Gigabyte P965-P35 X38 overclocking and BIOS tweaking Guide

[JStudrawa]

I haven't heard of that yet. I always thought Silver was the best thermal conducter of heat. I have a feeling that stuff could do more harm than good, instead of filling the microscopic gaps it CREATES more of them... Diamonds are the absolute hardest thing in the world...

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?...s&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=307&page=1

Looks like it works better than AS5. May have to look into it, for both the CPU and MCH.

 

[PostItNote]

Anyone aware of a performance hit when using all four RAM slots? Using the Windows Performance Index as my only guide, my memory score went from 5.6 to 5.0 when I added two more sticks of RAM (4GB total). Running them at 2.5x333Mhz @ 4-4-4-12 timings - the only difference is that with 2GB the score is better.

 

[BillParrish]

Anyone aware of a performance hit when using all four RAM slots? Using the Windows Performance Index as my only guide, my memory score went from 5.6 to 5.0 when I added two more sticks of RAM (4GB total). Running them at 2.5x333Mhz @ 4-4-4-12 timings - the only difference is that with 2GB the score is better.

Weird, sometimes it affects max OC etc, but if you just slapped the sticks in and didnt change anything else, it makes no sense. I am sure it is as you reported. I have never heard of it. I would ignore it anyway but very strange. Its possible some of the memory sub-timings where automatically loosened up, but jeez it should not affect any kind of score by more than a percent or 2 and the benifits of having more ram seldom hurts.



Anyone else ?

 

[aussieburger]

I added 2 extra sticks of ram and noticed no such performance drop. I didn't change a thing, just run memtest86 once with all sticks in at current overclocked settings and found no errors so left it as it

had:
2x1024 MDT DDR2-800
added:
2x512 MDT DDR2-800

Maybe confirm you are still running in dual channel mode ?

 

[digitaldome]

With all your work on this post...it has saved me a ton of headaches in trying to figure out the best way to OC my hardware.
My set up is a Lian-Li PC65B case, Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, F12 Bios, Conroe E6600, 2x1GB Corsair XMS2 CM2X1024-6400C4/4-4-4-12 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS), 700 Watt OCZ Pwr, Zalman 9500 CPU fan.
All was good at 7x/400FSB..but couldn't break the 3000MHz barrier and remain stable at higher multipliers. I did what Zinn did...epoxied a 50mm fan on the NB Nothing would work on the NB with the Zalman9500. Brought the temps down a bit.
Now stable at 9x/334FSB for 3006MHz. Bumped up the Vcore a little.
Thanks for all your hard work Bill...
Paul R.

 

[PostItNote]

Maybe confirm you are still running in dual channel mode ?

Couldn't find a BIOS setting to confirm it, but the POST screen shows that "Memory runs at Dual Channel Interleaved" or something along those lines, so I think that's still working. Oh well, I don't "feel" any loss in performance in my day to day usage, so I'm not too worried.

 

[aussieburger]

ah yeah that's what I meant

Probably just strange Vista bug then

 

[Sir Random]

Awesome guide!

Hi Bill,
May I post a link to this guide on my website? I have a section on overclocking and I'd like to include some links to good overclocking guides.

thanks.

website:
http://www.benchmarkcentral.net

 

[Chris.Puddle]

Thanks so much for this awesome guide Bill, I was TERRIFIED of even trying an O/C, but your words have filled me with courage

Ok, so I'm having a slight problem, and I'd love it if you could find time to give me some advice. I've followed all of your instructions to get my E4300 + Arctic Freezer 7 Pro up to 300x9, and it managed an Orthos blend for four hours, no errors. Everything seemed fine until last night when my PC started exhibiting a slightly odd quirk. When you press the power button it sort of semi-starts up, then stops, then boots up & posts as normal. This never happens with restarts, only from cold boots, and it hasn't been solved by bumping up the CPU voltage to the next notch (about 1.365v).

What should I do? Do I need to give the CPU a touch more voltage? (all my other voltages in the BIOS are +0.1v as per your guide)

(additional info: currently running a 2.5x memory divider@ 3-3-3-12, this passed a full lap of Memtest, no errors. My CPU temps are on average 40 idle, 58 load)

 

[BillParrish]

When you press the power button it sort of semi-starts up, then stops, then boots up & posts as normal.

First, thank you for the kind words, my pleasure.

Frankly, hard to say, I need to understand what is happening, one thing the board will do is if something is set and it cannot boot it will shutdown and restore the CPU speed to defaults and reboot, I am assuming that is not happening, right ? You do not lose your OC settings ?

I am wondering too, you only hear one BEEP when it finally boots ? It doesnt beep on the first try during the "semi- startup " ?

Try this, keeping in mind the board will go through a sequece of shutdowns and reboots until it can boot, let it try at least 4 times and if it does not boot (unlikely) you will have to catch it when it just does shut down, flip the switch on the power supply and reset the cmos. I want to emphaise to try to catch it when its seems its shutdown and getting ready to reboot, a little "timing" is involved but by watching as it goes through the shutdown and reboot cycles a few times you can "time" it right. I have absolutely no data or proof that this matters one bit, but personally I hope catching it at that time, its not trying to rewrite informatin to the bios, prevents problems (wow, got a little sidetraced there )

This is what I want you to try.
In the MIT menu try putting the all the voltages to auto, this ill allow the board to attempt to set the voltages it needs. If it boots, and it should after a try or two, see if this helps the problem any. In other words run it for a day or two with all voltages set to auto. This is more of a shot in the dark than anything else, but if it does help we can then zero in on some voltage needing a touch more.

The only other thing (again grasping at a straw) is if you have some big video card and a power supply that is marginal, I am thinking, and this is real iffy, that the current draw for the card or the whole system in general is causing a dip in power supply voltage as the machine starts, after the initial current draw (inrush) the power supply voltage recovers and board boots. The reasoning here is that the voltage regulator for the cpu, has to signal that all voltages are within specs in a certain time after "start" for the boot process to continue.

Can you give me some details or a link to whomever makes your supply ?

wow that is tight memory timings, one the machine is up and running they should not cause an issue but I wonder about startup.
If the voltage thing does not help, I suggest backing out to 4 4 4 12 and seeing what happens, but we only want to be changing/investigating one thing at a time. hmmm (gonna chew on it, try the voltage first, but man those are tight timings. )

 

[Chris.Puddle]

Thanks for the reply Bill, much appreciated.

First, let me try to explain exactly what happens. Fans come on, you can hear it start to fire up (kinda like the Millenium Falcon at the start of Empire Strikes Back), then it all stops, and after about two seconds (without me pressing anything) it just turns itself back on, does the one beep, as normal, and loads perfectly. It's only done this since I've been on 300x9 (and it seems very stable / happy in Orhtos), it didn't do it at all when I was at 266x9, or at stock 200x8.

You do not lose your OC settings ?

No I don't. I'm totally new to overclocking (and PC building!), but I assumed that this initial attempt my PC has at powering up is a failure to post. In which case I'd expect to lose my bios settings I guess, but it doesn't happen. Just had a look at CPU-Z, and sure enough I'm still at 300x9, memory 750mhz 3-3-3-12.

I am wondering too, you only hear one BEEP when it finally boots ? It doesnt beep on the first try during the "semi- startup " ?

Nope, no beep at all on the semi-start-up.

In the MIT menu try putting the all the voltages to auto.....

Ok, will give that a try and report back.

The only other thing (again grasping at a straw) is if you have some big video card and a power supply that is marginal

I do have a big video-card (8800gts), and my PSU is a Corsair HX 520w which should be fine with this set-up as far as I know (I pretty much relied on the advice of others when choosing). It certainly had no trouble in the last two weeks until this issue cropped up anyway.

wow that is tight memory timings...... I suggest backing out to 4 4 4 12

I have 2gb of Crucial Ballistix PC2-5300, they're supposed to be very happy overclockers, and their stock timings are 3-3-3-12 @667mhz 2.2v. I read on a (different) forum that these should be good at those timings up to 800mhz or so, and as I'm currently at 750mhz, I thought I'd give them at try at stock timings. Like I said, no errors in Memtest, and no problems with a 4 hour Orthos blend, so I'd pretty much accepted that the memory at those timings were fine.

Thanks so much for the help (and for the guide, it's been so helpful // educational), I'll let you know in the next few days how I get on with this homework

 

[PostItNote]

I had problems cold booting with GeIL memory. Switched to G.Skill and have not had the problem since - worth noting that the GeIL memory required 2.2v and the G.Skill only 2.0 volts. It would be worthwhile to try setting your memory settings entirely to auto, including speeds & voltages - perhaps the board sometimes has problems cold booting with 2.2v on the memory.

 

[BillParrish]

Awesome guide!

Hi Bill,
May I post a link to this guide on my website? I have a section on overclocking and I'd like to include some links to good overclocking guides.

thanks.

website:
http://www.benchmarkcentral.net

Well sure, absolutely, damn now I have to think about working on it again to finish it up. Got kinda burnt out on it.

er, but not sure about [H] policy on that, I am just a user.

 

[BillParrish]

Thanks for the reply Bill, much appreciated.

First, let me try to explain exactly what happens. Fans come on, you can hear it start to fire up (kinda like the Millenium Falcon at the start of Empire Strikes Back), then it all stops, and after about two seconds (without me pressing anything) it just turns itself back on, does the one beep, as normal, and loads perfectly. It's only done this since I've been on 300x9 (and it seems very stable / happy in Orhtos), it didn't do it at all when I was at 266x9, or at stock 200x8.




No I don't. I'm totally new to overclocking (and PC building!), but I assumed that this initial attempt my PC has at powering up is a failure to post. In which case I'd expect to lose my bios settings I guess, but it doesn't happen. Just had a look at CPU-Z, and sure enough I'm still at 300x9, memory 750mhz 3-3-3-12.



Nope, no beep at all on the semi-start-up.



Ok, will give that a try and report back.



I do have a big video-card (8800gts), and my PSU is a Corsair HX 520w which should be fine with this set-up as far as I know (I pretty much relied on the advice of others when choosing). It certainly had no trouble in the last two weeks until this issue cropped up anyway.



I have 2gb of Crucial Ballistix PC2-5300, they're supposed to be very happy overclockers, and their stock timings are 3-3-3-12 @667mhz 2.2v. I read on a (different) forum that these should be good at those timings up to 800mhz or so, and as I'm currently at 750mhz, I thought I'd give them at try at stock timings. Like I said, no errors in Memtest, and no problems with a 4 hour Orthos blend, so I'd pretty much accepted that the memory at those timings were fine.

Thanks so much for the help (and for the guide, it's been so helpful // educational), I'll let you know in the next few days how I get on with this homework

aye, we can forget the power supply thing. Excellent we are not losing the OC settings, that means you are not haveing the dreaded "cold boot" issue. Well one thing at a time, I am still thinking of what it could be and maybe we will get lucky and someone who has seen this before will have a clue for us.

 

[JStudrawa]

aye, we can forget the power supply thing. Excellent we are not losing the OC settings, that means you are not haveing the dreaded "cold boot" issue. Well one thing at a time, I am still thinking of what it could be and maybe we will get lucky and someone who has seen this before will have a clue for us.

What's so dreaded about the cold boot issue? The BIOS can save settings, so just reload it. What am I missing?

 

[PostItNote]

What's so dreaded about the cold boot issue? The BIOS can save settings, so just reload it. What am I missing?

It's a major PITA - so much so that I ate $25 just to RMA my RAM to Newegg and get the G.Skill.

 

[JStudrawa]

It's a major PITA - so much so that I ate $25 just to RMA my RAM to Newegg and get the G.Skill.

That doesn't explain anything to me. What IS the cold boot issue exactly? From Bill, I gather it is simply a rebooting with loss of BIOS settings?

For you, lower your memory multiplier and go nuts. 760MHz RAM with a 3.42GHz CPU is good enough for me. OCing RAM wouldn't get me higher on the CPU.

 

[PostItNote]

That doesn't explain anything to me. What IS the cold boot issue exactly? From Bill, I gather it is simply a rebooting with loss of BIOS settings?

For you, lower your memory multiplier and go nuts. 760MHz RAM with a 3.42GHz CPU is good enough for me. OCing RAM wouldn't get me higher on the CPU.

Oooooh, I misunderstood your question. The cold boot issue is as follows:

1) Work your butt off getting super settings that runs stable for hours and hours.
2) Turn off your PC overnight.
3) Turn on your PC - it won't boot, and goes into continuous boot cycle (4 times) before it finally boots at default settings.
4) Get back into BIOS, reload your profile, restart.
5) Everything is fine, go back to step 2.

It seems like a minor issue, and for some it is, but for many users having to wait 15 seconds and reload your BIOS settings every time you turn on your PC is aggravating to no end.

 

[sebastian___]

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to say this, but, how about the looping problems of the GA-965P-DQ6 rev 3.3 . Two or 3 people (I'm included) having the exact identical problem. The computer turning itself on and off endlessly. But it seems, nothing is broke, because if you turn off and on the computer from the PSU, then everything is ok.
And in this particular case, it doesn't matter if it's a cold start, or a restart ..and so on ..

I posted this here also because this is the post I read most as most of the people here use this mainboard.

the post with the problem : http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1140089

EDIT : - the BIOS settings remain unchanged.
the system : Q6600 CPU, Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 rev 3.3, BIOS F9, EVGA GTX 8800, BeQuiet 850 W PSU

 

[JStudrawa]

Oooooh, I misunderstood your question. The cold boot issue is as follows:

1) Work your butt off getting super settings that runs stable for hours and hours.
2) Turn off your PC overnight.
3) Turn on your PC - it won't boot, and goes into continuous boot cycle (4 times) before it finally boots at default settings.
4) Get back into BIOS, reload your profile, restart.
5) Everything is fine, go back to step 2.

It seems like a minor issue, and for some it is, but for many users having to wait 15 seconds and reload your BIOS settings every time you turn on your PC is aggravating to no end.

Ahh, it sounded that cold boot was jsut going back to default after settings were set too high. I've never experienced what you describe.

I've just had her not boot up when I try 9x4000+ and she'll default to 9x200 again is all.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[marlinman]

Greetings - new member here who found this guide almost as soon as I googled the m/b name earlier in the year. Have spent a lot of time with it since (but never got past the 'playtime' o/c). Have finally scored a decent HSF so am keen to see how far I can take things. My last system was amd/dfi - based and may I say how striking to me it is that our guide Bill manages to do what he does with such humility and good nature. Quite a contrast to some of the characters involved on the boards I frequented while trying to o/c my last system!

Anyway, enough grovelling! I have a few questions/comments:

The drivers for my m/b on the Gigabyte site seem to update far less frequently than the drivers on the Realtek (for onboard audio) and Marvell (onboard LAN) sites. In fact the LAN drivers on the Gb site are currently out of date. (Finding the right drivers on the Marvell site is no fun sadly!). The audio drivers were also out of date until v. recently.

The 2nd-to-last link "http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/..._explained.htm" in your 1st post Bill is broke!

The MIT submenu baseline settings you specify Bill have the CPU Host Frequency at 266MHz, and the System Memory Multiplier at 2.00. These values caused me a little concern in the early days 'til I realised they didn't apply to my E4300/RAM. Maybe the XXs you use for the CPU Clock Ratio value should appear here too?

My RAM specs are 5-5-5-18 @ 1.8V. So no room to overvolt! (Had to contact Transcend to actually determine the timings.) I got through 1 pass of memtest at 843MHz (3x281MHz) with auto timings and tests 1-3 with manual timings (have yet to run them all). Machine fails to boot with either auto or manual timings at 3x282MHz. JStudrawa - does this agree with what you found?

Now my main reason for posting is to ask 'what next'? After your 5th post Bill the o/c experimentations seem to end! (And the massive individual support effort you've put in begins ). I know when o/c'ing my last system I used the guide here

http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showpost.php?p=203167&postcount=3

which determines the max RAM speed with slow CPU (as does your guide Bill) AND the max CPU speed with slow RAM. Can I take a similar approach with my new hardware? I.e. now I know my RAM runs no faster than DDR2 843, can I find my max cpu by setting System Memory Multiplier to 2.00, and playing (carefully!) with CPU Host Frequency, CPU Voltage Control, and orthos/coretemp 'til I find out how far I can push my chip (not exceeding, of course, 3.789GHz=9x421MHz, as at this speed my RAM will be running at 2x421MHz=842MHz. I'm not sure if I'll ever get this far but I've heard great things about my cooler ). I'm also concerned about my MCH/DIMM temps. Does the fact that I can't run my RAM at >843MHz mean I don't really have to worry about monitoring the DIMM chip temps? I suspect so. Will MCH temps also be low because of my sad RAM or are things more complicated there? (Worst case I guess is that at say FSB=420MHz the MCH will be melting even with a System Memory Multiplier of 2.00.) This HS I have is monstrous and I don't think it is feasible to attach a fan to the MCH given the clearance.

OK that's enough for a 1st post I think!

Cheers

 

[Chris.Puddle]

aye, we can forget the power supply thing. Excellent we are not losing the OC settings, that means you are not haveing the dreaded "cold boot" issue. Well one thing at a time, I am still thinking of what it could be and maybe we will get lucky and someone who has seen this before will have a clue for us.

(Before I go into my findings, let me just first note that I have a P35 DS3P. This was after a fruitless two week wait for an online retailer to despatch my P965 DS3P, I'd already read this guide, was the best I'd found, so just stuck with it as the BIOS options are identical)

This odd power-on, power-down, power-back-up-and-post phenomenon seems to be widely recognised as the "double boot issue", and has apparently been seen on some P965 boards, and many of the newer P35s. BIOS updates seem to have snuffed out the problem on many boards, but not the P35 DS3P so it seems.

After much googling, it seems like the initial semi-power-on is a strap initialisation of some sort, triggered by memory overclock settings. I have also read that a 3.33 or 4.00 multiplier can make this issue go away, BUT as I like my memory in it's non-melted state, I'm not going to be giving that a try So if anyone else experiences this issue, I suggest googling your motherboard, plus "double boot", and seeing what it turns up.

An odd symptom of this problem btw is that it will only do the semi-power-on if your PC has been turned off at the plug. If anyone suspects they may be experiencing the double boot issue then this is an ideal way to test for it: Turn PC off, turn off at the plug, give it a few minutes, turn back on (this should produce a "double boot" if your PC is indeed a victim of double booting). Then try again, but this time leave it on at the plug, and your PC should now boot normally.

Apparently it's not a bad thing (although it is a touch annoying), and could well be solved with future BIOS updates (I'm on F4 right now, patiently waiting for F5).

Thanks for the help & advice Bill, really appreciated that as a first time builder & overclocker, and thanks a million once more for your efforts in putting together this excellent guide. Cheers Bill!

 

[sebastian___]

Hmm.. strange , as I said in my previous post here, my problem is the exact opposite. It only starts ok, if I turn off from the PSU button. And then turn on from the PSU, then from the frontal power button.

 

[BillParrish]

(Before I go into my findings, let me just first note that I have a P35 DS3P. This was after a fruitless two week wait for an online retailer to despatch my P965 DS3P, I'd already read this guide, was the best I'd found, so just stuck with it as the BIOS options are identical)

This odd power-on, power-down, power-back-up-and-post phenomenon seems to be widely recognised as the "double boot issue", and has apparently been seen on some P965 boards, and many of the newer P35s. BIOS updates seem to have snuffed out the problem on many boards, but not the P35 DS3P so it seems.

After much googling, it seems like the initial semi-power-on is a strap initialisation of some sort, triggered by memory overclock settings. I have also read that a 3.33 or 4.00 multiplier can make this issue go away, BUT as I like my memory in it's non-melted state, I'm not going to be giving that a try So if anyone else experiences this issue, I suggest googling your motherboard, plus "double boot", and seeing what it turns up.

An odd symptom of this problem btw is that it will only do the semi-power-on if your PC has been turned off at the plug. If anyone suspects they may be experiencing the double boot issue then this is an ideal way to test for it: Turn PC off, turn off at the plug, give it a few minutes, turn back on (this should produce a "double boot" if your PC is indeed a victim of double booting). Then try again, but this time leave it on at the plug, and your PC should now boot normally.

Apparently it's not a bad thing (although it is a touch annoying), and could well be solved with future BIOS updates (I'm on F4 right now, patiently waiting for F5).

Thanks for the help & advice Bill, really appreciated that as a first time builder & overclocker, and thanks a million once more for your efforts in putting together this excellent guide. Cheers Bill!

Thanks for your excellent info, that makes perfect sense from an engineering point of view. I think it has been apparent that recently all the manufacturers and in particular Gigabyte have been working on making the boards immune to incorrect bios settings. There is certainly more work to be done as the current solutions are a bit "clunky" but at least most of the time it will boot and a bio reset is not required.

To ALL.

My 'real' life has ramped up lately and I have not had time to work on the quide but now that it is apparent that the P35 board bios is almost if not identical, I do intend to finish the quide and repost it in a better more organized manner and cut some of the fat it. Frankly it got a bit out of hand going much more into detail than I wanted or is really needed and I got a little burnt out.

Thanks for the thanks. My pleasure.

 

[Heyjoojoo]

For my version 3.3 board (see my signature), I would like give the overclocking a shot again. Can someone recommend where I should start? I'm already familiar with the BIOS but cant remember which elements to tweak...

Kareem

 

[petern]

For my version 3.3 board (see my signature), I would like give the overclocking a shot again. Can someone recommend where I should start? I'm already familiar with the BIOS but cant remember which elements to tweak...

Kareem

Are you kidding me? This whole thread is dedicated to showing you how to overclock. I suggest you starts with post number 1.

 

[GwarGor]

Are you kidding me? This whole thread is dedicated to showing you how to overclock. I suggest you starts with post number 1.

I was going to post the same thing...

 

[SuperKeijo]

For my version 3.3 board (see my signature), I would like give the overclocking a shot again. Can someone recommend where I should start? I'm already familiar with the BIOS but cant remember which elements to tweak...

Kareem

LOL. Nice one.

 

[Heyjoojoo]

Okay, okay, okay... My I kindly have your gloves? Thank you.
"Smack, smack, smack"... across my face.

I feel much better now. I'm okay. I beg your pardons...

Heading to posting #1.

 

[wackojedi]

I am a newbie when it comes to overclocking, but I followed this excellent guide and alls well except....

My memory timings get reset to other than what I set it to in the bios. I have a profile set in the bios to gimme 4 4 4 12 timings for my Crucial Ballistix 6400 memory but cpu-z would report the memory as running 5 5 5 18. I would reboot, go into the bios, load my cmos settings into the bios, reboot, run Cpu-Z again and see my timings are now 4 4 4 12 which is what I was expecting. Anyone have any ideas why my memory would be reported as 5 5 5 18 by Cpu-Z once in a while? If more details about config are needed, I will gladly provide it.

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[Kremmen2]

Hi Bill and all,

Thanks for advice so far - it's appreciated.

Seems my memory OCZ Gold is the limiting factor. There are two issues and a call for advice:

Advice: The memory doesn't like it much above 800MHz. With that limitation I have the following from CPU-Z/403.8MHz/4:5/5-5-5-15 with the FSB at 323MHz and the core speed of the Q6600 at 2907MHz. Voltage on the CPU is at 1.35 in the BIOS (1.312v in CPU-Z). Memory is at its overclocking max 2.1 (apparently it doesn't tend to work well over-volted any more). Is there a better way to achieve a higher CPU speed while retaining the 800MHz for the memory?

ISSUE 1: The BIOS resets any changes and wont boot up at the above. It can opnly be achieved in EasyTune5. I have contacted Gigabyte about it and they say it should and that they cant replicate the problem. The only advice was to re-install Vista and ET5 then.

ISSUE 2: Temps to TJunction are about 60. All relevant bits have been over-volted by .10. Is there anything to be gained from over-volting the northbridge and, if so, given the bios only shows percent, what would you recommend?

Thanks in advance.

- Kremmen (think the Hard Forum outage deleted my first account!)

 

[Heyjoojoo]

Okay, it seems that all is okay with my third attempt to OC. I updated my BIOS with the latest version to F12. So my OC seems to be adequate. Here's what I've done:

I've pushed my processor from 1.86 to 2.8GHz. It's been running for a couple of weeks now. The temps have been very good no problems. I'll check CPUZ to give you more of a comprehensive list of results.

My question is where should I go from here? What are the tweaking points in the BIOS?

OK, here are the findings from:
400x7 @ 2.8GHz
Temps: 36C
Memory: 5-6-6-18

 

[ceolstan]

A great guide, and truly pinworthy. I have to admit that I'm starting to look at the P35 versions of the board, but I'm not doing any more purchases any time real soon.

Thank you Bill!

--ceolstan

 

[rbreding]

Has anyone noticed those two chips/blocks/whatever with the copper coils in the above the CPU tray getting quite warm/hot on the P965-DS3? I watercool and happened to notice this the other day when working in the case when the sytem was on. Has anyone tried to cool them at all or noticed this ?

 

[BillParrish]

Has anyone noticed those two chips/blocks/whatever with the copper coils in the above the CPU tray getting quite warm/hot on the P965-DS3? I watercool and happened to notice this the other day when working in the case when the sytem was on. Has anyone tried to cool them at all or noticed this ?

If you are watercooling you have eliminated the "blow by" airflow from a conventional HS/Fan cooler and need to get some air movement over those parts and the whole area actually. Those parts and the ones around them are the Voltage Requlator for the CPU and provide all the cpu current. Get air on them or you will reduce the reliability and life of the board.

 

[rbreding]

If you are watercooling you have eliminated the "blow by" airflow from a conventional HS/Fan cooler and need to get some air movement over those parts and the whole area actually. Those parts and the ones around them are the Voltage Requlator for the CPU and provide all the cpu current. Get air on them or you will reduce the reliability and life of the board.

Thanks for the reply. I have the system in an Antec 900, so there is definately quite a bit of air movement....but my thought was that those parts were warmer than I wanted them to be. Anyone see a problem with attaching a heatsink to those two little buggers to help convect the heat a little better ?

 

[BillParrish]

Thanks for the reply. I have the system in an Antec 900, so there is definately quite a bit of air movement....but my thought was that those parts were warmer than I wanted them to be. Anyone see a problem with attaching a heatsink to those two little buggers to help convect the heat a little better ?

Per your description I believe you are talking about the square, sorta tall devices with the wire winding inside ? You will notice there are actually 3 of them. They are the inductors for smoothing out current spikes and to help filter noise. They do not require cooling. The MOSfets just behind them (the square, flat devices, 2 leads on one side, large single lead on the other, would benefit from heat sinks. Small ram sinks applied with Arctic epoxy would do the trick.

If you are water-cooling I am assuming you intend to OC, by airflow I do not mean breezes wafting around inside your case due the the case fans. Get a low speed 120mm blowing on that whole area if you intend to do serious OC, even more important if using a quad even if you don't overclock it.

For high OC (over 400 FSB) Make sure you rework the thermal paste on the MCH/Northbridge as well and it benefits from a fan too. It gets red hot as the MCH is overclocked just like your CPU when you raise the FSB.

 

[rbreding]

There are only two of them above my CPU....

I knew about the MOSFETS and those are barely even warm to the touch....So I wasn't too concerned about them. The Nortbridge, and southbridge for that matter) are already watercooled so we are just fine there.

The OC is on a E4300 @ 3.3ghz. Have a E6600 that is arriving today for testing.

So from the sounds of it I can leave the "square thingys" alone.

 

[rbreding]

BTW, the new beta of Speedfan (4.33b18) resolves some problems on the 965-DS3 chipsets. Displays the Fan RPM's correctly now, but still has problems with the 12V readings. New support for displaying your GPU temp it seems.

Installed that E6600 and trying to get some decent clocks out of it. Having trouble getting stable above 9x365. Also tried bumping over the 402mhz strap with no luck....wont even post unless I drop the multiplier to 8x.

P965-DS3 v1.3
E6600 1.3875v (tried up to 1.5v and it didn't make a difference, won't boot into windows @ 380mhz)
OCZ Reaper-6400 (2x1gb) +.3v
MCH +.2
PCIX 110mhz +.1v

Tried ram timings of 2x, 2.5x, 2.66x and 5-5-5-15.

 

[darkl4805]

Managed to get my O/C setting the PCIX to 100mhz and MCH +.1

CPU at 1.5

Can't get FSB to 400, PC won't boot regardless of what I do.