This is very wrong

[MatiasZ]

I have just had an awfull day regarding hardware and it's getting worse, and I could use some help.

I needed to get something new for my server, so I thought better spend a little bit more, upgrade my PC and pass the P4 to the server. This was the plan until this morning. So, I bought a nF3 DFI mobo and a 3000+ Venice to be oced, to replace my P4 2.6@3.25 Northwood

I started the traspassing, and when I finished installing the P4 on the server, it wouldn't boot. Long story short, I think the mobo is dead (ASUS P4P800 Deluxe) because no matter what combination of hardware I tryed, even using my hole computer again, it won't post a thing nor make any beeps, although it was working 20 minutes before that.

So I said OK, let's go install MY pc, and get happy with the improvements of the new CPU. I installed everything and managed to OC the CPU tu 2.67Ghz, with the memory running at about 190Mhz (on the P4 it was at 200). I have a 6800GT AGP btw.

So I start up 3dmark2k3, and I get a score of 11100, and with the P4 i was getting 12100!!!
Tried doom3, and went from 60 fps 1280 HQ 2xaa to 56!!

Am I missing something or should I be getting way better results than these? I would expect it to at least be ON PAR with a P4 3.25G, this is almost equal to a 3800+ or 4000+ CPU.... Any suggestions before I throw everything out the window?

 

[see colon]

the first thing i would look at is your gart drivers. did you do a clean install of windows?

also, what's the model number of your mobo?

 

[Rolf N]

the first thing i would look at is your gart drivers.

Seconded.

did you do a clean install of windows?

Should not be necessary. In fact it's often detrimental because patches, driver installs and tweaks that were done to the old install are frequently forgotten when doing a fresh install.
(though forgotten drivers are definitely not the culprit when moving from an Intel chipset to an NVIDIA chipset, like here)

 

[MatiasZ]

Yes, I did a clean reinstall of windows, and later installed the drivers that came with the mobo cd. I have also downloaded the latest version from nVidia, but i get the feeling both are the same. The mobo is a DFI LANPARTY nF3 Ultra-D. I think there's only one revision of it.

I've heard nF3 has some issues with 6800 series (which is kinda ironic both being nVidia), and I've disabled Fast Writes and Sideband through the Bios, however Sideband showed as Enabled from CPU-Z.

More info: I've put the CPU down to the default speeds, and I'm getting the SAME performance numbers on Doom3 and others. I've ran Doom3 at LQ in order to make it CPU bound, and it came with the same numbers for 1800Mhz and 2620Mhz. Something is not right.

 

[see colon]

hmm...
were you overclocking the gpu. i'd also double check your CP setting for the card. maybe even go so far as to enable then disable aa and af (assuming they are disabled).

 

[MatiasZ]

hmm...
were you overclocking the gpu. i'd also double check your CP setting for the card. maybe even go so far as to enable then disable aa and af (assuming they are disabled).

I was, but I have the clocks exactly the same at 400:1100 right now, so that shouldn't be a problem... as far as double checking, I'm using the same settings, app controled AA and Aniso, and High Quality. Also, with both mobos, if i left enabled the multidisplay acceleration (which BTW have no idea what it does, it slow's down my performance to about half of the regular fps. But I have checked that so far... I'll keep testing. Right now it seems the perfo under CPU limited scenearios has gone up, I went from 83 fps to 105fps in doom3... but under a mixed case it is about the same, and in GPU intensive (1600 at 4x 8x) is a bit slower... Anything else I should try? I'm using the 5.10 nForce drivers, which are the ones available at nVidia... but I've seen some betas around (although GART version seems the same).

 

[Rolf N]

Dunno if that 3DMark03 score is too low. That's supposed to be a fairly graphics limited test, and besides, you shouldn't really worry about 3DMark. Anyway.

Double-check that you're running the memory in dual channel mode. The memory slots for pairing up should be color coded in some way, and the steps to get dual channel should be outlined in the mobo manual. Then look at the BIOS post screen (pause it). The memory self test should spit out either "dual channel mode" or "128 bit mode" (all BIOSes I know of do that when DC is active).

 

[MatiasZ]

Dunno if that 3DMark03 score is too low. That's supposed to be a fairly graphics limited test, and besides, you shouldn't really worry about 3DMark. Anyway.

I'm not really comparing it against others... I don't care how it turns out that way because I know everybody tries to beat the score so they do anything posible to get it, and I just run it at the highest qualit possible, but i'm worried I'm getting worst results than before, so the money I spent isn't really worth it, and my pc is even slower now.

Double-check that you're running the memory in dual channel mode.

Yes it's running in DC (BTW, the manual is missleading about this, but it was the first thing I corrected after booting in SC).

I have been able to run 5 hours of Prime95 so far at 320HT speeds, at ~2600Mhz (memory at 211 Mhz)... I would think this should be at least a little faster than a 3.25 P4, even under 3dMark. Going by my numbers, it seems this system works worst at GPU limited scenearios, which is what drives me crazy as I have double checked everything regarding the graphic card, and is the same as before.

Thank you for all the input BTW, keep it coming as I really appreciated, we might end gettting this to work as it should.

 

[Guden Oden]

and I've disabled Fast Writes and Sideband through the Bios, however Sideband showed as Enabled from CPU-Z.

Don't disable these. No point in it, if anything you might actually make things (a lot) slower. The days where these features caused problems are LONG over!

 

[MatiasZ]

Ok, re-enabled Fast Writes, performance is about the same and so is stability.

I've been trying some new combinations, and have come to a point where I can't seem to be able to run all the things overclocked at the same time. For example, I can run the GPU at 400@1100 without a problem at default speeds (system) but when running at overclocked speeds I get stability problems. Same thing goes for the ram, if I overclock the system it won't even post correctly at 300FSB with the ram at 200, which is what is rated for... So I'm thinking it MIGHT be a problem with the PSU. Is a Enermax 365W rated for 32A@3.3V+, 32A@5V+ and 26A@12V+.

One other strange thing: while running at default speeds, no matter what I do, memtest never works. Is not that it gives errors, whenever it passes the DMI setup, the blue screen (of memtest) appears for about 0.5sec, and then the comp restarts alone. Note that this is happening at default speeds :S. Any suggestions?

EDIT: I tried disabling USB Legacy support on the bios but it was still the same. Memtest won't run, and I have just tried another couple of dimms and is about the same. Is there any other way to test for memory errors besides the usual benchmarking?

 

[Monty]

what bios version you using on motherboard, tells you bottom left on post screen
(7/15/05) - something like that, cant quite remember, that in the example is 715

i found 715 to be the best up to now with my venice (still pretty crap though, waiting for new bios, hopefully should be around soon)

also try the nforce drivers below, 5.10 were messed up with me as well, was getting terrible performance with my 6800,

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=971

also, i would disable fast-writes, doesnt work to well with 6800's with current drivers

another thing, when u set the memory divider on this motherboard, to 133 for your 300fsb, it lowers the timings on your memory, not just CAS and them lot, but all of them, so thats why you system is unstable at them settings, you should use a64 tweaker in windows and record all your mem timings in defaults speeds and set them in the bios when you use the 133 divider.

hope this helps..

 

[Guden Oden]

I don't see how the bios revision could have anything to do with the stability of fastwrites. It's something you either turn on or turn off; it doesn't have tons of tuning options in the chipset hardware. With it off, processor accesses to video RAM is going to be atrociously slow.

 

[MatiasZ]

what bios version you using on motherboard, tells you bottom left on post screen
(7/15/05) - something like that, cant quite remember, that in the example is 715

i found 715 to be the best up to now with my venice (still pretty crap though, waiting for new bios, hopefully should be around soon)

Is 711, which is the default version that came with the mobo, and I saw at pcmoddingmalasya or something like that that it was the best for Venice core's

also try the nforce drivers below, 5.10 were messed up with me as well, was getting terrible performance with my 6800,

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=971

also, i would disable fast-writes, doesnt work to well with 6800's with current drivers

THANKS! I'll see how that works as soon as I get home. Regarding Fast Writes, I've had it enabled and disable, and it works equally well/wrong, so I'll just leave it disabled to discard that as a problem.

another thing, when u set the memory divider on this motherboard, to 133 for your 300fsb, it lowers the timings on your memory, not just CAS and them lot, but all of them, so thats why you system is unstable at them settings, you should use a64 tweaker in windows and record all your mem timings in defaults speeds and set them in the bios when you use the 133 divider.

hope this helps..

VERY HELPFULL. Seriously, thanks a lot. I hope to get this working, because it's really frustrating having spent around 200€ to get WORSE performance than before, and as right now, I can't seem to overclock my vid card no matter what the system speed is, which was working perfectly at 400@1100 before. I'll update soon with this. Thanks again.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

Have you tried a program that is entirely CPU dependant to see if it scales with clock speed at all? Run some super pi 1MB benchs @ 1.8 and 2.6 and see what you get, both doom 3 and 3dmark are known to be quite graphics card dependant so I wouldn't be too too surprised to see the results you're getting. Although it is odd that you're getting lower scores than before but I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions before isolating the problem.

 

[MatiasZ]

Yes, the CPU intensive applications increase accordingly to the speed, however what worries me is the GPU intensive apps, I fail to see why I'm getting so much lower scores using the same vid card. On FEAR I would get 33 as a minimum FPS at 1024 2xAA 4xAF and now I get 17 as a minimum. That's about half of what it was before. And I can't overclock the card because I get severe stability issues on every test. What is even more strange, if I overclock only the card's core to 400Mhz (from 350), and leave the memory by default (or the other way around, just not ocing both things), I have no stability issues BUT my scores drop a LOT from default (350@1000 is faster than 400@1000 or 350@1100). This is getting stranger as things go by.

 

[kyleb]

You might want to try the 61.77 ForceWare drivers, that should get rid of any issues between your 6800/nForce3 combo.

Don't disable these. No point in it, if anything you might actually make things (a lot) slower. The days where these features caused problems are LONG over!

Heh, tell that to my nforce3-250 and 6800gt setup. With anything newer than the 61.77 drivers and with fast writes I get multi second pauses every few seconds in any D3D application. Dissableing fastwrites solves things for the most part, but the 61.77 drivers are the last ones that really work right with that setup.

 

[JCLW]

re: the P4P800-dlx

Can you bring up the magic BIOS recovery screen by hitting [ALT]+[F2] as soon as you turn it on?

If you can you'll need to download a new BIOS image from asus, rename it "p4p800.rom " and put it on a floppy or CD.

If you can't you could find a friend with a P4P800-dlx and try hotflashing your BIOS chip.

 

[MatiasZ]

You might want to try the 61.77 ForceWare drivers, that should get rid of any issues between your 6800/nForce3 combo.

I'll try them, but I feel if I get a chance (which I might very soon) I will sell this system and get a nF4 with a 7800GT. I don't feel like running my 'brand new' setup with a 1 year old driver set. Besides, those issues you report are the same ones I had seen before, but are not the ones I'm getting. My problems basically come from the inabilty to oc the card, or the strange results when partially overclocked. I will try them anyway and see how that goes.

Can you bring up the magic BIOS recovery screen by hitting [ALT]+[F2] as soon as you turn it on?

If you can you'll need to download a new BIOS image from asus, rename it "p4p800.rom " and put it on a floppy or CD.

If you can't you could find a friend with a P4P800-dlx and try hotflashing your BIOS chip.

No, I can't bring up anything :S It just won't post at all, it won't make any beeps and it won't show anything on the screen. I really don't have any friend with a P4P800 dlx, and the BIOS is one of those sockets I would need a tool to get it out. I have done hot flash on the past, but it was with 'regular' sockets, so it was quite easy. At first I thought it was a short somewhere on the ATX setup, but I have set it up outside of the case and it won't boot at all anyway. Any other options?

 

[Monty]

best way to overclock 6800's, imo, is to backup the bios of your card using nvflash and then using nibitor set the clockspeeds you want and flash the modded bios, that way nvidia drivers cant set your clockspeeds to defaults or the ultra low safety clocks they have.

@ kyleb: them beta nforce drivers i linked before should fix that problem, ive got the latest forceware drivers and no longer getting that problem with them, actually just turned fast-writes back on and doesnt seem to be a problem anymore.

 

[MatiasZ]

I don't feel that confortable flashing the vid bios yet... Right now I'm kind of tired of this situation - been fighting with it for about 4 days with no luck at all... I appreciate everyone's comments, and because of those I've been able to solve some of the issues (ram overclocking problems for example), but still I feel this system is not 'solid' enough.

I might get a chance to sell it to a friend of mine who isn't as crazy as me regarding this things and can stand running at default speeds, and I'll get something newer without spending too much - never touching again nF3 + 6800

The possible system right now is a 3000+ Venice with a NF4 Ultra mobo, with a 6800GT or a 7800GT PCI-eX vid card... upgrading to this setup while previously selling mine would cost me about 100-150€ which I think is worth it.

Thanks again everyone, you've been really helpfull. Beyond3D sure is a good place to be at when help is needed.