Motherboard won't Post if I OC with 9850 BE

[lifelease]

So I just put a new phenom into my system (9850 BE), and when I go to overclock the CPU, the mobo won't post unless I reset the CMOS. I have 4 gigs of 800 mhz memory, 4 sticks, each at 1 gigabyte. Each DIMM is full.


There is a new bios update available, but I don't know how to flash the bios, and yeah. Not sure if it will do anything.



Anyone have any ideas? I'm thinking even if I can't get it to post, I can always OC with software, even though that's less stable.

 

[keithlm]

So I just put a new phenom into my system (9850 BE), and when I go to overclock the CPU, the mobo won't post unless I reset the CMOS. I have 4 gigs of 800 mhz memory, 4 sticks, each at 1 gigabyte. Each DIMM is full.


There is a new bios update available, but I don't know how to flash the bios, and yeah. Not sure if it will do anything.



Anyone have any ideas? I'm thinking even if I can't get it to post, I can always OC with software, even though that's less stable.

What motherboard, the Gigabyte DS4 in your signature? What bios does it have. (It is 85% likely you need to flash the new bios. My DS5 would not post or do anything even at stock until I put an older CPU in and flashed the bios upgrade... then it worked.)

How are you attempting to overclock? What did you do? Increase the HT or change the multiplier? To what values?

Stock values are 200Mhz for the HT and 12.5x for the multiplier.

If you increase the multiplier that should work. When you get to 14x or 14.5x you will probably then need to increase the default CPU voltage from 1.3 to 1.35V or 1.4V to go any higher. Then you should be good to 3.0Ghz or maybe even 3.2Ghz. (15x-16x) If you get a golden chip then you might even see 3.4Ghz. (might need 1.45V.)

Alternatively if you memory can handle it you can leave the multiplier at 12.5x and increase the HT to 232 to get to 2.9Ghz. (240 to get to 3.0Ghz but you'll need more voltage for the CPU at taht time also.) Whether this path works depends on your memory.

 

[lifelease]

What motherboard, the Gigabyte DS4 in your signature? What bios does it have. (It is 85% likely you need to flash the new bios. My DS5 would not post or do anything even at stock until I put an older CPU in and flashed the bios upgrade... then it worked.)

How are you attempting to overclock? What did you do? Increase the HT or change the multiplier? To what values?

Stock values are 200Mhz for the HT and 12.5x for the multiplier.

If you increase the multiplier that should work. When you get to 14x or 14.5x you will probably then need to increase the default CPU voltage from 1.3 to 1.35V or 1.4V to go any higher. Then you should be good to 3.0Ghz or maybe even 3.2Ghz. (15x-16x) If you get a golden chip then you might even see 3.4Ghz. (might need 1.45V.)

Alternatively if you memory can handle it you can leave the multiplier at 12.5x and increase the HT to 232 to get to 2.9Ghz. (240 to get to 3.0Ghz but you'll need more voltage for the CPU at taht time also.) Whether this path works depends on your memory.

I'm using version f4. When I went to OC, I changed the multiplier from 12.5 to 13. I set my ram voltage from normal to 2.1 v, which is what my ram is specified as, and I set timings to 4 4 4 12. Then I saved and exited, and the mobo went to post, but it just couldn't. The ram timings let me post and are stable, however, changing anything with the CPU is not. I have a feeling it's the bios, but I'm not sure. The bios version I have says it supports this chip. I mean, I guess it does, just not any overclocking of it.

And yes, it's the mobo in my sig. GA-MA790X-dS4.

 

[keithlm]

I'm using version f4. When I went to OC, I changed the multiplier from 12.5 to 13. I set my ram voltage from normal to 2.1 v, which is what my ram is specified as, and I set timings to 4 4 4 12. Then I saved and exited, and the mobo went to post, but it just couldn't. The ram timings let me post and are stable, however, changing anything with the CPU is not. I have a feeling it's the bios, but I'm not sure. The bios version I have says it supports this chip. I mean, I guess it does, just not any overclocking of it.

And yes, it's the mobo in my sig. GA-MA790X-dS4.

Did you try 13x with the ram's default timings? (I'm assuming the same ram in your signature... OCZ 5-5-5-15 ram?)

Some Gigabytes are known for being flakey with ram settings. Often they will correctly read the settings but if you go to "manual" and attempt to set them to something else things can go awry. But often you can make them work.

Try: (Go one step at a time... make sure all is well at default then add teh clock speed)

1. Reboot and go into BIOS. Reset ALL bios to "OPTIMIZED BIOS SETTINGS".

2. Turn off stuff you don't use like IR, COM, anything you don't use.. set numlock etc.

3. Set the RAM to ganged mode for starting out and change the ram voltage to 2.1V. Later you can try un-ganged which is slower for benchmarks but faster for normal use.

3. Reboot. Make sure all is good. Check ram settings, speed etc. (CPU-Z or Everest. Or even AMD AOD.) Your ram should be the default DDR2-800 speed. (5-5-5-15?) IS THE CPU VOLTAGE 1.3V default on that board or 1.25? The default for the 9850 should be 1.3V but my DS5 was 1.25V so I had to increase voltage just to be at what other boards use as stock. (I think the older 9500/9600 Phenoms used 1.25V for the "stock" voltage. Perhaps a new bios would change that.)

4. Now reboot... go into bios and set the multiplier to 13x. Do ONLY one change at a time. (Not the cpu multiplier AND the memory.)

5. Reboot. Make sure all is good. Ram should still be at the DDR2-800 speed. (Probably 5-5-5-18) Definitely 2T.

===============

After all of the above: if you want to try to tighten the ram... go ahead. But make sure if you change to DDR2-4-4-4-12 that it is using 2T and not 1T. If for some reason it is dropping to 1T automatically... it WILL lock the machine and not post.

NOTE: In the above when I say "Make sure all is good" I mean check all the settings and also do something like run Prime95 for 30 minutes. (Or longer. I prefer longer.)

 

[Godiwa]

I wouldn't even suggest to people to begin fiddling with overclocking if they don't even know how to flash their bios, how would they know what to fiddle with and what not to touch on the cpu settings.

 

[stoner133]

First you don't need to flash your BIOS version F4 is fine. So don't worry about that. Suggest setting memory to un-gangned, this board is know for problems running memory in gangned mode.

 

[keithlm]

First you don't need to flash your BIOS version F4 is fine. So don't worry about that. Suggest setting memory to un-gangned, this board is know for problems running memory in gangned mode.

YMMV: My Gigabyte 790FX-DS5 could not run stable in un-ganged mode. I always had to use ganged mode. That was with G.Skill OR Mushkin DDR2-1066 ram. (Even at DDR2-800 speeds.)

(But yes... the DS4 MB might not like ganged... I vaguely remember that... but since I have the DS5 I would not have filed that info away in my memory.)

You can try both.... see what happens.

But no matter what you do: DO ONLY ONE CHANGE AT A TIME. (Which is what my last post was attempting to point out.)

NOTE: I've even read one person suggest you go into the bios setup, select OPTIMIZED, and then immediately save/exit/reboot. He seemed to this helped Gigabyte select the memory timings better. (And if you changed the memory speed... he wanted you to again do only that and then save/exit/reboot. I don't know if that was required or just something that worked for him so he always did it. I tried it... but it didn't help me.)