The Duke

Reserved
I have a LOT to say.
so hang in there more to be added.

Constructive Criticizing for starters.
1. Its rather slow to BOOT from off to the POST screen @ about 20ish seconds and I've timed it both cold and warmed up which makes no difference. If you don't wait you may lose the cahnges you made in the BIOS!
2. The max CPU bus speed seems to be only about 300 and I've yet to get beyond it and BOOT. So a low multiplier CPU at this time is not recommended for the high end OCing.
3. The overall core speed seems to be limited to about 3250 with my 5000+ Black
4. Another CPU temp issue which I did NOT have with the 5000+ B on the Crosshair. Its about 10c under reported both in the BIOS and Windows at idle.
5. If you get no boot and shut down, wait 8-10 seconds to restart ot it will restart as soon as you power up. That disallows the reboot you previously had. So let it fully shut down.
6. Make sure your SATA HDD supports ACHI, if it don't you may kill the HDD. The Seagate 7200.10 SATA 3G apparently don't and it toast!


I know it sounds like a lot of bad stuff, but if you know th quirks its not all that bad and OCs rather well and very reasonably priced.

More to come on this and my experience OCing it

A little on the Plus Side of the TA 770 A2+
1. The HT link hits hear 1500 with stability, can you say 1472 with an AM2 5000+ B
2. The RAM divider, it has a mind of its own regardless of the setting and all the related options to effect any Auto type setting disabled. It has a good mind in that it seems to know what works best and does it well.
3. For many whom get the "on/off" LEDs when you can't boot which indicate a RAM issue.
It was never RAM. Rather the SB/NB voltage which is a all in one setting simply needed an increase.
4. Not sure if its good or bad The vcore bumps up .02v under load, so no vcore droop here, instead a vcore bump.
5. The what seem puny NB and SB heat sinks do very well even at the max voltages. So the alleged cool running chip set is true. They barely get more than warn to the touch and report a mere 29c.
6. The RAM options in the BIOS are more than adequate.

I'll be adding some CPU-Z screen shots soon.

I'd recommend it as a solid above mid level OCer because the 5000+ B hit the mid 3300 range and and I've yet to exceed 3221 with Orthos @ level 10/blend.

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The Duke

reserved

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winginit

The TA770 does have some quirks, but my experience with the board has been good so far. I haven't really started tweaking it yet, but everything from flashing the BIOS to installing the OS and drivers has went smoothly.... and I didn't need RAID or AHCI, so that simplified things. I only bumped up the multi and had it running at 3100 without changing anything else.

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"If you're flying by the seat of your pants, then you're wingin' it"

Cheetos316

Duke, I don't mean to hijack your thread, but I just wanted to add to the knowledge of this board for fellow members. I just got that mobo as well. I agree with all of those criticisms. I have noticed them as well on mine. What chipset voltage are you using to get 300MHz HTT on that? I can't get more than 252MHz on the stock voltage. I tried bumping up the voltage but I didn't really get much more speed but the small NB heatsink became too hot to the touch, even after I replaced the TIM with AS5.

Additional comments about the mobo:

1) I don't know why but I cannot get the board to recognize my memory as DDR2-800. It only boots as DDR2-667 regardless of me setting it at DDR2-800.

2) The board does not save my BIOS settings even after it says it has been saved.

3) Not a big deal but it would have been nice to have a Firewire header.

For those who are thinking about this board but are concerned about the 8-pin power connector, according to several reviewers of this board on Newegg, they state that a regular 4-pin connector can be used as well.

Lastly, to let you guys see the 770 chip in the nude:





Check out the tiny tiny size of this chip!

Attached Thumbnails

     

dr_bowtie

this board does have alot of quirks....

from setting not staying applied to not working fully with a Phenom CPU...most report the 770 doesnt clock as good as say a 560 (nvidia based) board...

I have read alot about this board and found a good read on it here...

http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-...;f=53;t=000463


seems this board is plagued by 1 bad bios after another...or atleast the bios writers dont seem to get one geared towards the AMD chipset....but then again the 690V board I had from Gigabyte also sucked....I mean really sucked...

for AMD chipsets suposed to really run it didnt....most report very slow booting as well as poor performance....my 690 board took 3 full minutes to fully load windows xp on a bare minimum install where as my nvidia board boot to the same install of windows in less than 1 minute fully loaded and most within 20-30 seconds....

I hope they turn all this around for the performance side...because most wont use them if they dont....

this is exactly how you know review site write BS to get free stuff...they we buy it and it dont work like the reviews say...gee I wonder why...?

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member of the forum formerly known as dfi-street

durch

I've had problems getting BIOS settings to "stick" with 2/3 of the Biostar boards I've owned (one 560, one 550). It seems to be a common problem with their boards (or rather their BIOS).

Has anyone tried the ASUS or Gigabyte version of the 770 chipset? Might be worth the extra $18-28 if these Biostar issues are resolved.

The Duke

My Chip set is at 1.375, the max of 1.4 didn't improve the OC at all. An inadequate chip set voltage will give up RAM errors when its not the RAM at all.

As far as slow to boot, YEP thats a fact. Just to get a post screen is very slow!
As far as after that, to get to XP isn't all that bad but a bit pokey too!

On the BIOS, I've not yet updated the BIOS and frankly, I don't know what version it is

I can say, the MB could care less if I run the GSKill DDR2 800 @ 4-4-4-12-18-21 or 5-5-5-16-21 but I'd have to boot into the BIOS to recheck the CPC, can't recall if its T1 or T2. Which by the way...
The BIOS can seem to have a mind of its own and reset the T1 to T2 some times when readjusting that but stays at what is selected when it boots to that selection.

NOTE:
BTW, its also kind of slow to shut down! If you don't wait it out it restarts where it left off so to speak and may be part of the issue some seem to experience when they think the changes in the BIOS didn't take!
It seem to take about a 8-10 second wait to avoid that.

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dr_bowtie

yep sounds about right for any board with a AMD chipset....same issues I had with the Gigabyte 690 also....

on Biostar board the bios code is in the upper left corner on the post screen...most of the boards post so fast you dont see it....

but if you enable the floppy drive and just unhook it if you have one it will hang at the post screen waiting for the F1 to continue...then you can read the post bios code...

I did get another Gigabyte 690 board and I hope it was just a fluke issue if not it will be a long while before I think about AMD chipsets again...

Via have always been my preference for stock stable rigs...nvidia for overclocking...until I got a P35...lol

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member of the forum formerly known as dfi-street

The Duke

nVidia is punishing AMD for buying ATI!

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dr_bowtie

how are you doing on this board so far?

I just got done running the 690 again (new board) and so far so good...instead of 3 minutes loading windows I am at 20second to the desktop fully loaded with all XP updates installed...all i gotta do is install the tuner card and see if the sound issue are there or not...keeping my fingers crossed...lol

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