Sabertooth 990FX finally stable

[Froglips]

The new BIOS, no core unlocking, and a drop to only two sticks of RAM appears to have settled down my Sabertooth.

I have an observation that I don't understand. When I pull all but one stick of RAM the PC boots nearly instantly. Doesn't matter which slot it is in. When I add a second stick, any slot, the boot delay is significant, 15-20 seconds. I can see all the self test stuff going on the motherboard. I assume the motherboard is struggling to identify the RAM for some reason. It always gets it right, no matter how many sticks are installed. With four sticks in the boot delay is a tiny bit longer but the system stability is dramatically impacted adversely.

Has anyone got BIOS settings that will make the Sabertooth stable with four sticks of 4GB RAM?

[Raja@ASUS]

Use the easy memory setup guide and tailor CPU/NB voltage to suit your CPU (upto 1.35V depending upon how good the IMC is).

-Raja

[Froglips]

It is all good! Four sticks of 4GB RAM with NB at 1.2v. Waiting for the first lock up then will start increasing NB voltage by .05v increments.

Thanks Raja!

Any idea why this board does not like multiple sticks of RAM? One stick, any slot = no boot delay, two or more sticks, any combination of slots = 20-30 second delay in start of boot process (M/B self test lights flashing like crazy).

[Raja@ASUS]

Any idea why this board does not like multiple sticks of RAM? One stick, any slot = no boot delay, two or more sticks, any combination of slots = 20-30 second delay in start of boot process (M/B self test lights flashing like crazy).

Could be due to instability or memory training.

-Raja

[Froglips]

So far no more instability. The new BIOS has changed something that really helped.

What is memory training? Is there something I could do to help it train faster?

[chrsplmr]

FrogLips, Kurt,
We dont hear much about the SaberTooth, if you dont mind, and have a few minutes..
Would you mind sharing your thoughts with us?
Why did you choose this board?
Has it met your expectations?
And what is this builds main objective?

It sure looks like a gaming, video rendering screamer.
Sweet Rig....and if I have neglected to mention this before..Welcome..glad you could join us.c.

This thread is by and far a shining example of how perfect this forum can work if WE just let it.

Most of the Members are super talented and experienced.
None however have as much skin in the game as the @Asus guyz...I try to stay out of their way.
I think it is good practice generally, to never speak over or jump between because ... it's handled. Forum+
Ironic or moronic that I did here?...easy. (sorry R+).c.

On to 'op?:Memory Training?'.
Do tell, Please.

[Froglips]

Hmmm, I bought the Sabertooth 990FX after my M4A77D went poof. (Much to my surprise and joy Asus repaired the 77D under warranty so that board will go back to work as a video server)

I choose it because I fly flight simulations. These programs tend to be very CPU intensive. I had read about the new Bulldozer chips (on order) and I wanted a board that was built specifically for the Bulldozer.

Some of the equipment came from the older board's build, like the Palit 560Ti 2GB. The M4A77D is a single PCIe slot so I bought a GPU with 2GB of RAM to handle the large textures found in the Digital Combat Series A-10C Warthog and KA-50 Black Shark simulations. As the Sabertooth had multiple slots, I thought to go SLI which meant buying a similar card.

The DDR2 from the old board was a no go for the Sabertooth. I contacted G Skill and they recommended the Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL. The Sabertooth board with the AMD Phenom II CPUs has not been easy to configure with four sticks of RAM. Initially it simply wouldn't boot with four sticks. With Raja and others help AND the new BIOS I was finally able to get the board stable with four sticks of RAM. The pre-boot self-testing takes over a minute but the board boots up stable every time. The Bulldozer has a completely different memory manager on die than the Phenom series. I will let everyone know if it will tolerate things like overclocking better.

Hint: If you build this board without a Bulldozer CPU and want to run four sticks of RAM, be sure to check with the RAM manufacturer on compatibility. When I purchased this Asus had not published a QVL for memory. Build the system, install ONE stick of RAM in slot closest to CPU, after OS load and ALL drivers updated to latest then update to latest BIOS. Reboot directly into BIOS and follow Raja's memory guide (http://www.asusrog.com/forums/showth...ht=easy+memory) and read the BIOS guide (http://www.asusrog.com/forums/showth...e-Overclocking).

The Sabertooth and nVidia SLI is not quite ready for prime time. It is important to use the latest nVidia drivers, 285 series or later. For reasons that escape me, you have to load the drivers twice to get a functional SLI system. The pair of 560Tis is fairly fast although for the money I could have bought a single 580 and probably had a cooler running system.

Speaking of heat, the thermal radar is a very interesting addition to the AISuite. I remain unconvinced of its accuracy but it certainly provides lots of information about the relative temperatures across the motherboard. The case I am using has five case fans shown below.

Fan size Location Airflow
80mm bottom case front panel across hard drives Inlet
80mm rear case below PSU, behind CPU Exhaust
80mm side case, over PCIe 1 Inlet
80mm side case, over PCIe 2 Inlet
120mm top case, in front of PSU Exhaust

Despite relatively massive airflow, the motherboard and components run fairly hot from my experience. My old M4A77D with four sticks of DDR2, same CPU, and only two fans ran 10 degrees cooler across the board.

In all I think this is a good board with great potential. If you want to buy cutting edge be prepared to bleed a bit They 990 boards are the future with Bulldozer and Bulldozer II. Every few years I seem to forget the headaches associated with buying bleeding edge. My old rule used to be wait for four BIOS ROM revisions before buying a board. That would be a good rule for this board too.

[lilkuz2005]

hey, im new lol. i just built a new rig, and i used the sabertooth 990fx. i havent built a pc since the P4 era, and ive never overclocked, but i wanted to learn how to, i had some trouble getting my ram to work with this board at its full speed 1600. but i fixed that problem with the auto tuning feature, it automatically adjusted my ram timings and voltages needed to run at 1600 from 1333. i need a good overclocking tutorial for this motherboard and setup that im running. i dont want to over volt. and burn something up. btw, i love this board. coolest board i ever seen
my parts that i used in my build .....

COOLER MASTER Storm Scout case
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M600 power supply
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX motherboard
4x4gb=16gb G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor
SAPPHIRE 100314-3L Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Scythe Mugen 3 CPU Cooler
2 1tb western digital hdd's
windows 7 ultimate x64

[DaemonCantor]

Check this topic out and just remember it's basically the same for you board as well
http://www.asusrog.com/forums/showth...e-Overclocking

[lilkuz2005]

well ive had this motherboard a couple weeks now and i gotta say its awesome, ive modded the latest BIOS with SLIC 2.1 table, reflashed the BIOS about 5 times with no bricks. ive ordered a new 1000watt psu and a second radeon hd 6870 to run in crossfire, and ive overclocked the phenom ii x6 1100t from 3.3ghz to 4.1 ghz and my temps are 20ºC idle and 47ºC with max load for over an hour. over all im very happy with the performance of this board. the overclocking is very easy on it, easy to lower the voltages to get better temps, im a noob at overclocking, but this board and a little reading it was really simple, i was about to buy the formula instead of the sabertooth, but im happy that i chose this board. it suits my needs just fine. thinking about buying the bulldozer from newegg, but i think ill wait until the gen 2's come out. maybe get a little better chip @ a lower price