Results 1 to 16 of 16

Thread: OCing problems

  1. #1
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts

    OCing problems

    I've got a frustrating problem. I finally got fed up with my old rig which was a modified Duron 1400 @ XP2600ish (11x189 for 2079 MHz), on an Epox 8RDA+ V2.1 with 2x256MB TwinMOS PC3200 sticks. It's run stable for a year at 189MHz FSB but I could never get it to Prime any higher, which I assumed was the RAM's fault.

    From some impulse purchases on these forums I ended up with another Tbred-B and an SLK800; I needed a new HD recently and couldn't resist adding two sticks of 512MB TwinMOS with Winbond CH-5 to my Komplett order. I shoved them in in place of the 2x256 sticks but found that my limit was still 189MHz, which I figured meant that the motherboard must be at fault for the low maximum FSB.

    I had an 8RGA+ lying around which I was given by OiD some time ago to use for hotflashing a bios chip. I set up a little test rig by shoving the new Tbred and the 2x256 sticks on it, and booting up UBCD from an old CD-Rom. I found that even with an atrocious ebuyer PSU the memory could pass memtest at 200MHz 11-3-3-Cas 2, and it primed for over four hours at 11.5x200 with 1.6V Vcore. So, on Sunday I finally got round to ripping the 8RDA+ and Duron out of my main PC and replacing it with the 8RGA+ and XP combo. The only difference to the test rig setup is that I'm using a much better PSU, I put the 2x512 sticks in in place of the 2x256, and I put it all into a slightly better case on which I've cut out the fan grills and put two 80mm fans as intake and exhaust. Oh, and I pulled the 8RGA+'s cruddy original circular NB heatsink off and replaced it with the better one from the 8RDA+, having cleaned off the pink gum with lighter fluid and replaced it with thermal paste.

    And here's the point of this long and tedious tale: I still can't get the damn thing prime stable at 200MHz. In fact I left it on overnight at 12.5x187 and it had failed by this morning. CPU temp never got over 50C and in my experience that's fine, I'm 99% certain the processor is stable at that speed. When I get home tonight I'm going to try bunging the 2x256 sticks back in (if that works I guess I'll have to RMA the 512 sticks). I wonder if the NForce2 controller struggles to cope with two double sided DIMMS in Dual Channel mode? Is it worth my while trying it in single channel?

    The only other thing I can think of is that I put too much goop between the NB and the new heatsink- I spread in on thinly at first but I couldn't get a good contact when I test fitted it until I put on a layer maybe 1/3 to 1/2mm thick. Certainly increasing the VDD seems to make the computer less stable if anything.

    If anyone has any advice (or even just sympathy) it'd be very welcome. Cheers!

    Rich :¬)

    Edit: it did manage nearly two hours of Prime at 12.5x189, so I must be close to getting it stable. And please don't tell me not to worry about Prime stability- this computer will be running find-a-drug 24/7 so anything less than total stability is not acceptable.
    Last edited by Rave; 25-01-2005 at 03:04 PM.

  2. #2
    Registered+
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    40
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    0 times in 0 posts
    Have u tried running MemTest+? If it errors, it's likely the board does not like ur memory.

    Oh, before I forget... Sympathy...
    • DFI LanParty UT 250Gb, Oscar Wu's 10/15 bios
    • AMD64 "NewCastle" 3000+ @ 2550Mhz (10x255) @ 1.595 vcore
    • Sapphire 9800Pro->*Flash*->9800XT @ 459/380
    • 2x512MB Crucial Ballistix PC4000, 1:1 @ 2.7v, 2.5-3-3-10
    • 2x Seagate 7200.7 SATA 80GB, RAID 0, Ports 3/4
    • Coolermaster ATC-210-VX
    • Antec TrueBlue 480W
    • Koolance Exos-Al, Zalman ZM-WB2 CPU block, Koolance GPU-180-L06 for GPU and chipset
    • Toshiba DVD-Rom, Lite-On SOHW-1653S DVD-writer
    • Microsoft Windows Pro SP2

    Greetz,

    Chimpie

  3. #3
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    I'll do that now I guess.

  4. #4
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    Well, that just confused me even more. It did a (30 minute) pass of Memtest 86+ V1.40 at 12x200 cas 2-3-3-11, and seemed happy enough for the few minutes I was prepared to wait at 210 with the same timings. But P95 still craps out instantly at 10x200. It's all damnably odd

  5. #5
    Registered+
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    40
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    0 times in 0 posts
    Okidoki. I really can't think of anything but the memory. How long does it take for Prime to crap out? Within 2 minutes?
    Have u tried to loop MemTest no.5 overnight, just to be sure? Usually MemTest no.5 finds memory probs pretty fast, but u never know. Once, it generated ONE freaking error after 100 loops, just to piss me off...
    • DFI LanParty UT 250Gb, Oscar Wu's 10/15 bios
    • AMD64 "NewCastle" 3000+ @ 2550Mhz (10x255) @ 1.595 vcore
    • Sapphire 9800Pro->*Flash*->9800XT @ 459/380
    • 2x512MB Crucial Ballistix PC4000, 1:1 @ 2.7v, 2.5-3-3-10
    • 2x Seagate 7200.7 SATA 80GB, RAID 0, Ports 3/4
    • Coolermaster ATC-210-VX
    • Antec TrueBlue 480W
    • Koolance Exos-Al, Zalman ZM-WB2 CPU block, Koolance GPU-180-L06 for GPU and chipset
    • Toshiba DVD-Rom, Lite-On SOHW-1653S DVD-writer
    • Microsoft Windows Pro SP2

    Greetz,

    Chimpie

  6. #6
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    Prime craps out almost instantaneously, like within two seconds. Last night I ended up at 12.5x185, it managed a couple of hours of Prime on its own, then four hours of Far Cry with Prime running in the background. I left it running overnight then forgot to check it this morning, but I'm hopeful.

    I could loop test #5 overnight, but to be honest if it can pass it once with no errors and yet have Prime fail after 2 seconds, I'm inclined to think that the problem lies somewhere else. When I had it set up as a test rig with the 2x256 sticks it managed to pass the first two 1024k tests at 12.5x200 @ 1.8V before the super weak 12V line caused a system crash (I actually heard the CPU fan speed right up as the screen corrupted ).

  7. #7
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    I wonder if it's worth trying that L11 mod (or pinmod). Anyone?

    Edit- I mean the L12 mod. Looks like it could be worth a pop, I'll give it a go when I get home.
    Last edited by Rave; 26-01-2005 at 12:56 PM.

  8. #8
    Cute & Fluffy GreenPiggy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Cardiff
    Posts
    1,196
    Thanks
    5
    Thanked
    9 times in 8 posts
    I would definitely L12 mod it.
    Also have you tried underclocking it with a FSB of 200 but really low multiplier leaving it at stock voltage?
    Knight 1: We are now no longer the Knights who say Ni.
    Knight 2: NI.
    Other Knights: Shh...
    Knight 1: We are now the Knights who say..."Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing. Z'nourrwringmm.

  9. #9
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    Well, I tried it with 10x200, which I know to be well within the limits of the chip and PSU. I'll try the L12 mod, but I couldn't find any evidence of it making any difference to non-ultra NF2 chips. Still, it's worth a punt, the internal chipset timing could be a bios thing, AFAIK I have the latest Epox bios, so.....

  10. #10
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    Right. This is now getting very irritating. I thought I'd try the L12 mod on the old rig since it'd involve a lot less pulling stuff apart. I slapped it back together without even bothering with new thermal grease on either CPU or NB, I just bunged the old 8RGA+ HS on. I started off without doing the mod to get a benchmark figure- and it's now priming away seemingly quite happily at 9x220 Cas2-3-3-11 on the old TwinMOS memory. It never got anywhere close to that when I had it in my case. The only difference is that it's using the crap ebuyer cpu and a PCI vidcard instead of my softmod 9500.

  11. #11
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    *if you don't want to read yet more meanderings, skip to the last sentence and see if you know the answer to the question- thanks*

    Right, final update. When I went to do the L12 mod, I noticed that the J-Clk jumper on the 8RDA+ was set to 100/133MHz rather than the 133/166/200 setting. I moved that and did the L12 mod at the same time, and it would post and boot UBCD all the way up to 240 MHz! It's priming away now at 235MHz with RAM at 2.5-3-3-11 (Dual Channel, 8X multi to keep the CPU out of the equation). Moving the jumper back with the L12 mod still in resulted in a return to the previous maximum of 225MHz-ish, so I reckon that jumper is the equivalent of the L12 mod in some way. If that one little jumper is all that's been keeping me from running those bus speeds for the last year I'll kick myself.

    Here's the odd bit though. The two 512MB sticks of TwinMOS w/CH-5 work fine, and seem to be memtest stable (for the short while I could be bothered to wait) at 2-3-3-11 at 225MHz, which is slightly higher than the 256MB modules will manage at Cas2- they don't go quite as high at 2.5-3-3-11 though so swings and roundabouts. Prime though still craps out immediately at anything over 200MHz. I tried the sticks in single channel mode- no difference at all. QUESTIONS: Is there some known weakness with NForce2 memory controllers that stops them coping with 1GB under heavy loads at more than 200MHz FSB? Are there any tricks or hacks to get around it? Or am I just unlucky?

    Rich :¬)

  12. #12
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    Bump. Apparently I need to disable CPC a.k.a. 1T command rate. Anyone know how to do this on an 8RDA+? I can't find a modded bios anywhere.

  13. #13
    Resident abit mourner BUFF's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Sunny Glasgow
    Posts
    8,067
    Thanks
    7
    Thanked
    181 times in 171 posts
    Quote Originally Posted by Rave
    Bump. Apparently I need to disable CPC a.k.a. 1T command rate. Anyone know how to do this on an 8RDA+? I can't find a modded bios anywhere.
    bear in mind that by disabling CPC you will need to run an appreciably higher fsb to get the same performance as lower fsb but CPC enabled ...

    MSI P55-GD80, i5 750
    abit A-S78H, Phenom 9750,

    My HEXUS.trust abit forums

  14. #14
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    I'm stuck at 185 atm, whereas I reckon I'll get at least 230 with it disabled. Should take up the slack, so to speak.

    Rich :¬)

  15. #15
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    glasgow
    Posts
    1,450
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    1 time in 1 post
    sell your boards and get a nice second hand nf7s v2.0

    nah keep us informed for the abit there is hacked bios's people make to disable and enable allsorts of stuff im confused as to which one to get at the moment ....

  16. #16
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    9,948
    Thanks
    501
    Thanked
    399 times in 255 posts
    Yeah, I'm tempted TBH, but it's yet more money that I don't have....

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. COmmand and conquer Generals zero hour problems.
    By neonplanet40 in forum Software
    Replies: 19
    Last Post: 08-03-2009, 12:02 PM
  2. Problems Problems (Winxp)
    By Dorza in forum Software
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 04-12-2004, 07:15 PM
  3. Half Life sound problems solved
    By Ruggerbugger in forum Help! Quick Relief From Tech Headaches
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 30-10-2004, 10:56 PM
  4. Having a few new rig problems, please help!
    By sagramore in forum PC Hardware and Components
    Replies: 33
    Last Post: 03-08-2004, 06:34 PM
  5. Troubleshooting - Software & Driver problems
    By Steve in forum Help! Quick Relief From Tech Headaches
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 09-07-2004, 06:30 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •