P4S8X Setup-Tweak and FAQ **READ ME FIRST**

[bigtoe]

Hi
This thread will cover all aspect's of this board good or bad, and what you can expect from it.

The early examples of this board did have many problems, mainly due to poor power regulation, also it seems good quality memory and psu needs to be used.

In this thread I hope to address all problems and hopefully show that the board can perform.

PSU'S

As with ANY build the PSU is the most important part of the rig.You definately need to spend a little more on the PSU, the cheap units that come with cheap cases are exactly that...cheap!!.Get at least a 400w model with the 12v line giving 18A or more.P4 boards hardly use the 5v line so make sure that you check the specs on the PSU before you buy.Make sure it is P4 compliant....this is the most important thing.

The P4S8X has both the 12v Aux connector and the EZplug.I would use BOTH .I found this helped on my P4S533 and Asus advised the same with the P4T533.Also keep all fans except the cpu fan off the motherboard.I mod 3 pin fan leads to molex but retain the taco lead on the 3 pin plug so to monitor fan speed.This way I can also 7v or 5v the fans very easily.Also a baybus is good, but either way keep the fans off the board..the 12v line on the board needs to be for the cpu so overloading it with fans is a bad move.

You could do the molex mod with the cpu fan also but you will lose the Qfan function if you do.

I try to make sure I get very good connections on the power leads to the motherboard, if you find any of the plugs are warm when powered up you may have a poor connection.A little contact grease can help and on occasion I have needed to do this.Also Doubling up on 12v lines to the Aux connector can stabalise the 12v on the board. To do this you will lose 2 molex lines, just add 2 more 12v and 2 more Grounds as close to the plug as you can.You could also do this to the EZ plug also but I have found the 12v Aux always proved the best as it does supply the cpu.

Try to keep all power leads tidy and out of the way to keep good air flow in the case.
And one final note: Make sure your not OVERLOADING the PSU with all your bits and bobs...this is most important and usually the most overlooked.

BOARD CHIPSET COOLING

From my tests of the GA 8SG667 and from reading many posts it seems decent cooling on both the northbridge and southbridge can bring added stability and enhanced overclocking.On my 8SG667 I have removed the thermal pad off the passive northbridge heatsink and replaced it with ASIII.I have also added a small chipset fan as the sink did still get very warm when the board was being pushed hard.I have also added a passive sink to the southbridge by way of an old celeron heatsink I had hanging around.The chip has ASIII applied to its surface except for 2 corners where I used superglue to attach the sink, its quick drying and works well but a simple twist of the sink will break the bond and its easy to clean off.This sink also gets quite warm but not as warm as the northbridge so I rely on air movement in the case to cool it...which seems to work well.The fans I use for chipset cooling are again fead off molex connections with the taco take off on the board,I have reduced the northbridge fan to 7v as it was a little noisy..it still pushes over 10cfm so it cools the sink no problem.
Choose the fans here carefully and you will not need to mod them as I have done...you will need atleast 10cfm on the northbridge and if you choose to cool the southbridge 4 to 6 cfm would be fine here.

I found the ram does not run to warm but this depends on brand etc and how far it is overclocked..instead of mounting a small fan on the northbridge I have also used a Zalman fan bracket and 92mm fan with a rheostat to cool both the northbridge sink and the ram..this worked VERY well on the IT7 where a further 17fsb was available on the cpu and ram when the chipset and ram was cooled.So may be worth looking at here.

For the true enthusiast you could also add sinks to the mosfets and voltage regulators feeding the cpu and ram..I don't go this far but Ozzie has tested this and found it did stabilise voltages a little on the P4T533 so again may be worth looking at...use either Arctic epoxy or my superglue method...both will clean off if needed.



MEMORY

Memory is one of the most important components in the PC.I have been pushing DDR to some amazing overclocks over the past year and the one thing I have learned while doing this is YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.Choosing the right memory can make all the diference, some chips are faster than others and some pcb's are better than others.The fastest ram at the moment is all based on WINBOND chips.OCZ,Corsair, Mushkin,Kingston etc all use Winbond chips in their memory or have done recently.With that try to source genuine Winbond made modules whether pc2700(6ns) or pc3200(5ns),or look out for Twinmos modules as they use the same chips.A friend of mine recently bought some Corsair XMS3200cas2, he removed the heatspreaders to see what chips were used and found Winbond (6ns) but also found an IDENTICAL pcb to the Twinmos I had sold him.Upon checking the spd the timings were exactly the same although the Twinmos was rated at 5ns.He also found the Twinmos was a LOT faster and was HALF the price of the Corsair, the only thing on the side of the Corsair was that it was pre-tested and guaranteed to run ddr400 cas2,6,3,3,1t where the Twinmos wasn't.whether this is worth the extra cost I will leave this up to you.
Samsung also make some excelent ram, I have some DDR333 from over 12 months ago which has hit near ddr500 and is incredibly fast, unfortunately samsung tamed down the chips after a few months so finding it is very hard.With regard to Samsung on sale now I would say avoid the present DDR333 and DDR400 as it is not very fast and does NOT overclock so well.The DDR333 is known as DTL and the DDR400 is know as CC4.This ram is stable and all mobo manufacturers test their boards with it, if you can find some CTL DDR333 snap it up as this is very fast and if you only need DDR333 speed try the samsung DDR266, Corsair use this in their new revision DDR333cas2 as it is faster than the DTL DDR333 and cheaper than the Winbond 6ns chips.

Try to by modules with a quality 6 layer pcb, also buy single sided for 256mb sticks as these clock better.Heatspreaders are NOT neaded, trust me I have tested them and the ram does just fine with out them right upto 3.2vdimm.

Crucial/micron is also very good ram and their DDR266 will usually hit DDR333 and the DDR333 will get near DDR400.Speed wise it falls between samsung and Winbond.They do have DDr400 coming out and I will test it as sticks become available, but at this moment i am unable to comment further.

So to summ up memory, buy the best you can can, Winbond based is fastest with Crucial and samsung just behind.The odd one is the sammy DDR266 which is good to DDR333 with tight timings and is quite fast.


CPU'S

It seems the P4S8X is NOT a super overclocking board, it seems to have a 155fsb limit as the p4S533 has. This doesn't however mean you will not get good speed out of the board, it just means you need to pick the cpu a little more carefully.This board in my opinion is more suited to high multiplier cpu's or 400fsb models.1.8A at 2.4 is a nice and easy overclock, if you hit 150fsb you will have a very cheap 2.7gig cpu.The 2.0A also seems to be hitting 133fsb easier now with 2.66gig the first option and with a good one a lucky 150fsb bringing the magic 3 gig.2.2A and 2.4A would also bring sweet overclocks at 133fsb with the 2.5A bringing 3.3gig if you get a good one.The 2.53B would give just under 2.9gig at 150fsb and the C1 2.66B also giving 3gig at 150fsb.
I would avoid the 2.4b, 2.26b and 1.6a with this board as you will not get the best from the cpu with the fsb you have available.


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