ASUS Secretly Overclocking Motherboards? 229
Hubert writes "It seems that the motherboard manufacturing industry is getting a little bit too competitive now that ASUS and many other manufacturers are secretly tweaking and overclocking the motherboard in default BIOS settings." A front side bus that's a mere 2 MHz faster may not seem like much of a tweak, but it's just enough to gain an edge over the competition.
Re:What's the definition of overclocking? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's the definition of overclocking? (Score:5, Informative)
They are running the bus faster than specified, so all PCI devices, the CPU and the memory will run faster than specified. These other compontents are typically from another vendor. This is overclocking, per definition, I'd say.
Re:Article? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a horribly designed web site. Here are the links:
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&v
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&v
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&v
Re:What's the definition of overclocking? (Score:5, Informative)
Geez (Score:2, Informative)
Bad testing methodology (Score:5, Informative)
* He's measuring using software. The error margin of software methods to measure this kind of thing dwarf 2% and head into the 6% range; typically more so with voltage measurement, which motherboards tend to measure about 0.1V lower than they really are; but for this kind of thing, we should demand testing with a correctly calibrated and maintained hardware frequency counter. I don't think CPU-Z qualifies to measure a change that small reliably.
* This is normal, and within expected tolerances; it's only running a bit high because the natural wandering of his motherboard's PLLs is a little high, and it's only 33MHz above because it's being rounded up when locked.
* Each individual motherboard will have a slightly different clock. Some vary WAY more than this. And only one motherboard of each model tested. That isn't statistically significant, particularly as this is an issue which will vary from individual motherboard to motherboard, as it relies on the tolerances of the clocks. He needs to take a lot more samples; over 100 really; and graph a bell curve from that.
* Also - only one control?
Furthermore, I think this reviewer simply doesn't understand the default settings of the motherboard. He's letting it select sensible defaults, then complaining they're not as sensible as he'd like. He's complaining that his particular motherboard is a little bit out on manual settings, but really if he's that concerned about such a small change, why isn't he testing using hardware?
I think the memory timings can be put down to ASUS's "AI". This is a motherboard feature... and it can be disabled. ASUS's concept "Normal" or "Slower" is a very small push, but if he wants to run truly at stock like a paranoid, use "Disabled", Manual timings on memory, and lock the PCI speed to 33MHz. That goes particularly for the PEG Link Mode. This is normal and expected behaviour for an ASUS (and everyone else).
However, the fractional overclock is actually well within what would be considered normal tolerance. 6% at worst, and that's only on the PCI bus if you didn't lock the PCI bus clock (but in fact it _does_ lock the PCI bus clock, he just didn't measure that bus).
If this caused any problems with system components, the components would not be binned at this level, as for example CPUs are required to pass all self tests at over 10% over a given bin speed to actually make the bin (to reduce returns and DOA); less than that and they will go into the lower bin, because there's a question mark about their ability to perform consistently at stock.
So yeah, his motherboard might be (according to software) running a trifle high; but only 1.1%-1.2% high. Woo, his motherboard's within normal tolerances. Whole lot o' nothing, from a guy who just wants blog traffic.
Re:Article? (Score:4, Informative)
As you can see, a Rojak is a messy mix of many ingredients hastily tossed together. Hence, the word Rojak is also used colloquially (in insult or in jest) to mean something that consists of an odd mix of many different things.
For instance, "James is of Rojak decent" is a crude way of saying James' ancestry is very diverse. Also, "That magazines layout is very rojak" means that the magazines layout is haphazard.
So 'RojakPot' would be a play of words to mean 'MeltingPot'
Oh and... Visit Malaysia
*Rojak, along with Satay, Roti Canai, Teh Tarik, etc are ALL Malaysian dishes, despite what the lying Singaporeans have been claiming.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
Besides that little contradiction, there's the issue of temperature fluctuations in a typical household being discussed right before the concept of 60Hz hum in a server room. Server rooms are not temperatue controlled like Jim Bob's trailer home - they're generally pretty tightly regulated to always be below the point where temperature fluctuations make a difference. Take it fromsomeone who works in a jacket half the time.
The idea of 60Hz hum causing instability in a modern computer system is just silly. For some reading that might be useful, do a google search for "faraday cage", then try to draw a parallel between that concept and the big grounded metal box around a computer, and the smaller grounded metal box around the power supply. Then do some reading on power system design in the context of corporate server rooms, and maybe some reading on emissions from two and three phase wiring. The problem is dealt with.
The chips that are being overclocked are being run outside of their specified range. Period. That negates any guarantee of stability that the manufacturer makes. 2MHz or 20 MHz, it doesn't matter - it's out of spec and isn't guaranteed to work right. Sure, it "might" work alright "most" of the time, and it "might" have worked fine for Joe User with one machine running Windows - which crashes randomly anyway.
But the thing is, Joe User doesn't spend millinons of dollars in testing to see how fast their stuff can run. My employer - a major chip manufacturer - does, as do the other major chip manufacturers. I guarantee you, if our chips were 100% reliable every time at a few MHz faster, we'd market them that way. Being faster than "the other guy" is rather important to us.
BTW, ASUS stuff *is* cheap hardware. There's a whole world outside of "stuff you can purchase at Best Buy".
Re:Stupidity alert (Score:2, Informative)
Notice that it is a 33.3333MHz crystal. This implies an accuracy of around 0.00005 MHz and is fairly typical of crystal oscillators. You can also buy a 33.3330MHz (not 33.333Mhz, but actually 33.3330MHz) one from DigiKey. Seriously, they sell them that close together.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
Then, don't forget - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q140365/ [microsoft.com] the cluster overhead and some format overhead for the duplicate MFT etc...