Overclocking troubles

[asicman]

OK, I'm probably doing something wrong here, so bear with me. I'm an AMD newbie just making the jump over from Intel.... I'm failing to boot at 240x11 with a 3700+ San Diego, which I thought was a great overclocker.

The system is an EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra, with 2 GB Patriot 2-3-2-5.

1. I've isolated the max FSB to be 360 with 5x CPU divider and 100 mhz mem speed, HT Frequency Auto.

2. I'm now trying to isolate the max CPU speed, and windows won't boot at 240x11, with vcore at 1.54, and 100 mhz mem speed, and HT frequency set to 4x. I've now backed down to 225x11, keeping the low mem speed and 4x HT frequency, and I seem to be passing Prime95.

Any ideas would be great.

 

[asicman]

Some more info: 6/29 BIOS, SATA drive on SATA 3. I am going to check for the SATA lock that I've read about.... Is that a BIOS setting?

Thx

 

[asicman]

OK, now it looks like Pirme95 is failing at 225x11..... Ideas?

 

[monster64]

Did you do all the basics such as lock the agp/pci bus? Do you know 1.54v is what you are actually getting with no fluctuations? Flash the Bios and see if that helps.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

If you got a max FSB of 360 your locks are working fine. I would set the HT freq to Auto, since that worked for your 360FSB, and I would try different CPU voltages. Sometimes overvolting at lower MHZ can also cause problems. My 3700+ will go all the way to 248 x 11 on default volts. My 24/7 settings are 255x11 at 1.55v


And what PS are you using?

 

[asicman]

Originally posted by: monster64
Did you do all the basics such as lock the agp/pci bus? Do you know 1.54v is what you are actually getting with no fluctuations? Flash the Bios and see if that helps.

It's 1.54 at idle and about 1.51 under load. This is according to cpu-z and the Epox utility.

I don't see any obvious way to set the locks, but as GuitarDaddy mentions, with a max FSB of 360 the locks must be working.

 

[asicman]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
If you got a max FSB of 360 your locks are working fine. I would set the HT freq to Auto, since that worked for your 360FSB, and I would try different CPU voltages. Sometimes overvolting at lower MHZ can also cause problems. My 3700+ will go all the way to 248 x 11 on default volts. My 24/7 settings are 255x11 at 1.55v


And what PS are you using?

The PSU is an Aerocool Tubine Power 550W. Will go back to auto HT freq, and Auto CPU voltage, and try again.

Thanks.

 

[asicman]

UPDATE: It fails Prime95 almost instantly at Vcore Auto, HT Frequency Auto. cpu-z is showing vcore at about 1.495 in this setting.

*sigh* Now what ?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Did it boot at 240x11? Try upping the volts to 1.525

 

[asicman]

No, it wouldn't boot at 240x11, even with the voltage up +0.025

 

[asicman]

I'm going to run memtest86 just for kicks....

 

[Bona Fide]

Loosen the memory timings and see if that helps.

 

[asicman]

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
Loosen the memory timings and see if that helps.

The memory is at 2-3-2-5 1T but is only running at 110MHz right now. I'm running memtest86 with these timings just to see....

 

[asicman]

Memtest just ran for 25 minutes at the 110MHz 2-3-2-5 timings.... So it doesn't look like the memory is causing a problem.

 

[thegimp03]

Try lowering HT multiplier to 3x. What other hardware are you running? What's that psu rated at on the 12v? Yeah, lots of wattage but that doesn't mean squat these days with no-name brands.

 

[thegimp03]

Hmm...just checked it out on Newegg, has 2 12v rails, psu might not be the problem. What are your temps?

 

[asicman]

Temps are very low - CPU about 33C. I've never seen it go above 40C yet. The PSU is solid. It tested at less than 1% variation on the 12V lines in a review. Maybe i should measure it, but I'm not sure where the measurement points are.... could poke around though.

I'm starting to think the CPU is just not one of the better 3700+ chips... So far, 240x10 and 225x11 are the highest stable speeds I've been able to reach. And this is with VCore at 1.51 under load.

 

[asicman]

Originally posted by: thegimp03
Try lowering HT multiplier to 3x. What other hardware are you running? What's that psu rated at on the 12v? Yeah, lots of wattage but that doesn't mean squat these days with no-name brands.

It fails Prime95 in less than a minute with 250x10 and HT x3

 

[Bona Fide]

Something isn't right...check your BIOS again and make sure the PCIe is locked, RAM settings are manually set to a 2:1 divider...etc.

 

[asicman]

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
Something isn't right...check your BIOS again and make sure the PCIe is locked, RAM settings are manually set to a 2:1 divider...etc.

I see no setting in BIOS for PCIe lock. But Clockgen shows me the PCIe frequency as 100. Also, I have the RAM manually set to 100 MHz. I don't see any other RAM dividers in BIOS, though, and memtest passes with flying colors.

 

[asicman]

Just to be sure, I backed RAM timings off to 3-4-3-7 and 2T.... Same failures. Prime95 fails in 10 seconds at 250x11. I don't see what could possibly be happening other than the CPU just isn't overclocking well.

 

[asicman]

HTT 350 is running again as a sanity check (with only a x5 CPU multiplier) and Auto HT Frequency. Prime95 has no errors in 15 minutes so far.

At this point, I have to suspect the CPU or the power supply.

 

[Snakexor]

try 1.6v????

 

[Dman877]

I have a 3400+ S754 on an Epox NF3 board and had a similar problem recently. Epox released a new bios for my mobo on 8/2 so I flashed it but afterwards I couldn't get the system to run 3d apps stably at completely stock settings so I flashed back to the last bios, problem solved.

My recommendation: Try an older bios.

 

[asicman]

Originally posted by: Dman877
I have a 3400+ S754 on an Epox NF3 board and had a similar problem recently. Epox released a new bios for my mobo on 8/2 so I flashed it but afterwards I couldn't get the system to run 3d apps stably at completely stock settings so I flashed back to the last bios, problem solved.

My recommendation: Try an older bios.

My BIOS came preflashed with the 6/29 BIOS which is what EVERYONE uses to OC this board with.... I might, however, reflash with a downloaded 6/29 and start from scratch. It could not hurt.