***The Official E2140/E2160 Overclocking Thread***

[Shimmy]

Cheers very much Melbourne, i only noticed the BIOS revision after posting my problem, F2 does seem pretty old considering i am using F11 on mine (spec in sig).

Unfortunately there is no way to change the multiplier on this board, but will give flashing the BIOS a go and see where we are from there.

I bought this chip due to the fact it is excellent value for money consideringt the overclocks ppl have been getting, but only having an increase of 200Mhz is a bit of a pain.

I got an S3 rev3.3, I flashed the bios to F11/F12 (can't remem) straight away.

Been very easy overclocking for me, don't need to increase vcore until past 2.8Ghz. You can change the multiplier, but in my experience there's no need to. No need to increase PCI-E voltage, increase FSB and GMCH voltages both by 0.1v. Ram voltage at stock is 1.8v, my ram need 2.2v so I increased that by 0.4v. Also running my OCZ ram at 3-3-3-5.

 

[schumi84]

Great, cheers very much for the advice. On the OCZ box it doesnt state the stock voltage required, i know that my Geil needs 2.1 and the DS3 provides 1.8 as standard.

When flashing the BIOS, on my DS3 i used @BIOS in windows, would you recommend doing it via a floppy or is the windows method ok?

 

[Shimmy]

Great, cheers very much for the advice. On the OCZ box it doesnt state the stock voltage required, i know that my Geil needs 2.1 and the DS3 provides 1.8 as standard.

When flashing the BIOS, on my DS3 i used @Bios in windows, would you recommend doing it via a floppy or is the windows method ok?

I always do it by floppy, ohh and I had F12 bios for the S3.

 

[schumi84]

I always do it by floppy, ohh and I had F12 bios for the S3.

Great cheers for that. Will give it a go tomorrow and let you knwo how i get on, would like to get up to around the 3Ghz area but will have to see.

Thanks again for your help Melbourne and Shimmy

 

[melbourne720]

No worries.

As far as BIOS flashing, Shimmy is right. Floppy is best, then CD/USB, and windows is best avoided.

 

[str]

Yeah I agree never use Windows unless you're prepared/equipped to fix it should it fail. I still do the flashing with Windows because it generally always works fine for me although one time recently I spent the next 2 hours trying to hot flash when it failed and I managed it in the end with the help of a program called uniflash.

 

[DavidB]

The latest beta of CPU-Z shows the correct vcore

Thanks for that, unfortunately its made me realise im now back on a fsb speed of 200mhz :\ grey screened earlier in the middle of a game of dawn of war, so had to restart, can last 8 hours orthos but not 1 game ?
Bah, will have to re-overclock it in a few hours (download running).

36seconds to run super pie 1m instead of 19 lol
Wow, 3D marks dropped from ~11k to ~6k. massive hit.

 

[schumi84]

Right, quick update with the current situation.

Have flashed to the newest BIOS, which for this mobo (945p DS3) is F5, did it using a floppy too, went without a hitch.

Had a bit more luck overclocking, got it to boot into windows at 250 FSB (2.25GHz). Have managed to get the pc to restart fine at 275FSB without having to change voltage but it froze when loading windows.

No matter which voltage i change (cannot boot when DIMM voltage is +.1v but can at +.3v) the pc doesnt boot at 280FSB. Memory multiplier stayed at stock (x3.33 i think) so at 250FSB the memory is running at about 915MHz(115MHz oc on the memory).

All a bit frustrating really, as the RAM looks like it can run at 900MHz easy (is 800FSB rated) so that doesnt look like the problem.

Any further help will again be appreciated.

 

[melbourne720]

Have the memory at sync (1:1) with your FSB. That way you know that it isn't the memory holding back the CPU overclock.

 

[schumi84]

I left the multiplier at Normal in the BIOS, if i change it then the only multipiers it will boot with are 3.33x and 2.66x.

Another strange thing that happens, upon restarting the pc it either doesnt boot at all, or i get a continuous sequence of long beeps, which in google says there is a memory error.

 

[Reppyboyo]

Ive currently got my E2140 at 3.2Ghz but its not ORTHOS stable.
Lasts about 12 mins before stopping due to error, or a blue screen.

Currently at 1.5 volts.
Ram at 2.2v 5-5-5-15. (Ballistix 5300)

Is there anything else I can do to get at least 3.2ghz stable?
Temps are around 55-56C.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Ive currently got my E2140 at 3.2Ghz but its not ORTHOS stable.
Lasts about 12 mins before stopping due to error, or a blue screen.

Currently at 1.5 volts.
Ram at 2.2v 5-5-5-15. (Ballistix 5300)

Is there anything else I can do to get at least 3.2ghz stable?
Temps are around 55-56C.

My E2140 runs stable at 3200MHz using just 1.400vCore, it does 3000MHz using stock volts (1.3500vCore). The Ballistix I am using runs at 400MHz (DDR2-800) using 1.8vDimm.

Your volts seems a bit high to me for the speeds u are running?

 

[Reppyboyo]

Lucky you.
Tried backing down to 1.4vcore and 1.8vdimm and I get an error straight away in ORTHOS.
.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Lucky you.

ok?

Have u tried upping the volts to the NorthBridge?

 

[Reppyboyo]

Northbridge is at 1.55v.
Not sure if its a good idea to up it any more without a small fan on it.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Northbridge is at 1.55v

Right, lucky me again as mine is running 1.45v.

Whats the highest you been able to get stable then?

 

[Reppyboyo]

Think it was 380 x 8.
Cant remember what volts I was at however.

Currently running Orthos with CPU at 3120Ghz (vcore 1.45, vdimm at 1.8).
5 whole minutes stable.

 

[DavidB]

Currently at 1.5 volts.
Ram at 2.2v 5-5-5-15. (Ballistix 5300)

When i had my 5300 ballistix running at those timings it wouldn't run stable either. Putting the timings down to 3338 worked for me (400fsb). Not sure why it shouldnt run at the slower timings though.

What test are you doing in orthos ? blend ? Mines at 3.2ghz at ~1.4v too

 

[alexakasloth]

Hey guys, I was wondering if you could give me any tips that you've found with these specific cpu's?
Some people saying here they went straight in at 2.6/2.8ghz, this a wise thing to do?

I'm overclocking a friends system when it arrives this week (spec: DS3R, 2gb OCZ plat rev, 2140, ocz vindicator HSF, NZXT hush), first time overclocking with some decent kit so fingers crossed

 

[str]

Don't be tempted to overclock it until it's all up and running with OS installed etc and you've at the very least tried Orthos small ffts at priority 9 for around 30 mins to get an idea of stock temps. Better really to go a full 24 hours Orthos at priority 1 (so can use the system at same time) though but most don't have the patience for that. Also get the latest CoreTemp and/or latest beta of Everest to view the temps.