Windows 7 or DFI Related Problems

[DrNip]

Well I have been fighting an issue with Windows 7 and my rig. The problem is I can't keep the CPU from throttling down no matter what I do when Turbo is enabled. For Turbo to be enabled and give you a mult of 21, you have to have EIST enabled. EIST is short for Enhanced Intel SpeedStep. In a nut shell it will run your rig at a lower mult when you are at idle and what not. In Vista you have to set your Power Options to High Performancefor for it to stay at 21 mult at all times. In XP I don't have to do anything as it stays at 21 by itself. Well Windows 7 should be the same as Vista or at least you would think. I set it to High Performance with the default settings and it stays at 21. I can tweak, twist and turn any setting in BIOS except the Vcore and it stays at 21 in Windows. It isn't until I take the Vcore off of auto I have my problems. As soon as I set the Vcore at a manual volt, doesn't matter what, it kicks my mult down to 12 in Windows. The problem gets worse as it stays at that no matter what I do whether it is open applications to running a SuperPi run. This sucks as any overclocker knows you need Vcore to overclock and I can't leave it at auto to accomplish what I want. I would take Turbo off but that drops my mult to 20 and would require a higher BCLK. BCLK is Base Clock for those that don't know and has the same effect of FSB on a 775 socket. You can do the math and see that I need that 21 mult over the 20 mult as getting higher BLCK is tough to do on a 1366. I can take my XP HDD and Windows 7 HDD, with the same BIOS settings, and interchange between them and my settings will work on XP but won't on Windows 7. I don't know if it is Windows 7 related, DFI BIOS related, individually related or what but eva2000 isn't having these problems.

[DrNip]

I hope that all made sense. :confused:

This build has been the most challenging build I have ever had to build. From broke hdd and more broke hardware to software problems, I have endeared it all. I have had to install XP two times on my one hdd, Vista three times on my other and Windows 7 two times on my other hdd. Like they say what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. Hopefully it doesn't kill me!

[Kal-EL]

Very interesting. Wish I had the solution but I reckon extensive tinkering is due to solve this. Mature windows 7 motherboard drivers might be teh cure.

[Jeffro64]

Sorry bud I can't help you there...

[DrNip]

Well I am on a pre-release BIOS but it works great on XP and Vista. I have to sit back and play the waiting game and hope for the best. I have wasted two days fooling with this. Going back to Vista tomorrow as I ran out of time and patience today.

[hellcamino]

So is the cpu not increasing it's speed under load? I guess I don't see the problem if all that is happening is normal speed stepping.

[Chuchnit]

So is the cpu not increasing it's speed under load? I guess I don't see the problem if all that is happening is normal speed stepping.

Well from the way I understand it Frank is that mobo manufacturers have added the feature to enable the turbo mode at all times through bios instead of only under load. Drnip's problem is that the x1 multi increase isn't happening in Windows 7 plus it's dropping the multi via speedstep, but not increasing the multi under load.

I think I read that right...

[DrNip]

Well after three installs of Windows 7 and on two different hdd's I had given up on this 12 mult mystery and finally activated the third install. It was upon that activation that I thought about maybe that was the problem the whole time. For the life of me I couldn't come up with a reason why it would be but went into BIOS after the activation to do an overclock with the vcore set manually. I counld't believe it, it was the problem the whole freakin time. I never activate my software until I get everything on there and do a couple of overclocks to make sure I like it. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined this would be the problem. I still don't know if this is just DFI related or a Windows 7 thing but it was the problem. All I know is my mult is at 21 with the vcore set manually! Maybe now I can get back to some overclocking and forum posting as I have been caught up in this mystery for too many hours and too many days now.

[DrNip]

The way it works with i7 is that the mult should stay at 21 unless heavily loaded like with prime95 then it will drop to 20 mult. It will actually fluctuate from 21 to 20 to 21 to 20. Stuff like SuperPi 1m and what not it will stay locked at 21. SuperPi 32m and wPrime 1024m might fluctuate back and forth but I am unsure. There also might be some mobo's that will leave it locked at 21 no matter what the DFI won't though. My problem was it wouldn't stay locked at 21 mult but would stay locked at 12 mult no matter what I did and only did that when I took the vcore off auto and set it to a manual volt.

[DrNip]

Well I guess I spoke too soon. Everything was great, overclocked it to 4.5 somethin ghz with vcore set to 1.3v in bios and 1.28 v in windows. Ran some SuperPi's and worked great. Got back into the BIOS and set volts to 1.45 vcore and was going to run some 4.7 somethin ghz SuperPi's and problem came back. Can't get it to stop now either. I have pretty much given up on this motherboard as I have never had so many problems with one. From the physically damaged to the Bios damaged one, to DFI accusing me of breaking it to this now as well as some unmentioned problems along the way. Maybe it is just Windows 7 related and will be fixed along the way but for now I'm going to start saving my money for a Classified.

[hellcamino]

Ok, you have me curious now, have you tried this board + overclocking with either XP or Vista? I get at most two installs of an os at stock settings as I almost always come up with a 24/7 clock to work with using the first install.

[DrNip]

Yep. I can go from my XP hdd to my Windows 7 hdd and it works on the XP but not the Windows 7 one. Same with Vista. I have gotten to know this setup rather well and have posted wquite a few benches with it at the Bot. The problem only showed up with Windows 7.

Here is a screen shot showing High Performance enabled. You can see in SetFSB that I have it set to 200 BCLK and it is showing 4000mhz or should be. Turbo and EIST is enabled which should have the mult to 21 in Windows and should be 4200mhz.

But wait as this is getting more and more weird by the moment. I used SetFSB and clicked it up one notch and it popped the mult back to 21. I then reset it and try to set the vcore back to 1.45v. SetFSB won't snap it out of it this time. When I try to use it it makes the mult drop big time. Here is a screenshot of the mult at 4!!! One time it set it to 2!!! Still going to get a Classified. LOL

[hellcamino]

Either DFI or Windows 7 is garbage (maybe both), I would stop using windows 7 if it screws with your bios without any shitware like ntune installed. It's a matter of time before the os ruins your board like that!

[DrNip]

HAHA look at this! :rofl 2 mult!!!

[Kal-EL]

Mkay, you win the underclocking championships! :trophy: :trophy: :trophy:

[DrNip]

369.9MHz baby!!!

[Kal-EL]

Now run the gambit of benchmarks for funzys :D

[Jeffro64]

Mkay, you win the underclocking championships! :trophy: :trophy: :trophy:

:rofl:rofl:rofl

+1

[DrNip]

Just a follow up DFI is taking a look at this issue but are moving slow on it. In the mean time unclewebb has come up with a utility that fixed it. He is the maker of RealTemp. Multiboost fixed the issue for me.

Multiboost
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/MultiBoost.zip

Here is a utility by him called i7 Turbo which displays the correct mult as cpuz, core temp as well as a couple other utilities have had some inconsistency in displaying the correct mult.

i7 Turbo
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/Turbo.zip