RAM limiting factor?

schumi84 · 2 May 2007 at 13:58

Hi there, as in the title, i am trying to overclock my system a bit further (spec in sig) and seem to have hit a wall at 450 FSB.

When i try 460, 470 or 480, the PC boots up fine, but when it gets to windows it either freezes with a black screen or restarts completely.

The memory is running 1:1 with the CPU, so is at 900MHz and was wondering if that was as far as i can take it, or whether something else could be doing it.

AS far as voltage goes, on the CPU it would be running at 1.42 in the BIOS (in CPU-Z it shows about 0.4 lower than that), and the RAM is at +0.4 (2.2V effective).

Any suggestions would be appreciated, cheers in advance.

RaiderX · 2 May 2007 at 14:14

what timings is your memory at?

schumi84 · 2 May 2007 at 14:18

5-5-5-18, as in sig. According to CPU-Z these are good for 400MHz (800 DDR) so was hoping to use them for higher, as didnt really want to loosen them any more, and also i dont think they can go much higher

RaiderX · 2 May 2007 at 14:28

i got mine to 920 (3.2GHz) with 6-6-6-18, try that and it should work

schumi84 · 2 May 2007 at 14:34

Thanks very much, will give that a go.

BTW, what voltage have you got on the other options in the BIOS?

I have +0.3 on the RAM, then +0.1 on all the other things, just wondering as that might also be a problem.

RaiderX · 2 May 2007 at 14:41

i have CPU at 1.4v, memory at 2.1 (+3) MCH and FSB to +1

schumi84 · 2 May 2007 at 14:46

Cheers again for that, i presume that at 3.2 it is Orthos stable, and have you tried goin any higher or is that as high as you can go?

RaiderX · 2 May 2007 at 14:59

atm its as high as i can go, my PSU doesnt like the load any higher but you might wana try, it could work

schumi84 · 3 May 2007 at 14:06

A quick update with the different RAM timings.

Tried 6-6-6-18 with 460 FSB, restarted and then there were a crazy load of beeps followed shortly by the PC turning off.

After 3-4 secs it would power up again followed by the beeps and then shutting down, so on and so forth.

Am thinking now that the RAM is definitely my limiting factor and 450 is the highest i can go. To be honest i'm not too upset, as its the best o/c on any cpu i have had (owned AMD in the past).

Hopefully my rig will last me till DX10 gets established then can upgrade again (got the bug for it again after 2 years away from uni)

barrymacp · 3 May 2007 at 16:41

My cpu is at 1.4v on 3.4ghz never tried lowering it, plus memory is at 2.1v 972mhz.

schumi84 · 3 May 2007 at 16:46

The OCZ memory seems to like overclocking a bit more compared to the Geil stuff. I went for Geil as my last lot - PC4000, that i used with my XP2500 was very nice to use.

Maybe should have waited and go some of the OCZ or Ballistix stuff for better overclocking headroom.

doctoe2260 · 3 May 2007 at 19:31

My Geil is pretty naff for overclocking. I just can't get it past 410MHz! it's a bit annoying but I'm soon to upgrade again and I'm switching from AMD to Intel and from Geil to OCZ. We shall see what happens...

schumi84 · 3 May 2007 at 21:08

I will be waiting with baited breath to see how you get on.

Would love to get passed that 3.5 mark but not gonna be able to at the moment.

Good luck with the new set up.