PCI-E set to auto = locked or not?

[str]

I bought a Gigabyte P31-DS3L motherboard recently and when overclocking an E2140 with the PCI-E manually locked at 100 the FSB doesn't go much further than 333 but when I change it back to auto it overclocks well beyond 400 FSB although it isn't stable above 425 no doubt because the PC2-5300 memory I'm using is overclocked too far.

So I'm thinking the PCI-E must be locked when it's set to Auto?

I imagine it must be as the system (using 2 SATA drives) is running perfectly at high FSB for example right now it's running multi-core prime95 at 400 x 8 and it's looking like it'll easily make it to 8 hours stable.

Here's a shot of the E2140 @ 400 x 8 with 1.325v set in BIOS:

 

[WJA96]

I bought a Gigabyte P31-DS3L motherboard recently and when overclocking an E2140 with the PCI-E manually locked at 100 the FSB doesn't go much further than 333 but when I change it back to auto it overclocks well beyond 400 FSB although it isn't stable above 425 no doubt because the PC2-5300 memory I'm using is overclocked too far.

So I'm thinking the PCI-E must be locked when it's set to Auto?

I imagine it must be as the system (using 2 SATA drives) is running perfectly at high FSB for example right now it's running multi-core prime95 at 400 x 8 and it's looking like it'll easily make it to 8 hours stable.

Here's a shot of the E2140 @ 400 x 8 with 1.325v set in BIOS:

Nope. It's only locked when you set it manually.

 

[sablabra]

Try setting PCI-E manually to 101 and see if that makes any difference.

 

[str]

Clockgen works on the Gigabyte P31-DS3L so I've been able to find out what the motherboard is doing to the PCI-E clock.

At stock settings with PCI-E set to auto or 100 in the BIOS clockgen shows PCI-E at 99.43:

At stock settings with PCI-E set to 105 in the BIOS clockgen shows PCI-E at 104.40:

The motherboard booted fine with PCI-E set to 105 in the BIOS as I increased the FSB in large steps all the way up to 359 FSB and clockgen always showed PCI-E at 104.40:

 

[str]

With the PCI-E still at 105 in the BIOS and 360 FSB the overclock failed resulting in the motherboard changing settings back to stock so I changed the PCI-E to auto and it booted fine and clockgen shows PCI-E at 96.04:

Here is what clockgen showed when I stepped up all the way to 400 FSB:

365 97.22
370 98.99
375 99.58
380 101.35
390 104.29

399 95.45:

400 95.98:

So in summary having the PCI-E set to auto in the BIOS results in the PCI-E clock being set close to 100 starting from 200 FSB all the way up to 359 FSB and then from 360 FSB onwards the PCI-E clock starts at 96.04 and it increases gradually until 399 FSB where it cycles down to 95.45 and then it starts all over again.

Excellent!

 

[str]

Also here is the shot of it over 8 hours multi-core prime95 stable: