cMP2 (cMP + cPlay) using SRC @ 145db SNR betters previous best setup (Biostar P4M900, E1200, cMP, cPlay 1.0b19). E7200's suitability for audio is superior to previous best (E1200) irrespective of CPU load requirements.
Overall Setup
- PCI card must be installed in slot 1 (closest to CPU) to ensure dedicated interrupt. Slot 2 forces interrupt sharing - avoid this!
- Use high quality RAM - a minimum of 1GB is recommended. My reference setup using Zalman's TNN-300 case uses Kingston's HyperX 1GB twin pack (2x512MB: KHX6400D2UL). Make sure to use both RAM slots as Dual channel RAM acces is enabled. cMP setup gives ~920MB available RAM.
- Expect CPU temperatures ~25oC with fanless (heat sink only) cooling and CPU fully under-clocked & under-volted. This is room temperature stuff and reflects how much superior 45nm technology is.
- CPU load at 96k is ~60% with CPU fully under clocked (1.2GHz) and FSB at 800Mhz. That is, same as E1200.
- CPU load at 192k will be higher together with CPU clock increasing to 1.9GHz.
GA-G31M-S2L BIOS Setup
Each point below refers to BIOS menu item. Before applying BIOS changes, perform Load Optimized Defaults.
System installation can be done before or after these changes.
- Standard CMOS Features
Disable Drive A (floppy disk drive) - Advanced BIOS Features
Disable HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability, No-Execute Memory Protect, CPU Thermal Monitor (TM2).
Make sure CPU EIST Function is Enabled
Set Init Display First to Onboard
Set Onbaord VGA to Always Enable - Integrated Peripherals
Set On-Chip SATA Mode to Non-Combined
Disable Azalia codec, Onboard LAN Boot ROM, Serial & Parallel ports
Disable Onboard H/W LAN, SMART LAN (if not using networking functionality)
Disable USB 2.0 Controller (if NOT using USB soundcard) - Power Management Setup
Set ACPI Suspend Type to S1
Disable PME Event Wake-Up, Power On by Ring, Resume by Alarm, HPET Support - PnP/PCS Configuration
defaults used - PC Health Status
Disable CPU Smart FAN Control (if no Fan is used)
Set CPU Warning Temperature to 60oC/140oF - MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.)
Set CPU Clock Ratio to 9
Set fine control to 0.5
Enable CPU Host Clock Control
Set CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) to 200 - this sets FSB to 800Mhz (BIOS should reflect max CPU frequency of 1.9GHz)
Set System Memory Multiplier (SPD) to 2 - this sets RAM speed to 400
Make sure System Voltage Control is Manual and remaining voltages are Normal. Ignore flashing voltage warning.
Perform Save & Exit.
Using latest CPU-Z (1.45) utility, you should get:
CPU at 1.2Ghz, FSB @ 800MHz and Vcc at 1.120V. Only version 1.45 or later will recognize the E7200.
RAM settings.
Allow for at least 24 hours of burn-in.
Latency
Unfortunately, Intel's G31 / ICH7 (North / South chipset) prefers slightly larger payloads. This may be due to its superior bandwidth at 2GBps (that's 16G bits per second!) - VIA chipset offers 1GBps. Extreme low latencies give rise to minor but audible dropouts. Lowest stable latency using RME's HDSP 9652 is 128 samples. This may improve as the mobo burns-in.
Fortunately with cPlay, sound quality is not affected.
