Can't do 3200+???

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Fern
Hi Skoorb, you wrote "For me in most cases the system would shutdown immediately with funky beeping, which is quite unlike my past experiences with overclocking, which would generally result in freezes and/or errors/bluescreen, etc. if I pushed too hard."

Sounds like it could be the warning for high temps. Check you high temp warning and shut down in bios.

Heat could be enemy in your OC attempts.

Sounds like your re-doing the thermal paste for cpu heatsink. If your taking the mobo out of the case, check out the paste under the NB too. It usually just a blob covering the NB only partially. Could help to redo paste there too.

Good Luck,


BTW, FSB @ 187 is a "sweet spot" for my Barton too. I can boot etc at 200, but fails Prime. Awaiting new HSF to eliminate heat as a problem and will push for 200 again when it arrives

If you're the third person at 187 I have to wonder what's going on with us...The other guy's ram was at issue, so I'm hoping that that will be my problem too. In regards to heat, I've confirmed that the beeping sound is not heat related. I have another beep set to go off (different tone) at a mere 54 Celcius, and all of the forced shutdowns are at 65 sort of range, so this thing is shutting down at <= 53. My paste I'll give a go later, wondering if just parts of the CPU were very hot, even though it averaged <= 53. If it's not that or the RAM, I'm stuck at 187!

 

[Markfw]

I'm stuck at 191, using Barton 2500+ and a Radeon 8500 video card. Now with my XP2700, I was stuck at 187 (but then I had a Radeon 9700 pro, maybe the video card had something to do with that ?)

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: McArra
Wellcome to the 3 partner "I can't hit 3200+" club :beer:

I'd like to join the club too! Throw me a :beer: will ya?

 

[nippyjun]

My 2500 hits 2.1 (3000+) speed easily at default on my a7n8x 2.0 deluxe, but at 1.75 volts and below it won't hit 3200+. I haven't tried higher than 1.75 volts yet.

 

[randomboy]

My 0405 2600+ is horrible. Wont boot into windows even @ 200 with 1.85vcore And thats watercooled chipset and cpu, and pc3500 ram set with the slowest timings

 

[StageLeft]

I don't think it's memory. I just checked and my chip is 2-3-3-7, but my Mobo has this on optimal:

Row-active delay: 8
RAS-To-CAS delay: 4
Row-Precharge delay: 4
Cas Latency time: 2

I've set it to manufaturer specs now, but I highly doubt that tightening the timing is going to help I will reboot and try anyhoo! Got my new grease on too.

 

[randomboy]

I got this stupid thing booted @ 198, non-mobile 2600+, I doubt it will pass any testing though. Vcore is at 1.825, made it to windows at 1.8, but kicked out as soon as I ran anything

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: If you're the third person at 187 I have to wonder what's going on with us...The other guy's ram was at issue, so I'm hoping that that will be my problem too. In regards to heat, I've confirmed that the beeping sound is not heat related. I have another beep set to go off (different tone) at a mere 54 Celcius, and all of the forced shutdowns are at 65 sort of range, so this thing is shutting down at <= 53. My paste I'll give a go later, wondering if just parts of the CPU were very hot, even though it averaged <= 53. If it's not that or the RAM, I'm stuck at 187!

Skoorb, you need a higher quality, more powerful psu.

 

[StageLeft]

Actually I'm having a good night I knew my grease was badly done before, but I didn't realize how much. I have some coolermaster paste on now and my full load is 5-10 C less than before. Of greater note is that I ran Prime 95 at 1.7 voltes and 11 X 200 for about 90 min today before getting some errors (no reboot!). I bumped it up to 1.725 now and I'm waiting to see how it works, but the instant shutting down and beeping is a thing of the past! Hopefully I can keep this properly stable at 200.

 

[selfbuilt]

My Barton 2500+ won't run reliably past ~185Mhz or so either (it's an old one, bought the second week they were first out, but I don't recall the steping info). Above 185 or so I get prime95 errors ... by 200, it causes spontaneous reboots during windows XP loading (even with relaxed memory timings like 8-4-4-3).

I have a Vantec Aeroflow cooler with AS3 on it, running on an Asus A7N8X Deluxe (Rev2.0 BIOS 1007) with 2x512 PC400 Hynix (HY5DU56822BT-D43). I don't think it's my memory either, since this particular one is validated to run PC400 on the later A7N8X-E and -VM variant mobos (and my local store swears it's stable on my board). And it passes memtest fine if I run it async to the CPU at 200Mhz, so I'm pretty sure it's the Barton that's the bottleneck.

As a matter of routine, I run it at 166x12.5 (i.e. "2800+" speed) with slightly agressive mem timings (i.e. 7-3-3-2.5, recommend mem SPD is 8-3-3-3). This configuration is perfectly stable, and quite nice for gaming. If I try to run at around its FSB limit of 185, I can't go above a multiple of 11 without eventual prime95 errors. I also have to reduce the timings to SPD for perfect stability ... frankly not worth the trade-off to have a higher FSB but slightly lower effective CPU speed and slower mem.

I wouldn't normally complain, but it is frustrating to have PC400 mem running at PC333 speeds, especially when so many others seem to be able to get their Bartons to 200Mhz easily. Frankly, I would have been better off with cheaper PC333 running with faster timings ... but it seemed like a good idea to try for the o/c at the time I bought it all (last summer).

 

[myocardia]

Selfbuilt, you have a chip that will do 220+ fsb, so obviously it's not your chip. You have to give a processor more voltage to be able to run it at 200 mhz, and usually give the memory a voltage bump too, especially if you're trying to run it in dual-channel mode. Try either 1.75v or 1.775v vcore, and 2.8v vdimm (at 3-3-3-11 timings), if you are wanting to run at 200fsb. And it really sounds as if you could use some good ram, like Corsair XMS, OCZ EL, or Kingston HyperX.

 

[selfbuilt]

Thanks myocardia, but I've tried 1.75v on the CPU without help (made no difference for stability above 185). As for the Barton, I recall O/C stories at the time of my purchase with people who has similar problems (Hard OCP had an article, as I recall, and some 2500+ wouldn't do above 185 for them either). As for the mem, I've heard of people o/c this particular mem on my board to as high 230-250Mhz at stock DIMM voltages, so I figure it should work.

But I take your point, this particular mem is definitely anemic in regards to its mem timings. If I get a chance to pick up better mem at a reasonable price, I would consider it.

 

[myocardia]

Well, this is the best memory that I know of, for the price: OCZ EL for $106/512MB stick and here is the same ram in a dual-channel kit: OCZ EL 2x256MB for $121. Of course, quite a few people are reporting good overclocks with good timings with this: Buffalo Tech. 1x512MB at 2.5-3-3-8 by SPD.

edit: I forgot to say that just going from 3-3-3-x to 2-3-2-11 at 200fsb is going to improve your system performance by 50% on most applications, because your processor and northbridge is having to wait so much less time for the data to be delivered.

 

[selfbuilt]

Thanks again. Incidentally, I just tried your exact DIMM settings (2.8V, 3-3-3-8) with CPU o/c (1.75V, 200x9.5), and windows still won't load.

Anyway, I can live with 2.5-3-3-7 sync with 166x12.5 (I have for 9 months now!). I just thought I'd revisit the issue to see if anyone had any other ideas (I upgraded to BIOS 1007 last week, since it supposedly added greater stability for Hynix DIMMs, but to no effect).

Your suggestion regarding the tRAS 11 is interesting ... I now see some posts on other forums about the anomally of higher values with NForce2 boards. I'm trying it right now (2.5-3-3-11), and it seems stable so far (although no real difference on my first suite of benchies ... I'll try more later).

Unfortunately, I know my mem won't do CL 2.0 - first time I tried, I had to manually reset the BIOS to boot again!

Anyway, since I'm not sure if it's the CPU or mem that's at fault, I'll probably just wait at these levels until I feel the need to upgrade to an AMD64 system. But if anyone has any other timing suggestions for my current setup, I'm all ears.

 

[myocardia]

That means it's your motherboard that can't do 200mhz fsb. Yeah, I know they all say they can run 400, but not all of them can. And since in none of your posts have you mentioned which motherboard you own, you obviously don't have one of the 3 that get to 200fsb and over so easily: Abit NF7-S, Asus A7N8X-Deluxe, and Epox 8RDA3+. I would suggest any of those boards. I have the 8RDA3+, but I'm still considering getting an NF7-S, because my 8RDA3+ will only do 215mhz fsb without raising the chipset voltage, and still maxes out at 219fsb.

 

[selfbuilt]

Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Rev 2.0 (latest BIOS, 1007), which is certified to do 200 FSB. This is why I suspect it's my CPU that's at fault (mem passes memtest when run async at 200MhZ).

 

[Tango57]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I don't think it's memory. I just checked and my chip is 2-3-3-7, but my Mobo has this on optimal:

Row-active delay: 8
RAS-To-CAS delay: 4
Row-Precharge delay: 4
Cas Latency time: 2

I've set it to manufaturer specs now, but I highly doubt that tightening the timing is going to help I will reboot and try anyhoo! Got my new grease on too.

hey Skoorb, actually i think the memory does have a component in being able to overclock this chip. i also had trouble getting my 2500+ to 3200+. my Biostar nForce2 board is very poor at overclocking well that's what the reviews said the only options the bios allows me to change is the FSB and the memory timings. no voltage or multiplier options and every time i would up the FSB to 200 and with the memory settings on optimal my system would crash. so i tried adjusting my memory timings. i have 512 MB of Kingston Valueram PC 3200 and changed the timings to 2.5-3-3-6 and presto! it works now and is stable so far at 3200+. so i would suggest to just try tinkering with your memory timings a bit and who knows that might do the trick. good luck!

 

[gigantor]

add me to the 'cant hit 3200' club

 

[gigantor]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Well, this is the best memory that I know of, for the price: OCZ EL for $106/512MB stick and here is the same ram in a dual-channel kit: OCZ EL 2x256MB for $121. Of course, quite a few people are reporting good overclocks with good timings with this: Buffalo Tech. 1x512MB at 2.5-3-3-8 by SPD.

I have the OCZ and can't get 3200. Just because you get the ram don't mean you get the goods!