e5200 @ 3.4ghz

[spookywillow]

not likely, the available refresh rates will vary depending on what fsb you are running.

try messing about with the fsb to see what other refresh rates you can get, its probably 3900 your after.

 

[mame]

Ahh, a gigabyte board. Have you tried holding CTRL and pressing F1 in the main BIOS screen and then going into M.I.B. You may well find some extra options appear

Quite often memory will run in a fail-safe 1.8v mode (standard DDR2 voltage is 1.8 as far as motherboards are concerned) My geil RAM actually had stickers on each stick saying if you want to run at the advertised speeds you will have to increase the VDIMM from the motherboards default 1.8v up to the RAMs rated VDIMM. My point is that if you don't have RAM timings settings in the BIOS (unless the above helps and I think it might) then you won't have an option to change the VDIMM so messing with timings in windows might cause trouble.

 

[xxvv]

not likely, the available refresh rates will vary depending on what fsb you are running.

try messing about with the fsb to see what other refresh rates you can get, its probably 3900 your after.

i can't manually change this, only the predetermined options in memset?

 

[spookywillow]

you can yes but the option has to be there in the drop down box and it isn't, try a different fsb and the timings in the drop down box will be different.

 

[xxvv]

didn't realise i had the additional settings in bios after all this... lol

how do these settings look now? cant run orthos memory stress but otherwise stable.....

 

[Plec]

I'm on my laptop at the mo but if i remember correctly i'm not running it much over stock - probably in the region of 1.18xxV (i'll post back with results when i'm at my desktop later.)

I must have been having a mental aberration when i posted that - i must have been thinking about when my system was clocked at 3.2/3.25Ghz.

Anyway, the reality is that when i tried to get past 3.25 i had to jump quite significantly in voltage, relative, that is, to what i was using before. I'm now just under 1.3v but i've got a feeling i may need to increase it as my computer has turned itself off twice today :/ (although i haven't ruled out windows 7 rc as the culprit.)

I'm not going to be pushing for any more as i'm not a true overclocking nut - i just like my components to pay for themselves. I'm going to make sure the system is completely stable at this clock and then try and get my memory up to factory speed.

Great to see that you've made some headway - n1. I didn't think to mention the Ctrl-F1-gigabyte-BIOS quirk - i'm afraid i just assumed you knew of it. Is yours one of the boards that has this safety feature - of sorts?

Your spd timing look fine - good infact. As for the 'other timings' i have no idea - it's not an area i've researched.

Let us know how you're getting on - you deserve to get there just for sheer bloody mindedness - good for you!

Plec

 

[xxvv]

To be honest i had no idea about memory timings until now, i was quite happy overclocking with memory on auto and just increasing fsb and vcore.

To keep things stable (peace of mind) it looks like i'll need to get these timings right. After a little advice from another forum i've tried various cpu (1.285-1.4) and memory volts (2.1-2.2) without luck.

Using these settings -

12.5x 266 = 3.33 (shows 3325)
Memory (4.0) = 1066 (1064) - 5-5-5-15

1066 the stock is 5-5-5-15
800 5-5-5-18

Just for my personal knowledge what are you suppose to run when not at 1066 or 800? for instance when i'm clocked at 3ghz my memory will be 1000mhz.

It also appears somebody else has my problem with the same memory -

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18007852

 

[Bradley8988]

Just underclock your memory and slacken the timings for now and work on your CPU. You don't have a clue what is killing your OC at the moment so take your memory outa the equation like i just mentioned then from where u were last stable work your way up slowly. Intel burn test is a handy stress tester as it only takes 10 mins per run or so and is a good early indication if your clock is stable.