Very odd Overclocking situation.

[Amair_sc]

Hello guys,

I am having a lot of problems with my new 2.6c. Here are the specs for my comp:

P4 2.6c SL6WH Philippines
Abit IC7 MAX 3 - Bigtoes 1.3 Bios Flashed
Pcp&c Turbocool 510
2* Raptor in Raid 0
Stock Intel Cooling
Radeon 9800 pro
2*512mb OCZ Platinum Lim Ed. @ 2-2-2-5 200mhz Gat set: Turbo normal, normal, Dis, Dis.

Idle Temp: 36c in Winbond HM
Full load Temp: good question, highest it got was 56c in Winbond HM

Now this is my problem, you have probably noticed that my ram it as 200 mhz. It is not without reason. I have tried overclocking this chip to no avail at this time.

Here is what I did.

Flashed bios
Took care of the Gat settings
Set Ram @ 205 2-2-2-5

Prime torture test crashes on like 3rd calc.

Damn.

At this point I am thinking it cannot be the ram (come on!) so I reboot and up the vcore to 1.575

Prime Torture test crashes at 2nd attempt. Hmmm, now I check my reading in winbond HM because I know something is very odd. I notice the Vcore undervolts in a bad way. I reset and check the voltages in the bios: it does indeed undervolt.

I set the vcore to 1.6, which gives me a nice 1.56 in the bios/1.58 in Winbond.

I run prime torture test: crashes on 11th calc.

This is where I am at right now. I know the Ram cannot be the culprit so I am ruling that out (maybe the gat timings?). The chip is well, pathetic as far as you ask me. I am fishing for ideas at this point, I refuse to accept that this chip wont give me any overclock :) .

*edit*: I thought I should add this: I ran the same settings on the ram for 30-40 minutes with sandra's burning wizard and got no errors.

Please share you very valuable knowledge with me :D,

Silver

[Rocinante]

Set the GAT to auto, auto, auto, disabled, disabled....
Put your Vcore back to auto for now....a lot of times the chip that does the reporting for your temps and voltages is not accurate....the only real way to check the Vcore is with a voltmeter...
Also, it could be a bad stick of RAM....set the Vdimm to 2.8, and the mem ratio to 5:4 or even better 3:2 so the RAM won't be a factor in finding your CPU's max front side bus speed...
As far as the stock heatsink and fan unit, make sure you don't use the thermal interface pad on the bottom....that black crap is no good.....clean it off with rubbing alcohol, and use the white paste if you don't have any Artic Silver...
Make sure you lock the PCI/AGP busses at 33/66 also....

One question...what kind of power supply do you have????

[Amair_sc]

Thanks for the tips :), I will do that now (remove the black substance from the HS).

I am Using a pcp&c turbo cool 510 power supply.

Keep em coming, I got a lot to learn :)

[Amair_sc]

Not doing very good, this chip is THE dud :/ .

This cpu is not finishing Prime 95 torture at 220 fsb with 1.65 volts. I did not even know such a limited Pentium c existed.

I will try to exchange it for a 2.8 or another 2.6 tomorrow.

Cheers,

Silver

[batboy]

I think it's a mistake to rule out the RAM as being a problem. Those are extremely tight timings you are trying to use. My IC7 never likes the CAS to RAS delay timing at 2, I always have to use 3 when I'm overclocking. I'd try loosening up the timings a little before giving up.

[shiyan]

to test your RAM, try memtest86: http://www.memtest86.com/

don't assume everything is fine if you pass Sandra's burn in wizard. I've often had it pass Sandra, but fail P95.

also, could it be the new bios? did you try your luck with the Abit bios?

for testing your CPU, you shouldn't be so agressive on the RAM, set the divider at 3:2 to be sure you are only testing the 2.6.

here's my northwood overclocking shortlist, maybe it might be of some use to you:

"make sure your cooling is installed properly
go into bios. (press Del upon bootup)
lock your AGP and PCI at 33 and 66 Mhz.
set CPU:RAM divider to 3:2
increase fsb to a very conservative estimate.
boot windows and stress test. (P95, CPU Burn, 3DMark, Sandra...)
upon passing the stress test, increase you FSB further, until sytem becomes unstable during stress testing.
at this point decide whether to increase CPU voltages to go on, or back down a bit on the FSB.
Now try running your RAM with the two higher dividers, 5:4 and 1:1, maybe even 4:5 and 3:4.
try slowing down the timings if your RAM does not like the speed.

don't go over 1.65v on the CPU for everyday use, and also don't go wild on the RAM voltages (though I'm not sure what is safe... but 2.7v is definitely still safe)

also watch your temperatures. if your temps go above 60C, it's definitely time to stop and get better cooling.

stress test with many programs afterwards to make sure you are stable.

this could probably do with a lot of improvements... so any seasoned Intel user feel free to improve this list.
"

[i am nude]

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=246043

set the timings to default on your ram, it won't help you much in an intel system anyway. that ram is only guarented to go 217fsb at 2-2-3-6 timings anyway

[Amair_sc]

O.k worked on it for a few hours last night and today, this is where I am now:

It does 250 fsb on 1.6 volts (stable), have not tested any higher because I am getting temps of 57.5 after a few hours of Prime 95 Torture. I am guessing those kind of temps will shorten the lifespan of my cpu?

I am going to get a prommy in 1 or 2 months, in the meantime I am going to get a better HSF, any recommendations? I see the ZALMAN CNPS7000A-CU is pretty popular: which is the absolute best HSF I can buy?

Thanks again for your help guys :) !

[Rocinante]

WOOHOO!!!:clap:

We knew that chip had more in it....

Alpha and Swiftech are good heatsinks too....

BTW, don't forget that Abit mobo's report temps too high most of the time....usually between 5-10C too much...

[hawtrawkr]

i had a zalman 7000cu it works well with max3 mobo makes nb fan look like gears alongside it

also abit boards are notorious for undervolting so dont take what you set it too in bios as gospel

the max3 also tends to read temps a little higher then most other boards usualy around 3-5 deg c due to the fact that they base there temp reading off a calculation through the die instead of a seperate temp probe

as for the bios your using i havent had any problems running the same bios on my board just make sure you have the speed spectrum disabled or your pretty much defeat the purpose of running bts bios

[okaydoood]

greetings everybody...
i don't want to waste forum space by posting a seperate thread of a common question, so i'm replying to this thread with a kind-of-related-newbie question.

I've read stickies on overclocking for newbies, and i know everyone asks these same questions, but i'm wondering how do i start overclocking my specific IC7-Max3? i've tried changing memory timings, but that locked up my computer. i tried simply increasing my clock rate from a 2.6 to a 2.7, and my computer still doesn't get past bios with default memory timings and default voltage settings. so right now i'm just running it non-oced until i can figure out how i'm supposed to do it correctly. all comments and suggestions are welcome. if you can point me to other threads that answer this abit/intel specific question, then i'll be more than greatfull. thanks guys.

ps. i'm using powerstrip to oc my 9800pro. are the clocks pretty good for non-stock cooling? (check signature) thanks again

[hawtrawkr]

do you have the pci/agp locked at 66/33?

[okaydoood]

i just tried 220 fsb (2.86ghz) with the pci/agp 33/66 locked, with 5:4 timings, and it finally worked. *cheer*

do i need to keep the pci/agp locked to 33/66 while i test higher and higher clock speeds? and do i need to keep the timings to a 5:4 ratio? when should i start changing the voltage? when should i start messing with the memory timings?

by the way, thanks a lot for the 33/66 tip.... saved me a lot of steam off my head...:cool:

[hawtrawkr]

you should almost always keep the agp/pci locked a slight jump in fsb can throw your agp and pci slots off it also controls your ide channels

your vcore on your p4 cpu shouldnt have any troubles up to 1.65v but youll want to keep it under 1.7v as people have had problems with thiers running over 1.7 for extended periods

also you should turn your turbo setting to auto to see how high of a oc you can pull out of your ram/cpu ratio your ram should be ok up to 3.2v but id reccomend either keeping it at 2.8 (which is the max vdimm with correct vtt associated) or 3.0 which works for alot of people but doesnt have correct vtt for some reason

the thing to do to see how high your cpu will go is to set your ram to either 5:4 or 3:2 and start to up the fsb by like 5 or so fsb at a time and run prime for like 10 minutes each time untill prime crashes then drop your fsb by 5 and see how long it will run at that setting and based on how long it runs (i usualy recomend at least 12 hour run) make adjustments from there.

it can take an incredible amount of time to get a system tweaked to its max capacity and still be rock stable the diffrent spd settings for your ram coupled with your cpu clock can make a lot of diffrence on your final numbers and can take alot of rebooting and retesting to achieve

[okaydoood]

wow....thanks a lot :D i'll take your advice and the advice of other threads. :cool:

i'll let you know in this thread when i reach the threshold overclock.

[batboy]

Your PC4000 RAM should handle the 1:1 memory ratio (at least up to 250 FSB or so). But using the 5:4 at first is good to make sure the RAM is not the bottleneck when you first try testing your system's limits. Before you try 1:1, you might need to upgrade your BIOS. Seemed like the first BIOS had a bug that didn't allow much of a 1:1 ratio overclock. If your cooling is good, try a bump in vcore since Abit tends to undervolt a little. Definitely leave the PCI/AGP fixed to default.

[okaydoood]

right now i'm at 3.1 at the stock voltage for both cpu and ddr (1.50 and 2.59 respectively based on readings from abit eq). the memory settings are on auto by spd like one of you guys recommended. i haven't messed with anything except the clock speed, keeping the memory timings at 5:4. this is what i'm getting:

idle: 40c
load: 54c (under prime95 during torture test for 10 hours)

taking into consideration that abits read temps a little higher than other mobos, are these okay temps? i'm going to increase the voltage soon, and run a 24 hour test under prime95 to check for rock hard stability. i got to 3.1 pretty easily, but my temps seem a little high. the interesting thing is that my idle temps have been the same since it was in stock +/- a degree or two, and it remains to be relatively the same after the oc. the only thing that has changed was the load temps.

[okaydoood]

i'm now at a 1.575 core cpu voltage @ 3.2. i'm going to test in prime 95 for stability.

i previously had it at a 1.55 cpu voltage @ 3.2, but it crashed after 7 hours of prime 95. (temps: idle 40.5, load 54)