Dual channel overclock

[GoldenKnight]

Naar then!

 

My first post ........... :eek2:

 

Ignore the signature. I've yet to tackle that beast properly :cool: I've got problems with .......

 

DFI LANPARTY nF2 Ultra-B (06/19)

Athlon XP-M 2500+ (AQYHA)

1Gb (2x512Mb) PC3200 OCZ Platinum Rev.2 (TCCD)

Thermaltake Tower 112

Thermalright NB-1C Northbridge Cooler

480W Hiper Type-R

2 of Hitachi 80Gb SATA2, 8Mb, 7K25 (RAID 0)

128Mb GFX6600GT DDR3 TV/AGP

XP Home SP2 with all the latest updates

 

Or rather 2 of them Both are almost identical in specification and show the same fault. Just different graphics cards. The second uses a ATi 9800 pro. I won't detail the second any further, it'll only confuse the issue and it can't manage 240 FSB/ 2400MHz.

 

So, after much messing, trying, hair pulling and reading this forum I have got a stable platform running at,

 

2500MHz, 250x10, 1.9V

1T [email protected], NB 1.8V

Memtest >24Hrs Prime >8Hrs

An' yes this AQ stepper really does need 1.9V to be stable! Otherwise it falls over during priming. The processor gets a tad warm. 52C when priming but I've got a watercooler to fit yet Needless to say, for the moment, the board get's backed off for day to day use. It may go higher but that'll have to wait for the water cooling!

 

My problem. I can't get the board to work in dual channel mode satisfactorily :sad: All I can get is 1 stick of the RAM to work in slot 1 or 2 at any reasonable overclock (> 166FSB). It does not matter which stick I use in slot 1 or 2 both sticks and both slots work equally well.

 

When I add two sticks dual channel to either slots 1, or 2, and 3 I can't get a stable platform above 166FSB. Even a paltry 200FSB Prime95 falls over in under a minute with a rounding error. As do all stable overclocks upto 250FSB. This is in spite of all these overclocks from 200FSB to 250FSB passing Memtest for over 8 hours with no errors whatsoever in dual channel. I've swapped both sticks around and in both slots 1 and 2 and this makes no difference. I've tried the ACPI driver change which also makes no difference. I've never had any LAN problems but I thought it was worth a try I even tried two single channels by just populating 1 and 2. Still fell over after < 1 minute. I've run out of posts in the forum and can't seem to find out how to solve this.

 

I've yet to try,

 

(1) 2.9V on the Rev.2. Bit loathe to try this in spite of the lifetime warranty and 2.9V just being within tolerance.

 

(2) Altering drive strengths to 3, 5 or 7. They are still on 'auto'. All posts I've read on this don't rate it as much of a solution.

 

So can anyone help? I've almost run out of ideas. A real pity as I have a second stick of Platinum Rev.2 itching to go.

 

What I still can't rationalise is that the board will Memtest with slots 1 or 2 and 3 with 2 sticks of RAM (over 8 hours without error) but always falls over in Prime95 in less than 1 minute with a rounding error :sad:

 

I hope I've missed something really obvious. It wouldn't be the first time :shake:

 

Cheers!

[kitfit1]

Hi Goldenknight and welcome to The Street,

Try the following with your ram sticks in slots 1 and 3,

1:boot to the bios and load "optimized defaults" and reboot to bios.

2:set your ram timings and reboot to bios.

3:set cpu multi to 9 vcore to 1.6, vdimm to 2.8, chipset to 1.8v and reboot to bios.

4:set fsb to 200 and reboot to bios.

5:set fsb to 210 and keep rebooting with 10fsb increases until you get to 250fsb.

boot into windows and run Prime. Then get back to us with the result.

[GoldenKnight]

Naar then!

 

Thanks for the prompt reply. Apologies for my delay.

 

This just gets better. Work drags me away so I cleared the PC away to stop it getting damaged. When I got home I dropped it getting it back out again. Doh!

 

After this, it didn't post. Dropping it twisted the case and I have a horrible suspicion it's cracked the motherboard.

 

It still doesn't post and I've just about replaced everything but the motherboard.

 

This may be the end of this thread. Bear with me a couple of days.

 

Cheers!

 

Scott

[GoldenKnight]

New update.

 

I finally got the dropped motherboard to boot by resetting the BIOS for a long time ............. Going through your instuctions I got to 240 FSB and the PC locked. So I reset the BIOS and re-booted. This time I adjusted Vcore to try and get 240 FSB stable as I'd never managed a stable 240 FSB at Vcore 1.6V. This locked the PC again. I can't face this motherboard anymore. I'll return to it at a later date. Something's not right and I haven't narrowed it down yet.

 

So I swapped to my other Ultra B that showed the exact same Prime rounding error with the same RAM. Same specification as before except graphics card. I used the same RAM from the dropped motherboard.

 

DFI LANPARTY nF2 Ultra-B (06/19)

Athlon XP-M 2500+ (AQYHA)

1Gb (2x512Mb) PC3200 OCZ Platinum Rev.2 (TCCD)

Thermaltake Tower 112

Thermalright NB-1C Northbridge Cooler

480W Hiper Type-R

2 of Hitachi 80Gb SATA2, 8Mb, 7K25 (RAID 0)

128Mb ATi Radeon 9800 Pro

XP Home SP2 with all the latest updates

 

Previously with this motherboard I had to run 2300MHz, 230x10, 1.65V 1T [email protected], NB 1.6V for any stable overclock. It won't manage above 230 FSB and I had to back off the memory timings slightly. Fails Memtest otherwise.

 

I followed your instructions. Obviously this board tops out at 230, not 250. Unfortunately windows won't boot reliably at 230 FSB with Vcore 1.6V so I had to bump it up slightly to 1.65V. When I got Windows booting reliably I repeated the instructions from the start except I used Vcore 1.65V instead of 1.6V. When I ran Prime I got exactly the same error as before. Within 1 minute Prime drops out with a rounding error. I've done this three times with exactly the same rounding error after repeating the instructions from the start each time. I've run Memtest on these settings 230x9 1.65V 1T [email protected], NB 1.8V just to validate them. It passes twice in about an hour with no errors.

 

Any ideas? Is it the RAM causing all the problems? I can't see why if either stick will do 250 FSB all day long. Have I just got a duff dual channel pair?

[king of nothing]

Turn CPC off (2T) or use CAS 2. My TCCD does the same thing. I think it's just the DFI Sista's love for tight timings.

[NEOAethyr]

I dn man, this board really can do slack timings.

Though the bios does matter, to strict of bios and you'll have to use tight timings of some sort to get it to run at all.

Most of the time, it would'nt matter though.

 

 

250 should be a piece of cake given 506, 619, 728, or 1124 bios ver's.

 

 

The timings...

Try cas 2.5, because that's tccd you got there, cas3 will do but lets try this cas2.5 1st.

 

Cmd 1, again lets try this.

 

No sence in trying anything else before we try this, because the other setups use a diffrent set of alpha timings.

 

Try something like this:

 

tRAS: 11

tRCDR: 4

tRCDW: 4

tRP: 4

This is major slack for now, lets focus on some of the other timings 1st, like cas, and cmd, and alpha's.

 

tRC: 16

tRFC: 18

Again super slack crappy timings.

 

CAS: 2.5

CMD 1 (Called command per clock = enabled)

 

 

 

The alphas, I'm not gonna name them here, just type them out as they come in the bios, in order.

 

0-0

Extremly inportant I think, to this day I can seem to get anythign working with another setup of these 2 halfway correctly.

 

4-4

Slack for now.

 

3

Slack for now.

 

2

Have no clue.

 

4

Seems to need a slack value in orer for you to use cas2.5 and cmd 1.

 

So:

0-0-4-4-3-2-4

 

All together:

11-4-4-4, 16-18, cas2.5 cmd1, 0-0-4-4-3-2-4

 

Try 2.8 vmem.

1.8v chipset.

Slack on the cpu for now if possible, this is inportant, you must figuer out what is what here.

 

 

Drive strengths and slew rates.

This is something you may need to do.

Basically, setup 4-11 for the empty slot.

Try 2-11 or 4-11 for the filled slots.

For now, just a basic setup, something the bios allready does, however it just works better if you doit manually for some reason.

This may allow lower cas and cmd rates, perhaps allowing you to use the above setup maybe if it's not possible now .

 

 

The next step if the above works, is not to max out the cpu, but redo the alpha's.

Then the main timings, then tRC and tRFC .

Then you max out the cpu one step at a time sorta, straight to 2400 or 2500, or whatever.

We'll get to that if the time comes though.

 

Also, that cpu, don't worry if it needs a high vcore.

Sonner or later that may change on you after enough stressing on it.

I used to need 1.95v for 2500, and I dont' even know if that was prime stable or anything, just gaming stable and what not.

Now all I need is 1.725v.

 

 

Edit:

Oh yeah, you're best bet is to use slots 2+3 for dc.

 

Naar = narly or something? , if I'm even spelling it right :

[GoldenKnight]

Naar then!

 

Firstly my apologies. Work, broken PC's, life. You know the stuff.

 

Thanks to all, particularly NEOAethyr.

 

FYI "Naar then" is the colloquial greeting round here

 

Success Or "Job's a good 'un" as they round here. Followed NEOAethyr's instructions. Got the rig very quickly too ....

 

11-3-3-3, 13-16, cas2.5, 1T, 0-0-3-3-2-0-4 1.8Vcs 2.8Vdimm slot 2&3 2-11 filled 4-11 empty

240FSB x 10 @1.75Vcore. Vcore came down as predicted. Temps OK for air.

In dual channel will Prime for 33 hours and Memtest for >48 hours. Really pleased with that stability :angel:

 

I've run into the same ceiling, about 243FSB, as I had with one stick. It's like a wall. Just doesn't want to play ball above this but very stable below it. So I'm currently working on each setting to see if I can reach 250. Nice background task :cool: I suspect I've hit the CPU's (AQ stepper) limit but it won't stop me fiddling. I may not run at 250 if temps get too high. Only air cooling available. After that, the graphics card.

 

The NF2 I dropped and broke. It wasn't the motherboard that was faulty it was the processor :confused:. I never did like that Thermaltake Tower 112 H/S. a massive weight levering against the CPU, even with a shim. Got a new processor, IQ stepper :drool:. Got the water cooling passed 24 hours without a leak. I should've fitted that earlier. Just driling the case. Some Platinum Rev.2 TCC5 to fit as well. This was the better motherboard. Managed 250FSB single stick before I killed the CPU. Hope the new CPU's as good. Want to toaster this one. Can't wait :cool: