What do all these memory related BIOS settings actually mean and do!?
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From: paulmd@efn.org on 22 Jul 2006 22:34 Steven O. wrote: > As discussed in another post, I recently put together a new PC with > the ASUS A8N-E Motherboard. The MB has the NVIDIA nForce 4 Ultra chip > set, and a Phoenix-Award BIOS (Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG, 04/07/06, > also listed as ASUS A8N-E ACPI BIOS Revision 1013). The processor is > the AMD Athlon 64 3500+, External clock 200 MHz. Memory: 1 Gig of > Corsair Memory CMX512-3200C2PT (2 x 500 Meg DDR 400 chips) > > Unfortunately, the manual that comes with the board does not clearly > explain several key BIOS parameters related to system performance. Yep, they never do. They hope you either leave them alone, or know what exactly you're changing. I > have searched the ASUS, AMD, NVIDIA, and Phoenix-Award web sites in > vain for detailed discussion. > > I am not looking to overclock the CPU -- I have no desire to risk > overheating -- but I do want to be sure I am getting the optimum > performance from the RAM and system bus. I am hoping that someone can > either offer explanations of what these various parameters below mean, > or can steer me to a document that has a reasonably detailed > discussion of both what the parameters, what their interactions are, > and especially what are the safe and unsafe settings for them. > > The BIOS options that seem like they are probably relevant are the > following: I perfer Auto everything unless I'm Really Sure the board isn't setting things properly. (Meaning almost never) If you want to set other settings, you have to do research on what memory you're using. Here's yours. Lower is faster. http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/specs/cmx512-3200c2.pdf Latency 2-3-3-6 (Intel) Latency 2.5-3-3-6 (AMD) 2 - CAS Latency 3 - RAS to CAS 3 - RAS Precharge 6 - Active to Precharge > > DRAM configuration > Max Memclock. Options: DDR 200 DDR 266 DDR 333 DDR 400 DDR 400 DDR > 433 DDR 466 . DDR 500 DDR 533 DDR 550 DDR 600 This one's easy enough. You want DDR400. (It's what your memory is) > 1T/2T memory timing. Options: 1T/2T > CAS latency. Options are Auto 2.0 2.5 3.0 > RAS to CAS delay. Options: auto 2 3 4 5 6 7 > Min RAS active time. Options: Auto 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 > Row Precharge Time. Options: auto 2 3 4 5 6 > Master ECC enabled. Options: disabled enabled > Hyper transport frequency. Options: Auto 1x 2x ... 5x > Overclock profile. Options: Manual / auto / standard / AI overclock > / AI N.O.S. > > For manual overclocking: > CPU frequency [set at 200 by default] > PCI express clock: 100 MHz up to 145 MHz > CPU multiplier: x4 up to x20 > N.O.S. Option: Disable Overclock 3% 5% 8% 10% > > Thanks in advance for all replies. > > Steve O. > > "Spying On The College Of Your Choice" -- How to pick the college that is the Best Match for a high school student's needs. > www.SpyingOnTheCollegeOfYourChoice.com
From: The little lost angel on 23 Jul 2006 00:25 On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:59:39 GMT, Steven O. <null(a)null.com> wrote: >I am not looking to overclock the CPU -- I have no desire to risk >overheating -- but I do want to be sure I am getting the optimum >performance from the RAM and system bus. I am hoping that someone can >either offer explanations of what these various parameters below mean, >or can steer me to a document that has a reasonably detailed >discussion of both what the parameters, what their interactions are, >and especially what are the safe and unsafe settings for them. The others have already given the details or provided links to do so. But honestly, I wouldn't really bother because from my experience tweaking memory settings on the A64 (I use the A8N as well), even though you might get improvements on benchmarks, doesn't really do anything much for actual performance. Better to use that time to enjoy doing stuff like surf your favourite site or something :P -- A Lost Angel, fallen from heaven Lost in dreams, Lost in aspirations, Lost to the world, Lost to myself
From: George Macdonald on 23 Jul 2006 04:18 On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 23:24:16 GMT, John Doe <jdoe(a)usenetlove.invalid> wrote: >Off-topic cross post that could have been kept in the immediately >prior cross post about the same subject. Is that worse than repetitively making top-posts which quote the entire header? <SNIP>> -- Rgds, George Macdonald
From: John Doe on 23 Jul 2006 10:42 Yes. Path: newssvr21.news.prodigy.com!newsdbm04.news.prodigy.com!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local02.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.garden.net!news.garden.net.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 03:18:33 -0500 From: George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks tellurian.com> Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Subject: Re: What do all these memory related BIOS settings actually mean and do!? Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 04:18:39 -0400 Message-ID: <ar86c2dt4lmfpje04csmmpkudl9mnfv0c6 4ax.com> References: <jab5c290to4g8e86e0qlthvlvfalu7m06u 4ax.com> <Xns9808BB39FAF9F0123456789 207.115.17.102> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 11 NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.97.11.222 X-Trace: sv3-hl9ylIWdAh99PJzgw2Q8Ziz/Qo1TxokygPLQCnsu1xrUYj1Lm+IHVfKetf3ByoeCFcZ2gwe2TXyRVyl!0j3aWcVXji1lt09T10FU3GOIrCAXvO+UH3nx/Qes5qmv4IeTp8oylMOIep0GIJnz9e0AaUjEhiys!Xh2mciikpKgvZq42BQ0OQw== X-Complaints-To: abuse tellurian.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse tellurian.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Xref: prodigy.net alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64:11985 alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:471726 alt.comp.hardware:314930 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips:460814 On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 23:24:16 GMT, John Doe <jdoe usenetlove.invalid> wrote: >Off-topic cross post that could have been kept in the immediately >prior cross post about the same subject. Is that worse than repetitively making top-posts which quote the entire header? <SNIP>> -- Rgds, George Macdonald
From: The little lost angel on 23 Jul 2006 11:10
On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 23:24:16 GMT, John Doe <jdoe(a)usenetlove.invalid> wrote: >Off-topic cross post that could have been kept in the immediately >prior cross post about the same subject. He wastes less bandwidth and is easier to read than you-who-top-post-including-all-headers-for-who-knows-why. :P -- A Lost Angel, fallen from heaven Lost in dreams, Lost in aspirations, Lost to the world, Lost to myself |