2.8C MO at 2.53 Stable At 1.5250 vcore!! And still not done the O/C-ing. But. :(

2.8C MO at 3.53 Stable At 1.5250 vcore!! And still not done the O/C-ing. But.

Hiya,

I hAVE MY 2.8c mo AT 3.53 Ghz (251 fsb) perfectly stable. And at only a 1.5375 vcore voltage.!!!!

Great cpu!!!!!!!! And I'm going higher too!!!! But...

I lowered my multiplier to 5:4 Anything higher then 241 fsb at 1:1 and I get errors in Prime95 .
(Bios setting at 320 rather then 400 in my Asus motherboard bios but both just mean the RAM speed BEFORE any CPU overclocking)

For a close to three hours I have ran two instances of Prime95 and SiSoft Sandra Burnin Test at the same time while multi-tasking with no errors. But, at the 5:4 ratio, my ram is only hitting 400 mhz. Seems either the motherboard doesn't handle the dimm voltages well or the RAM is not up to par.
The Asus board only goes up to 2.85 vdimm voltage but my OCZ Gold Rev. 2 memory is rated for 3.00 under warranty.

Also my memory is rated to 500 mhz and some get slightly over that stable, even with this type of board and only at the 2.85 dimm voltage.
Unless my cpu fsb can go way higher at 5:4, I wont get fast RAM benchmarks and unlikely it will go alot higher stable. But I know I have two options.
I have heard and read info that OCZ will replace the dimm's with the same type but handpicked if they dont reach 500 mhz stable. OCZ has some of the best support going.

And/or I can volt mod my motherboard to increase the DIMM voltage to 3.0 (but trust me, it wont be solder, but an SMD Grabber).

Well gonna see what this awesome cpu can really do.

And going to contact OCZ tech support. If I'm, getting 3.53 stable, can't be a bad cpu.

Either motherboard or RAM trouble. And even if I get good OCZ Gold Rev. 2 RAM the highest I've seen with this board with the 2.85 vdimm voltage is 508 mhz. Looks like the volt mod will be necessary.

Any help or suggestions would be cool.

bbl...

Peace, Kedar...

Asus P4C-800 Deluxe MB.
P4 2.8c SL6Z5 with MO steppings at 3.53 stable (251 fsb) and still going higher.
Thermaltake Butterfly Power Supply 480W.
Thermaltake Volcano 7+ heatsink/fan with fan at 6000 RPM always.
Two 512 meg dimms of OCZ Gold Rev. 2 memory.
2 80 gig Maxtor 133 7200 rpm Hard Drives Used In A Stripe (Raid0) Raid Array.
Asus 9280S (TI-4200) 128 meg 8xAGP video card.
(I know, crap video card, will get an Asus 9800XT 256 meg when the prices come down).
Audigy 2 Platinum Sound Card.
Including the power supply, hard drive fans and all others, I have count them, 10 FANS . Hmmm... Voltages are all okay for an Asus deluxe. wonder if the power requirements tap my dimm voltages. Any suggestions? Will unplug my four hard drive fans and maybe a one or two others as well.

Also, I run SuSE Linux Pro 8.2 On a separate hard-drive for most online applications but that is on hold right now 'cause I donated my 20 gig IBM drive to a poor soul that was going to try to use a 6 gig drive that was dying, just 'cause he could.

BTW, you really want to impress me, get GAIM up and running with SuSE Pro 8.2 and show me exactly how you did it. I'd pay you too, but I'm sure your satisfaction in doing what I couldn't would be pay enough. Trashed my KDE and needed a hard drive format, full reinstall to fully recover it...

BTW Kedar is pronounced Keh-DAHR, with the emphasis on the -DAHR of course,
not like cedar.

Is your OCZ PC3700 or PC4000? Since you said revision 2 I'm assuming it's PC3700. In that case, 241 FSB using the 1:1 ratio is exceeding the RAM specs (PC3700=DDR466=233 frequency).

Try relaxing the timings a little and see what happens. That mobo is fairly easy to volt mod using the grabbers. Might be worth doing if you really want to push the RAM. Really though, if you can get more out of your system using the 5:4 ratio, then I recommend doing that. You won't lose that much performance in benchies such as 3Dmark2001, etc.

About My Ram.

Peace,

Yep, is OCZ Gold Rev. 2 DDR-3700. Officially rated at 466 mhz.

But.

Saw a forum. Guy with the exact same RAM (OCZ Gold Rev. 2 DDR-3700). It too flopped at 441 mhz max at 1:1. Contacted OCZ support. Because It can do easily 500 mhz and is supported unofficially that way, they replaced his dimms with two handpicked ones. He never even had to prove it was the RAM for sure. And he later found it was a lousy overclocking cpu, not even the RAM. But he said their tech support was the best he had dealt with, period.

And, I'm getting 251 fsb with 2.53 ghz fully stable at with the divider at 5:4 and the RAM running at 401 mhz. Can't be the cpu.

Plus, next month I'm buying two more 512 dimms of Rev. 2 if this works out okay. I run Dual Channel of course and because Rev. 2 is single sided, four dimms should actually help performance even not considering the RAM increase.

So, might pan out for me.

Four sticks of RAM will have more trouble overclocking than two sticks. You can only go as fast as the slowest module. You never mentioned what timings you are attempting or whether you tried relaxing the timings.

My advice is use the 5:4 ratio to see how high you can O/C. Do some benchmarks at that speed and then back down to the highest 1:1 ratio speed and do some more benchmarks. Then decide if the 5:4 ratio is acceptable or not. Other than Sandra memory bandwidth, I bet you don't see much difference in real world apps.

My Ram Timings Plus Possible FREE Upgrade to OCZ El DDR400 dimms!!

Sorry,

I had thought I had posted my timings but they are in another thread in another forum.

I am running, when at the the max i can run stable which is 241 fsb (RAM at 482 mhz of course) with 1:1 ratio, 3-4-4-8, and any other RAM setting on 'Auto' as recommended by OCZ tech support or the settings the techie suggested. I had it all right already except the ras to cas precharge (?) I think it's called at 4 clocks instead of 8. But that is changed now. And he told me to leave 'PAT' enabled but better to turn the 'Turbo' setting from 'Auto' I had to 'Standard' instead in the bios. If you have a P4C800 Deluxe or something similar, I'm sure you know what I mean. He said to try the dimm voltage at 2.75 first then up it to 2.85 if i only have to. I did that but not before these tweaks.

He also told me to test each dimm seperately and see if one or the other doesn't perform well.

Lastly!!! I told him I'm going to invest more money in another gig of dual channel ram from ocz and I have already budgeted for that purchase come next month.

He told me and I have his personal contact number, if I do all this and I will and document it, try anything else he suggests as I will, he would upgrade my OCC Gold Rev. 2 DDR-3700 To OCZ EL DDR-4000 (Ram rated at 500 mhz of course) at NO cost to me.

This matches my max overclock at 3.53 and ram at 502 mhz at the 251 fsb i topped out at. I tried and couldn't get higher but even if I do with these ideas, I bet the DD-4000 overclocks enough to top the best i can do...


Man, that guy was right, OCZ is kewl!!!!

OCZ rocks!!! But lotsa work ahead, after all, it's not a job, but an investment.

P.S. Was a toll free number and I waited about ten seconds to talk to the tech support guy. There is some benefit in working straight nites.

Yes, my experience is that OCZ tech support is good. Ok, you already have the RAM timing relaxed, so not much more to do there. Looks like your choices are using the 5:4 ratio or upgrading to PC4000 Gold.

Hi.
What's Your CPU FPO/Batch number?

CPU batch Number

Prod. Code Ends With SL6Z5 and the chip matches.

FPO/Batch # : 3351A734

So, Week 51 Costa Rica

Pack Date : 03/29/04

Peace,

I'm at 3.54 GHz (253 FSB) at 5:4 stable for very close to 4 hours with stock vcore set at 1.525 with Prime95 running twice at the same time, one with the 'max heat & volts' setting and one with 'max memory used' setting but the second dumbed down to 511 megs of memory used.

But I'm also listening to a great online radio station(Bush, 'Come Down' on now), chatting in IM, checking my email on auto every three minutes, making sure I got the right numbers with SiSandra Pro and all your peeps help watching and writing here too. Gonna go higher too!!!

But you know what is wierd.

Gonna get a decent heatsink topped with a good fan.
My crap Thermaltake Volcano 7+ at 6000 RPM constant, with it seated as it is supposed to be, I get temps over 60C in less then a minute with Artic Silver 5 paste applied carefully and properly.

Mind you I'd never keep it the keep that way.

So I thought, "What if I turned the heatsink/fan upside down" and I rotated rotated it 180 degrees.
Made sure the entire cpu is contacted by the heatsink, Artic Silver 5 paste thin on both surfaces (heatsink and cpu) and seat it carefully.

Now with the two instances of Prime95 runnin' and multitasking wildly, I get a 49C max. at full load of course in a 70F room. Might be time to buy a new heatsink ya think?

Any suggestions on a great air/fan combo, even better, an add-on fast fan on the heatsink (dont care how noisy as long as I can use my PC as a hovercraft in emergencies).

Kewl CPU so far!!! To say the least.


I doubt it's a dumbed down Prescott EE like some say the early MO's were but getting 3.54 stable at stock voltage? And the 49C temps...

I'm either in need of surgery to have a horseshoe that may have been misplaced taken care of and just have a mighty fine second generation MO, or I got one of the last EE MO's if that rumour is true.

A week 51? Any suggestions? Did they find a bin with the old MO's and just ship them with the boxes availlable, maybe an alien race teleported an old MO to bribe me to stop wearing my tinfoil hat so they can beam them darn brain waves through again?

I dunno for sure...

hehe

Good to hear good news : )

My CPU is SL6Z5 Costa Rica week 51 [3351A6XX] Packed at 03/11/2004 .
I got only BOX cooling so my ocing stoped at FSB243=3.4GHz on Default Vcore. TEmps are pretty high i think : stress 61-63C , Idle 46-47C.It is 99% stable , I mean Prime Stops with an error about bad rounding ... What is the Problem?High temps or just this chip needs more Vcore?Whats Your opinion?

M0 what i read used to be "bad" Northwoods EE ... or maybe I'm wrong .... ??


What Vcore shows CPU-Z at default? 1.504V here , sometimes it jumps to 1.488V but for juz 1 sec .

Waiting for (good ; ) news : )

Best regards.

Red, you do need more vcore to go higher... but you are already running a little warm... so you are stopped until you get better cooling.

About Early 2.8C MO's

Peace...

Your temps are to high to raise the vcore voltage and even 60C is borderline dangerously high for that CPU in my opinion.

You need a decent aftermarket heatsink/fan. Use Artic Silver™ thermal grease when you do. Really the best grease for a CPU and heatsink. Be careful to only put a very thin coat on the CPU and a very thin coat on the bottom of the heatsink where it will contact the top of the CPU. The very thin layer should cover all of the top surface of the CPU and all of the area of the heatsink will contact the CPU. The CPU needs to be in it's socket clipped into the motherboard when you do this or you risk getting thermal grease in places it should never be trying to do the paste with the cpu separate from the motherboard and then installing it.

Too much thermal paste and you cooling can suffer plus it might make a mess and contaminate the motherboard or CPU in places it should never be. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but a little Artic Silver™ on the CPU and Saran Wrap™ over a finger to carefully spread a very thin coating on the top of the CPU itself, then the Saran Wrap™ and a little paste spread very thin over just enough of the heatsink bottom in the area that will contact the top of the cpu. I then place the heatsink over the heatsink bracket, seat it very gently and slowly with just bit of play as I do to make sure there are no areas that are not contacted between the heatsink and the CPU top surface and to make sure the thermal grease is completely contacting both surfaces. snap the clips in place, make sure all the clips are properly connected, done.

I get 32C idle and 49C full load and this is with a now defective and not so good despite the fans 6000 RPM speed, heatsink I bought.

Not too high but would be much better low 40's or at least no higher then mid 40's to squeeze a bit more out of mine.
My 2.4B would run at 3.2 GHZ at 42C with this heatsink before God only exactly knows what happened to it.

Really, best to never let it go above 50C for overclocking and stability.

But 60C you can get away with likely but reallly is too high.
I have heard rumours that the early 2.8C MO's were actually Prescott Extreme Edition cpus but with the extra cache disabled and the clock speed lower. I have no idea why Intel would do this if it's true. Hence the early MO's being able to do 3.6 GHZ on stock vcore voltage. But this is just a rumour and I don't have facts or proof to back it up.

And I've also heard that later generation MO's like mine (week 51) are really no better then the 2.8C D1 standard cpu for overclocking. But I got 3.54 GHZ (256 FSB) on stock voltage (1.5250) which is at par with the earlier best MO's and now am testing for stability at 3.59 GHZ with my vcore voltage up to only 1.5375, one notch higher. I work straight midnights and couldn't do this last night.

My vcore overvolts to about 1.550 idle at the highest off and on and undervolts to about 1.490 full load off and on.

But that is a normal issue with Asus motherboards I have heard.

I need to shutdown and power off.

Peace..

Kedar...

OK. I must add that i have Abit IC7-G board and You Asus and what ppl says Abit shows higher temp (about 8-10C) and also ppl says Asus shows lower temp ; ) I'm not sure how realy is.

Abit does read a little higher than most... maybe 4 to 8 degrees. Nobody really knows if Abit reads high or if the others read low. Regardless, you are still at your limit until you get better cooling (I recommend against raising vcore until you address the cooling situation).

Easy : )
I'm not going to change Vcore . I want to use default as long as it's posible.

What i meant talking about the Temp reding by Abit against Asus was that there would be a diffrence ... or maybe I miss something ; )


Btw , what is the max safe temp for M0 stepping P4 2.8C? 72C=Tcase?

In Intel Processor Specyfication You can read (for SL6Z5) :
Vmax=1.425V , Vmin=1.350V , Icc_max=57.9A , TDP=75.1W , Tcase=72C , Isgnt=32.0A

Personally, I think thats way too high. That is very very close to where the CPU throttles down.

Where did you get those chips from? I am in the market for one.