Opponent

I have tested my plat rev 2 sometimes with 3.1v... they can take more than 2.9 for sure, in fact the warranty is up to 2.9v +5% =~3.05... but anything over 2.9v gives me instability, YMMV of course... My sticks are TCCD, for all I know yours might be TCC5, so they may behave slightly differently... Regarding the CPU multis I have noticed that some work better than others in terms of overall stability, don't remember noticing anything in Memtest though... Sometimes I get major instability in prime and OCCT when going with low multi and given fsb rather than when going with higher multi and the same fsb and therefore higher overall CPU stress :confused: Multis must have some effect on the mem controller I guess...

No it doesn't... 0515 would be from week 15 year 05 and it has nothing to do with the purchase date... To see the stepping code you have to remove the HSF and it reads on the CPU cover, no other way to find that out...

But then again in his native Finland Linus' name is pronounced Lee-nus, so maybe lin-ux is more correct....

Congrats from me too! Glad you're having fun and you will have a lot more while tweaking that bad boy to it's limits... :nod: I'm also happy to say I did not have any problems whatsoever while I was putting my rig together... Don't worry about the mem timings, its the same with my TCCD plat rev 2 and bios optimized defaults, yours will definately work fine with 2-2-2-5...

There should be 4 power cables connected to the mobo: floppy type, hdd type, 24-pin and the 4 pin just in front of it... all of them MUST to be connected. If your HSF is plugged into the correct mobo fan header it doesn't necessarily go on IMMEDIATELY since its controlled by the bios settings and the CPU is cooler than the value that is set in the bios... But it shouldn't take too long before it should go on, you can check the temps under PC health status in bios and alter the fan settings there...

I like this theory... you guys are brilliant! I'm gonna test this for sure...

yes, stepping codes are on the CPU's IHS... Gotta take the CPU cooler and thermal paste off to be able to see that...

Well that's not exactly right... You do realize that depending on the CPU speed and a divider your real RAM Mhz varies? There are tables here on the forum where you can check that... Plus, some users (like Angry_Games) report that using dividers other than 183 or 166 (or maybe 150) seem to give a HUGE performance hit... haven't checked though... from personal experience I know for some reason using dividers instead of 1:1 gives me instability issues... if you can avoid using dividers its ALWAYS better, you only use them when you have to...

that's exactly what Rgone and others mean when they always say you're better off with 3200+s or 3500+s as their multis go to 10 and 11 respectively... you don't have to resort to mem dividers with better overclocking CPUs...

you do have to follow the instructions to flash the bios correctly... But it will still flash over the 310 as clearing the cmos wouldn't bring back the stock bios anymore. Follow the bios flashing procedure found in the stickies to the letter and you'll be fine... You don't have the nTune installed do you?

well if you're primestable for say 12-24 h I'd say your CPU and RAM settings look real good... you propably then don't have an obvious hardware problem regarding them... But no test or two tells the whole story... You gotta game and loop the benchies and stuff... If you want a totally stable puter you gotta throw everything at it and see how it goes... If you're really Primestable for hours and hours and still get those random BSODs then I'd say the problem is not with the mem or CPU... In fact in your case I think uninstalling the damn nTune will solve your problem for good...

OCCT is "Overclock Checking Tool"... Its a very nice little program meant to test your puter's stability... highly recommended. I like many others here use it a lot since it seems to be very sensitive. In many cases your settings may be Primestable for hours but crap out almost immediately with OCCT... It features half an hour stability test and torture test of infinite length... Download it from here: www.ocbase.com/OpenBeta/OCCTv0.91.exe

Nah, Primestable is a different thing but with some settings I have run Memtest for hours and hours without any errors but still getting BSODs in windows almost immediately... IMO Memtest stability gives you a good chance that windows will boot but it does not quarantee stability in the slightest...

It is obvious that your main goal should be to max out your CPU speed but if you're asking which is faster, more mem mhzs or tighter timings it is not that easy to say... there's only one way to know that... Running 3DMark2001SE and some real-life benches and timedemos (FarCry/Half-Life2/Doom3) will show you how little if at all you gain by raising mem mhzs if you have to loosen the timings... I know my mem at DDR400 2-2-2-6 is not beaten by a LARGE margin by ANY other stable settings with high clocks and looser timings... But then again, there are not very large margins to be had with mem overclocking from the overall performance standpoint in the first place... I'm guessing with your RAM you'll be fine with highest mem clocks you can get with tightest possible timings and using a divider to max out your CPU, since loosening the timings will propably not give you too much higher clocks but instead lower the performance somewhat...

If you wanna know FOR SURE if its the mem controller or the sticks themselves you gotta try some other mem and/or some other CPU to see if theres a pattern... You didn't tell us how high you're overclocked ATM but I'm willing to bet its more likely the limits of your value RAM if its not the nTune messing things up... Memtest is not a very good indicator of windows stability, so you gotta test your settings with windows programs like prime95 and OCCT too...