Overclocking woes C2D, memory and Gigabyte. What to do now?

[lcandy]

Well, I've just about got sick of this whole overclocking thing.

After recieving a lot of help I managed to get my system running "at stock", under BIOS revision F4c. I was quite happy with this. The only changes I made were: turning on QST fan control, manualy setting memory timings to the their correct values of 4-4-4-12 and and increasing DIMM voltage by 0.15V to give 1.95V.

I got some more advice and some more courage, re-read the guide for overclocking C2D's and set to work.

Step one, go back to BIOS revision F3 as thats what most people are using. That worked fine, although QST no longer worked, that was set to default anyway.

Step two, mistake, I didn't disable 'everything' that the guide said. I was going to attend to this later, I just wanted to test that memory and FSB.

I set things up otherwise as the guide said:

CPU voltage to 1.4V
MCH + 0.2V
FSB + 0.2V
Memory set to 2.1V which is what Corsair say anyway

I then set the FSB to 333, CPU x9, Memory x2.5. Booted into Windows, failed Prime95 blend test in about 1 minute. Changed Memory to x2, same again, same fail. I tried small FFT's and it passed for a little while so I shut it down - assuming the CPU was fine at this speed.

I then go back to the DIMM voltage control, suspecting this is the problem, set it to 1.95V and x2 and it works. OK! Not so bad, fairly mild overclock and I'm sort of happy with it. But to be fair, people have gone way further and I want to as well. Also the memory is running way below spec at this x2 multiplier. The goal is 400 FSB!

The next change was increasing the FSB to 360 and CPU to x8, as I didn't want to test the CPU yet, simply the FSB. This worked, but resulted in a slower overclock. Ok, so far so good. I remember reading that the maximum the board was stable at with its original BIOS was 375, so that was the next attempt.

Fail! Fail! Fail! That was 375, 370 and 365, none of which got the BIOS to even post. Frustrated, I made another mistake, after resetting the BIOS I tried the CPU at 1.375V. I then turned up the mulitplier to x9 at 360FSB. This posted but failed to load Windows. So instead of going back and fixing the voltage, I reset everything and put F4c back in there. I was sure with a minor tweak 360*9 would have been fine, just my eagerness got in the way.

So sure, I did make some silly errors this morning. But, this sucks. Either the board or the memory are completely incapable of running the memory at the voltage Corsair say. But most importantaly, the FSB will not go past 360!!!

What use is a board that can not run DDR at 800MHz with a ratio of 1:1? Did I not increase the voltage high enough? Surely +0.2V is plenty of margin to get past 360MHz? What voltage increases do you guys use to get the FSB high enough? Is my board that bad? The memory at fault? Simply not disabling all those extra features on the board was the difference maker?

I hear people getting their DS3 up to 500MHz and other boards and quite frankly I'm very jealous. I would be happy with 400MHz.

Just to get rid of any doubt, I went back and did disable everything and tripple checked that the BIOS was setup as the guide said. It now is/was. Setting the multiplier to x7 being the only difference, it posted totaly fine at 360. Once again failed to post at 365.

 

[godman]

what hsf have you got ?
because 333*9= 3ghz
i doubt even if you used the stock cooler that it would cause instability but you never know.... :?

or it could be the mem:fsb ratio.... 2.5*333= 832.5 mhz though this sounds like ddr 2 800 cas 4 @1.95v could perfectly handle this overclock on your ram (15mhz, 30mhz ddr). :?
oh well try running the ram in sync with the fsb and upping the voltage to 2.1v
i doubt upping voltage to the ram would work though....

:?: Cor! wusy where are you?

j/k :lol:

 

[lcandy]

Yes, stock HSF.

I did try that. 2.1V in synch with the FSB which resulted in a much lower RAM speed. The RAM is not stable at 2V or above, not one bit. Not on either BIOS revision. I can not get a blend test in Prime95 to run like that at all.

 

[lcandy]

OK! Optimised defaults loaded, so everything at stock. DIMM + 0.3V, confirmed 2.1V with ET5.

Prime95 says, on a blend test. Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4. Tried it twice, same error. Edit: each failiure occured on the very first test, faster than I was able to load firefox and get to this webpage.

This is bad? :?

 

[lcandy]

Well then the RAM and motherboard will be going back. I am SO pissed off.

I'm assuming because the board will simply not go past 360MHz that its more likely the board?

And no this never happens at 1.95V.

I might demand a refund (again, for gods sake). I did have some Value Select Corsair RAM that was completely unstable as well. I just assumed the RAM was bad. Maybe the RAM was fine and its this rubbish board

 

[The_OGS]

The RAM is not stable at 2V or above

You've got that backwards - it should say unstable BELOW 2v.
1.8v = NFG
2.1v = now you're talkin' :^)
Just run your memory 1:1 so 333FSB = DDR667 (PC2-5400 speed).
Set all memory to default SPD, which should come up loose but possibly CAS4 @ 667DDR.
So: with your memory 1:1, SPD, 2.1v, overclock your CPU to your heart's content :^)
If you can get 400FSB your memory will still be right there, and not even overclocked!
Regards

Edit:

the board will simply not go past 360MHz

LoL - I'm sorry, this is what - a complaint?
FSB is 266MHz! You got 135% OC but you are not happy?
Just set it to 333MHz (FSB1333) and be content with 3GHz CPU.
L8R

 

[lcandy]

The_OGS, I haven't, it will NOT run stable under any circumstances at 2.1V

Even running at 333*2 2.1V is not stable, let alone the proper specs in the link to Corsairs website.

 

[The_OGS]

it will NOT run stable under any circumstances at 2.1V

POS then...
My OCZ RAM has never ever done one single bad thing (and I run it @ 1.8v while supposedly it requires 2.1v).
But the point is, will MY rig go past 333MHz!? Dunno - never tried.
I was just saying, 3GHz is healthy OC for your 2.4GHz CPU.
I feel you have memory issues, possibly mobo issues. CPU is probably okay...
Memory should be very stable @1:1 @SPD @2.1v
...or it's trash.
Good luck to you, let us know what happens.

 

[lcandy]

Yup, something is a POS for sure. They can have both back and find out which one, I dont have the resources to test each individual piece.

What you are saying is true though, if I kept it at 333MHz, I can get the entire system stable. I just cant get 2.1V or past 400MHz. For these premium/quality componants, that is unacceptable.

Will give an update when I have something useful to report. Thanks again to all.

 

[badge]

I recently experimented with overclocking a Pentium D 805 Smithfield. To make a long story short, I got no more than a 10% overclock until I set the PCI Bus Clock from 100 to 118 and locked the PCI Clock Syncrozination mode to 33 1/3. With a slighly better chipset I could take the processor to near 4.0 ghz. Have you tried this?

Suggestion. Are you familiar with ASUS boards? If you return your Gigabute board, I suggest you try ASUS. If I can overclock a CPU 1000mhz you can. HTH


Pentium D 805 Smithfield @3.4
ASUS P5DLM2-VM Micro G945
OCZ PC5400 DDR2 667 mhz. 512 x 4
Sapphire ATI x1800xt
WD 74 Raptor w/2 40mm HD cooler
Sony DVD ROM
Pioneer DVD RW
Aspire X-Qpack micro case
Coolermaster Hyper 3 HSF
Floppy
Antec led 120mm exhaust fan
Antec cyclone blower
Antec video card slot cooler
Logitec 2.1 desktop speakers
Ultra xInfinity SLI 500w PSU (yes in a micro case)

 

[The_OGS]

if I kept it at 333MHz, I can get the entire system stable.

This is 135% overclock. Be happy.
"Will not go beyond FSB1333" may not be considered by your vendor valid justification for product return...
L8R

 

[lcandy]

badge, I was thinking of the Asus P5B Deluxe (Socket 775).

The_OGS, not happy. Besides, the thing won't run at 2.1V for RAM, so something is wrong. That fault alone is worthy of returning the product. A range of 500MHz for the FSB but not even half of it being available to even post with? Thats not good enough either.

 

[wstcoaster07]

I have the same issue with my OCZ plat rev2 ddr2-800 memory. It is rated at DDR2-800 @ 2.1V 4-4-4-15 and yet i can only run it on 667Mhz or it pops up with memtest failures left and right. I am RMAing it with OCZ come tuesday. I hope that is the problem.

 

[wstcoaster07]

Hey wusy,
whenever i run my memory at 800Mhz (like it is rated) it gets tons of fails in memtest. It will only run stable at 667. Is this clearly a memory issue or could it be my MB? I have an Asus P5W DH with 2 GB of OCZ DDr2-800 rev2 plat memory. (I am running it now stable with the FSB on an E6600 at 333 w/mem at 667) with mem V at 2.1 (what it is rated at)

 

[wstcoaster07]

I thought the new bios (1305) with the P5W DH could change the multiplier, yet mine in the BIOS still is just greyed out...

 

[wstcoaster07]

I have "speedstep" and "virtualization" disabled yet the multiplyer setting is still greyed out at 9... It should let me change it on the P5W DH correct?

 

[wstcoaster07]

Well thats a bust, thanks though.