ASUS A8V (Socket939) AGP/PCI lock?

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KMS

I just built my new rig based on ASUS A8V mobo and Athlon64 3500+ CPU. So
far the system works great when "FSB" is overclocked to 217MHz FSB. No need
to change multiplier or increase the CPU core voltage.

I saw in the amdzone review of this board that there should be a line in
BIOS to lock the AGP/PCI speed? I could not find that. I updated the bios to
the latest version (dated 6/18/04... I think?), but still no AGP/PCI lock...

I suspect the AGP/PCI lock does not work, because I got my HD corrupted when
overclocked the "FSB" to 224MHz. This was with the original bios. (I did not
try to exceed that with the new BIOS... because I'm tired of making a new
windows install again...) If the lock is working... this should not happen?
It looks just like the earlier two Athlon64 computers I built to my friends.
They too were based on VIA chipset... and they too corrupted the disk if I
exceeded the approx. 220MHz.

Suggestions, comments?

KMS
 
Well... got some more information. I just flashed to a 1005.020 beta bios
that have the AGP/PCI lock. At the moment I'm running at 220 FSB with stock
voltage and multiplier. Prime95 seem to run stable. (At 222MHz got error
after 10 minutes.) The thread I found this information explained that only
the later boards, revision 1.02 with serial numbers starting with 45MG0Jxxxx
and later do support this lock. The early boards do not. I was lucky to get
one of those newer boards... : )

Anybody know a program that measures AGP and/or PCI clock speed? I have
Sandra but it does not tell anything...

This BIOS does not seem to have option to adjust multiplier or CPU voltage?
The last official bios had at least the multiplier option. Or coudl it be
that when I have the Cool'n'Quiet enabled it disables those features?
 
What were the symptoms of your hdd getting corrupted? I too have the
A8V with the 3500+, and once I got XP64 running, it was a real champ,
but for some reason, now the OS seems like it's running at half power
(very slow). I've been thinking about blowing away the install, but I
want to be sure that it's an install issue, and not a
motherbaord/memory/chip issue.

Thanks,
Ben
 
When the HD corrupted it just don't boot into Windows but says that some
files are missing. I think in this case it said SYSTEM.INI... but I could be
wrong.

I quess you are not overclocking? Have you enabled the Cool'n'Quiet in BIOS
and have you installed the software in Windows? I have had some problems
sometimes that after installing the Cool'n'Quiet it is just stuck on the
slowest speed setting... To fix that it helped when I flashed the newest
BIOS and reinstalled the Cool'n'Quiet.

I have Cool'n'Quiet enabled and my case is very cool to touch. (Without
Cool'n'Quiet the case felt pretty warm to touch.) Also the CPU temp is mid
30s, when before it was around 50s. Of course in heavy use the temps
increase...
 
Well... got some more information. I just flashed to a 1005.020 beta bios
that have the AGP/PCI lock. At the moment I'm running at 220 FSB with stock
voltage and multiplier. Prime95 seem to run stable. (At 222MHz got error
after 10 minutes.) The thread I found this information explained that only
the later boards, revision 1.02 with serial numbers starting with 45MG0Jxxxx
and later do support this lock. The early boards do not. I was lucky to get
one of those newer boards... : )

Anybody know a program that measures AGP and/or PCI clock speed? I have
Sandra but it does not tell anything...
Click to expand...

I was playing around with the K8t800 chipset that didn't have the lock
at all. I got it up to about 235mhz (set in bios and running pc4000
ram) and it actually booted into win2k, but I got some font graphics
corruption that indicated my 9800pro wasn't happy running at high AGP
speeds.

Thankfully, my western digital ide drive on the V8237 southbridge
didn't show any indication of corruption.

Some reviewer had suggested the agp and pci buses cycled around to the
correct speeds at some higher fsb settings, but I think he was way off
on that as I didn't see anything like that at the speeds he suggested.
But who knows, I don't have any way to measure the pci or agp speeds
directly.

I recall reading some reviews that the via pro chipset still doesn't
have a real solid lock. The reviews of the nforce3 250gb seem so
good, I'm surprised people like the via pro which doesn't seem to be
much different than the non-pro really.
 
Ben said:
What were the symptoms of your hdd getting corrupted? I too have the
A8V with the 3500+, and once I got XP64 running, it was a real champ,
but for some reason, now the OS seems like it's running at half power
(very slow). I've been thinking about blowing away the install, but I
want to be sure that it's an install issue, and not a
motherbaord/memory/chip issue.
Click to expand...


The OS may not load. Sometimes the OS will load but drivers will not.
Applications will crash. Hard drive corruption can have several roots. Run
the system at default speeds and voltages if you're ever in doubt.
 
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