My Biostar TF7025-M2 Review: Biostar Raises the Bar

Ketan · Post by **Ketan** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:29 am

Could anyone by any chance confirm that the TF7050 supports AMD virtualisation (there should be an option in the BIOS)?

Many thanks

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 9:36 am

Kato wrote:Hi has anybody gotten the HDMI audio to work, and if so how?

I don't own this board but IIRC HDMI audio only works in Vista. I ended up getting a 690G based board because the HDMI audio (very important to me) was confirmed to work in XP which was what I was running.

Another reason I did not consider an nvidia based mobo was that I had bad experience with a nvidia based video card with S/PDIF passthrough. After spending countless hours and $$ on another audio card, I was unable to get the nivida video card to pass audio to my HDTV over HDMI. I was in heaven once I upgraded to a 690G board whose HDMI just worked without any fuss.

trx · Post by **trx** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 1:28 pm

Anyone have success with getting the fan control to work? I've tried 4 different bios versions and I still do not see the options in the bios like the manual shows. The biostar fan control software and speedfan has no effect. I'd like to be able to control my 3 pin Nexus 120mm fan with it. Thanks.

Chad

clamrade · Post by **clamrade** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 11:26 pm

trx wrote:Anyone have success with getting the fan control to work? I've tried 4 different bios versions and I still do not see the options in the bios like the manual shows. The biostar fan control software and speedfan has no effect. I'd like to be able to control my 3 pin Nexus 120mm fan with it. Thanks.

Chad

Same problem with the TF7050 here. Except I saw the options on the first boot. I tried the calibration routine within BIOS, and then the option disappeared altogether on the next boot.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:57 pm

Any luck with controlling the fan??

I finished installing my TF7050 today.

Had access to the calibration wich failed and then nothing

No fan control in BIOS
No fan control in Speedfan

Nicolas

clamrade · Post by **clamrade** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:22 pm

Burette wrote:Any luck with controlling the fan??

I finished installing my TF7050 today.

Had access to the calibration wich failed and then nothing

No fan control in BIOS
No fan control in Speedfan

Nicolas

No luck. I'm almost ready to give up and just slow down the fan to 5V.

Is the fan control option still in the BIOS for you? Mine disappeared altogether.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Sun Jan 06, 2008 10:49 am

Lawrence Lee wrote:

OVERCLOCKING
Simply amazing for a mATX board. Highest HTT/FSB obtained (with all voltages set to stock) was 320Mhz (dropped multiplier to 4 and reduced HT multiplier to 3 as well to keep it under 1000Mhz). The CPU hit a wall at around 295Mhz x 9.5, but a little extra voltage got it stable enough to run SuperPI. Bottom line, most likely no matter what CPU you use, the board will not limit your overclock. I settled for 2.7Ghz (285Mhz x 9.5 with all stock volts) for an impressive 42% increase.

SPCR-SPECIFIC TOPICS OF INTEREST
Undervolting/Power Consumption:
Unfortunately you cannot undervolt in the BIOS. That leaves a lot of Linux users in the cold. For Windows users, CrystalCPUID works. The lowest multiplier I could use was 4.5 (from 9.5). 4 would cause the system to crash (though you can use 4 in the BIOS) I used multipliers of 9.5, 7, and 4.5 and systematically found the lowest stable voltages I use with HTT at 285Mhz. I also measured power consumption directly from the wall socket at idle and with Orthos running (small FFT setting).

1.28Ghz, 0.850V: 48W idle, 57W during Orthos (Small FFT)
2.00Ghz, 1.025V: 53W idle, 72W during Orthos (Small FFT)
2.71Ghz, 1.275V: 66W idle, 112W during Orthos (Small FFT)

I have some questions about overclocking.

Do I understand right that the only thing you modified in BIOS was to put HTT at 285 MHz or you did other tweaks?

In the BIOS, did you leave CNQ Auto or you put it at Disabled because my TF7050 runs CCPUID whether CNQ is Auto or Disabled

I figured that CCPUID will freeze the computer if I leave overclock in the BIOS to NORMAL. In order to have Multiplier Management in CCPUID to work, I have to do an AUTO V6 Tech engine or put it to Manual (even with no tweaks).

In CCPUID, how do you figure the lowest voltage for idle at 4,5x. I mean, when you overclock; you stress the PC with PRIME95 or CPUBurn and lower the voltage until you get unstable but how do you verify when you go "no stress".

Thanks

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Sun Jan 06, 2008 11:36 am

Burette wrote: Do I understand right that the only thing you modified in BIOS was to put HTT at 285 MHz or you did other tweaks?

No. I set the HT multiplier to 3x as well.

In the BIOS, did you leave CNQ Auto or you put it at Disabled because my TF7050 runs CCPUID whether CNQ is Auto or Disabled

I think I disabled it because I was worried that CCPUID and CNQ would fight each other.

In CCPUID, how do you figure the lowest voltage for idle at 4,5x. I mean, when you overclock; you stress the PC with PRIME95 or CPUBurn and lower the voltage until you get unstable but how do you verify when you go "no stress".

I'm not sure I understand your question. At 4.5x/0.825V it was stable when stressed. Why wouldn't it be stable when idle if it's stable when stressed? I don't think that needs to be tested.... ???

mphilipp · Post by **mphilipp** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:45 am

I'm wondering what kind of files were used in the various HD (720p/1080p) test. There are a lot of HD films available for download, and most of them are heavily compressed, while a BluRay disc holds 50Gb of data and sometimes the throughput is about 45Mbit/s. Lots of HTPC's start to choke at those rates.

I'm thinking of buying this board, put an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2Ghz) on it. Will that be enough for full HD performance? Originally, I thought of adding a Radeon HD2600Pro card for better performance, but what I read here is that the Biostar is quite capable on it's own.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:00 pm

Well, I have the TF7050 and I run Coral Reef adventure in 1080p that you can get at

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... wcase.aspx

I run it with a 4000+ set at 2,4 GHz and its flawless. The throughput is 8000 kbps

Burette

mphilipp · Post by **mphilipp** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:47 pm

Burette wrote:Well, I have the TF7050 and I run Coral
I run it with a 4000+ set at 2,4 GHz and its flawless. The throughput is 8000 kbps

Ok, but 8Mb/s is like the maximum of a DVD (say a SuperBit). I understand that a 'real' bluray disk of 1:1 pumps out a 45Mb/s...that's where a lot of systems start to choke.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:37 am

We need a sample. Anyone can give us an URL to download a 45MBs video????

Pleasssse

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:33 pm

Try the 1920x1080p FCL clip here: http://www.elecard.com/download/clips.php

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:24 pm

Media 11 does not show any info on this.

Do you have the bitrate? My 4000+ set at 2,4 GHz is between 70% and 95%.

Now that's intense.

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:54 pm

I am following this H264 CPU usage in My TF7050-M2 review as it's the model I own.

No offense

trx · Post by **trx** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:57 am

Has anyone noticed that the integrated video sucks at deinterlacing video? I'm running Media Portal with the Nvidia purevideo codec and I had to change the deinterlacing settings just so that OTA HD @ 1080i was fluid. MediaPortal hovers around 30fps with what looks like a bit of tearing while 720p runs at >45fps. MCE seems to have the same issue. My processor hovers around 50% so it's not a processor bottleneck.

Others with deinterlacing problems: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s=21 ... opic=55387
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/mai ... -7050.html

Hopefully it's something that can be fixed with software.

trx · Post by **trx** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:44 am

Okay, I found what the problem was with my playback of interlaced video. It's AMD Cool'n'Quiet! Cool'n Quiet throttles back the CPU since there is little load and this also slows down the RAM speed.

When it throttles back the CPU it also cuts down the on the RAM speed. I think that causes the bottleneck for the 7050 GPU. Normally my Athlon 64 LE-1600 CPU normally runs at 2.2 GHz (x11 multiplier) with the DDR2-800 running at 366Mhz (It can't hit 400 MHz because CPU speed and having to use whole dividers: 2200/6). When I turn on Cool'n'Quiet the processor drops down to 1Ghz (x5) and the ram drops to 200Mhz (1000/5).

With Cool'n'Quiet off everything works great. 1080i jumps from ~30fps to 60fps. Hopefully this will help out others...

Chad

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:02 am

trx,

Can you give me detailed infos on how you managed to set your RAM at 4-4-4-12.

I have OCZ 4-4-4-15 with a 4000+ set at FSB = 228 MHz gives 2394 MHz with RAM DIvider 6 = 399 MHz.

If I leave everything to AUTO, the timings are 5-5-5-15. If I try to manually set 4-4-4-15, the system gives an error message that the system is in FAIL SAFE mode. I can choose to continue but then it puts the FSB back to 200 MHz.

The only way I can get timings at 4-4-4-15 are if I leave the FSB = 200 MHz but then the RAM clock is 2100 / 6 = 350 MHz.

I am trying to figure this with OCZ forum but yet no success. The RAM is perfectly stable in MemTest or ORTHOS and OCZ even sent me two new sticks but I can't get 4-4-4-15.

any help?

Burette · Post by **Burette** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:31 am

Lawrence Lee wrote:

OVERCLOCKING
Simply amazing for a mATX board. Highest HTT/FSB obtained (with all voltages set to stock) was 320Mhz (dropped multiplier to 4 and reduced HT multiplier to 3 as well to keep it under 1000Mhz). The CPU hit a wall at around 295Mhz x 9.5, but a little extra voltage got it stable enough to run SuperPI. Bottom line, most likely no matter what CPU you use, the board will not limit your overclock. I settled for 2.7Ghz (285Mhz x 9.5 with all stock volts) for an impressive 42% increase.

For my questions, you can refer to BIOS screen here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... ostcount=4

you are talking about two different multiplier. where are they as I can only see one?

When at 295 MHz, how did you set memory timings?

Thanks

trx · Post by **trx** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:24 pm

Honesty I have not messed with the ram timings in the bios yet. The timings on my sig are just what the ram is spec'd for, not actual. I just checked with CPU-Z and they are only at 5 5 5 18 right now. I'll have to see what I can do in the bios when I get a chance.

---UPDATE---

I just updated my bios and I'm now running at CL2 4-4-4-12. I didn't mess with the FSB so the RAM is still running at 366MHz (it's an HTPC so I'm not looking to overclock....staying cool and silent is my goal). I'm not sure if I can go any lower but seems to be running okay right now.

cruisin · Post by **cruisin** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:26 pm

Here's my problem. Have a new TF7025-M2 and the BIOS will not detect new WD7500AAKS 750GB SATA. In fact, I have two of them and it will not detect either. Tried a WD740 Raptor and the BIOS detected it right away. So all cable, connections and power are good. Any ideas what the problem might be?

My Biostar TF7025-M2 Review: Biostar Raises the Bar

Fan Control?

Re: Fan Control?

Re: My Biostar TF7025-M2 Review: Biostar Raises the Bar

Re: My Biostar TF7025-M2 Review: Biostar Raises the Bar

Deinterlacing problems?

trx: How did you set your RAM at 4-4-4-12

Re: My Biostar TF7025-M2 Review: Biostar Raises the Bar