E6600 - Rig with RUBBISH MEM wont overclock

[KonKord]

Heres my drama. Im at work so forgive my brain and lack of specifics.

I got for xmas... an E6600 and an ASUS P5NSLI. I had some DDR2 PC4200 Kingston ram, but its Kingston Value ram, and totally rubbish.

The problem is i cant overclock the system more than 10%. Ive got a gigabyte GPower cooler and the cores run at 35 degrees idle, 43 degrees when they're busting a ball at 10% overclocked.

I know the board isnt best for overclocking but c'mon, people are still getting 3.2ghz on similar setups, i barely go as fast as an e6700.

Is it the ram speed falling over on me?

 

[Talon]

If you can't push the Ram with a bit more(careful now know your memory rated limit) voltage to higher than you're getting then yes its probably the memory holding you back. I haven't read anything about 4200 memory in a long time, don't remember what can be expected of them in an OC setup. With a C2D though you would ideally want at least want some DDR667 or even DDR800 so you immediately have a modest amount of overclocking room assuming you start off running 1:1 with the cpu/ram.

Hopefully someone who is more proficient in OCing can give you further OC advise but you do need better Ram if you want to take a C2D very far.
Give a price range you are willing to put out and such so recommendations on Ram can be made by responders.

 

[KonKord]

I dont mind buying the new RAM, it'll take me a month to buy but thats not a problem... i just want a definitive 'yes your rams crap thats why' or 'no your rams crap but you can still overclock it by doing this'.

The rest of the PC is pretty sweet, i alot of knowledge in PC building etc just never overclocked before. The only reason im trying now is because everyone raves that the e6600 is a good and easy processor to speed up.

I have 4 x 320gb SATA drives in rAID 0+1, Antec 720Watt PSU, 22" Widescreen monitor etc etc just really, really crap RAM

 

[tomhole]

What are the symptoms that are keeping you from going faster?


No POST?
Funny Beeps?
Instability?
Failed load test?

Set your FSB to 266 and the memory to 533. with a 10X multiplier, that will get you to 2.66. Go into the memory timings and loosen them up (6-6-6-18 might be a good start). See if you can find that memory on the net and determine the max recommended voltage. Or just set it to 2.15V and see what happens.

All this is guessing though because we need to know what is happening that keeps you from going faster.

Tom

 

[KonKord]

Basically either a) After setting the FSB to a higher speed in the BIOS, and restarting, i get no screen (however no BEEPS or anything) = NO BOOT.

b) One time i managed to increase the FSB to a higher value, it picked up the CPU as 2.99ghz (FSB 333mhz from 266mhz) but then locked just after the RAM test, in BIOS.

 

[tomhole]

Yup, you've got some crappy RAM (but you knew that already) :lol:

OK, I'm not sure if it can go faster. I would start with loosening up the timings. Try to boot. If no go, up the voltage. 2V should be safe, but who knows. Select the slowest mem speed available. If none of that helps, I think you are SOL until you get some new RAM.

Tom

 

[powerbaselx]

I had some DDR2 PC4200 Kingston ram, but its Kingston Value ram, and totally rubbish.

The problem is i cant overclock the system more than 10%.

Is it the ram speed falling over on me?

Value RAM isn't suitable for OC. Those 10% in theory should be the OC limit. If you want to increase the OC you should buy new fast RAM.

Anyway, you can experiment increasing manually and slowly the voltage along with the increase of the FSB speed manually. Control temperature and test it, all at your won risk of course! OC requires much patience when reaching the theoric limits!

Good luck!

 

[powerbaselx]

I had some DDR2 PC4200 Kingston ram, but its Kingston Value ram, and totally rubbish.

The problem is i cant overclock the system more than 10%.

Is it the ram speed falling over on me?

Value RAM isn't suitable for OC. Those 10% in theory should be the OC limit. If you want to increase the OC you should buy new fast RAM.

Anyway, you can experiment increasing manually and slowly the voltage along with the increase of the FSB speed manually. Control temperature and test it, all at your won risk of course! OC requires much patience when reaching the theoric limits!

Good luck!

 

[dragonsprayer]

value ram does not overclock - same reason u do not buy oem cpu's

they test the memory the bad stuff is called "value"

 

[sirheck]

yes the cheaper ram is most likley the problem.

you can oc with it but not much.

 

[sirheck]

you mention 10% oc.

you are going through the bios to oc. arent you?

 

[sirheck]

Basically either a) After setting the FSB to a higher speed in the BIOS, and restarting, i get no screen (however no BEEPS or anything) = NO BOOT.

b) One time i managed to increase the FSB to a higher value, it picked up the CPU as 2.99ghz (FSB 333mhz from 266mhz) but then locked just after the RAM test, in BIOS.

nevermind just seen this.

 

[cozwin]

bascily yes the ram is naff but value ram should still get some overclock as some value ram overclocks v well like the crucial value that goes from 667 to 1000 in some cases

 

[godman]

if you're lucky. The 'value' crucial memory is probably micron (or could even be promos) but a module that wont reach speed X with latencies x-x-x-x with crucial's standard vdimm.

And crucial uses Micron ICs as they're owned by them, (they're better overclocking 'chips'). So it's not quite the same...