MSI P6N SLI-F

[jonks]

There's no option to set the divider manually. Rather the divider is simply derived from the speed you set the fsb and memory at. If you set the fsb to 800 (200x4) and the memory to 800 (400x2) then the fsbram ratio will be 1:2. If you want the 1:1 you simply set the speeds accordingly, i.e. set fsb=800, dram=400.

Admitedly, I'm new to the OC scene, but this is my understanding. If anyone slaps my reasoning down I won't be offended.

 

[normalicy]

Thanks for the reply sirjonk. Oh, no wonder it wouldn't boot when I tried to do do 1.375v. I didn't know that it was just adding that much on to stock voltage. I thought it was the regular voltage. I don't get how they get 1333 for the fsb, does that have to do with the dual cores? So as long as I divide the FSB by 4 I know what to multiply by? I'll try these settings out tonight.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: sirjonk
There's no option to set the divider manually. Rather the divider is simply derived from the speed you set the fsb and memory at. If you set the fsb to 800 (200x4) and the memory to 800 (400x2) then the fsbram ratio will be 1:2. If you want the 1:1 you simply set the speeds accordingly, i.e. set fsb=800, dram=400.

Admitedly, I'm new to the OC scene, but this is my understanding. If anyone slaps my reasoning down I won't be offended.

So, just to clarify, there is a seperate speed setting for the memory? Just want to make sure. The above statement sounds about the same as how dividers work on K8 Nforce chipsets, so I am getting hopeful.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: sirjonk

So, just to clarify, there is a seperate speed setting for the memory?

Correct.

 

[Spanki]

Originally posted by: Edge1
Sirjonk - yes, I am familiar with the DIMM slot numbering and which slots the manual said to install to for dual channel. My machine simply won't boot with any RAM in the green slots. It reads the 2GB fine in the orange DIMMs. I'm a bit concerned about the green DIMMs and whether they're functioning properly.

I wonder if manually adjusting voltage/timings would help? Will try tonight...

Edge, that memory (?) is rated at 2.1v ... so yeah, you might have to manually bump up the voltage to get it to work.

If you can get one stick working (or some combination of both sticks), use DualCoreCenter or some other program in Windows to see what the memory voltage and bus speed is being set to (assuming you're using some auto settings in BIOS). That memory 'should' default to:

4-5-4-15 @ 2.1v

...with the freq. set to 400Mhz (DDR2 800). If the auto settings are coming up with something different, then you may have to set things up manually. Once you verify that your settings still work, power off, un-plug and try moving the mem to the 1&2 slots again.

The OCZ guys seem pretty good about helping, so you might try the OCZ forums as well.

 

[Spanki]

...different mb with a different BIOS, but this may be helpful.

 

[normalicy]

The only required setting to OC is the FSB speed, and if you want, the memory speed. Disable DOT and just under that setting, pick Manual. I have set my FSB to 1333 (333 x 4) and memory is set to 667 (333 x 2). As to memory timings I have different RAM than you and I just leave everything on Auto for now. With the multiplier on 9x my machine runs at 3.0 ghz. I upped the votage to the cpu after some torture tests revealed mild instabilities. I increased the voltage 3 increments to + .0375

Worked like a charm. Thanks alot. I'm running at 3ghz stable currently. Shame about the 200mhz warning though. I'll play with my ram later & see where I can take it. I'm afraid to take it over 667 currently (had too many bad experiences with ram corrupting things). Gonna make a backup of my windows installation before I go any further.

 

[normalicy]

Well, I thought it was stable till I tried Prime95. Hard lock for me. Tried upping the voltage to .0500 & didn't help. I'm afraid to go further. I don't have the memory linked, but could it be the memory anyhow?

 

[Edge1]

Originally posted by: Spanki

Edge, that memory (?) is rated at 2.1v ... so yeah, you might have to manually bump up the voltage to get it to work.

If you can get one stick working (or some combination of both sticks), use DualCoreCenter or some other program in Windows to see what the memory voltage and bus speed is being set to (assuming you're using some auto settings in BIOS). That memory 'should' default to:

4-5-4-15 @ 2.1v

...with the freq. set to 400Mhz (DDR2 800). If the auto settings are coming up with something different, then you may have to set things up manually. Once you verify that your settings still work, power off, un-plug and try moving the mem to the 1&2 slots again.

The OCZ guys seem pretty good about helping, so you might try the OCZ forums as well.

Spanki - great response. Gave it a try and was very close to successfully booting to Windows in dual channel. Raised the voltage to 2.1, timings to 4-4-4-15 (its not 4-5-4-15; I got the Platinum REV 2) and it just about made it. Got past post screen (where you can hit <DEL> to get to bios, and the Windows boot-up screen showed briefly before turning to black nothingness. Given that both sticks of RAM work in the orange slots I believe I may have a DIMM slot issue on the mobo, but not sure. Right now both sticks are working fine in single channel, occupying both orange slots.

I ordered Corsair XMS2 PC6400 (same ones that sirjonk has) and they arrive today. Want to test dual channel with those. If they work, then the OCZ was the issue. If not, its the mobo, IMO. I may have just done something to inadvertently damage those slots (my HSF gave me trouble til I figured it out) such as static discharge or something.

In any event, I believe this is a great mobo and I may have done something boneheaded given this was my first ever build.

I'm in contact with Eric from OCZ forums you mentioned and I'm impressed with their level of service. I'll get this straightened out, for sure.

Thanks again!!

 

[jplb70]

Hi all
Well I decided to give oc'in my P6N rig a go so I just set my E6400 to a FSB of 1333 set my RAM at 4-4-4-12-16 and BAM runnin great at 2.67 at stock voltages. Did a little stess testing so far no problems. I'm going to run orthos on it for a few hours tonight and see how it holds up. If everything is good I'm going to se how far I can push her

 

[Edge1]

Nice job, jplb70. If I may ask, what RAM are you running?

*Edit - scratch that, I see its PQI Turbo 667

 

[jplb70]

Well I hammered on this thing at the overclocked settings and just could'nt get it to crash I even took my 8800GTS to 580/1700 and my 3DMARK 06 scores went from the 8040's to the 9220's. I ran Orthos on it for almost 9 hours stressing the CPU/RAM and the thing didn't even break a sweat the temps hung around the 52 degree mark. I threw a lot at it lots of 3DMARK, Sandra, Aquamark played a whole bunch of FEAR and Quake4 and the thing just flew.

Nice I Like

 

[jplb70]

Well a quick update for anyone interested. I've got my e6400 @ 2.8ghz. Cranked my GTS 8800 320 up to 600/1800 mhz and I've scored 9577 in 3DMARK06. and so far it's rock solid.

 

[aka1nas]

My friend just did a build with this board and and E4300 and is having trouble getting it to be stable at 9x333Mhz. Are there any known FSB holes with this board? Is the board normally stable at 1333FSB?

 

[Spanki]

I've been running 8x333 (2.666 GHz) on a E6400 for more than a week now with only one bump on voltage and had zero issues.

My guess is that 3GHz on a E4300 is pushing the upper end of that chip, so he probably just hasn't found the right settings yet (Disable C1E, EIST, DOT, bump voltage, etc).

 

[BolleY2K]

A friend of mine and me bought new rigs on friday. Each of us is using a E4300 with Tuniq Tower, this board, a Leadtek 8800 GTS and a 1 GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 from G.E.I.L.

Neither of us can clock higher than 250 x 9 = 2,250 MHz with VCore +0,0125. I can run Orthos stable at 2,400 MHz, but will fail 3DMark or Gaming Timedemos. My machine won´t even post above 2,500 MHz.

Tried everything, upping VCore up to 1,4V, maxing out the northbridge voltage, clocking down the RAM to 667 and relaxing the timings. C1E, DOT, EIST etc. is disabled of course.

Perhaps someone can help me/us, because 2,25 GHz seems VERY low...

 

[Spanki]

Are you sure that you disabled C1E? On my board, that option was 'hidden' in the advanced, cpu features page.. had to hit F4 to make it visible.

I think there's some E4300 users oc'ing in this thread., so you might check there.

 

[BolleY2K]

I did, I am actually quite the type who reads a lot before he does anything... But thanks for the link and hint!

Heat also shouldn´t be an issue, I am using three 120mm fans for a steady airflow from the front of the case to the back. PSU is a 600W Thermaltake Toughpower.

 

[Spanki]

This is linked from that other thread, but I just went to check and there's a guy doing 400 FSB with a E4300 in this thread at XS.

 

[BolleY2K]

Yeah, I know this thread, but he also pinmodded his e4300. My problem looks exactly like this one with different MSI boards and the e4300...

 

[Spanki]

Aye - true. I'd forgotten about the pinmod he did early on. It might well be a problem with the BIOS not switching straps on that CPU.

If I run across anything else, I'll let you know.

 

[aka1nas]

FWIW, we finally got my friend stable at 333x9. He had his spread spectrum settings enabled still. Once I had him disable those, things went a bit more smoothly.

 

[normalicy]

Which spread spectrum settings did he disable? The manual implied that the CPU one was the only one that made a difference. Also, my problems seem to have been with the ram voltage. I'm going to try to get this thing overclocked again soon if I can get my backup done finally (found out the hard way that Norton Ghost doesn't appreciate SATA drives & will lock you into their PC DOS boot system until you run another boot CD to clear things up).

 

[Spanki]

Thanks for the update aka1nas - I forgot to mention those.

 

[aka1nas]

To the best of my knowledge, you generally don't want any Spread Spectrum settings enabled while OC'ing. IIRC, the purpose of those settings is to reduce EMI by somewhat varying the frequency of the given bus over time. This is usually ok in a stock system, but can be somewhat problematic when you are running things closer to tolerance while OC'ing.