ASRock 775i65G R3.0 - mod and recap?

[trodas]

I wanted board that support AGP and the Core 2 Duo CPU's, especially the Core 2 Extreme X6800 for AGP benching. Dunno if that was a good choice, but the first board I get for this purpose is ASRock 775i65G R3.0. It does not look like much:


http://postimg.org/image/i2e14qssf/
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/775i65G%20R3.0/

...but it promise support for the FSB 1066 on the fast CPUs. I ordered a Core 2 Extreme X6800 ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-2...item2c93a7bad7 ), some fast rams should be moving towards me too ( http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=95400&page=2 ), so what remain is a good cooler, PSU and let's the journey begin

At first I tried a lazy old Celeron 336 (2.8GHz) and some crapy rams (2x 512MB Mushkin enhanced 2.5-4-4-9 tested at 200MHz):





The board is completely stock, except that I get rid of the stickers and the "bouble gum" for the chipset cooler, replaced with AS2.

There did not seems to be a way to increase Vcore in bios and using a stock Intel cooler I hit wall at 154MHz FSB (x21) pretty soon:
http://valid.canardpc.com/lregg7

Now we can all quess, what that caused. Not enought Vcore? Celeron having a problem going over 3.2GHz? Poor cooling? Poor old FSP300-60NP PSU? Rams? (they should not be the case, as I tested them with the timings (except TRAS 9, this board did not let me set over 8) at 200MHz)

Never the less, I started measuring on the mobo what caps I can replace with quality ones. There is the table of caps and voltages on ASRock 775i65G R3.0:

Including original .ai file (Illustrator 7), if anyone want to use/print it for own moding.

Surprisingly, the board have zero caps from the bottom. And since it have only 5Vcore output caps, then I have to come up with some mod that add caps to the Vcore output, as this is IMHO not enought caps for only 3 phase Vcore regulation.

Still, people managed max FSB 352MHz: http://ww.w.hwbot.org/submission/243...65g_352.44_mhz
...max memory clock 250MHz: http://ww.w.hwbot.org/submission/232..._sdram_249_mhz
...and max CPU clock od 4.2GHz: http://ww.w.hwbot.org/submission/233...641_4220.4_mhz

...so I have something to look forward to

[c_hegge]

Re: ASRock 775i65G R3.0 - mod and recap?

Those pictures don't work (they can only be viewed as thumbnails). Do NOT use postimg, imageshack or any other 3rd party image hosting here. Please upload all of your attachments locally.

[trodas]

Re: ASRock 775i65G R3.0 - mod and recap?

So, when my Celeron 336 does not like to go higher that FSB 154, then what about my Pentium 4 650? Can it get higher? We see.
First at all, puting a P4 in the mainboard "unlocked" the DDR400 settings (previously only 133 and 166MHz ram settings are available, now 200MHz is possible too, hoooray!).

And another thing is, that the Intel cooler is not cooling the CPU well, when come past 3.5GHz, as there are serious thermal slow-downs... :o

Also the Mushkin enhanced rams cannot make it stable past 200MHz (maybe not even on 200MHz, as they need the TRAS 9, while maximum setting is 8 on this board), so I replaced them with 2x1G sticks OCZP4001G that I have tested they run well at 2.5-3-3-7 1T to 232MHz with mere 2.64V



Sadly it turns out, that any overclocking with this "cooler" is just a wishfull thinking, so solution is simple - get better cooling, mod the mainboard caps for quality ones, add caps, use good PSU - and possibly also use less TDP demanding CPU (P4 650 have 84W TDP, Core 2 Extreme X6800 have 75W TDP).

Also I realized, that the nVidia FX 5600XT card, witch I like and moded pretty much well ( http://s18.postimg.org/g28j6c70p/Ge_...ono_Plus_5.jpg ) cannot give over 60Hz output in 1280x1024 using DVI. Crappy lame HW limits. I learn that nVidia used crappy TMDS encoders in the whole FX 5xxx line, so basically it cannot send quality digital signal of need clocks for 75Hz... damn!

(hence crappy R9100 can do 75Hz over DVI, but FX 5900 Ultra cannot)

Solution - get Radeon 9600XT and recap it, mod it :o

...

I have to report a little progress:
- get serious PSU - done. eVGA Supernova G2 850W might be a "bit" overkill, but it does the job done:


- get serious cooling - done. Noctua NH-C12P SE14 will get the job done and keep even highly TDP demanding CPU's in reasonable temps:


Also I have progress on the bios thing - using AMIBCP v3.51 ( http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thr...-0-bios-unlock ) I opened the bios and - sadly - there is no hidden options:

Damn.

Nevermind - how far it will overclock now, witch good cooler? Even 218x17 (3703MHz: http://valid.canardpc.com/hrmiv0 ) does not seems to be a slightest problem.

Surprisingly (there are plenty of much faster CPUs, so WTF?) I even set a SuperPi 32M record for the mobo:
http://hwbot.org/hardware/motherboard/775i65g/
( http://hwbot.org/submission/2858182_...in_52sec_609ms )

...witch is hardly any record, but currently it is


So till the rams and X6800 Extreme CPU come, I could play a bit to see, how far the poor P4 650 can be pushed w/o increasing the voltage.

[trodas]

Re: ASRock 775i65G R3.0 - mod and recap?

A serious setback happend - rams aren't performing how they should

Since the target CPU is Core 2 Extreme X6800, I need fast DDR1 rams. For P4 a 200MHz is fine (800/4 = 200), but for 1066MHz CPU is need 266MHz rams to have FSB:rams into 1:1 for the maximum speed. Therefore I started searching for rams, that can do 266MHz. A user from germany showed that his Qimonda rams, using CE-5 chips can run at 265MHz getting 2.7V (Abit IC7-Max3 with intel 875 chipset):



So he sold me these and when i used the very same ram sticks (see S/N) in ASRock 775i65G with intel 865G chipset at 2.75V, I get them fail at mere 216MHz, using the very same settings:



...

Sure anyone can claim, that it was because my CPU cannot handle that overclock, right? Well... wrong. Even there is no Vcore increase, my CPU can handle 228MHz FSB ( http://valid.canardpc.com/hl1nhr ) somewhat stable for CPU-Z and benchable it can handle 220MHz:



So to put it short, Qimonda rams fail at 216MHz, OCZ rams working at 220MHz. Hardly this could be because of the CPU ... or can it? Who can explain me, what just happend? Same mobo, same CPU, same settings... yet so dramatically different results?!

What can be wrong? Could the ASRock somewhat address the rams SO bad, that they now fail at 216MHz, when they worked on Abit at 265MHz?!

...and no... I cannot use these OCZ rams for 266MHz, as they have top frequency about 231/232MHz with reasonable timings