Just realised I am a numpty with my O/C lol

Soldato
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There was me for ages thinking that I wasn't maxing my memory as it was only on 350Mhz, and so I thought the chip couldn't go any higher. Of course, I have never looked into ratios and I've just noticed mine is 5:6 according to CPU-Z. I also just noticed my e4300 is running with 421Mhz according to CPU-Z which would make a lot of sense lol.

So ok, what am I doing wrong? d'oh, How do I get the ratio sorted so I can clock my memory higher and get my e4300 faster?

Assume I am a plain old muppet at this point :rolleyes:
 
There was me for ages thinking that I wasn't maxing my memory as it was only on 350Mhz, and so I thought the chip couldn't go any higher. Of course, I have never looked into ratios and I've just noticed mine is 5:6 according to CPU-Z. I also just noticed my e4300 is running with 421Mhz according to CPU-Z which would make a lot of sense lol.

So ok, what am I doing wrong? d'oh, How do I get the ratio sorted so I can clock my memory higher and get my e4300 faster?

Assume I am a plain old muppet at this point :rolleyes:

First of all you have 800MHz DDR2 ram in your system.

I think you are confusing your current FSB speed of 350MHz with memory. When you are referring to overclocking your memory higher and getting your e4300 faster, what you really mean is increasing the FSB so your cpu can be overclocked higher.
Correctly speaking your current FSB is 350MHz and your memory (ram) is running at 421MHz which is 842MHz DDR2 so your ram is already overclocked from stock speed of 800MHz DDR2.
FSB : Dram is 5:6. So (5/6)x421 =350MHz FSB roughly

Secondly I looked at your sig and your current overclock speed is at 3.07GHz. That means if you are using multiplier of 9 then your current FSB should be 334MHz (334MHz x 9 =3006MHZ =3.07GHz roughly) and not 350MHz:confused:. 350MHz will give you 350MHz x 9 =3150MHz = 3.15GHz.
If you can clarify these issues then we can move on from here and into overclocking your cpu further:).
 
Sig is out of date.. have been running 350 * 9.

soz gotta dash.. wife just got in.. (gotta go hold the baby :-))
 
Sig is out of date.. have been running 350 * 9.

soz gotta dash.. wife just got in.. (gotta go hold the baby :-))

Ah ok. So you are currently overclocked at 3.15GHz. Now the next question is what overclock speed you want to get at and what is your current bios vcore atm? For overclocking your cpu, your ram needs to be at stock speed of 400MHz or 800MHZ DDR2 or slightly underclocked to prevent interference and stability issues.
 
I use 1.41v in the BIOS to get to 3.15Ghz. I would like to get 3.4 But to boot at that seems like i need A LOT more vcore, and that will only just boot in then blue screen or reset.

When you say put the memory at 400, do you mean lock it to 400Mhz or just the ratio of 1:1 (if that's possible?)
 
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I use 1.41v in the BIOS to get to 3.15Ghz. I would like to get 3.4 But to boot at that seems like i need A LOT more vcore, and that will only just boot in then blue screen or reset.

What is VID of your E4300? i.e the core voltage at stock speed of 1.8GHz? Coretemp can display this value accurately provided you have disabled C1E and EIST in bios. From this we can deduce how far you have pushed bios vcore of 1.41v for 3.15GHz from vcore at 1.8GHz.
Seems your E4300 is aleady at 75% overclock: [(3.15-1.8)/1.8] x 100 = 75%
Now 75% is a very impressive figure already and if you decide to push it to 3.4GHz then it will be 89%!!:eek:. You will most probably need more vcore in bios to stabilise the cpu at 3.4Ghz.

I don't have any experience with E4300 but Core 2 Duo E6600 and Q6600 usually clock easily to 3.2-3.4GHz as their stock speed is set at 2.4GHz. In your case it may be more difficult to achieve 3.4GHz but give it a go.


When you say put the memory at 400, do you mean lock it to 400Mhz or just the ratio of 1:1 (if that's possible?)

Yeah if you can keep it at 400MHz (800MHz DDR2) then do so otherwise ratio of 1:1 will also be fine as you need FSB of 378MHz: 378x 9 = 3402MHz=3.4GHz.

I don't have much knowledge of Asus mobo as I have a Gigabyte mobo but have read through this article. I presume the article talks about the same mobo that you have:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2427/1

The 3rd page talks about bootstrap and memory ratios. Apparently you should choose 'FSB Strap to North Bridge' as 400MHz. This will be more on par with your FSB of of 378MHz as this value is approaching closer to 400MHz.
With 400MHz strap, you will get either 1:1 or 3:4 as your ratios. Apparently (article has 3:4 other way round as 4:3) but 3 still corresponds to your FSB and 4 is for your ram. If you select 1:1 then your ram speed will also be 378MHz or 756MHz DDr2 and this is what you need.
If you choose 3:4 then your ram will be (4/3)x378=504MHz or 1008MHZ DDR2 which you don't want. Also you may need to up the northbridge voltage aswell in bios for stability.
It may seems complicated as to what I have written:p but with that article and you having more experience and knowledge with your mobo and cpu you will hopefully be able to make more sense out of it. Obviously fellow overclockers opinion will be needed aswell especilly those who have E4300 or your mobo to help you with the process :).
 
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Yes that's my motherboard exactly.

I'll try and find out that info (VID value etc).

I obviously know my memory is good for at least 421Mhz, so not a problem there, just I think the FSB may be near it's limit now for this chip. Hopefully I'm wrong of course!
 
I would try aim for a 1:1 ratio for the RAM and try clock up the FSB to 400mhz.
It might be RAM instabilities that could be causing the BSOD or no boot when you try 3.4ghz.
 
I've been running at 421 on the ram very stably without realising it, so unless I have hit a black hole as such, ram should be fine :-) (Happy to be corrected as ever!)

BTW, memory it at 2.1 (for geil ultra 6400 C5), and northbridge is at 1.31v, just well because lol, it was stable on 421 so should (???) be ok on 378 unless it gets affected by the FSB clock?
 
I've been running at 421 on the ram very stably without realising it, so unless I have hit a black hole as such, ram should be fine :-) (Happy to be corrected as ever!)

BTW, memory it at 2.1 (for geil ultra 6400 C5), and northbridge is at 1.31v, just well because lol, it was stable on 421 so should (???) be ok on 378 unless it gets affected by the FSB clock?

I see your northbridge strap is currently set to 333MHz hence 5:6 ratio. Did you change it yourself or was it done automatically while you were overclocking to 3.15GHz?
It is strange that while you overclocked to 3.15GHz, your memory also overclocked to 421MHz (842Mhz DDR2) and yet your system was stable going by what you say. But still it is always best to underclock your ram or to run it at stock speed.
If you manage to overclock to 3.4GHz successfully while keeping your ram at 1:1 ratio then you can choose the other ratio of 3:4 which will overclock your ram to 504MHz(1008MHz DDr2) as previously mentioned.
However you will need to run memtest aswell as Prime 'Blend' stress test to ensure you have a stable overclocked ram. As your ram volt is already at 2.1v, I don't know if you can go higher for DDR2 as mine is at 1.8v and never needed to increase ram volt further. May be someone can also give better opinion.
 
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It's best to assume that 421 is the max the RAM can handle then ;) Upping the FSB to help overlock the CPU will also overclock the RAM, so the RAM goes past the 421 limit and becomes instable. That's why I recommended changing the multiplier from 5:6 to 1:1. Note setting the FSB as 400 will get your CPU at 3.6ghz. In real world performance you won't see the difference between 400mhz and 421mhz.
 
Managed to boot into windows with 928Mhz(464) on the ram lol. Think that was 333Mhz strap though (It crashed as was running 3.33Ghz roughly). I've now reduced that to the 266Mhz strap, and running at 443Mhz just fine it seems. Will try for more, but it's either an iffy overclock, or I have more playing to do with settings.
 
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