Just started a 6901!

[extide]

So I put my new storage server together today. (i7 980) It will be used to fold, and as a storage server running a ZFS storage pool (with 7 2TB hitachi drives, 6 of them in a RAIDZ2 array with 1 hotspare).

Anyways, got the OS installed and F@H going

For some reason this box is being a pain in my ass and will NOT post with a fsb over 135. This is really weird because when I first booted it up it posted at 4.0Ghz, 20x200 which is the settings I had for my old setup (W3540). Stupidly I cleared the BIOS and flashed it to the latest version without noting all the settings, and it's being a royal pain. I KNOW the board can do 200FSB as it did on my W3540 for 2 years, AND it posted up at that speed the first time I turned it on. Oh well, I just need to tinker with it some more.

It's a MSI X58 Pro-E.

Anyways, it will be folding bigadv until they change the requirement to 16 threads.

 

[musky]

I strongly recommend going through the process in this guide if you aren't already:

http://www.overclockers.com/3-step-guide-overclock-core-i3-i5-i7/

Taking the time to isolate each major component and find you limits for each has proven extremely helpful to me in my X58/SR-2 days.

 

[Wyluliraven]

^ Musky knows his stuff when it comes to overclocking those platforms. He has been a tremendous help for me personally.

 

[jebo_4jc]

In my experience, its always been a problem with secondary voltages (like vtt) or memory settings (try manually setting speed and timings)

 

[extide]

Oh, I know the process, I am no newb to overclocking, but get this, if I set reasonable voltages for everything, low ram/cpu multipliers, it wont post.

I spent a few hours looking at other peoples overclocks to see what kinda voltages they were using, if anything some example voltages to start from would be helpful. I even came upon that very same guide you mentioned.

For example, I set:
Vcore to 1.3v
VTT/QPI to 1.35v
CPU PLL to 1.85-1.88v
Northbridge (thats what my MSI mobo calls it, I belive it is the actual IOH) 1.38v
RAM to 1.65 (spec for my ram)

CPU multipler to 15
Ram multipler to 4
Uncore multipler to 8

No post at 140+ fsb.

I will go ahead and let it finish the current 6901 before I mess with it any more, but I am getting ~22:29 frame times on the 6901 right now, so it will be good to see where I end up. I know this cpu will do at least 4.2, hopefully 4.4.

When this mobo ran my daily driver it ran a bloomfield chip at 20x200, but it took a lot of fiddling with voltages over time to get it perfectly stable. Now it won't even post. I have even tried flashing back through each of the last 5 bios updates, one at a time!

 

[DooKey]

Those boards are famous for running very high north bridge temps. Make sure the heatsink is firmly on the chip. I'd also consider putting a small fan on the heatsink and reapply the paste.