possible upgrade

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Wed May 15, 2013 8:52 pm

Well it started up

I'm in the bios now trying to find the XMP setting....found it in "ai overclock tuner"

Do I need "Intel Rapid Start Technology"?

Should I bother with updating the bios? (assuming I'd do that after I load windows, then load mb drivers, then go online and dl latest mb drivers)

Any items in particular that I should change in the bios? Much of this is Greek to me.
I did notice an option to "CPU level up" to 4.2 4.4 or 4.6 (this is an automatic OC tool?? I'm not sure how to OC things, so this looks good

)

fliptw wrote:
Make sure you've enabled U/EFI support before installing windows.

I read a few posts about this board and the UEFI is already enabled? or do I need to manually do that?

--EDIT-- Do I need "Intel Rapid Storage Driver software" ? (from the mb driver cd)

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Wed May 15, 2013 9:51 pm

UEFI should be fine out of the box. Yep, set AI Overclock Tuner to X.M.P. I don't use IRStartT. I also did update the BIOS to 1707, I would suggest to do that -- sometimes important "under the hood" values and modules are changed to improve stability or problem fixes. As for changing other BIOS numbers -- don't until you got your system up & running so you have a good baseline.

Edit: You don't need the IRStorageT driver if you didn't set the SATA mode to RAID in the BIOS (SATA configuration) before installing (default is AHCI.)

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Wed May 15, 2013 9:54 pm

Best way to update the bios?
I read somewhere that I can do it via software?

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Wed May 15, 2013 9:58 pm

From w/in the BIOS via flash drive -- see manual pg. 3-49

Note that you have to reset the BIOS to default settings and reenter what you changed (CMP etc.)

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Wed May 15, 2013 10:58 pm

Updated the Bios...wow that was easy!

Is there a need to update the mb and sound drivers? I cant find what the chipset drivers are, but the Asus site has an update from 9/12/2012, as well as an audio driver update from 9/26/2012

Also, during loading of the LAN drivers from the mb, I got an "error 1935" hresult" 0x80070BC9. Does that mean anything? There is a LAN driver version dated 9/21/2012.

--EDIT-- I went ahead and updated the mb drivers, chipsete drivers, sound drivers, and LAN drivers.

I had one ! on my device manager for a bus controller, but the updated driver install fixed it.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Thu May 16, 2013 2:59 am

Everything seems to be up and running, the only problem is a dead fan (one of the 120mm corsair fans I bought for the top of the case).
Got the HD installed and initialized and I'm loading software now, but it'll probably be the weekend by the time I get everything loaded.

Then I can start messing with the Bios and OverClocking.
Should I turn on speed step and turbo?

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Thu May 16, 2013 12:52 pm

Congratulations !

Yes, turn on Speed Step & Turbo Boost as long as you don't do manual OC.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Thu May 16, 2013 8:19 pm

Thanks!

This build was really Grendel and Krom doing a long distance collaboration (with a lot of baby sitting involved).
I was very uncomfortable at first, but feel that I could build another pc in half the time now.

I sure do appreciate the input, advice, tips, directions, and assistance!
I'll post final pics this weekend once I have everything running and loaded.

I'm going to OC, so will avoid turbo and speed step for now.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Fri May 17, 2013 12:30 am

You are welcome, glad to help.

Actually it depends on what guide you read and how exactly you OC -- some suggest to enable turbo mode, some to disable speed step and vice versa (among other things like C1E...) I would leave both on and start from there by messing w/ the turbo ratios. Or just use the CPU Level Up function for a start.

Anyway, right now w/ Turbo Mode disabled your CPU is stuck at 3.5GHz and w/ EIST disabled it won't clock down when idle. Sort of crippled...

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Fri May 17, 2013 11:30 am

Gren, if i disable EIST will Turbo Mode still work? my 3770K defaults to 1.6 when idle. but id like to keep it higher than 1.6

and very nice build ready!!

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Fri May 17, 2013 3:04 pm

Yes, disabling EIST does not impact Turbo Mode (AFAIK) -- the cores should clock betw. 3.5 (idle) and 3.9GHz (busy) (w/o OC. Higher w/.) Question is -- why ? Idle means nothing to do, that can be done at a slower pace w/ significant power savings

(Plus, if gives more Turbo leeway to the other cores that might be busy.) You loose a tiny bit of calculation power since the ramp up takes time and you probably also want to tighten up the LLC a bit (going from low power to bat-out-of-hell speed in a very short amount of time may cause dimples in the voltage.) Turning off C1E is more important.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat May 18, 2013 9:50 pm

After quite a bit of software loading and updating, the system is up and running with all my programs.
The sound seems to work great, and the ButtKicker Gamer 2 works just fine with the onboard connector (had to use a splitter to get the speakers AND the headphones to both work at the same time.

Here's a pic:

Krom and Grendel were right, the SSD makes A LOT of difference! Windows fires up fast, and firefox is SUPER fast.
Glad I made that choice to get the SSD

Since everything seems stable I tried to use the one step overclock (CPU Level Up). It recommended 4.6 so I tried it and rebooted, however this turned off my RAM upgrade from 1333 to 1600, and CPU-Z still only registered the CPU as 3.5.
Very odd. So I tried the level up thru the AI suite II, and CPU-Z stayed the same.
So I went into the BIOS and turned off the level up, and restored the RAM to 1600.
Restarted and interestingly, TurboV says my CPU frequency is between 4600 and 1600 (it jumps around). RealTemp says the same thing (3800-4200). (but control panel/system shows it at 3.5).

If I start Prime95, the AI suite II shows the CPU as between 4550-4600, and RealTemp is the same (with core temps being between 70-75)
Seems like I must have somehow upped the turbo ceiling, but not the standard CPU level...?
CPU-Z says my core Speed is 4600 (and it jumps down to 1600).

Not sure what's going on. Any ideas? Perhaps a better CPU speed monitor?

--EDIT-- Figured out what was going on: I had the Turbo Ratio in the Bios set to "manual" which pushed the turbo mode to 4600, so if I set it to "Auto" it drops back down to 3900.
I am used to the i7 920 I had, where I just upped the clock frequency to hit 3.0 and left it there. Was easy to OC. I've read a couple of OC guides but they are a bit complex and require resetting voltages...didnt really want to mess with that, but I guess I'll have to.

--EDIT 2--Anyone have any OC settings or tips for this board and a 3770k CPU?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun May 19, 2013 7:30 am

Yes, SSDs make a huge difference in the general snappy feel of the system. It is noticeable right off the bat, but you can't really appreciate it till you sit down at a computer with a mechanical HDD again and boot it up to do some work on it after a few weeks of using a SSD. The whole way windows boots up so quickly, and then as soon as you see the desktop you can start working as if the machine has been on for hours where as even a similarly new system with a hard drive still has 30+ seconds of sluggish disk thrashing left to get done before you can really start using it. Just for fun compare installing a batch of windows updates on a SSD versus on a fast hard drive, it makes a huge difference. When I set up windows 7 on a hard drive, I usually allow upwards of a couple hours for the giant batch of 100+ post SP1 updates to install, but on a SSD it can be done in 15 minutes if you can download them quickly enough.

Also there are usually some SSD optimization tools, like the Intel SSD toolbox that configure some windows services to work a bit differently on the SSD, your drive manufacturer probably has something similar, so be sure to install it and have it apply all the recommended settings to the system. Among other things you want to disable any disk defragmentation schedules on the SSD (windows should automatically skip a SSD, but it doesn't hurt to make sure), SSDs should not be defragmented because the file system they use internally is different from what the OS sees and the drives handle their internal fragmentation automatically with their garbage collection routines.

As for the overclocks, setting the BIOS to manual turbo override so the CPU clocks up to 4.5 GHz or whatever while its under load and then idles back to 1.6 GHz would probably give you the best results, you get the benefit of an overclock without giving up the significant power/heat savings of the idle modes. Also the system properties / control panel doesn't show the current clock speed, it only ever shows the clock speed the CPU was rated at from the factory, so for a 3770K it will always say 3.5 GHz regardless of what frequency the CPU is actually operating at.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun May 19, 2013 12:17 pm

I forgot about the SSD tweaks (I did run the Samsung Magician over provisioning--set to 10%). Thanks for the reminder.

I'll have to wait on OC'ing I guess. Fired up the system this morning and got a "CPU fan error". One of the two cooler fans stopped working.

I'll pull it apart and see if it's just a connection, but that makes two dead fans already...(the other is the top mounted fan that blows out)

--EDIT-- I opened up the case and see that the CPU fan tries to spin on startup, but then it stops. The center of the fan is hot and when I try to turn it, it does not spin freely.

The CPU fan OPT (2nd cpu fan) runs just fine.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun May 19, 2013 1:14 pm

Cant boot the system now.
The bootup screen says "no keyboard detected press F1 to start setup"
However, since it doesnt detect the keyboard I cant press F1

This did this a couple of times while I was setting up the system, so I had plugged the keyboard into the front of the case (into a USB 3 slot) and had no further issues.
Now it wont recognize the keyboard in any of the USB slots, front or back.
I tried a different keyboard, but same issue.
I plugged my main keyboard into my other system and it works fine (typing on it now).
So I'm stuck now and cant boot the system...

--EDIT-- My monitors have 2 USB ports, and plugging the KB into one of these lights the KB and when the system boots it detects the KB, but pressing any of the KB keys does nothing.

--EDIT 2-- Just before this problem occured, I updated the firmware on the SSD, thru the SSD software GUI....dunno how that might be connected (as I had this KB undetected issue with the back panel USB ports before this), but thought I'd mention it. Cant seem to find anything online about KB not being detected

Any ideas?

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun May 19, 2013 3:02 pm

UPDATE

I plugged the the working CPU fan (was plugged into CPU_OPT) into the CPU fan plug, and put the non working CPU fan into CPU_OPT.

The system booted to windows.
Interestingly, the new CPU fan is running at 1200 rpm and the CPU_OPT (that wasnt working) started at 340 rpm and then just died at 0 rpm after a couple of minutes.

The BIOS/Startup still doesnt recognize the Keyboard. However once windows loads, the Keyboard lights up and works fine.
I've tried the USB 2 and USB 3 ports, as well as 2 USB hubs. Still cant get the Bios to recognize the KB.

Which means that I cannot access the Bios at all

Glad to have windows running.
Seems I have to RMA the cooler fan as well as the corsair 120mm fan.
And I have to figure a way to get past this no KB detection.

Any thoughts or Ideas?
I think my mb has a reset CMOS button on it, tho I dunno if that is needed/necessary.

--more information-- Windows wont load if I have a thumb drive connected to the front usb 3 port. As soon as I unplug it, windows will load.
If I unplug all USB devices except for the keyboard and mouse, the KB and mouse are detected at post and I can get into the bios.

--EDIT-- After about 4 hours of messing with this, I came across a thread on the Asus boards that suggested unplugging all USB devices.

So I unplugged all my usb devices except for the mouse and keyboard in the usb2 sockets and confirmed that when just the mouse and keyboard are plugged in I can get into BIOS as the keyboard is detected.

Then I added back all the usb devices one at a time, checking after each device that the keyboard was still detected in the POST. I reconnected all the devices with the last being an old USB hub and the keyboard is still detected. I have a feeling that the USB hub was the issue, but it seems to be working now.

How very odd. There must be some issue with the USB ports on the Maximus V Gene mb. I'm glad I stumbled across that thread, because it never would have occurred to me to unplug everything and start plugging USB devices one at a time.

Does anyone have any ideas on this issue?

Also, any opinions on OCing? Krom's post on just using the turbo mode set to 4.6 makes sense. The stock setting for the CPU voltage is 1.33 in manual mode.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun May 19, 2013 7:24 pm

1.33 sounds awfully high for a Ivy Bridge chips voltage, I'd snoop around the web to find out what your actual vid is. Higher voltages are dangerous, I usually suggest limiting your overclocks to something that is possible with stock voltage.

I've had and heard of various USB problems before, sometimes there are picky ports, or sometimes there are just straight up defective ones. It will take some more research to be sure what it is in this particular case.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Mon May 20, 2013 12:33 am

That's the odd thing. The Vcore 1.33 IS stock. I havent adjusted anything other than the XMP for the RAM.

Waiting for Grendel to chime in on the USB oddities. I searched and searched, but coudnt find anything more on this (cant seem to be able to join the RoG forums to start a thread)

Here are the two threads that led me to the idea of checking each USB device:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?boa ... uage=en-us

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLa ... 1&count=19

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Tue May 21, 2013 12:33 am

Sorry guys, being sick sucks

I have not had any problems with the USB ports on that board. Note that I currently only use USB 2.0 ports for fixed devices (mouse, kb, hub, printer, stick, etc.), nothing is plugged into the 3.0 ports (I did have a USB 2.0 bracket I used to give me 4 more ports. Kinda figured that 3.0 is new, best not to mess w/ it...) I only use the 3.0 ports for memory devices after the OS is up and the drivers are loaded. So, suggestion would be to keep the 3.0 ports empty and plug the kb directly into a 2.0 port on the MB. (Sorry, too tired to work my way through the ASUS thread tonight

)

I remember reading somewhere about the level up turning off the XMP profile and the need to turn it back on.

If that defect fan gets warm or hot at the hub -- DISCONNECT IT ! You don't want a fire inside your computer !

SSD firmware update won't have anything to do w/ it, I've done that multiple times w/ different comps w/o problems (including this one

)

1.33V is on the very high/bad end, not sure where that comes from. Don't use that !! Take a look at this article ! 4.6GHz --> not more than 1.2V. At stock my CPU right now is running at about 0.936V (via CPU-Z.)

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:34 am

Is it possible to just lower the core voltage without upping the multiplier? If so, how? (put cpu voltage to manual and then just set it to 1.20 or something?)
I dont want to OC until I get the 2nd CPU fan replaced.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Tue May 21, 2013 1:32 pm

If you do a "Load Optimized Defaults" (Exit Menu) everything should reset to normal. Re-enable the XMP profile, review the boot order settings, and anything else not CPU related that you changed.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Tue May 21, 2013 9:13 pm

That fixed it. Stock core voltage is now between 0.912 idling at 1600mhz, and 1.152 or so when running at 3900mhz.

Sending the fans in tomorrow. Hopefully it wont be too long of a turnaround.
I'm wondering if it's worth spending $20 on a 3rd phanteks fan for the cooler (only 2 come with the cooler, but you can add a 3rd). Then I'd have an extra if one crapped out, as well as a bit more cooling power....

Interestingly, the BIOS has an option to fully optimize the USB ports during post (which then takes longer to boot) so that all USB devices are available at post.
It's currently set to partial, which enables the USB ports of the mouse and KB.
The RoG forums stated that these kinds of USB issues are an ongoing saga. Guess it's not just me then

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Wed May 22, 2013 1:03 am

Glad that worked out

It may be worth getting a third fan as a spare. I don't think it would do a lot for cooling w/ already two 140mm fans strapped to the sink. I'm running a single 90mm fan on my sink for crying out loud !

(60dC is so far the max. RealTemp has seen w/ auto fan speed active.) The i5-3570K I have folding @ 3.8GHz 24/7 w/ Hyper 212 Evo + Noctua NF-F12 runs at slightly over 50dC hottest core w/ recorded max of 60 on a hot day (also set to auto fan speed.)

If you need more than the 4 USB 2.0 ports on the back panel, instead of using a 3.0 port get a 4 port bracket like this or this -- the board has two headers to hook that up to. Like I said, I have not had any USB irregularities even tho I've hooked up all kinds of devices to about 6 2.0 ports during boot. If you can't do the bracket -- try using only the two Intel 3.0 ports or, if that fails, the two 3.0 asmedia ports.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Wed May 22, 2013 1:33 pm

Just stumbled over this, check it out -- Performance Tuning Protection Plan by Intel. $25 for a 3770K.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Wed May 22, 2013 8:17 pm

Nice setup, widescreen/surround gaming at its best

Side note - some USB Gaming controllers especially the CH Products do not like 3.0 USB Ports

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun May 26, 2013 4:21 pm

Thanks Bubba! I was inspired by your setup a couple of years back when you posted some picks.

Triple monitors (and a GPU to run them) has been the single more important upgrade I've ever made. It would be difficult to go back to two, or (gasp) even one!
I'll keep an eye on the CH USB connections and will try USB2 if an issue arrises.

Thanks for the headsup on the drivers Grendel.
I went ahead and ordered the 3rd fan for my cooler (got free shipping from amazon for the blue fan...wont match, but that's ok).

Anyone have any opinions on whether the insurance for the 3770k CPU is worth it?
I plan on only OC'ing to 4.5 or so. Not sure what to make of all the jargon on the Intel OC'ing insurance page, but basically they agree to give you a new CPU if you melt your OC'd one, right?

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Sun May 26, 2013 6:25 pm

Good for peace of mind IMHO

Planning to get it for the 3930K I'm eyeballing.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 12:05 am

Finally got my dead fans back from corsair (still waiting on the fan from Phanteks, but I bought another--the cooler supports 3--and got it in a couple of days).
The system is up and running and very cool. I just Prime 95 only puts the system into the 50s, and gaming is similar.
I havent OC'd yet, but figure I'll wait a week or so and make sure everything is stable and good.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:23 am

There is a theory that goes around on overclocking articles which says you will get better overclocks if you "break in" the CPU by running it at stock speeds for an extended duration (which can be anywhere from 1 week to 3 months). I don't believe there have ever been any tests or any real evidence to support the theory, but it can't hurt to run at stock for a while.

Honestly I'd benchmark stuff I was interested in getting better performance in both before and after overclocking before making any decisions about permanently overclocking. That way I'd see if it is really worth the increased power/heat/noise or not. For instance if a game was GPU limited, a CPU overclock won't help and wouldn't be worth the time to tweak in the first place. But a CPU overclock would significantly benefit encoding jobs like compressing a bluray with x264/handbrake, say a 25% overclock would yield an almost identical performance improvement in encoding and when one movie can easily take 8-12 hours that adds up to significant time savings.

I didn't overclock my Core 2 Duo E6600 for a solid 2-3 years after I got it, because it wasn't till I got Far Cry 2 that I seriously ran into the CPU limit. It was actually kind of hilarious, the game was crashing because the framerate was too low and caused driver timeouts, which tripped windows into resetting the GPU driver and that would crash the game. So when I overclocked, the minimum framerate went up enough to avoid the timeouts and it quit crashing. Definitely up there as one of the more amusing solutions to a stability problem I've ever done. Of course even overclocked the C2D was no alternative to getting a quad core on the job, even a Q6600 would have nearly doubled the performance because FC2 ran 4 main threads. The slow performance in FC2 was less about clock speed and more about just not having enough cores to run it all, which is the main reason why my stock clocked i7 quad core is 3.5 times faster at FC2 than the overclocked C2D was.

Basically don't overclock if you aren't CPU limited, instead you should look for power savings because with some similar to overclocking tweaking you can get some pretty significant savings on the electric bill from a high uptime computer.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:46 pm

x2

Sidenote: technically the V Gene board overclocks the 3770 -- enabling X.M.P. will activate "MultiCore Enhancement", causing each core to run either at 1.2GHz (idle) or 3.9GHz (load)... (Ref.)

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:31 pm

Great points. I've been wondering about the value of overclocking from 3.9 to 4.5 (or most of these chips seem to be able to hit 4.7 with no problem).
I did some gaming yesterday as well as ran Prime 95 and the temps stayed in the low 50s, with my fans running below full speed. (running on less than full speed causes an annoying chirping sound from my new cpu cooler fan...on Full speed the fans are blowing like crazy and drown this noise out. Cant seem to get a break with fans lately. I hate to rma it AGAIN, but I guess I'll have to.)
I dont know that I have any speed bottlenecks as the system seems to run everything with max settings.
Seems like I dont need to OC at all, but I'll watch it for a couple of months, which seems like the best course.

I guess in all my research, I kept coming across posts of people OC'ing their 3770k CPUs to 4.5, 4.7, etc (and even reading people's forum sigs which show their CPUs OC'd to high 4.0 levels) and this makes me feel like I am missing out on the speed of my cpu if I dont OC. "OC peer pressure" lol.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Jun 01, 2013 8:43 pm

I did a Prime 95 test today for about 2 1/2 hours. Temps were mostly high 50s, but hit a max of 62, 66, 67, 67. (that's with my fans on max)
It's warm here today and my office is stuffy and humid.
No reported errors or warnings

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Jun 02, 2013 6:06 am

Speaking of 3770K CPUs, I installed mine yesterday.

Somewhat amusing since not even a couple hours after I put mine in, all the Haswell (i7-4xxx series CPUs) reviews went live. Outdated on the same day I started using it.

No easy drop in upgrades to Haswell though, since it uses a new socket (LGA 1150).

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 12:03 am

Congrats on the new CPU Krom! From what I've read, this CPU is the real deal, and the Haswell chips arent all that much better for the cost.

What cooler are you using with your 3770k?
Are you going to OC it?
I dont know about the CPU level up option...kind of intrigued by it, but dont know if I should mess with it.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 3:27 am

I'm using an Arctic Freezer 13. I have no plans to overclock at the moment.

The biggest improvement from Haswell seem to be idle power savings, to the tune of 20 watts. The bulk of those savings are actually from motherboard makers taking idle power seriously for a change though, the CPU itself isn't idling much lower than Ivy Bridge and its load power is actually higher (but still has better performance/watt).

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:28 am

XBitLabs has a pretty comprehensive review about the details. Looks like idle savings are 6W (3770 vs 4770)

I find including the VRMs into the CPU most interesting (it's the main cause for the increased TDP), makes the mainboards a lot simpler -- instead of 6 voltages the Haswell desktop chips only need two. I'm not going to update at least until the 2nd gen comes out -- esp. since I'm in the process of upgrading downwards to a Sandy Bridge-E

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Wed Jun 12, 2013 11:03 pm

New BIOS, 1802.

For the record -- ever since I moved the machine and hooked up a different keyboard I do have problems w/ the KB not being initialized during boot, making entering the BIOS a PITA sometimes. With this particular KB the caps-lock LED will stay lit if it's not being initialized, so I can easily see it and hit the reset button before windows is loaded. That usually "fixes" it. There are only three USB devices hooked up, KB, Logitech Nano receiver for the mouse, and UPS. All are connected to USB 2.0 ports :/ New BIOS didn't seem to fix it (altho during the 1st boot after the update it worked just fine.)

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Fri Jun 14, 2013 2:23 am

Did you try unplugging all 3 USBs, booting, then turning off, then adding just the kb (and then one USB at a time till they are all plugged in again)?
That's what worked for me, and ever since, I've not had any issues (even tho I've had the machine unplugged half a dozen times to mess with the fans).

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Fri Jun 14, 2013 2:21 pm

Nope, didn't mess too much w/ it since the two times I needed to get into the BIOS it worked

Since the BIOS update I have seen the issue only once while booting and I didn't need to get into the BIOS at that time.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 11:50 am

New BIOS, 1903.