Overclocking Problems

Davey D

Davey D

Davey D

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Joined
23 Feb 2006
Posts
369
i have just recieved my New Opty 170, but having some issues clocking it. my spec is as follows:

Opteron 170
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64
2gigs (4x 512mb) Corsair 3200xlpro (2-2-2-5)
Msi K8n Neo 4 Platinum
HIS x800xl

i have just swapped from an athlon 64 3500+ which i could only overclock to 230 mhz. i first thought it was just a poor clocking CPU.

Today i have recieved my nice new Opty 170, and set straight into OC'ing it.... guess what.. still only capable of a 230mhz clock else the system crashes straight away, or doesnt even post.
i have tried reducing the ram divider even as low as 166, and dropping the memory timing to 2.5-3-3-7 (this ram should be capable of at least 240mhz @ 2-2-2-5)

i can only think the problem is my mobo? :confused:

what motherboard is everyone else using to do high OC'ing?
 
Hi,

I have a similar setup to you.
Opteron 165, 2x1GB Gskill PC4000, MSI NEO4-F (same board without SATA-2 or Active armour)

The board overclocks fine now.
289x9 (2.6Ghz) 1.35v +6.6% and 300x8 (2.4Ghz) 1.35v. 300x9 (2.7Ghz) 1.35v +13.3% falls over in Prime after 10-20 mins
Memory is fine at 400Mhz 2.5-3-3-6 1T and 500Mhz 3-4-4-8 1T

Still experimenting with the settings but a little short on time so this is only a guide.

Issues I've had.

The orginal couple of BIOS's I used had eratic memory dividers. 133 (DDR266) never worked 166(ddr333) only worked at some frequencies. The latest BIOS fixed it and I can now run fine using the 133 and 166 dividers

Nforce doesn't like 4 dimms much, 2t and slacker timings helps especially when overclocking. Try just 2 dimms.

The board will use tighter timings when a lower divider is used (if they are in SPD). Best to set them manually

Memory that will run 2-2-2-5 easy on Intel often won't on AMD especially when overclocked due to the built in controller. Back the timings right off to 3-4-4-8 to see if you can overclock. You can tighten them up later.

The HTT multi can be touchy - usually set to 5x, 4x should give 250HTT, above that use 3x.

Ensure you haven't set 'use tightened timings' (or whatever it's called) in the cell menu

Don't use that infernal core cell - cause me more problems than it's worth.

Regards

AD
 
Sounds like you haven't altered the HT multiplier to me (this may also be called LTD multi). Have a read of your guide.

This will default to 1000 (x5) and needs to be set down to 800 (x4) or 600 (x3) depending on how far you OC. Basically, its the FSB speed times that multi to give the speed of your HT Bus. The HT Bus speed needs to be (preferably) at or less than 1000.

Hope that helps.

EDIT - nice rig ... it wants to fold though (see sig).
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys :D

i checked the MSI website for any more bios updates (which there was one since i last flashed it) so i flashed the latest bios. once done i cleared the cmos, and went back into the bios config to start fresh. low and behold the available memory settings had changed to the previous version.

you was 100% correct about the HTT settings. i didnt realise what a problem it caused. i can now boot into windows running 260 x 10 (teeny bit unstable still though) i can Post and get the windows splash screen at 270 x 10, and i can run seemingly stable at 255 x 10. time for more tweaking me thinks so i can try get it a little more stable :D :D
 
What kind of impact does it have setting the HT multiplier too low? ie 260 x 4 = 1040 vs 260 x 3 = 780

also ive been running CPU-Z, and AMD power monitor.. both show different values. in the bios i have set the cpu vid to 1.400v and set the +vid to 3.3% (making 1.45v) in AMD power monitor it shows rock solid 1.400v with no change, yet in CPU-Z it fluctuates from 1.38v - 1.44v which one should i believe the bios, CPU-Z, or AMD power monitor ?
 
It has only about 1% impact on performance according to tests on review sites. Therefore you can easily set it at 3x and not worry.

Aim for less than 1000Mhz
 
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