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Tutorial: ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 + G-SKILL RipJaws DDR3 1600 + PhenomII 955black
I had a lot of trouble configuring my motherboard and thought since it's such a popular board, I'd use this as an online log for myself and to help others as well. I went through days of trouble trying to figure all of this stuff out and figured it's worth documenting, somehow.
Relevant system tech specs:
CPU: PhenomII x4 955black
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL
GFX Cards: GTX480's Sli
PSU: Corsair 850w modular
GPU and board Cooling: One mean a.ss desk fan on high (leaving side of case open).
O.S.: 7ultimate 64bit (sli patch since the mobo isn't sli by default)
--------------
Vital notes:
- The board automatically resets the bios defaults when the computer crashes on startup most of the time.
- If you're using a pci-e graphics card, upon crash/restart (or manual reset to setting that aren't going to work) your display won't bring up picture. When that happens the only thing you can do is reset the bios via the jumper key on the motherboard by holding it down for five seconds (until it starts to blink) and then wait. It's then important to have some patience and wait 2-5 minutes for the computer to reset itself. The display will come back on automatically.
- I haven't been able to get the Asus turbo key, nor Asus Core Unlocker to configure correctly through the bios. I have crashed 100% of the time, even with settings that should work. Disable them for now.
- Don't bother with Windows Startup Repair -- it doesn't address anything related to the problem; furthermore, it may actually mess your system up worse since your system may crash during the so-called 'startup repair,' and you may damage your windows boot files. Most of the time the problem will be in the bios setup.
Addressing:
Crash on boot or shortly after booting into Windows. Sometimes after crash, no display upon reboot.
-Boot into Bios (press delete)
*If you're not seeing display go back and read vital notes above.
- Tab to 'Ai Tweaker'
- D Ram Frequency: Change to 1333Mhz
- D Ram timings: 8-8-8-24 (7-7-7-24 will also work at 1333 but most other setups will crash on startup)
- F10 to save and exit (wait 2-3 minutes, if it doesn't reboot or you don't see display, try again; if not , reset your bios and start over with new memory configs or tweaking D Ram voltage to 1.6)
- If you want, you can change CPU-NB voltage to 1.2 but I leave it on auto because sometime it changes itself to 1.3xxx, etc, depending on overclocking later on.
Overclocking:
*I haven't been able to use the bios or the CPU level-up features in the bios successfully at all. In fact, I've crashed every single time for the past year (or whenever I felt adventurous enough to retry anyway). The same holds true for Asus core unlocker.
Overclocking the CPU using Asus TurboV:
Once your system boots, open the program and choose the auto tuning feature. It will OC your system to the highest possible setting (until it crashes). That's kind of how the program knows it went too far. Upon reset (you may have to cold-reset if it gets stuck), you'll get a pop-up from TurboV telling you O.C. successful at 10 or 12%, etc. You should really save a custom profile in TurboV so you don't have to re-tune every-time you get greedy and crash your system. Do yourself a favor at that point and backup your bios config.
Overclocking the GPU:
This has little to nothing to do with your bios (unless you o.c. using your bios or your PSU simply doesn't produce enough voltage to run everything attached to your Motherboard including power-dependent USB devices like controllers, keyboards, etc). I use EVGA's Precision or RivaTuner with no problems.
Final note: I'm just a writer who happens to love gaming. I'm by no means going to pretend to be an expert. I setup a few systems over the years; but, I'm not here to answer questions or help you with your rig. The G.Skill team here does awesome work -- keep it up.
A contributing fan,
iPowered
Relevant system tech specs:
CPU: PhenomII x4 955black
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBRL
GFX Cards: GTX480's Sli
PSU: Corsair 850w modular
GPU and board Cooling: One mean a.ss desk fan on high (leaving side of case open).
O.S.: 7ultimate 64bit (sli patch since the mobo isn't sli by default)
--------------
Vital notes:
- The board automatically resets the bios defaults when the computer crashes on startup most of the time.
- If you're using a pci-e graphics card, upon crash/restart (or manual reset to setting that aren't going to work) your display won't bring up picture. When that happens the only thing you can do is reset the bios via the jumper key on the motherboard by holding it down for five seconds (until it starts to blink) and then wait. It's then important to have some patience and wait 2-5 minutes for the computer to reset itself. The display will come back on automatically.
- I haven't been able to get the Asus turbo key, nor Asus Core Unlocker to configure correctly through the bios. I have crashed 100% of the time, even with settings that should work. Disable them for now.
- Don't bother with Windows Startup Repair -- it doesn't address anything related to the problem; furthermore, it may actually mess your system up worse since your system may crash during the so-called 'startup repair,' and you may damage your windows boot files. Most of the time the problem will be in the bios setup.
Addressing:
Crash on boot or shortly after booting into Windows. Sometimes after crash, no display upon reboot.
-Boot into Bios (press delete)
*If you're not seeing display go back and read vital notes above.
- Tab to 'Ai Tweaker'
- D Ram Frequency: Change to 1333Mhz
- D Ram timings: 8-8-8-24 (7-7-7-24 will also work at 1333 but most other setups will crash on startup)
- F10 to save and exit (wait 2-3 minutes, if it doesn't reboot or you don't see display, try again; if not , reset your bios and start over with new memory configs or tweaking D Ram voltage to 1.6)
- If you want, you can change CPU-NB voltage to 1.2 but I leave it on auto because sometime it changes itself to 1.3xxx, etc, depending on overclocking later on.
Overclocking:
*I haven't been able to use the bios or the CPU level-up features in the bios successfully at all. In fact, I've crashed every single time for the past year (or whenever I felt adventurous enough to retry anyway). The same holds true for Asus core unlocker.
Overclocking the CPU using Asus TurboV:
Once your system boots, open the program and choose the auto tuning feature. It will OC your system to the highest possible setting (until it crashes). That's kind of how the program knows it went too far. Upon reset (you may have to cold-reset if it gets stuck), you'll get a pop-up from TurboV telling you O.C. successful at 10 or 12%, etc. You should really save a custom profile in TurboV so you don't have to re-tune every-time you get greedy and crash your system. Do yourself a favor at that point and backup your bios config.
Overclocking the GPU:
This has little to nothing to do with your bios (unless you o.c. using your bios or your PSU simply doesn't produce enough voltage to run everything attached to your Motherboard including power-dependent USB devices like controllers, keyboards, etc). I use EVGA's Precision or RivaTuner with no problems.
Final note: I'm just a writer who happens to love gaming. I'm by no means going to pretend to be an expert. I setup a few systems over the years; but, I'm not here to answer questions or help you with your rig. The G.Skill team here does awesome work -- keep it up.
A contributing fan,
iPowered
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