190BCLK driving me crazy!

cyclone3d

Fully [H]
2FA
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
18,455
So this not stable at all over a 190BCLK on the system in my sig is driving me crazy.

The only way I can seem to get it stable is to lower my RAM speed way down to about DDR3-1200.

Doing that that only brings it stable up to a BCLK of 196-198.

I am pretty sure it is not my RAM as I have just finished tweaking the timings from a default of 9-9-9-28 to 7-8-7-23 at DDR3-1900

If it were the RAM, then loosening up the timings and/or lowering the RAM speed down to around 15-1600 would take care of it.. but it doesn't.

I have also adjusted the QPI up to 8.36GT from 6.84GT and it is running stable so it seems it has nothing to do with QPI.

Adjusting voltages doesn't help whatsoever either. grrrrr.

I've also tried bumping the CPU multiplier down to 19 and it didn't help either.
 
Last edited:
8.36 GT? That's not going to help at all. The maximum QPI speed should be around 4 GHz and 8.36 is far more than that.
 
8.36 GT? That's not going to help at all. The maximum QPI speed should be around 4 GHz and 8.36 is far more than that.

8.36GT/s is 4.18Ghz. I upped it primarily to test if the QPI speed was limiting me.

At 6.84GT/s it is at 3.42Ghz so if it can run at 8.36, then it is definitely not limiting me if I up it slightly past 6.84.
 
Up your CPU PLL voltage. That's what it's called on my asus. Try that. Around 1.88v from 1.8.
 
After multiple failures of trying to hack the x58 Extreme and the x58 Deluxe BIOS together to give me the x58 Extreme options... mainly for higher VTT and Vdroop control, I decided to try the X58 Deluxe3 BIOS instead.
It is the same board as the Deluxe except for SATA3 and USB3. Same exact options in BIOS as well.

It works and seems to have helped at least a little bit... still testing, but so far Intel Burn Test passes at 192bclk. 194 just failed, but most of my voltages are still at stock settings.
 
I'd say you should be happy with 190, do you have turbo on?
 
I'd say you should be happy with 190, do you have turbo on?

Having Turbo on doesn't affect whether it is stable or not.... usually have Turbo off and it is off at the moment..

Wish this board could lock the 21 multiplier.

In any case, it looks like 194bclk is finally stable with a few adjustments.. on of which was setting the RAM refresh rate a slight bit.... default is 88 and it is now at 86.

I am starting to like this BIOS a bit more than the one made for this board.
 
Try using an odd multiplier. Many boards will allow you to use a multiplier of 21, and if not try 19. I have found that trying for a 200X20 requires a huge jump in voltage (1.4something) compared to 1.35V if I do 21X190. I'd be getting 4GHz either way. I'm not sure if you want to get your RAM faster, in which case that won't help, but it will get your CPU up to 4GHz.

EDIT:
Sorry. Didn't read the last line.
 
I had problems, as in a "wall", in trying to get above 190. Finally, I just set it to 205 or 210 ... backing the memory clock all the way down & QPI Link Data Rate is something called "Slow Mode"; Intel Processor ID reports that currently as 5.03 GT/s. BCLK up to 215 will still result in boot, but I think I currently have it setting at 208. 210 will usually work with a rare vertical bar on the display lock up.

CPU multiplier has stayed at 21 since day 1.

Memory clock can get bumped back up after you think you have a more or less stable CPU.

To me, it seems that there is a sort of a timing hump to get over. I have tried all kinds of voltages & currently have them bumped up ... but I really don't think they have much effect, so I won't comment on what they are as I don't have any idea at the moment.
 
I'm thinking this might be the problem.

My chip will start flaking out above 190 bclk unless I increase QPI to 1.25ish....good to about 200Bclk with that much.

Additional voltage doesn't help from what I can tell.... QPI/VTT is currently at 1.4 if that is what +300mv is supposed to give.

194 is kinda stable, but flips out every once in a while and usually fails at pass 7 or 8 when running IBT... sometimes making it through 10 passes.

192 passes 20 passes of IBT every time.

the CPU starts to flake out if I take it above 1.312v under full load... this is with temps only getting to 66-68c under full IBT load(8 threads).
 
I had problems, as in a "wall", in trying to get above 190. Finally, I just set it to 205 or 210 ... backing the memory clock all the way down & QPI Link Data Rate is something called "Slow Mode"; Intel Processor ID reports that currently as 5.03 GT/s. BCLK up to 215 will still result in boot, but I think I currently have it setting at 208. 210 will usually work with a rare vertical bar on the display lock up.

CPU multiplier has stayed at 21 since day 1.

Memory clock can get bumped back up after you think you have a more or less stable CPU.

To me, it seems that there is a sort of a timing hump to get over. I have tried all kinds of voltages & currently have them bumped up ... but I really don't think they have much effect, so I won't comment on what they are as I don't have any idea at the moment.

I'll have to try that and then post back later today. If I remeber correctly, I did already try sdomething like that... but maybe not.
 
Well, if I drop the memory clock all the way down, I am able to achieve a stable 200bclk.

I also checked to see what the highest bclk I could get it to boot into Windows with the RAM speed all the way down. Up to 205 it will boot into Windows. 206, 208, 210 will not POST.

Up the memory to 1600, and I have to drop bclk to 199 to get it IBT stable.

Up the memory to 2000, and it is horribly unstable at anything over 192bclk.

Doesn't matter what voltages I use to try and get it stable over 192bclk with the RAM set how it needs to be.

Loosening the timings up on the RAM doesn't help either.

I am pretty convinced that it is the limited vtt settings on this board as it won't even boot into Windows if I drop it from +300mv to +200mv.
 
So just to be clear, the wall is literally at 200 bclk? Like 199 is stable completely and 200 can't get stable?

I ask only because for certain boards the transition to 200 bclk causes some auto settings to change.

So I guess my question is, what cpu speed and what vtt/vcore/vdimm/memory timings are you running at when it is stable at 199 bclk?

Do you have any settings for adjustting clock/ioh skews in the BIOS?
 
So just to be clear, the wall is literally at 200 bclk? Like 199 is stable completely and 200 can't get stable?

I ask only because for certain boards the transition to 200 bclk causes some auto settings to change.

So I guess my question is, what cpu speed and what vtt/vcore/vdimm/memory timings are you running at when it is stable at 199 bclk?

Do you have any settings for adjustting clock/ioh skews in the BIOS?

Yes, 199 was 20 runs of IBT stable, 200 was not... with the RAM at 1600.

With the RAM at the 1200-ish setting, it was 20 runs of IBT stable at 200bclk.

vtt was at +300mv (highest my BIOS allows), vcore was set at 1.4875 - loads at 1.376 - really crappy vdroop, vdimm was set at 1.66, and memory timings were at the default for the RAM at DDR3-2000 (9-9-9-28).

And when running the RAM at the 2000 setting, 192bclk is completely stable, while 193 is not stable at all.

Edit: Nope, no clock skew settings of any kind.
 
Last edited:
I don't think it is a VTT issue. It doesn't really make much sense that you can run 1920 memory with little problem but can't run 1600 memory. You should need much more vtt at 1920 than at 1600, regardless of timings.

Can you get into windows at 200 bclk/1600 memory to take a screenshot? What I really would like to know is memory timings. If you download a program called cpu tweaker it will give you the memory timings that you probably can't see in the BIOS (or havent adjusted because they are on auto.

So what would be informative here (hopefully) is a screenshot of cpu tweaker at 199 bclk and at 200 bclk while keeping the memory on the 1600 divider.

http://www.tweakers.fr/cputweaker.html

Make sure to click the subtiming tab so we can see them all :)

BD24
 
^^^And I qualify that statement by saying that if you board CAN DO 200bclk it shouldn't be a vtt issue. I'm kinda surprised you need that much vtt for a D0 in the first place, so your vtt regulation speculation could be spot on as well.
 
ok, I did a sceenshot with it at 199bclk with the RAM set at 1600, then switched it to 200bclk and compared it side by side. Everything is exactly the same including the sub-timings.

I did notice that it wasn't detecting the CPU or RAM speed at 199 or 200, but it does at 193.

199bclk.gif
 
Are you using XMP?

The XMP settings available to me in the BIOS are AUTO and Profile 1.The is no Disable setting. It boots if I leave it on AUTO but won't even POST if I set it to Profile 1.

This is with bclk at any speed.
 
XMP is best left disabled. Odd that you have no option to do so. Then again it isn't as if I've spent much time with ASRock boards.
 
XMP is best left disabled. Odd that you have no option to do so. Then again it isn't as if I've spent much time with ASRock boards.

I kinda think that the AUTO setting is technically the disable setting as TRFC sets to 88 instead of 98 as specified in the XMP profile.
 
I kinda think that the AUTO setting is technically the disable setting as TRFC sets to 88 instead of 98 as specified in the XMP profile.

Could be. Again I haven't worked with too many ASRock boards and certainly I haven't touched any of them recently.
 
Here is a strange one.. although nowhere near stable, lowering tWR from 12 to 11 let me boot into Windows with the RAM set at 2000 and the bclk at 200. Loweing tWR more didn't make it any more stable.

It also took care of it not always seeing all 3 sticks when set like that.

This is very strange.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top