potential issues with new build...any help greatfully received!

atomiser · 27 Mar 2008 at 18:52

consider me a hardware newbie. the last pc i built was an amd athlon xp 2500, which i overclocked to 3200. i haven't really kept up with things.

heres the kit i have taken delivery of:

Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
2x Samsung SpinPoint S 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD161HJ)
Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)
Antec EarthWatts 380W PSU

this is my first multi-core system, and my first intel system too.

questions:

1/ the motherboard tells me the cpu is running at 2.2ghz, windows tells me its running at 2.2ghz, and cpu-z identifies it as a 2.2ghz chip...but i am confused as to why the 'core speed' is currently sat at 1200mhz. i have seen this very occaisonally flip up to 2200mhz. i am aware that this chip is capable of speedstep, but i have disabled this in the bios...

any explanations?

2/ i am a little confused about the memory. as far as i can see, i've bought 2x 2gb 800mhz ddr2 memory...yes? cpu-z tells me this:

any explanations?

3/ i got xp pro, drivers, windows updates and logmein installed whilst i was at home so i could login from work to carry on setting things up. for no apparent reason the computer completely locked up on me...twice. i came home at lunch to find the pc completely non-responsive, just displaying what i was doing at the time...reset it, all was fine...went back to work - did the same a couple of hours later...got home, same story. at the moment i am running everything at stock...any suggestions?

4/ i would like to have a go at overclocking, but i really don't know where to start these days...all i had to do back in the 'olden days' was fiddle around with the fsb to get a 400mhz overclock. the thought of tinkering with the voltages supplied to the cpu and memory worries me a little. any advice that you can give me with regards to upper limits i should be aiming for would be really useful.

many thanks!

jamesy · 27 Mar 2008 at 19:42

I can't help you with the problems you're having as i'm too inexperienced to give you sound advice, but as regards overclocking I can recommend reading this great guide.

Devil_Spawn · 27 Mar 2008 at 20:02

Load up the cpu to 100%. If the multiplier goes back to where it should be, it means you still have power saving going on (c1e etc)

congrats on the 60 odd gb of ram

(i have no idea about the ram, maybe a corrupt spd settings? dunno)

Tetras · 27 Mar 2008 at 20:07

1/ the motherboard tells me the cpu is running at 2.2ghz, windows tells me its running at 2.2ghz, and cpu-z identifies it as a 2.2ghz chip...but i am confused as to why the 'core speed' is currently sat at 1200mhz. i have seen this very occaisonally flip up to 2200mhz. i am aware that this chip is capable of speedstep, but i have disabled this in the bios...

Afaik there are two, a gradient of clocks (speedstep, EIST) and a halt state at idle, C1E.

What is the problem with the memory, looks ok to me?

atomiser · 27 Mar 2008 at 20:26

i've a feeling 'easy tune 5' that comes with the gigabyte motherboards has buggered things up - i've reset the bios by wiping the cmos, and now i'm re-installing the o/s to clear up any junk.

re: the memory - look at the difference in the module size, and then the differences in the timing's table...

atomiser · 27 Mar 2008 at 20:53

right, ok, so i've re-installed... the memory is now coming up clean - both modules the same size, and identical timings etc. the cpu, however, is still coming up at 6x200 resulting in a clock speed of 1200mhz. the bios clearly states that it is running at 11x200, so i'm at a loss now of how to get the cpu reporting the right speed in the o/s...

help... please...!

atomiser · 27 Mar 2008 at 21:09

should the fsb:dram ratio be 1:2...? it's the only thing i seem to be able to find a ratio for, and i seem to recall someone mentioning somewhere that something was 1:1...? if so, how on earth do i set about changing this?!

atomiser · 27 Mar 2008 at 21:58

ok, so i've found the settings for c1e (cpu enhanced halt), tm2 (cpu thermal monitor), and eist (enhanced intel speed step).

the only one of those that actually seems to affect anything is c1e. with that enabled it seems to constantly run at 6x200 resulting in a 1200mhz clock speed. but this is a 'halt state' setting...wtf is it doing interfering when the system is operating normally?! rubbish!!!

i have enabled tm2 because i quite like the idea of the cpu taking preventative action if it gets too hot. good plan.

eist doesn't seem to make a difference either way - enabled or disabled with the system just idling away it is happily sat at 11x200.

so, now onto some stability testing, and then some overclocking!!!