mrlobber

Angry, thanks for the insight in your previous post! This kinda correlates with what I have heard from unofficial sources

Hmm, I really wonder, what's that excitement on that 4x512Mb 1T stuff there? Tony himself admitted, he was only able to pull of the feat with TCCD ram, not BH-5/UTT. Also, the overclockability obvious wouldn't be that far (Anandtech: up to 406 fsb :nod: ), so I'd take some 250 2T stuff over 200 1T any day. The same with the cas 1.5 option which also is only TCCD related stuff. Just my thoughts

Hmm, after all, from the symptoms it seems that probably it is the Vtt drop related... see here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showth...43&page=1&pp=25

loc.o, thanks for the insight. Tref of 1168 doesn't do anything for me, just hurts the bandwidth by ~2%. Played around more, this time, looked around in Windows as well. Was able to complete Superpi 1M at 260x10 @ 3.3Vdimm and 264x10 @ 3.4Vdimm. However, with 3.5Vdimm, Superpi 1M fails even at 255x10. Any ideas what's going on with the Vdimm on the board?

Ok, here is my story. First, let's start with my system specs I've run for many months just fine. DFi NF4 SLI-D RA.02, bios 510-2 A64 San Diego 3700+ on Thermaltake Sonic Tower + 120mm Panaflo M1A fan 2x512Mb OCZ VX PC3200 (UTT CH-5) various videocards, (X800XL, a PCI card temporary, now on X550 also temporary) PCP&C 510W previously, now PCP&C850SSI HDD's, optical drives, but no other relevant stuff (using Karajan audio etc). The bios settings were (just a basic o/c without much time spent tweaking for the maxium cpu speed) as follows: FSB Bus Frequency - 230 LDT/FSB Frequency Ration - 4x CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio - 11x PCI eXpress Frequency - 101Mhz CPU VID StartUp Value - StartUp CPU VID Control - 1.400v CPU VID Special Control - Above VID * 104% LDT Voltage Control - 1.30v Chip Set Voltage Control - 1.60v DRAM Voltage Control - 3.20v (using the 3.3V Vdimm jumper position) DRAM Configuration Settings: DRAM Frequency Set - 200 (DRAM/FSB:1/01) Command Per Clock (CPC) - Enable CAS Latency Control (Tcl) - 2.0 RAS# to CAS# delay (Trcd) - 02 Bus Clocks Min RAS# active time (Tras) - 05 Bus Clocks Row precharge time (Trp) - 02 Bus Clocks Row Cycle time (Trc) - 07 Bus Clocks Row refresh cyc time (Trfc) - 16 Bus Clocks Row to Row delay (Trrd) - 02 Bus Clocks Write recovery time (Twr) - 02 Bus Clocks Write to Read delay (Twtr) - 01 Bus Clocks Read to Write delay (Trwt) - 02 Bus Clocks Refresh Period (Tref) - 3120 Cycles Write CAS Latency (Twcl) - Auto DRAM Bank Interleave - Enabled DQS Skew Control - Auto DQS Skew Value - 0 DRAM Drive Strength - Level 5 DRAM Data Drive Strength - Level 2 Max Async Latency - 7ns Read Preamble Time - 5ns IdleCycle Limit - 256 Cycles Dynamic Counter - Disable R/W Queue Bypass - 16 x Bypass Max - 07 x 32 Byte Granularity - Disable(8 Bursts) However, exactly the same settings were tested to be memtest stable up to 260x10 (just with 3.4 Vdimm and LDT link to 3x). The little problem always sitting in my mind was that, as soon as I upped the voltage to 3.5 Vdimm, memtest started erroring and crashing in tests #5 and #8, and I never was able to find out why (of course, memory and Vdimm jumper area actively cooled). However, since I wouldn't run 3.4+ Vdimm daily anyway, I left the issue not much further investigated, and to my thread I posted here on dfi-street.com long ago were no relevant answers anyway. Well, all this was just an introduction :nod:, now the main story follows. Not so much ago got a 1 Gb kit of old school Bh-5 Mushkin PC3500 LevelII which previous owner claimed to be memtest #5 and Superpi 1M stable on his DFIn F4 SLI-DR @ 260fsb 3.3Vdimm (now you probably want to say that means nothing, but read on ) First tested on my P4GD1/Dothan 740 system for a while and was able to SuperPi 1M 2-2-2 up to 222fsb 2.9Vdimm. Now decided to play on DFI nF4 (first just with 3.2Vdimm). Put the Mushkins in (kept the bios settings mentioned earlier), and bang! the system kept restarting right after post screen as soon as fsb exceeded 230. With 2.9Vdimm, the stability was up to ~221, just as expected, so the memory obviously worked fine. Hmm, I thought, wtf. Played around more (swapped slots (from yellow to orange), switched the Vdimm jumper as well),everytime the same happened while under 230fsb the system run just fine. Put the VX back in and the reboots continued whereas previously I didn't experience any problems :confused: Well, since clear CMOS was probably needed anyway at this point (if memory previously stable is not stable anymore at the same settings where it was before) I decided it's time to flash to a newer bios (after all, May 10th is almost 5 moths back, right? ) Chose latest bigtoe modded 704-2BTA. Flashed fine. With the settings above, the system again experienced the 230fsb barrier with either OCZ or Mushkin at both 3.2 as well as 3.4 Vdimm. Searched Xtremesystems for good xtreme old school BH-5 settings, tried those (mainly - Trfc of 12, Idle cycle limit of 016, various Tref values - Auto, 3072, 3120, 4708, 0638 etc, various drive and data strength combinations), the outcome was negative all the time. Heh, I thought. Maybe this bios is not for my particular board after all (heard at least twice when people experienced similar reboots)? Flashed to 623-2 then. The same. Played around and around as described in previous paragraph, no stability. One moment, was suddenly able to boot up to 245 fsb (not memtest stable though), on the next reboot for tweaking - nothing again. Finally flashed back to 510-2. Loading the saved settings with CMOS Reloaded and playing around, just decided to try the Trfc value of 12 once again without much hope. Ouch! Suddenly, with the Mushkins, I was able to use the Trfc = 12. Changing the LDT ratio to 3x, finally stabilized at 255x10 @ 3.3 Vdimm :cool: , with the settings displayed in the screenshot: I shall admit that while the memory timings were not changed except for Trfc = 12, the advanced DRAM configuration settings this time looked this way: DQS Skew Control - Auto DQS Skew Value - 0 DRAM Drive Strength - Level 8 DRAM Data Drive Strength - Level 3 Max Async Latency - 7ns Read Preamble Time - 5ns IdleCycle Limit - 016 Cycles Dynamic Counter - Enable R/W Queue Bypass - 16 x Bypass Max - 07 x 32 Byte Granularity - Disable(8 Bursts) So after those 3 days of painful memory testing, I had finally arrived to my new safe base where to start another takeoff for higher fsb's :angel: (moreover, the previous owner's claims turned out to be almost true, those 5fsb difference might be attributed to various other factors) . But now I run into the problem which I mentioned at the very beginning: 3.4 Vdimm and above would do nothing for memory speed but just produce memtest errors. I would understand BH-5 not scaling well above 3.6Vdimm, but for 3.4 and 3.5, at least marginal speed increases should be gained, shouldn't they? Yet it doesn't happen, but just errors come out. Moreover, the errors come out even at lower speeds, for instance, 245x10 @ 3.5Vdimm, sometimes the board starts the rebooting cycle with such settings. Multimeter measuring directly at the memory slots confirms the Vdimm voltage seemingly doesn't fluctuate even when set to 3.7Vdimm. If the mysterious fsb wall's at various bios tested described earlier might be attributed to not-a-proper-ram-settings-combination, what to say about this Vdimm wall? This is not an overheating issue, because it happens also after the system is switched off and let to cool. Moreover, just as I said earlier, both memory is cooled by a 120mm fan as well as the 5Vdimm jumper area - by 80mm fan. At this time, I've tested 3 PSU'S (the PCP&C's also a Chieftec 410W native 24pin ATX2.03, 2 CPU's (with the previous San Diego I owned, the system showed the same behaviour), these two memory kits (OCZ VX and Mushkin LVLII), even migrated through 3 videocards, and only the motherboard has been the component which unites all these cases. Unfortunately, my DDR Booster I got exactly for the behaviour testing (to see whether the high voltage intolerance on both of my memory kits is board related), was DOA, so it's in RMA right now. However it might still be I've missed some important settings somewhere, although with all my knowledge I can't image where could that be. So I'm asking for your thoughts, if you had enough patience to read all that I wrote here :shake:

This might not be a memory problem. I can duplicate this (3 leds + a blinking one) whenever I want it by playing around with my new videocard (Radeon X550), as described in this thread: http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23343 For me it goes like this: if the SLI jumpers are positioned for 8x - 8x PCI-E slot operation, putting the card in the closest PCI-E slot to the cpu results in the behaviour. Obviously, RAM has nothing to do with it at least in my case.

I have never seen something like that... yet it happens and I'm simply wondering. Here's the setup I've used for many months without any problems: * DFI nF4 SLI-D bios 5-10 * 2x512 meg OCZ VX PC3200 * Voodoo3 PCI video card (was Radeon X800XL before, sold because of upgrade, but the upgrade has not come yet , recently borrowed an X800 for a lan party as well, had absolutely no problems) * various harddrive configs, right now it's 2 SATA, 1 IDE plus a Liteon DVDRW drive. * PCP&C 510W Now I decided to buy another value video card so that it powered my everyday rig (as I've got a Dothan setup as well). So I got myself a Radeon X550. Took the Voodoo3 out, put the Radeon into the "2x PCI-E slot" (although they were configured as 8x - 8x for me with the SLI jumpers). Powered the rig up... bang! display remains black. Hey, I thought, wtf. Checked all the cables. Rebooted. Waited a while, saw harddrives spinning, the keyboard Capslock and Numlock keys work, indicating the board has gone through POST (and no LED's were on as well), and already booting Windows (saw the FDD being accessed etc). But no display. Took the Radeon X550 out. Put it in my Dothan rig (it's Asus P4GD1, so i915P with PCI-E). The card worked perfectly, the system posted, made to Windows etc. So obviously, it should work on DFI as well. Put it back into my DFI nF4. Again, black display. Put the Voodoo back into DFI. Everything was fine again. Went to bios, checked, the "init display first" was set to PCIEx. Changed to PCI this time (who knows). Put the Radeon X550 in. Was greeted by black display again. Removed the fan from my Thermaltake Sonic Tower cooler so that I could put the card into the PCI x16 slot. This time, no POST. Rebooted, tried Insert and clear cmos, no POST. Played around more without any success. Finally switched the SLI jumpers from 8x - 8x to 2x - 16x configuration. Put the card into the 2x slot. Again, the board POSTs, and makes it to Windows, just with a black screen. Put the card into the 16x slot. Finally was able to POST and get the picture. That means I've been left with no fan on my Sonic Tower since there's no more space for it. The card works, just the 2x PCI-E slot issue remains a mystery. Anyone's got an idea, why this is happening? Is the 2x PCI-E slot half-dead or what?

Read the rules, no e-bay bidding links allowed in this forum.

Which model exactly? (so that we could look the specs on ocz's website).

No, Micron 5ns chips.

Overclocking results, please

Anandtech was talking about Sapphire PURE, wasn't it? :confused:

Yeah saw that as well. I wonder where the Lanparty name has gone - to Washington or what?

Stepping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepping_%28version_numbers%29 Those letters and numbers under the processor name. For example (my San Diego 3700+): ADA3700DAA5BN CABGE 0512VPMW Helps us to decide whether it might be a good clocker or no

Have had at least 2 friends who clocked Corsair TCCD pretty high on nF4 Ultra-D with Winchester/Venice cpu's, so that's not that bad after all