Worthless 2500? Help please!

Hey guys, I Just got the rest of my system

A7N8X-Deluxe
barton 2500+
Corsair XMS PC 3200 low lat
440 watt ps
Asus 9800xt


and I attempted to benchmark it at a couple speeds.

First I benchmarked at 166 fsb in 1:1 memory... and I got 4900 3d marks in 2003. Now considering with that same system but a mix of pc 2700 and pc 2400 ram, I obtained 6000 3d marks, I can't figure out what the hell is going on. Both tests we run at 166 fsb.. yet with my "faster" ram, I get a score just over 1000 less points. wtf?

SECONDLY:

I push my fsb to 200 and first am completely unable to get it to post. Finally after adjusting settings I can get it to post, but gee now it wouldn't get into windows. So I raise my vcore to 1.8 (after slowly moving it up) and finally post into windows. Now I have a complete lack of stability. I run 3dmark 2003 and it gets through 1.5 tests and freezes/restarts my cpu without an error message.

WHAT IS GOING ON.

I have a barton 2500 and NICE PC 3200 ram, pleanty of power... why in the WORLD wouldn't it stay stable? is my 2500 really not what it's cracked up to be??

Can ANYONE PLEASE give me ANY sort of advice? It would be sooooooo appreciated.


Pllllease help.

Try all conservative settings (ie CAL settings, single channel DDR, turn off spread spectrum etc etc).

What is your CPU's temp? idle/load

What is the colour of your CPU? green/brown

What kind of cooling are you using for it? Also, what multiplier are you using, is your chip locked? What ram settings are you using in the bios, and what kind of pc-3200 ram are you using? Also, what brand name of power are you using?

I had the same setup you did, takes some adjusting, but I finally got it stable up to 2.31 ghz.

My 2500 is a green chip


idles at like roughly 39-42 - air cooled with like 6 fans in my case and one of the zalman flower coolers rated to 3200+

As I said before my ram is Corsair XMS PC 3200 low lat

My power supply is a Antec True Blue 440 watt

My spread spectrum is already off..

Are you suggesting I put my ram in slots 1 and 2 of my board to turn of dual DDR mode?

What are CAL settings?

What memory settings do you suggest? I was simply using the "optimal settings"

My chip is locked, unsure how to unlock so I'm using multiplier of 11.

What are the stepping codes for your chip. I have a green PQZFA0348 which has very poor.......... OCing potential. Right now I am at 11x184 vcore 1.7 prime stable.

but why would my 3dmark score drop so much when the only thing i changed was my ram...?

you need to adjust your memory timings manualy as explained Here scroll down till you find your ram and mobo its a known problem with asus boards wrongly reading the spd on corsair xms ram


;-)

P2P

Although I haven't checked out the link yet...

I'd like to thank you in advance p2p

my motherboard doesn't have...

SDRAM Bank Interleave: 4 Bank

as a bios option.. unless it's in another section away from the ram settings?

Do I need an uber bios or something??

And do you guys suggest switching my ram slots so my ram runs in single channel??

and does anyone know how to unlock my processor (it's locked) so I could use higher or lower multipliers??


And p2p: if it's reading my speed incorrectly, should I be running it as 100% or by SPD? Since I don't have a DRAM option.. maybe it's in uber bios...

Yup heard that the green chip have poor oc potential.

Someone please help me with all the questions I posted above... 2 posts above..

anyone please? this is kind of urgent..

i was wondering about the same thing by spd or 100%??? mine is set to by spd in the bios.

65stang
i was wondering about the same thing by spd or 100%??? mine is set to by spd in the bios.

Click to expand...

Throw me in as a "me too" on this. I've got the 512 of hyperX 2700 in now, but depending on things and stuff, might go to the two mixed sticks of 256 3200.

I suppose, though, that this is spreading over to Memory and out of CPU, forum-wise.

how long has the system been up? some chips overclock better after some breaking in if you will, leave it at stock folding or priming or something for day-weekend-week whatever you think would be suitable. im not suggesting burning in, though you could try, this is just more of a nice workout. also, i know this is the dreaded topic, but being that this cpu isn't rated to run that speed, have you attempted to up the vcore past 1.8 or is this your personal limit? without more voltage you might be stuck with a lower overclock, once i neared 3200+ speeds and over my cpu demanded much more voltage, in fact with my old thermaltake heatsink i couldn't boot into windows with a voltage over 1.8ish, h2o did the trick for me.

EDIT: running 2.0v for my sig overclock, up almost a year (older barton)

interesting idea. I may look at water cooling.

I assume you had to mod your board to do this correct? (putting vcore at 2.0)

system has been up say... one month

my abit board supports vcore up to about 2.3 or something

meh.

I'm just going to order a mobile 2500+ tommorow.

Thank god AMD hasn't locked everything.

Not all bartons are created equal. I have one that runs at 2380 and another that will only do 2180 at 1.95V. It is running at stock speed in my wifes work computer now.

Docta_Z said:

And p2p: if it's reading my speed incorrectly, should I be running it as 100% or by SPD? Since I don't have a DRAM option.. maybe it's in uber bios...

Click to expand...

you want it at 100% and all the timings set like this

Testing parameters for XMS3200 CAS 2:
DRAM Clock: 200 MHz
DRAM Timing (overrides SPD values): Manual
System Performance: Normal
Bank cycle time (or tRAS): 6
Bank Interleave: 4
RAS Precharge (tRP): 3
RAS-to-CAS Delay (tRCD): 3
CAS Latency: 2
Command Rate: 1T <<<< aggresive cpu setting (optimum is 2t unless i'm mistaken
Memory Voltage: motherboard default*

you will need to set the system performance to user defined
and then mem setting to user difined too


hope that was clearer

P2P


but just to cloud it up a bit more i just borrowed a stick of the same ram in same board 512mb is stable at 215 fsb settings the in order found in bios of a7n8x- deluxe


5
3
2
2

i im at 2.7v mem all is running ok

i had it up to 220 but got 1 error after 4hrs of memtest