Ket

As the title says, obviously due to things nobody can help such as the kind of BIOS your board uses, the chipset and any features that have been designed exclusive to that manufacturer, for example DFIs "CMOS reloaded". The guide still may not be 100% accurate, but its about as universal as it can get for everybody

Any letters in bold represent what certain items are refferred to for short.

Standard CMOS Features

Displays general system information such as HDDs and optical drives attached to the system as well as displaying current date and time.



Overclocking feautures

These are some overclocking features and what they do, as explained i've tried to keep this as universal as possible so if something specific is missing thats why.

Front Side Bus - This is the internal operating frequency of your CPU.

Multiplier - This is part of your CPU specification, multiplier factor will vary based on your FSB and stock operation frequency of your CPU.

Accelerated Graphics Port Frequency - Default is 66MHz, it is not needed to adjust this frequency although advanced users may wish to do so.

Divider Ratio - These are used to balance your CPU and RAM, the best ratio in all circumstances is 1\1 (internal operating frequency of CPU and RAM operating at the same speed)

CPU Core Voltage - The higher this value is set the more heat your CPU will generate, the tradeoff to the extra heat is the ability to OC your CPU further, bear in mind there are times where increasing voltage will not help in OCing as the physical limit of that particular component has been reached.

Double Data Rate Voltage - The same princable applies as above.

North Bridge Voltage - Raising this will increase heat generated but the tradeoff is the ability to raise your FSB higher, as longs you have RAM that is capable of the speeds you are trying to get.

AGP Voltage - There is no need to adjust the default voltage of this although adjusting its voltage to 1.6v has been known to prevent "stutter".



Advanced BIOS Features

Quick Power On Self Test - Enabling this option will shorten the POST time of the system.

Boot Up Floppy Seek - When enabled the system looks for a floppy drive during POST.

Virus Warning - When enabled the BIOS monitors the HDD boot sector and partition table and will alert the user to any attempts to write to the boot sector or partition table.

Multi Processor Specification - This specifies what version MPS will be used, leave at v1.4 unless using an older OS for multi processing.

Numlock Status - Set to on the numeric keypad fuctions as number keys.



Advanced Chipset Features

Enhance Peripheral Component Interconnect Performance - When set to enabled this will improve PCI performance by reducing transmission times.

CPU Disconnect - When set to ebabled this will disconnect the S2K FSB on a C1 state.

memory timings

Row-active delay - This option specifies the active time between the number of cycles between an active command and a precharge command to the same bank.

RAS-to-CAS delay - This item can define the read\write command period.

ROW-precharge delay - This controls the idle clocks after issuing a precharge command.

Column Address Strobe - This sets memory CAS latency.

AGP Aperture Size - Setting this to 64 or 128MB are the optimum settings.

special note to run Doom3 on ultra quality set aperature size to half your physical RAM.

AGP Transfer Rate - specifies the amount of data that can be sent across the AGP bus, 566MB (AGP 2x) 1GB (AGP 4x) and 2GB (AGP 8x) make sure your current graphics card supports the AGP rate you select. Raising the AGP frequency can boost the amount of data passed down the AGP bus, at the risk of graphical corruption if the frequency is raised too high.

System Basic Input Output System Cachable - setting this option to enabled allows faster system BIOS execution via the CPU L2 cach.

Video Random Acess Memory cachable - Set to enabled this option will give you faster video RAM execution speed via the L2 cach.



Intergrated System Peripherals

Init Display First - If using an AGP graphics card set this to AGP.

Universal Serial Bus Controller - If using USB devices leave this set to enabled.

Hope that helps a majority of you out lost in all the BIOS options I may add a few extra things to the guide in the future if enough requests are made wanting it.

DigitalPhreak

Nice work. Stickied.

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Burn

good job! looks good... explains a lot of things that most people overlook, and now, everyone knows what they mean! good job again!

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My CNC Mill Project
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
--Randy Pausch
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Kittani

Definately... can I post some of the wierder settings in my VIA BIOS that I can;t figure out what they affect or influence to be added?

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Kittani

Here's a list of the settings and what I have them currently set to that I am not quite sure what they do.

CPU/BUS section

Spread Spectrum.......................off
Auto PCI Clock..........................off

AGP

VLink8x....................................off
AGP Read Synchronization...........off
AGP Fast Write..........................off
AGP Master 1 W/S Read...............off
AGP Master 1 W/S Write .............off
Fast Command ..........................off

DRAM

SDRAM CAS# Latency................3.0
SDRAM Bank Interleave..............off
Precharge to Active (TRP)..........5T
Active to Precharge (Tras).........9T
Active to CMD (Tracd)..............5T
REF to ACT/REF to REF (Trfc).....15T
ACT(0) to ACT(1) (Trrd)............3T
DRAM command Rate........2T Command

Misc Stuff

PCI Latency Timer....................64
PCI IDE Busmaster....................off

Any clue as to what these do because the definitions I keep finding are as follows...

Feature X: Turns Feature X on and off
Feature Y: Enables you to set Feature Y's settings.

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Burn

turn AGP fastwrite to on...

__________________
My CNC Mill Project
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
--Randy Pausch
Current Best Benchmark

Ket

^^ i can answer some of that off the top of my head for ya.

1. IDE busmaster is to do with the DOS enviroment
2. PCI timer is fine, 64 is just telling you how many idle cycles the PCI component will wait in line basically.
3. command rate is specific to your memory, 2T memory is more "relaxed" than 1T memory.
4. turn fast command on
5. fastwrites is a good thing to have on as longs your comp doesnt have issues with it
6. turn that auto pci clock on, not 100% sure what it does but it more than likely "syncronises"(sp) things, thats a good thing.
7. the other memory timings are standard
8. im pretty sure the other stuff ive not mentioned is extra little tweak options soyo have programmed in. (never had a soyo board)

cool just noticed it got stickied

Sloth_Boy

You can also try tightening those timings of yours for faster ram (lower = better).

Well done ket, keep it up ay.

Ket

be warned when adjusting any memory timings outside the realms which i have mentioned, can result in sever system instability, adjustment of the standard memory timings will gain you the most performance, typical timings to try are 6-2-2-2 (tightest) 7-3-3-2.5 (normal) and 8-4-4-3 (loose) hope that clears up any left over memory questions

Kittani

i have more than 4 settings with a T on them... what ones are the 6-2-2-2 you are referring to?

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