wtburnette
08-01-2004, 10:08 AM
I'm just having a heck of a time with overclocking this 3.2C of mine. I initially had this processor set to 3.5Ghz with mismatched RAM (one stick PC3200 and one PC3500). It would run Sandra, 3DMark and games fine, but died off after 15 minutes of Prime95. I clocked it down to 3.4Ghz and then Prime95 would run 5.5 hours before dying off. Figuring it was the mismatched RAM, I decided to run just one stick of PC3200 in the system to see what it would do. I was able to clock it to 3.6Ghz and run everything fine, including 8 hours of Prime95. This was with my VDIMM set to 2.8v and my CPU at 1.675v, which made the processor run pretty hot. I thought this indicated I needed better RAM, so I ordered Corsair XMS TWINX1024 PC3200XL Pro RAM, which is supposed to be some of the best RAM you can use. I was able to run this at default at 2, 2, 2, 5 with all the GAT stuff set to Auto. It seemed to run fine. I pushed it to 225Mhz FSB for 3.6Ghz, playing with the settings until I found that 2, 3, 3, 8 would run stable (or so I thought). I ran 30 minutes of UT2004, Sandra and 3DMark with no problems, so I ran Prime95 for 10.5 hours. It ran a little hot (up to 63C with the side panel off in a very warm room), but seemed to run stable. I thought I had proved the system was stable, and then when it was sitting at idle it blue screened. I thought WTF? I went ahead and set the timings down to 2.5, 3, 3, 8, but after a while I had the same thing happen. I then went down to 3, 4, 4, 8 but still had BSODs occur. I even started having apps that failed to launch and other weirdness. My UPS started saying it was overloaded, so I thought the BSODs might have been caused by that, so I went and bought a new one but I'm having the same issues. I even tried setting the system at 5:4 at 225Mhz FSB, which ran the CPU at 3.6Ghz, but the RAM was only running 180Mhz. More BSODs. I'm guessing that rules out the RAM and puts the problem squarely on the CPU... :(
I'm not sure where to go from here. I guess I could try setting the VCORE to 1.7v, but that seems awful high to me. Not to mention the system already runs pretty warm. I know the issue isn't heat though, cause most of the BSODs occurred when the system was at idle, sitting around 45C or so. I even put on a newer heatsink (thermalright SLK-948U with a 92mm thermaltake smart fan), but it didn't help the temps much and hasn't seemed to make any difference with the OC problems either. Oddly enough, even setting my RAM at default speed (200Mhz FSB) and setting the GAT to F1 causes problems. No BSOD this time, but 3DMark fails to run, saying trollcave2 is corrupt or something like that. I set it back to auto on all the GAT settings and then it ran fine. I even ran chkdsk to make sure there was no problem with the drive and there wasn't. I'm a little disappointed, as I figured this RAM would be able to run with low timings with the GAT settings at max, but it doesn't seem like it.
Anyone have any thoughts? It seems to me like I'm pretty well screwed, but I thought maybe some of you folks with more overclocking experience might have some suggestions... ;)
I'm not sure where to go from here. I guess I could try setting the VCORE to 1.7v, but that seems awful high to me. Not to mention the system already runs pretty warm. I know the issue isn't heat though, cause most of the BSODs occurred when the system was at idle, sitting around 45C or so. I even put on a newer heatsink (thermalright SLK-948U with a 92mm thermaltake smart fan), but it didn't help the temps much and hasn't seemed to make any difference with the OC problems either. Oddly enough, even setting my RAM at default speed (200Mhz FSB) and setting the GAT to F1 causes problems. No BSOD this time, but 3DMark fails to run, saying trollcave2 is corrupt or something like that. I set it back to auto on all the GAT settings and then it ran fine. I even ran chkdsk to make sure there was no problem with the drive and there wasn't. I'm a little disappointed, as I figured this RAM would be able to run with low timings with the GAT settings at max, but it doesn't seem like it.
Anyone have any thoughts? It seems to me like I'm pretty well screwed, but I thought maybe some of you folks with more overclocking experience might have some suggestions... ;)