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New to overclocking, some simple quesitons

T

Thurlow

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
72
Last summer I built a new computer, and I've just gotten around to overclocking it.

here's my specs:

Intel 6300 Core 2 Duo

SAPPHIRE 100149SR Radeon X1900XT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Ok, I went into BIOS, disabled all the things I needed to disable (I think), and changed my FSB to 401 and upped the voltage to 1.35v. I then went to test the stability of this OC, so I ran some programs including memtest.

Memtest gave me the following error: Memory error detected! Copying between 14959e and 14949f did not result in accurate copy. Memtest has detected that your computer cannot accurately store data in RAM.

Ok, how do I fix this? Do I need to screw with the timings, voltages or something in the BIOS? I haven't changed the memory settings in there, haven't even been able to find those settings.

My computer has been rebooting at random times....sometimes while I'm playing a game and sometimes while I'm just surfing the web...the sound will just stutter for a half a second and it will restart, and I think this is the issue. My temperatures are usually less than 50 degrees celsius for the CPU so I don't think that's the issue either.

This post is kind of a mess, but thanks in advance to anyone who can point me in the right direction.
 
Up the RAM voltage to 2.0~.21V
if that doesnt help
Up the CPU Vcore to 1.4V or more if needed.
I run 1.46 vcore, but under load it drops to 1.41~1.42 and that's what my CPU needs to be stable at 3.32GHz. If you can't pass Memtest, you have no business booting to Windows, unless you wanna corupt your install... :eek:

How about your power supply? 500W or better should be enough.
 
How exactly do I up the voltage? There's a setting in the BIOS under the Mobo Tweaking section, like +0.1v, +0.2v, +0.3v...etc. So I should just try one of those?
 
If you're new to Gigabyte remember that they hide some of the memory timings. You have to push CTRL+F1 while in the bios to unlock the hidden settings.

Default memory voltage is 1.8 volts. Usually a setting of +0.3 will bring you up to 2.1 volts which should get you in the ball park. It should say with your memory how much voltage it requires for stability. Usually they are rated at 2.1 or 2.2 volts for performance ram.

You could start with memory timings of CL5-5-5 and if that works and is stable then you could try for CL4-4-4.

I found my E6300 ran really stable at 450 x 7 without needing any extra voltage besides the memory. It made it reliably as high as 472 x 7 with default CPU voltage.

Once your memory has the proper voltage you should be fine. Overclocking these new Intel processors is dead simple.
 
Thanks for the help so far. I just upped the voltage to 2.1v, memtest seems to be working now. (it got past the point that was getting errors at 1.9v) However, I couldn't really figure out how to set the timings (5-5-5 or whatever) I saw a bunch of settings like CAS latency time, DRAM RAS# to CAS#Delay....etc And I wasn't really sure what to set those to. I saw that I could set the first one to 5 but wasn't sure what this would do.

edit: gah! I just got another error in memtest, this time I was about 35% through when I got it, as opposed to last time when I was less than 2%.
 
Thurlow said:
....
edit: gah! I just got another error in memtest, this time I was about 35% through when I got it, as opposed to last time when I was less than 2%.
Click to expand...

Try 2.2V on RAM.... I got my Corsairs at 2.3V... No worries there.
If that doesnt help (it should), next up is Vcore. Up it by like 0.025V at a time.
"Baby steps" are the key to finding a balance between best performance and stability here.
BTW, I have all my RAM settings set to Auto. DS3 seems to do a pretty damn good job at figuring it out on it's own... ;)
 
Still getting errors on memtest, seems like it got worse since I upped the voltage to 2.3. I also upped the vcore to near 1.34 with memory at 2.3 and that didn't help much either. I'm going to try to increase the vcore at 2.2 and see if that does anything. :(
 
Thurlow said:
Still getting errors on memtest, seems like it got worse since I upped the voltage to 2.3. I also upped the vcore to near 1.34 with memory at 2.3 and that didn't help much either. I'm going to try to increase the vcore at 2.2 and see if that does anything. :(
Click to expand...

In that case lower the RAM to 2.1v and start raising the CPU Vcore.
It looks like you're using stock Intel heatsink. With that in mind I don't think you should try anything over 1.4V on the CPU... Not for long periods anyways. How's the airflow in your case? Got some fans in there?
 
I've actually got a Big Typhoon for a heatsink, so I don't think heat would be an issue.

About how much should I raise the vcore to? I've got it up near 1.36v now and it's still unstable...getting errors in memtest. This is at 2.1v.(Just to make sure I'm doing it right, I've been changing the "Overvoltage DIMM control (I think, something like that), to +0.2v)
 
Thurlow said:
I've actually got a Big Typhoon for a heatsink, so I don't think heat would be an issue.

About how much should I raise the vcore to? I've got it up near 1.36v now and it's still unstable...getting errors in memtest. This is at 2.1v.(Just to make sure I'm doing it right, I've been changing the "Overvoltage DIMM control (I think, something like that), to +0.2v)
Click to expand...

In that case just go up to 1.37, then, 1.38, then 1.39 and so on... At 3GHz my CPU didn't need that much juice (~1.38) but to make a leap to 3.32GHz I really had to push it to 1.46V on the Vcore to get it stable... It's always that last bit of performance that's the hardest to get... ;)
 
Is there something else that could be causing these errors? I've got the vcore up to 1.4, and I'm only overclocking to 401mhz...seems like that should be plenty of voltage.
 
Yeah, I'm somehow overclocking it wrong, cause memtest runs fine on stock FSB and voltages
 
Thurlow said:
Yeah, I'm somehow overclocking it wrong, cause memtest runs fine on stock FSB and voltages
Click to expand...

Try it with one stick of RAM.... If it passes, try the other one by itself too. If it fails, that's your problem, if it passes must be something else. You have your PCI-e locked at 100MHz right?
 
mzs_biteme said:
Try it with one stick of RAM.... If it passes, try the other one by itself too. If it fails, that's your problem, if it passes must be something else. You have your PCI-e locked at 100MHz right?
Click to expand...

The PCI-e setting in my M.I.T. screen is set to auto, should I switch that to 100?
 
Thurlow said:
The PCI-e setting in my M.I.T. screen is set to auto, should I switch that to 100?
Click to expand...
Just in case... I've heard that when PCI-e is set to auto, sometimes it comes up with "off the wall" figures... Some say setting it to 101 as oppesed to 100 will help as well... Won't hurt to try...
 
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