A8V Onboard IDE Lock?

[headless]

I've looked around some but can't find any information on the A8V's IDE ports. Does anyone know if they are locked? I've been hitting a wall w/ my a8v/3000+ .90nm and i'm thinking it may be the IDE controller. I am using the Promise controller for my 2 SATA drives. I have an extra PCI SATA controller and PCI IDE controller here that i can use if needed, but i don't want to add another PCI card to my box if the onboard IDE is locked and not holding me back. Any input would be helpful.

Also, anyone know if the 1009 final bios is stable? I'm on 1007 and have been waiting a bit on 1009 to hear the general concensus as 1007 has been working at least (heard bad things about 1008 and weirdness about 1009 beta's).

Has anyone replaced the stock cooling on the a8v's chipset (mine's just a heatsink, no active fan at all!)? I am wondering how hot that thing is getting at 80mhz+ over it's stock FSB rating and am thinking perhaps i could push the FSB higher with an active solution on it. I've already got one here, but i don't want to remove the stock if it's unnecessary...\

Thanks for any input you guys have.

 

[BigTaf]

if you dont have an a8v rev 2

PCI/AGP locks dont work, IDE shares the PCI Bus, however this would usually cause a problem with the Sata cards as well, something id still look into though.

1009 worked fine for me on a machine i built for a friend

With a64's because the memory controller is moved onto the chip, the northbridge should really never get all that hot, so the general conscensus is modifying the NB cooling is pretty much useless

 

[headless]

I do have a Rev2 board, so i am pretty sure the PCI/AGP locks are working. Thanks for your confirmation that the onboard IDE controller is on the PCI bus and is thus locked. I'll hold off on the extra PCI IDE card for now

I upgraded to 1009 last night. Is nice to have voltage regulation work properly under 1.6v!

I understand, the memory controller is the main heat producing process for the chipset. I was wondering if cooling the chipset would help with HTT stability but it appears it isn't a big deal. Thanks for your input.

It appears that ~250fsb my machine becomes unstable. I've tried lowering HTT to 2x, my memory is rated at 200mhz 2-2-2-5 but i have it scaled back to 190mhz at 2-3-2-5-1t for trying to find my CPU's limits. Interestingly, small FFT testing in prime95 doesn't fail, but the 'blend' testing that uses alot of memory does fail, and rather quickly. If it doesn't fail, my machine simply reboots itself while running prime95.

I would think it is a memory instability problem, but the memory is underclocked and receiving 2.8v (corsair XMS pc3200 512x2 1gb 2-2-2-5-1t) :/ Could this 250fsb simply be the limit of the A8V? Am dissapointed; i see people running 270, 280, 300fsb for massive o/cs and it looks like my CPU can go higher (from the small fft testing at least)..

if you dont have an a8v rev 2

PCI/AGP locks dont work, IDE shares the PCI Bus, however this would usually cause a problem with the Sata cards as well, something id still look into though.

1009 worked fine for me on a machine i built for a friend

With a64's because the memory controller is moved onto the chip, the northbridge should really never get all that hot, so the general conscensus is modifying the NB cooling is pretty much useless

 

[headless]

Well, it seems i've hit a wall. 244mhz FSB on my 3000+. Going any higher gives me prime errors in 'blend' testing (lots of RAM) but not in small FFT (only CPU). I hypothesize that the onboard memory controller on the CPU can't handle any higher FSB. Stable at 1.5v, doesn't make any difference going higher, and i've tried up to 1.65v. Interestingly, my HTT speed is set to 1000mhz in bios and lowering it at 244mhz FSB to 800 or 600 causes massive instability (random reboots, etc.)... very frustrating as i suspect it might be the HTT bus as easily as the onboard memory controller but if lower htt is unstable at 244 even when full 1000mhz is stable i can't rule out either of the problems. Seeing other people with my CPU hitting 2400+mhz combined with the wackyness of lower htt being unstable, i am tempted to blame the A8V.