It begins...

sprognak · 3 Dec 2006 at 22:21

Jokester said:
Ignoring the fact you can't return it now under the Distance Selling Act as you've used the board, I don't think the 430MHz limit of you're board is going to be a problem on air as it means you'll be running at over 3.8GHz.

Jokester

Actually it doesn't matter that it's been used. Distance selling only requires it to be in good condition with original packaging.

3.8 is outta the question too, the temps are way too high and the CPU refuses to do anything at sub 1.6V...

clv101 · 3 Dec 2006 at 22:38

sprognak said:
Reckon I should return the board under distance selling cooling off period? Or just stick with a 430FSB cap?

No point returning it as it seems like your CPU can't cope with the board, 430*9 =3.87GHz which your CPU can't touch.

Trox · 3 Dec 2006 at 22:38

If the temps are 75c atm a new board wont help you there anyway, only thing to do is get better cooling imo

sprognak · 4 Dec 2006 at 07:41

Well CPU should be riding fine at 6x440MHz = 2.6GHz. So I'd suspect the board there.

Nutbusta · 4 Dec 2006 at 10:11

sprognak said:
Well CPU should be riding fine at 6x440MHz = 2.6GHz. So I'd suspect the board there.

What I think you should do is drop your cpu multi to 6, RAM to 1:1 @ 5,5,5,15 and the Vcore to 1.45v, +0.1 on the other voltages and just keep upping your fsb by 5MHz. Run Orthos for 10mins each time. Max stable FSB

Then set you RAM timings back to 4,4,4,12 and fsb back to 400. Test with Orthos for 10 mins or so and up by 5 MHz, repeat. Max stable RAM

Then whack your CPU multi upto max and set your RAM to 5,5,5,15 again. Drop your fsb down to about 360MHz. Max stable CPU

I would be reluctant to go very much over 1.45v and I personally wouldn't go over 1.5v at all. Set yourself a "budget" of sorts. A limit that your not prepared to go over and yes, I'd deffinately keep those temps under 65.

It sounds like you've done quite a bit of testing but you need to try to be more methodical. You need to find the limit of each of your components individually by giving one component a hard time whilst giving the others an easy ride.

Trying a bit of this and that won't help you at all. Overclocking is all about method and patients. And a bit of intuition if you're really good.

One other thing, I'd get a Zalman fan bracket and 120mm over the northbridge as on my DS3 it gets hot enough to burn flesh!

Post back your results and we should be able to improve things for you

sprognak · 4 Dec 2006 at 11:19

Good stragegy. I was probably too eager diving right in at the deep end, been a while since I had a serious hardware upgrade (Barton 2800 to be precise).

Now running Orthos at 415MHz for the second time. I got it up to 420MHz with all settings as you suggest and it hardlocked, then on reboot had reverted back to 266FSB.

Just to state so it's nice and clear:

420MHz FSB, 6x CPU Multi, RAM at 840MHz-5-5-5-15 (RAM is stable up to 1000MHz 4-4-4-12 so NOT an issue here), all voltages at +0.1 except for RAM which requires +0.4 and CPU which is at 1.45000V = Orthos hardlock.

sprognak · 4 Dec 2006 at 11:20

sprognak said:
Good stragegy. I was probably too eager diving right in at the deep end, been a while since I had a serious hardware upgrade (Barton 2800 to be precise).

Now running Orthos at 415MHz for the second time. I got it up to 420MHz with all settings as you suggest and it hardlocked, then on reboot had reverted back to 266FSB.

Just to state so it's nice and clear:

420MHz FSB, 6x CPU Multi, RAM at 840MHz-5-5-5-15 (RAM is stable up to 1000MHz 4-4-4-12 so NOT an issue here), all voltages at +0.1 except for RAM which requires +0.4 and CPU which is at 1.45000V = Orthos hardlock.

And this is on F6 10/12 bios (although CPU-Z reports F5 10/12)

sprognak · 4 Dec 2006 at 11:34

Update:

Now at 420MHz FSB, 5 minutes into Orthos. I'll give it another 5 before going for 425MHz.

I upped the PCI/E to +0.1, disabled the FDD and reduced the PCI/E bus speed from 105 to 100MHz.

Seems to now be stable at 420FSB.......

sprognak · 4 Dec 2006 at 12:14

Stable at 420MHz for 10 minutes.

Failing POST 50% of the time at 425MHz, hard locking if it does manage to boot.

Increased G(MCH), V_FSB and V_PCIE to +.15 - same.

sprognak · 4 Dec 2006 at 13:07

So far:

MAX FSB: 420MHz
MAX RAM: 1080MHz
CPU currently at 3.24GHz, still winding up...

Ok, CPU capping out at 3.24GHz with 360FSB and 9x multi. Any higher and the board goes into "crapout" mode and drops the FSB down to 266MHz...

Nutbusta · 4 Dec 2006 at 14:56

So are you still limited to 420 fsb even with the cpu multi at 6?

Not sure about the DS4 but the DS3 bios is upto F7 now, might be worth checking?

sprognak · 4 Dec 2006 at 15:00

Nutbusta said:
So are you still limited to 420 fsb even with the cpu multi at 6?

Not sure about the DS4 but the DS3 bios is upto F7 now, might be worth checking?

Yes, still limited to 420FSB with CPU multi at 6, with FSB, and G(MCH) voltages from 0.1 to 0.3.

F6 is still the latest for the DS4.

Board is 4 days old, I could still return it... Just hassle :/