OC E6400 Problems, insight?

[Jonny813]

I am a newb when it comes to overclocking...

Setup...
E6400
GA-965P-DS3
1 Gig XMS 5-5-5-15 Ram
eVGA 7900GT

Followed Wussy's guide...

333x8 (2.66 Ghz)
Vcore of 1.375
Dimm +.2v
Ram to 4-4-4-12 @ 1:1 - 667 Mhz
Turned everything off except TME1
Left all other voltages at normal.

Scenario: Boots up just fine. Runs everything fine. Run Prime95, CPU-Z, and CoreTemp. Ran Prime95 for 5.5 Hours, temp never got above 55C on either core. Prime95 recorded no errors or faults, no indication of anything wrong.

Go to reboot. Doesnt reboot correctly, computer stays on and doesnt restart but the screen turns blank after shutting windows down. So I have to manually restart to get it back up. Comes back up and with half default bios settings as if something failed, clock shows at 2.13 (Right when I start the OC it does read 2.66 on Boot up) ... Go and put everything back on defaults and everything is fine... I don't see whats the problem looking for any advice.

Could it be the TME1, "Thermal Protection", maybe?

Thanks!

 

[peetul83]

If your stock ram is at 5-5-5-15, there should be no reason why you are setting the timings so aggressive WHILE overclocking. Put it back down to 5-5-5-15 and try from there.

 

[Jonny813]

Oh... I see my error.

1. Set ‘DRAM Timing’ to manual or disable SPD (use SPD for P5W DH)
2. In BIOS you will see 4 separate timing digits, change them to the ones specified on your RAM

e.g. 4-4-4-12
CAS# Latency (tCL)
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD)
RAS# Precharge (tRP)
RAS# Precharge Delay or Active to Precharge (tRAS)

When 1FSB:1RAM is overclocked above the rated frequency of your RAM use the following values
Timing: 5-5-5-15
vDIMM: 2.2V

I mistakenly thought it was telling me to change the ram timings to that. Hmmm, that could be it. Will try later tonight and see what happens when I leave that alone.

 

[Jonny813]

Ok looks good so far...

Overclocked to 3 Ghz (8x375) at 1.3825 Volts, shows steady at 1.375.

Turned the Thermal thing off just in case and everything looks OK. Left RAM alone and just upped the voltage .2V, increased the others to +.1v.

Ran Prime95 for 7.5 Hours while I slept and no warnings or errors. Max temp was I think 55C. Reboots and restarts fine without defaulting CMOS.


Heres a question.
3DMark at 2.66 was 5115.
3DMark at 3.00 was 5108

Should 3DMark see an increase in performance? The CPU score shot up while VGA and the other one went down.

CPU @ 2.66 Ghz Score was around 2100. All others were also up at around that level.

CPU @ 3 Ghz scored around 2400 yet all the others scored around 1900. Not at my computer to give exact figures.

Is that normal? I haven't been able to play any games to test it out yet.

 

[sluzbenik]

It's not great...I'm not sure what bottleneck you're running into. Did you lock PCI Freq at 100 or 101?

there is an issue with PCI bus dropping to 1x at high voltages, but yours shouldn't do that at 1.375v.

Trying going straight to 8x405 to go over the strap and see what it does.

 

[Jonny813]

Well, I have been playing around with it with no real improvement.

I set my PCI to lock at 100 Mhz. Tested at 8x375, 3.0. Same results, 5122 3D Marks.

Tried to up it to 8x400, but failed Prime95. It was a rounding error and happened in the first minute of testing. I tried upping the Vcore to 1.4 but have seen others have it at less for the same clock with an almost identical set up.

Well, heres something else to. One test I was running at 8x385 and ran Prime95 @ vcore 1.375. Core 1 ran 5 hours no problem. Core 2 ran 5 minutes and had a fatal error. Do these seem like I had reached a "ceiling" with my current set up? I am perfectly happy at 3 Ghz so I don't know if I will continue to push it to 3.2 (My "goal")

Thanks


_____ Edit ______

Currently I have it stable at 3.0 Ghz @ vcore of 1.360. CoreTemp shows 41C Idle/55C Load. Speedfan shows 28C Idle / forgot load... Ram I left alone at default, CPU-Z shows it at 5-5-5-18...