Help me get 3 GHz from my E2180

First off let me admit my newbiness. I know lots about software, but this is my first attempt at overclocking anything. That being said I read the relevent stickies (I think) and if there is anything else that I should read please let me know

I'm running my E2180 with a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L motherboard. I have disable all of the power svaing features and have not installed any of the overclocking/powersaving software.

I got it to a stable 2.7 GHz (300 x 9) on stcok voltage (1.325 V), but CPU-Z registers it as 1.296 V. Not accurate, but ok. The thing is, when I add more voltage (say I push it to Intel's max of 1.5 V) it still registers as 1.296 V. I managed to boot at 3 GHz (300 x 10), but it took 1.5 V and CPU-Z still read 1.296 V. I understand vdroop is a problem, but that seems pretty excessive. What's going on and how do I get more power?

Thanks for the help!

No, I haven't updated the BIOS. I guess that would be a good starting point. I'm not convinced my memory is very good (seems to crash at anything better than 5-5-5-12). For the record it is OCZ gold XTC PC2-6400.

The voltage was listed in the BIOS as 1.50 V, but CPU-Z reported 1.296 V. The multiplier was at 10x and the bus was 300. It was, sadly, the only time I got it to boot at 3 GHz. If it's worth anything, the temperature didn't seem to go up very much.

holy poo poo you have no idea how much you just made my day. I check your link and realized I messed up the FSBRAM ratio...I was setting that as high as possible to keep the memory at 400 MHz. Now that it's at 1:1 it runs beautifully. Thanks a LOT!

Does anyone have any links about what exactly the FSBRAM ratio does? Apparently I slept through that class....

FSB:ram ratio is the say meaning as any other ratio.if something runs on certain speed the other one will be the1:x of the first speed.

just a word of advice from most of the enthusiast in here. always leave that ratio on 1:1 for best performance.

of course it wont. leave timing on 4-4-4-15 and 1:1 ratio and up the ram voltage to 2.1V.NO MORE! and adjust the vcore untill you get stable.

YES!you should always do!

First of all, what kind of power supply are you using? Strange that you would get that much droop. What about CPU fan? Just want to eliminate them as variables...

I am stable at 3.2 GHz on my 2180 by going 8 x 400 MHz, with 1:1 RAM, and 1.375 v. I tried some other settings at different points, but either they weren't stable, or produced lower SuperPi times.

Some of the resources that helped me along the way:
http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpu [...] hread.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] uals-guide

Good luck!

so if you set it at 1.45V in BIOS what would you get?the e2xxx CPU max out at 3.4Ghz btw if you dont know yet.

try use HWmonitor. for 1.45v it should give idle about 1.39-1.42V

thats weird, my 2180 runs 3.1ghz with no extra voltage (cpu-z shows 1.28v under full load, orthos prime and stuff like that aswell)
Oh, and there is a guide for your mobo somewhere on these forums, try the search function, I cant remember where it is myself

do not rma the board. wtf. its good, the voltage u want to read it cpu-z, not the bios.

I have one of these boards. It is the BIOS. Here is a beta BIOS that some have mention fixes the voltage problems. I haven't used it myself, so I can't give any results, but some at OC.net have used it.

http://www.overclock.net/intel-mot [...] -read.html

http://rs219.rapidshare.com/files/ [...] 35ds3l.zip

Thanks a lot everyone! I spoke with Gigabyte and they gave a me a beta version of BIOS version F5C which worked perfectly. I've got it sitting at 3 GHz and the voltage adjusts correctly.

Once again, thanks to everyone...I wouldn't have figured it out without you guys!

I get better results by dropping the multiplier on my e2160 to 8, and I can run 400x8=3200. And the other benefit here is the ram is running at 1:1 at 800mhz.

It wont clock a whole lot higher with a 9 multiplier (maybe 360x9), so the increased memory speed is a good tradeoff.

Thanks for the advice, but I wasn't able to get the FSB past about 375, even after I upped the FSB voltage