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Reply 60 of 134, by The Serpent Rider

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Also BH-5 ram is fun to play with on these old 865 boards if you have done the vdimm mod

VDIMM mod is usually not enough for that RAM.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 61 of 134, by bnice7

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The Serpent Rider wrote:

VDIMM mod is usually not enough for that RAM.

I used the 5v rail with a step down converter, so hypothetically I could, but I don't have any BH-5 unfortunately. I do have 2x512MB TCCD on the way.

Reply 62 of 134, by mockingbird

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bnice7 wrote:
Hello all, new user / first time poster here. As it turns out, I was able to find a modded BIOS for the P5PE-VM. It was done by […]
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mockingbird wrote:

I wish someone would mod the P5PE-VM BIOS (it's not just as simple as adding microcode)....

Hello all, new user / first time poster here. As it turns out, I was able to find a modded BIOS for the P5PE-VM. It was done by some Russian modder, so I translated his notes to English, cleaned them up a bit and put them together in a google doc. The download link to the modded BIOS is in the google doc if you want to give it a shot.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cQkYVhTn2 … dit?usp=sharing

There's no voltage adjustments for CPU or RAM, but the addition of FSB and dividers (5:4, 1:1 etc) were able to give me a nice little overclock with my Core 2 Duo X6800. Some of the advanced RAM timings are a little over my head. I tried bumping up the voltage a little using ThrottleStop (version 6.00 works with XP and the C2D's), but I have to revisit my cooling, my case temps are currently way too high.

screenshot.PNG

Did you have any issues with the BIOS? I managed to get my E6420 running at the proper speed with the 5:4 divider and the override iGPU speed limit setting, but on the next boot the BIOS lost the setting and it defaults my CPU to some weird unstable speed which hangs the system within a couple of minutes.

I think I'll go back to the old BIOS.

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Reply 63 of 134, by Skyscraper

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mockingbird wrote on 2019-11-06, 03:32:
bnice7 wrote:
Hello all, new user / first time poster here. As it turns out, I was able to find a modded BIOS for the P5PE-VM. It was done by […]
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mockingbird wrote:

I wish someone would mod the P5PE-VM BIOS (it's not just as simple as adding microcode)....

Hello all, new user / first time poster here. As it turns out, I was able to find a modded BIOS for the P5PE-VM. It was done by some Russian modder, so I translated his notes to English, cleaned them up a bit and put them together in a google doc. The download link to the modded BIOS is in the google doc if you want to give it a shot.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cQkYVhTn2 … dit?usp=sharing

There's no voltage adjustments for CPU or RAM, but the addition of FSB and dividers (5:4, 1:1 etc) were able to give me a nice little overclock with my Core 2 Duo X6800. Some of the advanced RAM timings are a little over my head. I tried bumping up the voltage a little using ThrottleStop (version 6.00 works with XP and the C2D's), but I have to revisit my cooling, my case temps are currently way too high.

screenshot.PNG

Did you have any issues with the BIOS? I managed to get my E6420 running at the proper speed with the 5:4 divider and the override iGPU speed limit setting, but on the next boot the BIOS lost the setting and it defaults my CPU to some weird unstable speed which hangs the system within a couple of minutes.

I think I'll go back to the old BIOS.

A late reply to this question, at least it isnt the worst necro I have ever done.

Some quick notes notes on my findings when it comes to the modded BIOS for the Asus P5PE-VM. At the moment I'm testing a board I diddn't even know I had but probably got in some sort of scrap lot years ago as it's a bit beat up. A couple of years ago I tried to buy two of these P5PE-VM boards on Ebay from different sellers but ended up with broken boards beyond repair so it was a nice surprise to find a working one in a box with random motherboards in need of recapping.

This board actually started smoking while posting when I first powered it on with a Celeron D "test CPU"... After removing the NB-heatsink I found a black mark at one side of one of the passive components ontop of the chipset package. The passive component, probably a tiny SMT-cap wasn't shorted to the chipset heat sink or anything like that so after redoing the cooling paste I remounted the heat sink and no more smoking since...

With the stock 1203 BIOS the board had before I could do CL2 (2-3-2-5) at 200 MHz FSB with some random 1GB value sticks. With the modded 1501 BIOS I have the same problems as others when it comes to running CL2, it wont work at all. The CL2 issue is probably why the one who modded the BIOS decided to not use the modules SPD-timings for setting default CL, the default is 3 with all sticks regardless of their SPD timings.

With the modded BIOS I'm experiencing 3d corruption in 3dmark2001 "Draconic" with a stock Geforce ti4600 even at stock 200 MHz FSB when running the memory at 1:1, it gets worse when overclocking. I have not tried to disable PAT yet but changing the memory divider to 5:4 solved the issue. I will try other memory sticks and see if that helps with running 1:1 without flakiness. Asus 865PE (865G) motherboards are known for 3d corruption issues when pushed, testing other memory modules sometimes helps.

General stability seems fine, except for the 3d corruption I had no issues with running a P4 661 at 4200 MHz with the memory running at 468 MHz CL 2.5-3-2-5 with PAT and the memory benchmarks looked good. I will try to find out how far I can go after I have sorted some VRM-mosfet cooling.

The modded BIOS uses a "safe mode" with a FSB setting of 84MHz or something ridiculously low like that, even after clearing the BIOS settings with the jumper. My P4 661 do not seem to have issues with the low "safe mode" FSB and the motherboard usually recovers fine after a failed post attempt and lets me change the offending BIOS-setting without having to reenter all settings.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 64 of 134, by Skyscraper

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Did some more testing with the Asus P5PE-VM and the Russian modded BIOS.

The first memory modules I tested were 2x1GB Infineon BE5, these caused 3d corruption in 3dmark2001 Draconic at 200+ MHz FSB using the 1:1 memory divider.
The second memory pair I tried, also Infineon BE5 (Corsair cmx1024-3200cpt xms3202v1.6) would not even boot Windows XP using the 1:1 divider at any memory timings.
Third pair i tried have Promos chips (Corsair cmx1024-3200PT xms3200v6.1), these do not seem to have 3d corruption issues when using the 1:1 divider, they will overclock some but not run tight sub timings.

The Asus P5PE-VM do not seem to like Infineon memory chips, at least not with the modded BIOS running at 1:1.

The P4 661 was seemingly stable at 4400 MHz, with the memory running at 392 but not at 4500 MHz with the memory at stock 400. I will try some core2-CPUs later.

edit

Tested some more 2x 1GB memory.

Geil ge2gb3200bhdc (probably BE5) did not work very well.
A Qimonda set with Qimonda Rev C -5 chips worked fine at 200 1:1 with tight subtimings but would not overclock.
A Corsair Value set with remarked Qimonda chips did not work.
I tested two sets of Samsung UCCC, none would work at the 1:1 divider.
Another Corsair Value set with onknown ICs, no idea what they are corrupted the HDD.

With the first Infineon memory set I tried I could run a read delay of 4 both at stock 200 and overclocked to 234+ MHz FSB with the memory at the 1:1 divider (this is the "performance level" / "static read delay" setting). This made all memory benchmarks look great. None of the other memory sets so far have been able to run a read delay of 4 even at stock 200 MHz FSB.

I'm starting to think that some 3d corruption is an acceptable trade off for decent memory speed.

/edit

edit2

I have found a mismatched pair of Transcend + TwinMOS sticks, both modules probably have Promos chips. These works fine and overlocks to ~230 MHz.
I also found yet another Corsair Value set, these also seem to have remarked Qimonda chips but its hard to be sure, they diddn't work very well.

The conclusion seems to the that the Asus P5PE-VM with the modded BIOS hates Infineon BE5 but it hates most other memory ICs even more.
The BIOS modder either only cared about Winbond BH5 512MB sticks, had some magic 1GB Micron modules or focused on other memory dividers than 1:1.

/edit2

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 65 of 134, by mockingbird

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It sounds like PAT might be your issue... Looking at some really old posts on PAT and the 865, it seems as though PAT was just an enhancement enabled in the BIOS for what was essentially only meant for binned chips (875) that could handle it (which infers that 865 chips could not).

I'm going to try a Pentium E6500K at 800Mhz FSB for some further testing with this modded BIOS. No need to overclock the memory by 13Mhz with a 5:4 that way. If that doesn't work, I'll play with some other settings. I'm not trying to overclock this thing, I'm just trying to get something with good performance that I can work with.

The P5PE-VM will also be re-capped around the VRM low (6 x 4V 680uF Panasonic FL 8x8mm parts replaced by 2.5V 820uF NCC PSC polymer capacitors, 2 Panasonic 6.3 1500uF 8x20mm parts replaced with same NCC PSC parts). These boards are pretty well old by now ( in fact they show up in the old Asus catalogs as early as the December 2006 issue) and the 15 year old aqueous electrolytics ought to be replaced by now. I have opened some 15 year old Panasonic FJ/FL before. They do in fact dergrade physically on the inside after a long time.

If the modded BIOS and the E6500K dont work out, I also bought a 65nm Core2 e6700 that should work fine with the stock BIOS. It's 2.66, but that's better than the E6420, especially if it doesn't keep resetting the BIOS like the E6420 somehow did.

I will report back, but the chips will take a while to get here from China.

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Reply 66 of 134, by RockstarRunner

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Thanks for sharing your findings about testing ram on the P5PE-VM.
I have one of these boards, and have installed the modded bios so I could use my E7600, but the ram I have is not 100% stable.
I have 2 1GB sticks of Kingston HyperX KHX3200A, which is supposed to offer tight timings at 400mhz, but doesn't seem to like even mild overclocks.
The FSB of the board is at 266mhz, the native speed for the CPU, and the only way I get something stable from this ram is to run at 5:4 hi latency mode, resulting in 426mhz ddr.
Enabling CL 2.5 would result in driver resets while running 3dmark, and enabling low latency would fail at boot, and require me to redo all the settings in the bios.
I have some value ram, that is actually 100% stable with the OC, but again, only wants to run in hi latency mode.
I'd really like to figure out what ram to get that I can run the OC reliably, and at low latency.
... also, from what i've read, there is not much hope of running, for example PC4400 at 1:1?

Reply 67 of 134, by The Serpent Rider

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I'd really like to figure out what ram to get that I can run the OC reliably, and at low latency.

With 1 Gb sticks? Nope.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 68 of 134, by RockstarRunner

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-03-15, 13:48:

I'd really like to figure out what ram to get that I can run the OC reliably, and at low latency.

With 1 Gb sticks? Nope.

So to run 426mhz 5:4 low latency, i'm limited to 512MB sticks? That's a shame.

Reply 69 of 134, by The Serpent Rider

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You're best bet with 1 Gb sticks is Infineon based memory. Something like Patriot 3200LLK/3500LLK or Corsair Platinum Series.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 71 of 134, by bnice7

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RockstarRunner wrote on 2021-03-15, 13:03:
Thanks for sharing your findings about testing ram on the P5PE-VM. I have one of these boards, and have installed the modded b […]
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Thanks for sharing your findings about testing ram on the P5PE-VM.
I have one of these boards, and have installed the modded bios so I could use my E7600, but the ram I have is not 100% stable.
I have 2 1GB sticks of Kingston HyperX KHX3200A, which is supposed to offer tight timings at 400mhz, but doesn't seem to like even mild overclocks.
The FSB of the board is at 266mhz, the native speed for the CPU, and the only way I get something stable from this ram is to run at 5:4 hi latency mode, resulting in 426mhz ddr.
Enabling CL 2.5 would result in driver resets while running 3dmark, and enabling low latency would fail at boot, and require me to redo all the settings in the bios.
I have some value ram, that is actually 100% stable with the OC, but again, only wants to run in hi latency mode.
I'd really like to figure out what ram to get that I can run the OC reliably, and at low latency.
... also, from what i've read, there is not much hope of running, for example PC4400 at 1:1?

RockstarRunner, I just got your DM but it seems like I can't reply to it for some reason. It's been a while since I've messed with this setup, in fact my P5PE-VM bit the dust... pretty sure I screwed something up while messing around with the VDIMM mod. I do have a replacement P5PE-VM, just haven't had the time to install it yet. There were some other settings in the BIOS under the "Advanced" memory options that needed tweaking, but I honestly can't remember what they were, would need to have the system up and running in front of me. From reading back this thread, try making sure PAT is disabled, and ASYNC is enabled.

If I remember correctly, that Mushkin Redline RAM needs more volts to get those tight timings and higher clocks, which is why I was messing with the VDIMM mod. If changing the above settings doesn't get you going, it might be worth picking up some cheaper RAM that uses BE-5, or even TCCD if 2x512MB is sufficient (although I think TCCD might even like a little more voltage in order to get tight timings, not as much as BH-5, but more than this board can deliver).

Hopefully someone else that has this setup running can provide some more advice. Sorry I'm not much help at the moment!

Reply 72 of 134, by RockstarRunner

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Thanks for the reply, and sorry to hear about your board.
Does any of this jog your memory?

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It's a bit deflating to get supposedly better ram, and find it to be even less stable.

Reply 73 of 134, by bnice7

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RockstarRunner wrote on 2021-04-07, 17:13:
Thanks for the reply, and sorry to hear about your board. Does any of this jog your memory? IMG_20210305_160441.jpg IMG_20210305 […]
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Thanks for the reply, and sorry to hear about your board.
Does any of this jog your memory?
IMG_20210305_160441.jpg
IMG_20210305_160328.jpg
It's a bit deflating to get supposedly better ram, and find it to be even less stable.

Lock your PCI frequency to 33MHz. Can you expand the "Async Write" option and send another screenshot? Also, are you using IDE or SATA for your hard drive? IDE is the better way to go.

Reply 75 of 134, by bnice7

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RockstarRunner wrote on 2021-04-07, 17:35:

I'm using a Sata hard disk and an ide optical drive.
IMG_20210407_203115~2.jpg

Yeah definitely set PCI frequency to 33MHz, and set Async Write to Enabled, see if that lets you push it further. DRAM Reference Voltage really has no effect, so just leave that one on Auto.

SATA hard drive might be an issue with stability when overclocking since there's really no good way to lock the SATA bus, so if you get any blue screens in Windows, you might want to eventually look into that.

I'll try to get my new board up and running later today or tomorrow, and will see if I can grab some screenshots of the BIOS screens for you.

Reply 76 of 134, by RockstarRunner

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Meanwhile, I switched back to my Kingston Hyper X, and did those tweaks you told me about. It actually boots and runs with 5:4 low latency setting for fsb divider now, but interestingly, my memory read speed has dropped, 5968 -> 5692, but the memory write speed has increased, 1093 -> 1245.
Real benchmarks don't seem to have changed much, but are slightly down. Stable though.

Reply 77 of 134, by bnice7

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RockstarRunner wrote on 2021-04-07, 18:28:

Meanwhile, I switched back to my Kingston Hyper X, and did those tweaks you told me about. It actually boots and runs with 5:4 low latency setting for fsb divider now, but interestingly, my memory read speed has dropped, 5968 -> 5692, but the memory write speed has increased, 1093 -> 1245.
Real benchmarks don't seem to have changed much, but are slightly down. Stable though.

Back when I was messing with this, I was really only benchmarking with SuperPi at first. It was when I started running other benchmarks and while I was messing with the VDIMM voltage where I saw most of the changes I was making were kind of hitting a hard limit, very little gains after reaching a certain point. I was trying to push that Mushkin RAM harder because I know it's good RAM, but I think the P5PE-VM board is really the limit. I picked up one of the Asrock boards as well, just haven't messed with this setup in a while. I believe the Asrock boards have their own separate set of issues.

Reply 78 of 134, by bnice7

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Ok quick update. I just hooked up the replacement P5PE-VM and fired it up, and checked my last known working settings. It looks like I was messing with lower FSB (270MHz in BIOS) and increasing the multiplier from 11 to 12 on my X6800 using CoreTemp 6.00. I am remembering that I had stability issues with all the 1GB sticks I have (including these Muchkin Redlines) whenever I tried to push them up to nearer 300MHz on the FSB. I'll mess around with it some more later (just no VDIMM modding this time around 🤣)

Reply 79 of 134, by Stiletto

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bnice7 wrote on 2021-04-07, 16:26:

RockstarRunner, I just got your DM but it seems like I can't reply to it for some reason.

It's because you need more posts before you can do that, so please keep posting. 😀

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

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