A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

[Chucko]

I have found my Q6600 runs cooler - and even faster - when the CPU Termination voltage is reduced to the minimum 1.1V supported on the EP45 family motherboards. I have tested this with the EP45-DS3R and EP45-UD3P. It even works at a 3.06GHz overclock!

I would love to have a BIOS with two very minor changes:

• Reduce the minimum CPU Termination voltage below 1.1V;
• 0.02V steps below the Normal setting of 1.2V.

Is there any hope of getting these changes? Thanks.

[morph]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

Man, you were so right.
I'm just runing my [email protected], 1hour prime95 stable and counting, after lowering CPU Termination to 1.1. Now I only have to use 1.3V to get stable at this freq, everything else is set to stock. Before, i needed 1.35 and a lot of other tweaks to PLL, MCH and memory timings. Also, max temp so far is 51 degrees on CPU and 54 degrees on both cores.

[Chucko]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

Yeah, it surprised me too. I've been running the command line version of the Linpack benchmark as a stress test and it seems to get more Gflops at the same clock speed with the lower CPU Termination voltage.

So who says you just have to crank the voltages up to overclock?!

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

Seems to be available on my P45 (DS4P) >>>



And yes guys, more voltage is not always the answer, especially with P45. This is true for many voltages, but even more so for MCH compared to previous chipsets

This setting is per CPU setting though so I am not sure if I see less due to the model of the board, or the CPU used (45Nm Xeon E3110)

The Intel Recommended Minimum for Q6600 Vtt is 1.25 anyway so asking for less then you are already using is not likely going to be a much requested change in the BIOS

[morph]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

The minimum termination voltage on my board (EP45-DS3L with F8 BIOS) is 1.1V. Same thing applies for F7 and F10 BIOS's as i have tryed those too.
LE: Oh, and lowering the MCH to less than 1.16V (when using 2x2GB sticks of ram and 425MHz FSB) I get the rounding error on Prime95 during the first run in blend mode.

[profJim]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

What is the difference between NORMAL and AUTO settings on the EP45 mobos.
I know that I can check this on my system, but there appears to be only one other member in the forum using the E6550 cpu.

[morph]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

Normal sets the voltage to the nominal value. Like VID for the CPU, 1.8V for RAM, 1.1V for MCH and so on. It's the same like Auto when not overclocking.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

As said above Normal is Normal standard Spec voltage, you should manually set a given voltage if you want to use spec amount instead of normal.

Auto means the board decides what voltage to apply per the rest of your settings.

[Chucko]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

This setting is per CPU setting though so I am not sure if I see less due to the model of the board, or the CPU used (45Nm Xeon E3110)

Yeah, I could believe that it varies by CPU model.

The Intel Recommended Minimum for Q6600 Vtt is 1.25 anyway so asking for less then you are already using is not likely going to be a much requested change in the BIOS

Are we reading the same table? The document you linked to recommends 1.14V min, 1.26V max for Vtt.

But yeah, point taken. Most OCers don't undervolt. This particular Q6600 seems to love lower voltages. I'm getting 3.06GHz - 8 hour Linpack stable! - at stock core voltage.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: A modest request for an EP45 series BIOS change

Ahh yes, sorry I was looking at the table above the correct one. I musta been sleep typing, my bad!

Now that you mention your board model I think that is the issue. The "L" models are "Budget" and therefore do have smaller and less voltage options then the upper end boards. This may not be the only factor here, as your CPU may also play part, but the board I know will have much less refined voltage options, and available voltage settings being of the budget series