After dumping my AMD setup due to a fried DFI motherboard and volt dropping PSU for this Intel rig, I spent the last week or two toying around with settings and despite recommendations stating otherwise, it would seem as though I hit higher FSBs when I don't strictly use the black RAM slots.
When I first starting testing things out, I had my RAM seated in the slots closest to the CPU and after a few days of playing around with lower speeds, I was able to hit 3.1ghz(7x444mhz) with the stock cooler 1.325V Vcore(without that 100mV boost), and 1.5V NorthBridge. The RAM stayed at 800mhz and 2V. It ran Orthos stable for over 4 hours, although I did notice instability in the form of IE and Firefox crashing. I should note that everything seemed to run fine at 3ghz though. Then I came across the posts in this thread recommending that only the black slots should be used and thus I switched RAM slots.
Unfortunately, I couldn't go beyond 333-ish mhz without the system freezing up when Windows is loading. I tried increasing the CPU voltage and RAM voltage but to no avail. I also ran Memtest overnight and it found no issues. This time around, I decided to seat my RAM in the slots farthest from the CPU and am currently running my system with the details listed in my signature. It has run Orthos for over 4 and half hours now and I haven't noticed any odd issues while using the computer. While I don't get the benefit of Dual Channel support, I seem to get more significant frame rate gains in game benchmarks, not to mention smoother overall system performance with the higher clock.
Also, I does anyone else experience "freezing" when running the HL2 Lost Coast timedemo whenever there's any monitor software running in the background like SpeedFan, Asus Probe II(the aacenter.exe process in particular), ATI Tool, etc? The game always stops at the same spots and I generally have to press escape to bring up the main menu(which doesn't actually show on the screen) and then alt-tab to get to the desktop.
When I first starting testing things out, I had my RAM seated in the slots closest to the CPU and after a few days of playing around with lower speeds, I was able to hit 3.1ghz(7x444mhz) with the stock cooler 1.325V Vcore(without that 100mV boost), and 1.5V NorthBridge. The RAM stayed at 800mhz and 2V. It ran Orthos stable for over 4 hours, although I did notice instability in the form of IE and Firefox crashing. I should note that everything seemed to run fine at 3ghz though. Then I came across the posts in this thread recommending that only the black slots should be used and thus I switched RAM slots.
Unfortunately, I couldn't go beyond 333-ish mhz without the system freezing up when Windows is loading. I tried increasing the CPU voltage and RAM voltage but to no avail. I also ran Memtest overnight and it found no issues. This time around, I decided to seat my RAM in the slots farthest from the CPU and am currently running my system with the details listed in my signature. It has run Orthos for over 4 and half hours now and I haven't noticed any odd issues while using the computer. While I don't get the benefit of Dual Channel support, I seem to get more significant frame rate gains in game benchmarks, not to mention smoother overall system performance with the higher clock.
Also, I does anyone else experience "freezing" when running the HL2 Lost Coast timedemo whenever there's any monitor software running in the background like SpeedFan, Asus Probe II(the aacenter.exe process in particular), ATI Tool, etc? The game always stops at the same spots and I generally have to press escape to bring up the main menu(which doesn't actually show on the screen) and then alt-tab to get to the desktop.