Question about Bank Cycle (trc) & MSI Neo2 Plat

DasFruitMachine · 12 Nov 2006 at 03:17

I've got an AMD 64 3200+, MSI Neo2 Plat (Socket 939, AGP board) and 2x1GB sticks of Corsair Value Select. Now, I ran my PC @ 300 * 8 for about a year and a half with no problems, but one day it crashed a few times and I reset everything. Trouble is that I've forgotten a few crucial settings and can't get it stable once more. At stock it runs fine, but I want to get it back up to 2.4 Ghz so I can actually get a vehicle in BF2 when the map changes

I'm fairly certain it's my RAM timings that are crashing me.

When I use 8 * ~300 (2.5 or 3 HTT multi), because I set my divider to 133:200, if I try to use my RAM's automatic timings it sets them really aggressively to something like 2-2-2-6. So what I tried to do was set my RAM to 200 Mhz and note the timings it used, then manually set those timings when running with the divider.

When I run my memory @ default settings, it uses the following (according to CPU-Z's SPD report):

CAS Latency: 3
RAS to CAS Delay: 3
Ras Precharge: 3
Cycle Time (Tras) : 8
Bank Cycle Time (trc) : 11
DRAM Idle timer : 16

I can set all of these manually just fine EXCEPT the Bank Cycle Time (trc), I can't see an option for this in the BIOS. When I run my RAM using the manual timings, the trc comes down to 8 from 11, and I think this is what's possibly crashing me. Anyone got any idea how I can manually set this or ensure that it's set to a value that won't crash me? I'm fairly certain it's the RAM as, when I first got it, I ran the RAM at 1T and it would crash in exactly the same fashion as my PC is crashing now (video freezes and horrible static over the speakers / headphones), but this stopped when I ran it at 2T (which I still am using today).

Also, what kind of voltage should I be using with the Corsair Value Select 2 gig kit? I can't find a concrete answer on the Corsair site or forums, but I've seen other people recommend anything from 2.5 to 2.8V. I'm currently using 2.7V.

Any help or other thoughts appreciated, cheers.

Yellowbeard · 13 Nov 2006 at 22:42

2.7v is fine for the VS line. You can go to 2.8v and not void your warranty.

According to www.rojakpot.com , your tRC should be tRAS + tRP. So, in your case, 11 "should" be fine. If this timings changes on its own and you cannot manually adjust it in the bios, then you may need to reset the CMOS and try booting by SPD again. And, when you are reporting your CPU-Z times, are you showing us the timings under MEMORY or SPD tab?

Are you using the most recent bios?

OC_A64 · 14 Nov 2006 at 09:38

TRC shouldnt give you too much of an issue at stock FSB IMHO. The neo2 bios doesnt (or didnt when I last used it) have an option for TRC in bios either. The only way to set it is via A64 tweaker.
What I'd recommend trying is setting TRAS to 11 and see if that helps out with performance at all.

DasFruitMachine · 14 Nov 2006 at 12:32

Yellowbeard said:
...then you may need to reset the CMOS and try booting by SPD again.

Yeah unfortunately I can't use the Auto/SPD settings when overclocking as the motherboard doesn't take the HTT overclock into account. I.e. it sees me setting the max RAM speed to 133 and then uses the SPD timings for 133 Mhz which results in me crashing before I even get into windows, generally. If I run the RAM @ Auto timings when the RAM is set to 200mhz, trc is fine. The moment I set it to manual, the trc changes to 8 when it needs to be 11

And, when you are reporting your CPU-Z times, are you showing us the timings under MEMORY or SPD tab?

Apologies for the confusion, but I meant the Memory tab. SPD & Memory timings are consistent when the RAM is set to Auto and the max RAM speed is 200Mhz (though the SPD tab doesn't tell me what trc should be, I can look at the memory tab when running the RAM @ auto settings). When I change the RAM to manual, the trc changes to 8 under the memory tab.

Are you using the most recent bios?

I've tried the second newest and newest BIOS. When I tried the newest BIOS I couldn't even overclock the HTT to 250, it'd just cause the PC to fail to POST and I had to clear the CMOS... so I had to go back to the last one I used (which luckily I still had in the live update installer folder, so I didn't have to mess around with boot disks). Curiously, I had the same problem a few more times even after I reverted, but it's behaving itself now. Not sure what was going on but I'm back to running @ 8 * 300 with a 133/200 divider.

TRC shouldnt give you too much of an issue at stock FSB IMHO. The neo2 bios doesnt (or didnt when I last used it) have an option for TRC in bios either. The only way to set it is via A64 tweaker.
What I'd recommend trying is setting TRAS to 11 and see if that helps out with performance at all.

I downloaded it last night after googling and so far so good (I loaded windows with everything @ stock settings, took a screeny of the settings in A64 tweaker and then used those settings when overclocking [but obviously with the RAM speed changed to 133 instead of 200]). I played BF2 for 3 hours last night and no crash, so I'll keep an eye on it. The only problem is that A64 tweaker doesn't seem to load my settings on startup or save the settings properly. I tried saving my settings then loading the file and it didn't work properly; anyone know if this is a bug? I was using the 0.6 version but just found out it was a beta, so I've downloaded the last stable release instead.

Thanks for the help, chaps.

Mr Paul · 14 Nov 2006 at 14:07

In the bios press and hold Shift+F2 and then press ALT+F3 to unlock "hidden" features within the BIOS.

But I can't remember if that memory option is one of them....

DasFruitMachine · 14 Nov 2006 at 19:06

Unfortunately not, there's only a few new things (main one being the NV/ATI speedup)