Overclocking, hit my max?

Nebzor

Nebzor

Nebzor

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With the aid of a fellow OcUKer, I decided to overclock my new system yesterday. It consists of an AMD 64 X2 4200+, an ASUS M2N-SLi Deluxe, and 2GB GeIL Ultra Low Latency PC6400 DDR2 800MHz RAM. I currently only have the cooling provided by the stock AMD heatsink/fan, and the airflow provided by my Thermaltake Soprano (120mm intake, 120mm exhaust, PSU exhaust).

I can comfortably run with a vCore of 1.35V, and a CPU Frequency of 230, putting my processor's clockspeed at 2.53GHz. For all of the following, the system will either boot up into Windows and turn off randomly and instantly at some point, or comes up with a blue screen with a Windows complaint and then turns off:

1.4V 240MHz
1.375V 240MHz
1.35V 240MHz
(after trying 1.4V 240MHz, most overclocking combos didn't work so I resorted back to the default of 200MHz and 1.35V)

Does this seem like the maximum my system will take is 1.35V and a CPU Frequency of 230 (multiplier being x11)?
 
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Get your self a real CPU cooler and give it some! gj so far tho mate I'm having problems my self with overclocking atm.
 
What problems would those be? :)

As I've said, this is my first time, so.. would turning off be a sign of my max stable overclock? Or is there some form of foul devilry at play?
 
could be the ram, or the ht multi.

set HTT to 3X, set the ram to a low setting (eg 400mhz)

give it another go.

i expect its one of the above stopping you.
 
Try locking the PCI-E frequency to 100Mhz, forgot to mention that last night beacuse I don't recall seeing the option in your BIOS.

Still turning off completely at random seems a bit odd even if your mobo doesn't like the OC. I remember core temp 0.95 used to turn my PC completely off at random if I leave it running in the background on my old rig.
 
Thought I'd bring this out of the closet again.

Me and steve have run out of ideas, changing the PCI-E frequency did nothing, and nor did the change in memory earlier up in the post.

Anymore ideas anyone can come up with, save buying a new cooler? (which hopefully will be happening soon.)

Currently, the settings I've been told about are sitting at:

CPU Frequency: 230MHz
CPU Multiplier: Auto (x11)
DRAM Config: (Dunno what specifically these are but..) Something changed to 2T, and something else changed to DDR2 667.
vCore: 1.35V
NorthBridge: 1.4V
RAM Voltage: 2.1V
HT: x4
PCI-E Frequency: Auto
 
Just thought I'd add: We did an experiment to see if it was just vCore limiting us, but it was inconclusive. I upped the vCore to 1.45V, Orthos was running and Windows froze. No restart though ;)

Would this freeze be down to the heat (it was at about 67, just a test), or an unstable overclock?
 
could be a combination of both, or down to ram failing or any number of others.

my cpu will do 3100 solong as i keep loaded temps below 44c. unfortuneately thats about 25 mins of stress testing from a cold morning start. errors at >45 locks up at abaout 49.

try open case with deskfan blowing in to see if that stops the crash with same settings. then you know if it is/isnt temps...
 
Is your memory now running dual channel with full 2Gb then? As suggested there is the possibility that the RAM is faulty in which case it makes sense that the orthos will fail and windows will freeze even when CPU is only slightly overclocked. It may explain why the RAM won't work in the black sockets too. There have been a few threads around the forum with faulty Geil kits so I'd run memtest86+ overnight to make sure it's not faulty. You will need a floppy disk drive, an USB thumb drive or a CD-writer as it cannot run in windows.

You can also run the hcidesign memtest which runs in windows but you will need to run 2 copies and set 1 to allocate 800Mb while leaving the other one to allocate "All unused RAM".

Best of luck

P.S. - I hate to be the one to point this out benjarghmin but your sig is too big - only 4 lines allowed with each not exceeding 400px.
 
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Have run memtest and according to that, my memory is fine. No errors picked up in 2 hours of testing (the windows one, that reccomends a minimum of 20mins).

This is really starting to get to me now, heh. Could it be that I've got poor stepping on my CPU? Or would a processor with poor stepping go higher than this, considering it's only at +13% clockspeed.
 
Benjarghmin said:
This is really starting to get to me now, heh. Could it be that I've got poor stepping on my CPU? Or would a processor with poor stepping go higher than this, considering it's only at +13% clockspeed.
Click to expand...

Possible, I did come across A64s that didn't like to be overclocked AT ALL.

When my memory was unstable it usually errored after a few hours. So I'll recommend running it overnight to be absolutely sure.

Did also run the MS-DOS memtest86+? It can yeild different results sometimes from the windows one.
 
Benjarghmin said:
Thought I'd bring this out of the closet again.

Me and steve have run out of ideas, changing the PCI-E frequency did nothing, and nor did the change in memory earlier up in the post.

Anymore ideas anyone can come up with, save buying a new cooler? (which hopefully will be happening soon.)

Currently, the settings I've been told about are sitting at:

CPU Frequency: 230MHz
CPU Multiplier: Auto (x11)
DRAM Config: (Dunno what specifically these are but..) Something changed to 2T, and something else changed to DDR2 667.
vCore: 1.35V
NorthBridge: 1.4V
RAM Voltage: 2.1V
HT: x4
PCI-E Frequency: Auto
Click to expand...

even HTx of 4 is gonna push it with a decent A64. Drop another memory divider to 533mhz. Providing your temps are cool enough another small increase in vcore may help if it's the cpu.
 
I think I've cracked it.

I set PCI-Express Clock to 101MHz, turned my Multiplier down to 10x, my CPU Frequency up to 260MHz (don't ask me why I did it this way, I just decided to try it :P). Memory is now down to 533, and HT is at x3.

I'm so excited nothing has gone wrong yet. So excited that Orthos has only been running for 9mins9seconds, but has always found an error in less time before now. Will keep you updated on how it goes.

Edit: I am at 2.6GHz exactly like this, whereas before it was 240x11 = 2.64GHz. Maybe that has something to do with it, maybe not. I'll up the Frequency to 270 later to see if it was something to do with the old settings or whether it's happy below 2.64GHz.
 
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Orthos has been running for 2hours 2minutes now. Am eager to see if I can hit 2.7GHz. Will post back soon :)

Edit: Windows errors prevent bootup at 2.7GHz (page found in non-paged area), and Orthos deems 2.65GHz unstable. Whether this is down to poor stepping or a need for higher vCore (for which I need a new CPU cooler), only time can tell.
 
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That's not been done yet, heh.

Had Orthos running for 6 hours and 27 minutes when it got an error. Damn. :(
 
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