you! It can be VERY frustrating with some oc attempts on certain mb/cpu combos but in the end it is always worth it.

Let us know how far you managed to take it when you get it stable!!!
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
Clouseau
Legit Aficionado
Legit Aficionado
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:04 pm

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by Clouseau »

Update: After hitting yet another wall, started working through bioses, found that the best one was the latest one; 1602. Only option after that, looked into Prime95. Was running the latest, version 28.5. Have scrapped that version in favor of the one before that, version 27.9. The frustration. All this to just get a starting point of 3.4GHz. Feel like such a putz.
Antec900 case|PhenomII 940 (3.57Ghz @ 1.4625v)|Zalman CPNS9700NT|M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi/AP|Bios 1903|MSI HD6950 Twin Frozer III|Catalyst 11.11|8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800@840 G.Skill PI-Black (4-4-4-10 @ 1.82v)|2xWD1600YS in Raid0|Antec HCP 1200|Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-ray ROM|ASUS E616A3T DVD-ROM|ASUS DRW-1814BLT DVD-RW|VISTA Ultimate x64 SP2
User avatar
KnightRid
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:21 am
Location: Dallastown, PA

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by KnightRid »

Clouseau wrote:Update: After hitting yet another wall, started working through bioses, found that the best one was the latest one; 1602. Only option after that, looked into Prime95. Was running the latest, version 28.5. Have scrapped that version in favor of the one before that, version 27.9. The frustration. All this to just get a starting point of 3.4GHz. Feel like such a putz.
no putz feelings necessary [-X only thing that matters is that you are figuring it out and getting it done. Doesn't matter how long it takes you or how much stuff you have to do, you are doing it!
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
Clouseau
Legit Aficionado
Legit Aficionado
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:04 pm

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by Clouseau »

Managed a 4 hour run last night.
Voltages:
CPU - 1.15625
VDDNB - 1.01250
DRAM - 1.53000

Default voltages:
CPU - 1.33750
VDDNB - 1.13750
DRAM - 1.50000

The ram may be on the official compatibility list but the XMP settings are for Intel equipment. Should not make a difference but yet it does. There are a couple of secondary settings that are not as granular as need be to have the setting exactly as the rated profile. Side rant: I hate memtest. hate it, hate it, hate it. Keep giving it the benefit of the doubt every time. The ram passed a full 24hr run at the default voltage and XMP settings. Yet, it took an increase of .03v and a setting change from 30 to 28 for tFAW (xmp wants it at 29 but only even numbers are available) to get Prime95 past a one hour run.
Antec900 case|PhenomII 940 (3.57Ghz @ 1.4625v)|Zalman CPNS9700NT|M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi/AP|Bios 1903|MSI HD6950 Twin Frozer III|Catalyst 11.11|8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800@840 G.Skill PI-Black (4-4-4-10 @ 1.82v)|2xWD1600YS in Raid0|Antec HCP 1200|Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-ray ROM|ASUS E616A3T DVD-ROM|ASUS DRW-1814BLT DVD-RW|VISTA Ultimate x64 SP2
Clouseau
Legit Aficionado
Legit Aficionado
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:04 pm

Re: ASUS A88X-PRO Stability Issues

Post by Clouseau »

Knew I hated memtest. The whole issue was the ram. Was not able to get the Corsair modules functioning at 1866 even though the modules were on the official compatibility list. Finally a 24Hr+ run was achieved when the ram was set at 1333.

CPU Freq - 3.4GHz
CPU - 1.13125v
VDDNB - 1.01250v
DRAM - 1.50000v

Tossing the ram and going back to G-Skill. Guess Corsair is still solidly in the Intel camp.
Antec900 case|PhenomII 940 (3.57Ghz @ 1.4625v)|Zalman CPNS9700NT|M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi/AP|Bios 1903|MSI HD6950 Twin Frozer III|Catalyst 11.11|8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800@840 G.Skill PI-Black (4-4-4-10 @ 1.82v)|2xWD1600YS in Raid0|Antec HCP 1200|Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-ray ROM|ASUS E616A3T DVD-ROM|ASUS DRW-1814BLT DVD-RW|VISTA Ultimate x64 SP2
Post Reply