O/C'ing advice for Crucial value pc3200 RAM.

dagwoood

dagwoood

dagwoood

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West Midlands, UK.
I've just upgraded to an Opteron 144 on a Asrock Dual SATA board and it's looking like it will run stable on the highest HTT setting that my board supports(274).

So it's running at 2.466GHz, but I'm currently running my RAM on a divider(133); meaning my memory is running at 176MHz.

Now I would obviously like to run my RAM at, or just over, 200MHz, but if I change the divider to 166 it would be running at 224MHz.

I know that Crucial value RAM isn't ideal for overclocking, but does anyone have any advice if it's possible to get to 224MHz? I can raise the VDIMM voltage to 2.7v, but would this really hurt/damage my RAM?

I was advised to try looser timings, and I have tried 3-4-4-8 at stock voltage but it crashed. So any advice on a good starting point with regards to what timings to use would be appreciated.

Changing my RAM for a better overclockable brand isn't an option at the moment(:( )some I'm stuck with the "old faithful" variety.

Cheers, dagwoood.
 
Hi dagwood, i have the same ram as you and have found it quite good for overclocking. I don't know about your opty but my 3700+ at stock is 12x200mhz=2.4ghz. By dropping the multi to 10.5x i can overclock the memory to 245mhz (no divider, 1/1) giving me 10.5x245=2.572ghz. Thats how i found the max memory overclock. Day to day i am at11x230=2.53ghz. To get the max overclock i had to put 2.8v through the memory but as i have an SI-120 blowing down on it there is no problem of heat. Timings for this ram at stock is 3-3-3-8 default but will drop to 2.5-2-2-5 with no problems and no extra voltage needed and at overclocking it will run at 3-3-3-7. At 232mhz it will run 3-3-3-5. All timings are 1T and overclocks tested Prime95 and memtest stable.
Get rid of your divider and drop your multi and overclock that way. I have found it a much better way of doing it. I have even had my cpu up to 2.645ghz easily at 11.5x230mhz with more still to go. Have a play with your timings also. You may be surprised at the difference it makes, i know i was.
 
pastymuncher said:
Get rid of your divider and drop your multi and overclock that way. I have found it a much better way of doing it. I have even had my cpu up to 2.645ghz easily at 11.5x230mhz with more still to go. Have a play with your timings also. You may be surprised at the difference it makes, i know i was.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comprehensive reply pastymuncher :)

Dropping the divider isn't an option I'm afraid as my motherboard only does whole numbers, i.e.. x9, x8 etc.. So if I dropped the multiplier to 8 and have a HTT of 274, I'd be running at just under 2.2GHz, which is too much of a performance hit really.

When you said "At 232mhz it will run 3-3-3-5", I assume that's at 2.8v? I'd be happy with even looser timings if it'd run stable on 2.7v to be honest.

Thanks again, dagwoood.
 
Hi again, yes that was at 2.8v for 3-3-3-5. Thats unusual not to have the multi in 0.5 increments. Have you got the latest bios for it? What a bummer. Why don't you use the 166 divider instead? You should be ok at 2.7v but that depends on your cooling. If you have a big cpu cooler blowing onto your ram you should be ok, or you could always rig a spare fan up to blow air over it. I would have a play with the timings too to see the best you can get. You don't really want to slacken them off to 3-4-4-8 as it will give you a performance hit.
When i first started playing around with my overclocks i left the timings on auto and at 230mhz they defaulted to 3-4-9-4 which only gave me 10150 in 3dmark05 and 76380 inAquamark 03. By changing the timings to 3-3-3-5 i got 11080 in 05 and a whopping 80474 in Aquamark (both with my old 3400+) which surprised me how much difference timings actually make.
 
pastymuncher, thanks again for the reply.

I do have the latest BIOS for my board(and I have tried a couple of unofficial beta's as well)and it does only go down in whole numbers.

As to RAM cooling, my CPU fan isn't a large one, but it does shift a lot of air and it vents out onto my dimm sockets(it's on of these Akasa. ).
.
I'll have a play and see what I can run at with regards to timings :)

Cheers, dagwoood.
 
Pastymuncher(and anyone else who's interested :) ), I've been adjusting the timings and here's where I'm at at the moment.

I can run them at 225MHz on stock voltages with timings of 3-3-3-7. I memtested for a couple of hours and ran Prime for 8 hours without any problems.

No matter what I do, they wont run at 225MHz with a CAS value of 2.5. I've tried really loosening the timings and upped the VDIMM to 2.7v(the max my board supports), but either my system wont boot or memtest fails as soon as it loads :eek:

I've run some tests after lowering the Tras value to 6(memtest 2 hours and Prime for 3)and didn't have any problems. I lowered this value to 5 and ran Memtest for 3 hours without any errors, but have yet to run Prime with it set to this value.

All in all, I'm pleased that it's looking like I can run stable at 225MHz, especially at stock voltages and when you factor in that Crucial value memory isn't ideal for o/c'ing.

I think my next purchase though has got to be some lower latency RAM to get the best out of my set up.
 
I am lucky in the fact that my motherboard allows the voltage to be upped to 3.2v. :eek:
Mine will not run 2.5 on anything but 200mhz and after playing around between 200mhz and 245mhz i found that performance is best at 230mhz @ 3-3-3-5 1T @ 2.8v.

I ordered some Corsair XMS4000PT on Thursday from OCUK to replace it. Has'nt arrived yet though or even had an email to say it has been dispatched. :(
 
pastymuncher said:
I am lucky in the fact that my motherboard allows the voltage to be upped to 3.2v. :eek:
Mine will not run 2.5 on anything but 200mhz and after playing around between 200mhz and 245mhz i found that performance is best at 230mhz @ 3-3-3-5 1T @ 2.8v.

I ordered some Corsair XMS4000PT on Thursday from OCUK to replace it. Has'nt arrived yet though or even had an email to say it has been dispatched. :(
Click to expand...

Pastymuncher, I plan on running Prime over night at 3-3-3-5 but as I'm running with such a high HTT(274)2T isn't an option as my system just crashes :( I'm not convinced that running with a Tras value of either 5,6 or 7 is going to make that much difference, if any; so I may just go with the 200MHz default values of 3-3-3-8 and know I'm going to have rock solid stability.

I hope your memory is in the post tomorrow :)
 
Hi again Dagwood. This may surprise you but when i started playing around with my timings and multipliers i found timings made a big difference. I was using Aquamark 3 to test changes as it is quick to complete and i found the following:-
10x235mhz@3-3-3-7 1T @2.8v got me 77752 marks
10x232mhz@3-3-3-5 1T @2.8v got me 80474 marks.

Seeing that the lower one gave me a higher score with a lower cpu speed, 2.32ghz compared to 2.35ghz i can only assume that it was the timings that made such a big difference. This was with my old 2.2ghz 3400+ by the way.

Setting the cpu timings to auto made a similar gain.
10x230mhz@3-4-4-9 1T @2.8v got me 76380 points (auto timings)
10x230mhz@3-3-3-8 1T @2.8v got me 79553 points (manual timings)

No doubt it would have been even more if i set it to 3-3-3-5 but i did'nt know at the time it would run that low.

Have you tried lowering the ht frequency from 4x down to 3x not that i am sure if it will make a difference.

Try changing the row cycle time too. Mine is set at 14 by default but i now run it at 7. Lower is faster.

If you are going to run at the default of 200mhz then do have a go at 2.5-2-2-5 at default volts and you will be surprised of the boost you get.

On second thoughts if you run at default that means you will be running at 1.8ghz. The only thing i can suggest is do the same as me, save up for some pc4000 or faster. Sorry i can't help any further. How did prime go?
 
pastymuncher said:
If you are going to run at the default of 200mhz then do have a go at 2.5-2-2-5 at default volts and you will be surprised of the boost you get.

On second thoughts if you run at default that means you will be running at 1.8ghz. The only thing i can suggest is do the same as me, save up for some pc4000 or faster. Sorry i can't help any further. How did prime go?
Click to expand...

Hi pastymuncher. Thanks for posting your Aquamark scores, I knew the CAS value has a major impact on memory speed, but I didn't realise that the Tras value had such an impact on memory performance as well.

I'm sorry I've been ambiguous when I posted running my memory at 200MHz values. I didn't mean run it at 200MHz, I meant run it with the latencies it defaults to if it's run at 200MHz; i.e. 3-3-3-8 :o

I did run Prime over night, but I ran it at 3-3-3-8. I wanted to make sure my system's rock solid at lower timings. This was to make sure my system is stable a slower latencies and not waste my time by running Prime with tighter memory timings, only to have it fail.

But, the goal posts have moved for the moment :) I've loaded a beta BIOS for my motherboard as this will allow me to use a HTT value above 274. I've increased the HTT to 278 which equates to a CPU speed of 2.5GHz. I kept my memory on the same divider, so now it's at 228MHz. I've ran memtest for 3 hours without any errors, so I plan on running Prime overnight(again!)and see if it's stable. I've set the timings to 3-3-3-8 and haven't had to increase the VDIMM, so it's running at 228 on stock voltage :cool:

Thanks again for your input/advice, dagwoood.

P.S. Have you received your new RAM?
 
Good for you. :)

Don't mention the new ram!! :(
Even though the website says it is in stock it is'nt. Contacted them by webnote only to get a one liner back saying it's out of stock. Contacted them again to cancel the order and get a full refund (still waiting) and they told me that they are having difficulties getting hold of the stuff. Still says in stock on their website though. They were quick enough to take my money and have the cheek to charge for next day delivery though. Taking my buisiness elsewhere now. Or will do when they decide to give me my money back. :mad:
 
Pastymuncher, I wont mention the RAM ;)

Ran Prime for 12 hours without any errors :cool: I could go higher with the CPU overclock but I'd have to lower my divider so I think I'm going to run with this(until I can get some overclockable RAM).

Thanks again, dagwoood.
 
Just an update on the situation. I noticed some of my settings weren't saving or were changing but I didn't think too much of it. I downloaded and ran 3dmark01 and my system crashed half way through!

So, my Crucial value isn't stable at 228MHz. I've dropped my CPU speed to 2.4GHz. This equates to my RAM running at 218MHz.

I've loosened the timings slightly, and in conjunction with running it a slower speed, I'm hoping that this will run stable.

I've run Memtest overnight without any errors so fingers crossed :)
 
pastymuncher said:
Those timings are awful especially as it's 2T. It must be your motherboard causing your problems. Are you at 2.7v now?
Click to expand...

Hello again pastymuncher :)

No, I'm at stock voltage. Even if I set it to 2.7v, I can't set the CAS to 2.5 over 200MHz. As to running at 2T, it's one of the foibles of my motherboard that when the HTT value is high, unless you have low latency RAM, you can only run stable on 2T. I've tried running memtest at 1T with different memory timings but it invariably finds errors straight away or crashes.

I've set those timings as a starting point really; I hope to up the HTT and tighten the timings when I've run some more tests.

I'm going to start a new thread over on the overclocking forum as I'm not totally convinced that my RAM was the cause for 3dmark01 crash.

Thanks again for the advice, dagwoood.
 
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