Winchester OC problems

[genjaguar]

Well I ran prime95 with my cpu at 250mhzx10, my ram at 125 mhz, and my htt multiplier at 3x. My vcore was at about 1.616 and yet prime95 still failed. It also fails super pi. I'm not sure what else I should change

 

[govtcheez75]

some chips are just not good overclockers. It's pretty much a crap shoot when it comes to getting a good one, or a bad one. My 3200+ won't run stable at 250x10 either. Try lowering the multiplier, and increasing the FSB. Mine runs perfectly stable (20+hours of prime95 at priority 10) at 300x8. This yields much better benchmarks than 240x10, even at Async (166mem divider=240mhz at 2.5-3-3-7).

 

[fireontheway]

Originally posted by: genjaguar
Well I ran prime95 with my cpu at 250mhzx10, my ram at 125 mhz, and my htt multiplier at 3x. My vcore was at about 1.616 and yet prime95 still failed. It also fails super pi. I'm not sure what else I should change

Try relaxing your memory timings and see if that helps.

 

[genjaguar]

Well my memory was at 125 mhz so I don't think the timings matter.

 

[fireontheway]

Well that takes us back to what govtcheez75 stated

some chips are just not good overclockers. It's pretty much a crap shoot when it comes to getting a good one, or a bad one.

 

[genjaguar]

Well I'm running at 300mhzx8 with ram at 6:5 at 2.5-3-4-7 right now and it passes super pi. What I'm concerned about is that cpuz reads the ram speed at 240mhz. But it should be at 250 mhz.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Now your getting somewhere! On my 3200+ the 9x and 8x give me much better overclocks. The best I can prime with the 10x is about 2420mhz. But I can run 9x289=2601mhz or 8x325=2600mhz.

And on the memory speed, what your seeing is normal. A64's do some strange things with memory dividers. My Asus A8N-SLI works the same way, I'm currently running a 6:5 divider w/HTT@289 which should give me 240mhz ram, but I actually get 233mhz.

 

[genjaguar]

If I lower my cpu multiplier to take it out of the equation and my memory passes memtest 5 and 6 that would mean my memeory can run those timings at the mhz right?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Thats correct

And your memory should be fine at those timings or lower. My OCZ uses the same samsung TCCD chips, and mine is running 236mhz 2-3-3-5 1T w/2.80v.

 

[genjaguar]

Well it did fine with prime95 for 5 mins and I'll test it more overnight. But when I've been playing cs it gives me a memory error. I dunno where I can find exactly what it said but I remember something about memory.

 

[genjaguar]

Another wierd thing happened today. I have my memory at 2.5-3-3-6 at 266mhz on 2.65v. I set my CPU to 8.5x at 1.45v. It passes memtest. If I set the multiplier to 8 or 9 it fails. It only passes at 8.5. It doesn't pass super pi however(8M) at this setting which is only 2270mhz. I'll let prime95 run for a few hours and see how it goes.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Your ddr volts look low. My OCZ TCCD calls for 2.75v at stock, I'm currently using 2.80v at 236mhz. Don't be afraid of giving it more volts, the TCCD loves volts

And the reason you pass memtest at 8.5 is because A64's don't really have half multis, they are mumbo jumbo created by the motherboards bios. What it really does when you drop the the CPU mult to a .5 is keep the multi at 9 and drops the HTT (thus the ramspeed) accordingly. You can verify this with Clockgen, it will show the actual multi being used by the chip(not whats reported in bios/CPUZ) and it will also show the reduced ram speed.

8.5x267=2270mhz is really 9x252.2=2270mhz so your ram is passing at 252 but not at 267. Up the volts!

And your going to have to up the vcore to get your max CPU overclock. 300mhz is likely all you will get with stock voltage. A very few of these winchesters will get large overclocks on stock voltage, the majority require more voltage. My 3200+ also hits the wall on stock voltage at around 2.3ghz, but with 1.57v I,m prime stable at 2601mhz.

Just watch you CPU temps when priming. My prime load temps are around 52c, these chips will not overheat and shut down until about 70c. I see people all the time with load temps of 65-68c. I would reccomend better cooling if your temps get over 60c.

 

[genjaguar]

What the best way to check the highest cpu speed. Say I lower my memory multiplier to 100 and try to see my max mhz at 10x. What would be the best way to check stability of it?

 

[genjaguar]

I ran prime95 on the small FFT setting while I was at work and it ran with no errors for 3hours 24 mins at 258mhzx9 at 1.5vcore and RAM at 1:1 with timings of 2.5-3-3-6 at 2.85v. But it doesn't want to do Super PI 8M.

 

[Dominator]

I got a bad chip....however the person that i got it from said it wouldnt do anything over 2100 for him. I got it to 2160 (240x9) 7-3-3-2.5 2.70v.

I can boot up at 250, but get errors and BSOD shortly after windows starts up.

 

[genjaguar]

I haven't gotten even 1 BSOD but the computer has restarted when I sometimes try to run Super Pi 8M.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Sounds like memory. Prime small files doesn't test memory, SuperPI does

For one thing your timings are most likely too tight for that speed. Run memtest for a couple hours, if you get errors give your ram looser timings like 3-3-3-10 or 2.5-3-3-8 if you can. If that doesn't work you will have to give it more ddrvolts

 

[genjaguar]

My board only goes up to 2.85 v and I thought thats the most you should give memory. The memory also passed memtest.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I think your Mushkin is warrantied to 2.90v and my OCZ is warrantied 3.0. I have set mine at 3.0 a couple of times but I wouldn't leave it there.

If 2.85 is your max, then you will have to loosen the timings or lower the ram speed if you get memory errors

 

[GuitarDaddy]

If your passing memtest at that speed. I would say reinstall SuperPI, and try again, maybe SuperPi is messed up

 

[genjaguar]

I ran Super Pi 8M at 250mhz x8 at 1.5vcore and memory at 1:1 at 2.5-3-3-6 at 2.85v and it passes. So I upped the multiplier to 9x and it passes as well at 1.52vcore. I then ran Super Pi 8M at 250mhzx10 with the memory at 3:2(166mhz) at 1.6vcore and it passes. I then tried Super Pi with 250x10 and memory at 250 as well with the vcore as high as 1.65 and it won't pass. What could this suggest?

 

[genjaguar]

Well I'm running at 250mhzx10 with RAM at 208mhz 2-2-2-5 and it passes Super Pi. However it requires 1.62vcore. How safe is this? Also I'm wondering is it better to run memory with higher timings and more mhz or lower timings with lower mhz? Right now sandra gives me a slow memory bandwidth by almost 500 or so mb/s then when I had my memory at higher timings with higher mhz and lower cpu speed. I know it's better to max out your cpu speed and not you RAM speed but is it better to have a higher mhz memory?