built my Opty 165....SuperPI resets my system

S

SKy042

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 27, 2003
Messages
1,037
so I built the following

Opteron 165 (1.40V)
2 x 512MB G.Skill TCCD ram (2.7V)
Epox 9NPA+Ultra with 10-21 bios.
Antec TPII 430W PSU
1 Maxtor SATA HDD

got it built and after much trouble with the bios not holding the stock CPU frequency I got the bios stable.

I'm having the following issues.
SuperPI 1M shuts my machine down within 10 seconds no warning just power off.
Prime (SP2004) runs fine.

I'm also having serious issues trying to keep it at 1T memory. Everytime I force it over to 1T it tries to default to 166Mhz. Did I just maybe get a weak memory controller? Any advice on this one I'm sorta stumped. I thought about starting to OC but I hit 1980Mhz and couldn't even load windows(again I think memory issue)

I can't figure out the problem. Fresh brand new load of XP SP2. CnQ turned off.
 
try setting your mem to 2T instead of 1T... also, hit F8 on boot and choose the option to disable automatic restart
 
Elysian said:
try setting your mem to 2T instead of 1T... also, hit F8 on boot and choose the option to disable automatic restart
Click to expand...
but shouldn't have to set it 2T
should be able to run 1T 2-2-2-5
I'm in the middle of runnning a full memtest86 on it right now.
 
do you have the latest bios? do you even know that your board is capable of running 1T? have you tried 2T to see if the issue goes away? as far as i've read the difference is a whopping 3-5%...
 
Elysian said:
do you have the latest bios? do you even know that your board is capable of running 1T? have you tried 2T to see if the issue goes away? as far as i've read the difference is a whopping 3-5%...
Click to expand...
Actually what I read was closer to 13-14%
yeah the board is capable of 1T
has the latest bios.
I THINK a fan actually may have been causing some instability in the power of the sytem as it was 2 1.06A current draw fans on the "fan only" connector of the PSU. It wasn't feeding them enough power apparently or the wrong voltage. But when I plugged then into one of the actual cable strings from the PSU they spun twice as fast. Also I'm now running 1T DDR400 (200mhz) passed 10 passes of Memtest86 and SuperPI 1M and 2M
Currently it's in the middle of a 32M PI.

After that I'm going to Prime it while I sleep. I'll get back to the overclocking attempts when I wake up I suppose
 
SKy042 said:
Actually what I read was closer to 13-14%
yeah the board is capable of 1T
has the latest bios.
I THINK a fan actually may have been causing some instability in the power of the sytem as it was 2 1.06A current draw fans on the "fan only" connector of the PSU. It wasn't feeding them enough power apparently or the wrong voltage. But when I plugged then into one of the actual cable strings from the PSU they spun twice as fast. Also I'm now running 1T DDR400 (200mhz) passed 10 passes of Memtest86 and SuperPI 1M and 2M
Currently it's in the middle of a 32M PI.

After that I'm going to Prime it while I sleep. I'll get back to the overclocking attempts when I wake up I suppose
Click to expand...
thats good to know, maybe my ocz will work at 1T when i get my opteron 170... my old ram didn't, but i don't think it would work at 1T, it was generic ram, haven't run the ocz yet
 
Elysian said:
thats good to know, maybe my ocz will work at 1T when i get my opteron 170... my old ram didn't, but i don't think it would work at 1T, it was generic ram, haven't run the ocz yet
Click to expand...
Well the memory controller from what I understand dictates the rate. and since I'm using a single pair and not 4 sticks there should be no issues with the 1T rate.
Also the ram I have is very high end ram G.Skill Extreme with Samsung TCCD chips. This stuff can hit over 300Mhz.
If you've got the NF4 chipset and the Power Bios from Epox you should be in the clear.
 
SKy042 said:
Actually what I read was closer to 13-14%
Click to expand...
in synthetics, yes. in real world performance, i'll be surprised if you see more than 1-2% ;)

also.. the reason for the ram issues probably isn't due to the memory controller or board being bad, but the bios not recognizing the cpu, thus resorting to some ugly failsafe settings. is there a newer bios?


also, you try testing in memtest? point your fingers at everything before that opteron ;)
 
Subscribed since I have the same mobo. and I am looking to upgrade my PROC :cool:
 
I think epox boards probably just suck, I also have a 165 with a 9nda3j, w/ my antec 380 W PSU i can OC to about 2.2 ghz max, with a generic 500 W PSU it won't even turn on.....and with the antec PSU I can reset the system and it will start up OK, but if I turn it off I have to wait at least 5 mins before it will turn back on. I'm definitely looking to get a DFI board to replace the EPOX POS -- and yes I know it might be the PSU, but I'm really leaning towards the mobo.
 
Socrilles17 said:
I think epox boards probably just suck, I also have a 165 with a 9nda3j, w/ my antec 380 W PSU i can OC to about 2.2 ghz max, with a generic 500 W PSU it won't even turn on.....and with the antec PSU I can reset the system and it will start up OK, but if I turn it off I have to wait at least 5 mins before it will turn back on. I'm definitely looking to get a DFI board to replace the EPOX POS -- and yes I know it might be the PSU, but I'm really leaning towards the mobo.
Click to expand...

Well, I can't imagine that you have the kind of rails you need to run a system like that well with the PSUs you're running. Plus, DFI is much worse than Epox with PSU's :p. I'll give you $25 for your old board :).
 
yeah, dfi does seem to be pretty demanding.

though one thing i'd like to say.. a lot of people, esp the guys over at dfi-street, insist that the floppy and molex plug should be plugged in on the board. i actually get ~20mhz better oc on the cpu with em out ;)
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
yeah, dfi does seem to be pretty demanding.

though one thing i'd like to say.. a lot of people, esp the guys over at dfi-street, insist that the floppy and molex plug should be plugged in on the board. i actually get ~20mhz better oc on the cpu with em out ;)
Click to expand...
odd.

Hmm well now that the system seems to have stabilized (4 hours prime large FFT's 9 hours small FFT's , 10 passes on memtest, 32M superPI, and a full day of DVD ripping and burning.) I'm going to start attempting overclocking it maybe tonight. Though honestly the ram settings in power bios confused the hell out of me there are WAY more options than I'm used to.
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
what did you change to make it stable?
Click to expand...
Combination of things.
I had already flashed it to the most recent taiwan bios.

Mostly I changed the 2 fans off the "fan only" connector.
Did a reset to default values in the bios.
Then a CMOS clear
Then a reset to optimal defaults.
Then I booted windows and primed it.
Tonight I fiddled with overclocking it
I got it to 2610mhz/290 mhz ram booted windows but wasn't prime large FFT or superPI stable even with ram at 2.9V 3-4-4-8
Right now it seems to have stablized at 2505Mhz with the ram on 1:1 2.5-3-3-6
I've got some more tweaking to do before I decide what's going to be stable max overclock for it I suspect I'll get 2.6Ghz but it's not going to come easily.

Odds are my 24x7 OC is going to be 2.2Ghz on the 165. I'll make a separate post or something once I hit a solid OC.

Tomorrow once I get home from my parent's house(turkey day dinner) I'm going to see if I it's still stable at 2.5. If it is then I'm going to try to drop down to 2.4 and go 2-3-2-5 on the ram and see if I can keep that stabilized. If so then I might leave it there.

One thing I'm postive though is that this chip is a far better overclocker than my X2 4400+
Also I've come to the conclusion that my ECS board while rock solid and offering the features I want is GARBAGE for overclocking(the board in my x2 machine)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top