AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition OC help

Atlas445

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My stats are as follows:

■AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
■Paired with a XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler
■GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
■CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-8500C7 (I had 8gigs of this but one of the sticks was bad so now I have 6 gigs)
■ASUS ENGTX260/HTDI/896M GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
■Running Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit edition

I've been tinkering around with the settings in the bios and can't seem to overclock it without getting the blue screen of death at some point during operation. The manual settings for the RAM are incorrect and after changing them to the stats they're supposed to have it seemed to cause difficulty during start up, so I set them back to the auto settings. This morning after changing the RAM settings again to what they're supposed to be I found that it wouldn't even boot up before getting the blue screen of death. The RAM is 1066MHz and the BIOS automatically sets it to 800MHz and the timing is 7-7-7-20, but the BIOS automatically sets this to something like 6-6-8-24 (something like that, maybe not exactly that). Any suggestions? I'm thinking the RAM settings are getting in the way of the overclocking, but not sure? Should I flash the BIOS to see if their might be better support in a newer version of the BIOS for this type and speed of RAM? Any help would be much appreciated.
 

sonar610

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Did you increase the voltage to get to the correct specs? Because a BSOD can mean instability and usually its solved by increasing voltage (when overclocking) check your memory specs and find the required voltage to reach the correct timings. Oh btw you aren't going to reach 1066mhz automatically with 3 2gb sticks of ram as per the amd cpu limitation.
 

Atlas445

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What do you mean? And does that mean I can't hit 1066MHz or what?
 

sonar610

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http://icrontic.com/news/amd-explains-phenom-ii-memory-downclocking

Yes you probably can still hit 1066 when overclocking but, you might void your memory's warranty and your mobo's (depending how much you have to increase voltage), this has been out there a while and is nothing new; its been all over the net. The only way you can reach 1066 w/o voiding anything (as long as your memory is rated for it) is to run 2 sticks in dual channel.
 

gsxrme22

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Your memory controller voltage has to increase for each ram installed into your system. Remove that 3rd stick and watch your PC start working. Run Prima95 for 3 hours and it all passes then your stable bud.

As far as timings gos, those memory timings better not be what its running because they sound way.... off that or you ordered super value ram.

---DDR2 memory only---
cas 5-5-5-15 @ 2.2v is normal for 1066
cas 4-4-4-12 @ 1.9v is normal for 800

You can just about any modern memory with those settings above at those voltages w/o voiding warrantys and they work very very well.

Do not install anymore than 2 sticks of ram. I'll keep this topic on my desktop to help out.
 

gsxrme22

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As far as 8GB or 6GB gos. I bet your fined tuned 4GB 1066Mhz setting will perform better in proformance than 8GB will ever bring you.
 

Atlas445

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Well this is what I purchased and the specifications are listed on the RAM. I toned it down to 6-6-6-18 (this is what Corsair recommends when set to run at 800MHz) and it works fine. 7-7-7-20 is what they recommend for this RAM to run at 1066 as advertised. But when I set it to this it causes my system to crash a lot, I've managed to OC my CPU to 3.4GHz (what it's running at as I post this) just fine with the RAM at 6-6-6-18 @ 800MHz so I'll live with it. I would just have to the eat the cost of shipping it if I RMA it and then have to wait until Newegg reviews the case and either lets me exchange or purchase a different set. I feel like I've spent enough money at this point and don't feel like paying extra to ship it back and pick out a different set...