Solved! (SORRY) DDR2 RAM Overclock Help Please

[ledzeppblues]

Hi,
I have been trying to overclock my 2GB x 2 667mhz RAMs using the motherboards bios but every time i do something ,the pc just reboots with no display.
Both RAM sticks are of different companies

I dont wish to be a hassle on you people but here are what it says and i have no clue what and how much to change
i would like to overclock them to either 800mhz to max 1333mhz or any in between in which it would give best performance

SPD are -

DRAM tCL 5
DRAM tRAS 15
DRAM tRP 5
DRAM tRCD 5
DRAM tWR 5
DRAM tRFC 44
DRAM tWTR 3
DRAM tRRD 3
DRAMtRTP 3

So please can you good kind people help me out with these setting and numbers and how much to change so i can finally overclock them

Thanks a ton in advance !

 

[VirtualLarry]

You can't be serious.

Edit: Let me elaborate. Given the modern platforms that we have today, there doesn't appear to be any applications that would be a "stairstep" function of not being able to run versus being able to run if your RAM was overclocked.

Plus, RAM was fussy back in the day. If you're running mixed RAM sticks/brands, I wouldn't even think of overclocking them, just be grateful that they they all work together without errors.

BTW, you didn't tell us what motherboard and CPU that you are using. Kind of hard to help without that information.

Edit: OH, and you're NOT getting your mixed DDR2-667 RAM to DDR2-1333, that's not happening.

 

[ledzeppblues]

You can't be serious.

Well its my old rig and i overclocked every other -redacted- out of it to see how much can it go to the extreme but im stuck at RAM and i dont know ,its just me but im having fun playing around with it
So any help would be nice

I'm even gonna give the good old cpu tape mod a try too later

And you bet i am

Profanity is not allowed in the tech forums.

Daveybrat
AT Moderator

 

[VirtualLarry]

LOL. In that case, loosen all major timings to as high a latency as they will go, then up the clocks a notch, and see if they're stable. Keep upping the clocks (and possibly DRAM voltage, just not to an unsafe level), until you reach instability. Then once you reach your max Mhz, try pulling in some of the timings, possibly.

(Keep a notepad paper with different clocks/timings, so that you can refer back to them later.)

Also consider FSB's affect on DRAM clocks, eg., DRAM multiplier changes might be too much for the DRAM, but slowly upping FSB clocks by 1-2Mhz at a time might help you push your DRAM to max clocks.

Still haven't told us what platform you're trying to do this on. Is is an NVidia 430 AM2 chipset, P35 chipset / Core2Quad, what?

Maybe there exists, a DDR2 "DRAM timing calculator" app? They exist for DDR3 and DDR4 and GDDR6 (AMD GPUs).

 

[ledzeppblues]

LOL. In that case, loosen all major timings to as high a latency as they will go, then up the clocks a notch, and see if they're stable. Keep upping the clocks (and possibly DRAM voltage, just not to an unsafe level), until you reach instability. Then once you reach your max Mhz, try pulling in some of the timings, possibly.

(Keep a notepad paper with different clocks/timings, so that you can refer back to them later.)

Also consider FSB's affect on DRAM clocks, eg., DRAM multiplier changes might be too much for the DRAM, but slowly upping FSB clocks by 1-2Mhz at a time might help you push your DRAM to max clocks.

Still haven't told us what platform you're trying to do this on. Is is an NVidia 430 AM2 chipset, P35 chipset / Core2Quad, what?

Maybe there exists, a DDR2 "DRAM timing calculator" app? They exist for DDR3 and DDR4 and GDDR6 (AMD GPUs).

Ah sorry for the little information given by me ,it has a G31 motherboard (no overclocking option besides RAM) Core2Quad Q6600 and GTX 750

And....and i am not kidding ,with overclocking ,games from this year are giving a solid 30 - 40 fps on this ancient relic albiet on low setting

And thank you for the advise you gave ,much appreciated and also ,my main goal is to overclock it on a safe level and test it for safe clocking and actually donate this pc to someone really really poor so they can play casual games (i dont wanna say it lol but PUBG)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, that's a notable cause, but my current experience is that, nearly 100% of the time, any overclocks that I deem "stable" in my lab, invariably become "unstable" once the customer hooks them them and starts using them for their purposes. Whether the difference is environmental, electrical, or otherwise, I don't know. But you're taking a big risk, overcloocking a rig for someone else. (That's experience talking.)

That being said, unless you are using the iGPU (and I doubt that), then RAM overclocking from 667 to 800, isn't going to make a very big difference in frame rates.

Can that board set a DRAM ratio of 2.0? It also depends on FSB, sometimes, what Gigabyte G31 boards will allow for DRAM ratio. (Is this a Gigabyte G31, they were by far the most common.)

 

[ledzeppblues]

Well, that's a notable cause, but my current experience is that, nearly 100% of the time, any overclocks that I deem "stable" in my lab, invariably become "unstable" once the customer hooks them them and starts using them for their purposes. Whether the difference is environmental, electrical, or otherwise, I don't know. But you're taking a big risk, overcloocking a rig for someone else. (That's experience talking.)

That being said, unless you are using the iGPU (and I doubt that), then RAM overclocking from 667 to 800, isn't going to make a very big difference in frame rates.

Can that board set a DRAM ratio of 2.0? It also depends on FSB, sometimes, what Gigabyte G31 boards will allow for DRAM ratio. (Is this a Gigabyte G31, they were by far the most common.)

ok, i see then overclocking and handing over not the best idea but just for my interest here and knowledge on this i would like to show you a few screenshots from cpuz if thats ok with you and sorry if im being bothersome

 

[ledzeppblues]

Well, that's a notable cause, but my current experience is that, nearly 100% of the time, any overclocks that I deem "stable" in my lab, invariably become "unstable" once the customer hooks them them and starts using them for their purposes. Whether the difference is environmental, electrical, or otherwise, I don't know. But you're taking a big risk, overcloocking a rig for someone else. (That's experience talking.)

That being said, unless you are using the iGPU (and I doubt that), then RAM overclocking from 667 to 800, isn't going to make a very big difference in frame rates.

Can that board set a DRAM ratio of 2.0? It also depends on FSB, sometimes, what Gigabyte G31 boards will allow for DRAM ratio. (Is this a Gigabyte G31, they were by far the most common.)

Is there anything i can do with this information regarding RAM overclock because the motherboard only allows RAM overclocking with the above mentioned SPD values allowed to be changed only with RAM frequency

 

[VirtualLarry]

That last image is a screenshot of the SPD values for the DIMM in slot #1. Can you post pictures of the SPD values, for all FOUR slots? It appears that the DIMM in slot #1, judging by the fact that it has an SPD setting for 400Mhz (DDR2-800), 6-6-6-18 or so, that the DIMM in slot #1 is DDR2-800.

On a Core2-era chipset, FSB speeds and DRAM speeds were linked. So, to get DDR2-800, you need a FSB speed of 200Mhz, I believe. But the G31 chipset (normally) only goes up to a FSB speed of 133Mhz or 166Mhz. So you might (kind of) be stuck here.

I'll let someone else chime in, who isn't as hazy about this old tech as I am.

I would try setting FSB to 200Mhz (if that's even an option), and then setting a DRAM ratio of 2.0 (Gigabyte terminology) or "1:1" (other brands).

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Per my experience around 10 years ago with my old system
Q9650
P5Q Asus board
8GB Patriot ddr800 memory

My cpu was the version that was highly over clockable (F0 I think?) and the memory was highly rated for over clocking.
I don’t remember the exact numbers but it yielded nearly zero performance in games. Benchmarks were better but that was all. Made a lot more noise with fans on max.
I never over clocked again, always kept it at stock.
I doubt over clocking anything in that machine would return any real world noticeable results.

For a fun nerd project it is a great idea
Over clock to gain one or two FPS in player unknown, it’s not worth it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I doubt over clocking anything in that machine would return any real world noticeable results.

For a fun nerd project it is a great idea
Over clock to gain one or two FPS in player unknown, it’s not worth it.

That's kind of what I was getting at, with my initial comment. I think that overclocking the CPU FSB by 10-20Mhz (and thus, the resultant clock speed), might give you a greater performance uplift, than running the DRAM at 800 rather than 667.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

That's kind of what I was getting at, with my initial comment. I think that overclocking the CPU FSB by 10-20Mhz (and thus, the resultant clock speed), might give you a greater performance uplift, than running the DRAM at 800 rather than 667.

Yeah I smell what you’re stepping in.

To my admittedly novice understanding the best you can reasonably expect from an over clock is around 10% performance bump. This comes with a lot of luck and a lot of support/patience.
Dealing with the problems to go from 24 FPS to 27 FPS is a lot of work or risk.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Honestly, with a G31 (Which is limited, and is NOT an overclocking board), the best that you're going to be able to do, is set the FSB at 333Mhz, and then push it up 1-2Mhz at a time, and see if it's still stable. IF that board allows vcore adjustment (I don't think that you've said, OP), then consider bumping the vcore for the CPU up to 1.33V-1.35V, and then push for possibly 340Mhz or even 350Mhz FSB. 340Mhz should be doable, possible with or without a vcore bump.

 

[ledzeppblues]

Thank you both VitualLarry and Fanatical Meat ,as it turns out with a little tinkering i was able to over clock it ,the other ram was of a lower frequency but both are running at 800mhz now

Because earlier in boot it showed RAM DDR2 667Mhz but now it shows 800Mhz and believe me when i say it gave a boost of 3 - 4 fps in the game Control and after overclocking the GPU got another 6 frames extra ,in total 10

Now i'll try using SetFsb to overclock the cpu and see the performance bump this machine can give (fluctuating between 30 - 40 fps in control) not bad for a 12 year old machine

And again thank you both of you ,keep helping poor souls like me ,thank you

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Thank you both VitualLarry and Fanatical Meat ,as it turns out with a little tinkering i was able to over clock it ,the other ram was of a lower frequency but both are running at 800mhz now

Because earlier in boot it showed RAM DDR2 667Mhz but now it shows 800Mhz and believe me when i say it gave a boost of 3 - 4 fps in the game Control and after overclocking the GPU got another 6 frames extra ,in total 10

Now i'll try using SetFsb to overclock the cpu and see the performance bump this machine can give (fluctuating between 30 - 40 fps in control) not bad for a 12 year old machine

And again thank you both of you ,keep helping poor souls like me ,thank you

Hey I did nothing, good results for an old machine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't think that I helped much either, except for a few words of discouragement.

But, Good Job OP.

I don't know that I would use SetFSB for CPU overclocking, most Core2-era boards can do it in the BIOS. (Unless your BIOS is locked, and won't allow for FSB adjustments in BIOS.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

If this is a Core2-era Gigabyte board, don't forget that CTRL+F1 in the main BIOS menu, "unlocks" some additional features in the "M.I.T." overclocking menu, and others. (Yes, there are "hidden" settings that have to be unlocked.)

 

[DigDog]