Barton or Thoroughbred?

[qbas]

Well I tried to skim over most of the thread here after shiyan PMed me. There was alot to read so forgive me if I say something that was already covered

If you have a multimeter available to test your PSU with that would probably give a final answer if your PSU is to blame. I didn't catch what motherboard you used to have, I just saw it was a kt400 chipset? Most older AMD motherboards used to pull cpu power off of the 5v rail. Some newer ones do as well but the NF7-S pulls power off of the 12v rail. Its possible that your PSU just doesn't have the juice on the 12v rail to handle the additional load of the cpu on there.

I also saw some talk of memory timings but I didn't see for sure what timings you were running at qbas? If you have not already tried to loosen your timings you definatly should, this could help diagnose if the memory is the problem. Also if you have not given more voltage to the memory you may want to. I am not familiar with that brand of memory but some brands of high speed memory work better with more voltage. If its just tested and rebadged pc2700 then it may need the additional voltage (some memory is actually only rated to run at the timings and speed they rate it at if you do run more voltage).

Anyways from what I read the PSU seems to be a prime suspect. The bios is not really an accurate measure of the true voltages, however the 12v rail seems to be off ALOT. I would suggest beg borrow or steal a multimeter to find out for sure or just suck it up and invest in a better PSU. Not sure what brands you have available to you over there but a quality brand that has some beef on the 12v rail will go a long ways

Thank you for your post . Well i have tried to use memory timings at the lowest possible and i have used memory voltage at 2.9 (well not tried now when i have put both power connectors on to the board).

Well we have the best option for PSU's: Antec

Oh and i was eyeing this PSU, tell me what you think about this PSU: http://www.nexustek.nl/nx4000.htm

Where could i get a multimeter? From a computerstore?

My old mobo was KT4 Ultra MS-6590 (MSI make). Well if the nForce2 takes power from 12v more it would definetly be my PSU that is causing the problems. But i try to put memory voltages to 2.9 and try again.

 

[shiyan]

That might be a good PSU, but I'd recommend not taking the risk, and getting an Antec instead.

and yeah, the NF7-S does draw from the 12+ line.

multimeter you can get from electronics stores as well.

 

[Deathknight]

Ahh yeah if you can get antec there than that is definatly a good thing not familiar with that other brand you linked to.

 

[c627627]

I got a PM about this thread.

There’s too much info and changes so I don’t know what’s going on so I ‘ll start reading from this post onward but regarding the private message:

MSI KT4 Ultra is a VIA mobo. PC3200 is overkill for it because it’s not PCI locked which means high 180 FSB is the safe limit for it. That’s about how high PC2700 RAM overclocks.

If you have a PCI locked nForce2 mobo, this RAM near guarantees 220 FSB:
http://www.memoryx.net/gn256pc3200.html

PSUs? Here’s the list:

The number of Watts don’t mean s**t, brands do.
Power Supply Unit can take out all your other components.
Many PSU manufacturers list specs that do not reflect true capabilities of their products so all info on the PSU label doesn't mean much except for the brand, just look for the brand: All Antecs (Channel Well) are good (Antec True Power is better), Fortron (Sparkle), Sirtec (Enlight, Vantec, Thermaltake), or more expensive Herolchi (Heroichi), PC Power and Cooling, or not as good but not dangerous HEC, TTGI, Zalman (Aopen).

 

[shiyan]

thanks c627627!

qbas has upgraded to an Abit NF7-S v2.

stability problems persisted with both PC2100 and PC3200, even after using 2.9v, 133Mhz, slowest timings.

it doesn't look like it's the RAM.

it also shouldn't be the Barton 2500+. qbas ran it using 1.75v and default speed of 11x166Mhz, in combination with the RAM at 133Mhz, and P95 still errored out.

it also shouldn't be heat related, as qbas' temps are good.

only thing which has come to my mind is the power supply, which is showing 11.5v on the 12+ line.

 

[qbas]

thanks c627627!

qbas has upgraded to an Abit NF7-S v2.

stability problems persisted with both PC2100 and PC3200, even after using 2.9v, 133Mhz, slowest timings.

it doesn't look like it's the RAM.

it also shouldn't be the Barton 2500+. qbas ran it using 1.75v and default speed of 11x166Mhz, in combination with the RAM at 133Mhz, and P95 still errored out.

it also shouldn't be heat related, as qbas' temps are good.

only thing which has come to my mind is the power supply, which is showing 11.5v on the 12+ line.

Ok i have now a new chassis with Antec's 380W powersupply...i got 2x256MB PC3200 memory when i returned the 512MB and now it works well. No errors on Prime95, but one thing that i'm confused...i have put my 2 memory sticks on 1 and 3 memory slots and it reads as Dual DDR but in windows it reads only at 512MB...how can i check that i'm using 512MB x 2?

 

[shiyan]

So your problems are over? Great!

tell us how far it will go once you get around to overclocking.

Dual channel does not double you RAM's size, just gives you a 60~65% (I think) RAM performance increase compared to single channel DDR.

So if you have 2x256MB installed, then you always have 512MB. This is perfectly fine.

So your voltages are good now?

As for overclocking, leave your all voltages as default, RAM at 200Mhz (1:1 CPU:RAM ratio if you use 200fsb), timings default, and try and see if you can get to 200FSB.

11x166=1826 -> 11x200=2200Mhz.

 

[qbas]

So your problems are over? Great!

tell us how far it will go once you get around to overclocking.

Dual channel does not double you RAM's size, just gives you a 60~65% (I think) RAM performance increase compared to single channel DDR.

So if you have 2x256MB installed, then you always have 512MB. This is perfectly fine.

So your voltages are good now?

As for overclocking, leave your all voltages as default, RAM at 200Mhz (1:1 CPU:RAM ratio if you use 200fsb), timings default, and try and see if you can get to 200FSB.

11x166=1826 -> 11x200=2200Mhz.

Well now i have FSB at 200x10 and tried Prime95 torture test and passed with flying colors . Allthough i don't have pretty good cooler for my CPU i'm glad how everything worked out now...and thanks for the clarification about the Dual DDR, i don't need to worry about that then....i'll try FSB200 with 11multiplier after i have watched some movies....need to have some break from computer, but thank you for helping me with these issues and i will post my findings about FSB200x11.

 

[shiyan]

Nice nice nice! Good to hear! So the PSU was the problem.

Enjoy your movies. You deserve the break!

Try 10.5x200 before you try 11x200 then.

 

[qbas]

Hehehe....another dillemma (dillemmas seem to follow me around ) Well i use 200x11 FSB and it works fine but when i try to change my memory timings my mobo starts to beep long beeps...like this: beep...2 second delay...another long beep...no boot up, have to use <insert> method to get me back up. But at normal settings it works fine...Any ideas? I changed the memory voltage to 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 but no avail.

 

[shiyan]

I didn't have much luck lowering the timings of my RAM too. They were also M-Tec chips.

I haven't had time to experiment, so it is possible that they don't like fast timings, although I'm not sure as I haven't had enough time to fiddle.

 

[qbas]

I didn't have much luck lowering the timings of my RAM too. They were also M-Tec chips.

I haven't had time to experiment, so it is possible that they don't like fast timings, although I'm not sure as I haven't had enough time to fiddle.

Aah ok, well i did get it to work when putting my DDR working at 333Mhz and at 200FSB 10.5...that works. But i got better results on 3Dmark01 when i had FSB at 166 and multiplier at 12 and the DDR timings were lower...about 200 point difference. Well this board is good though that i don't have to remove the case and reset CMOS all i have to do is shut down computer press <Insert> and then turn it on and turn the computer off again holding the <Insert> and then again power on and voïla, boots again and i can try new settings again...only annoyance is the beeps.

 

[qbas]

Hey how much can i safely increase the AGP frequancy from 66?

 

[Deathknight]

Glad to here the new PSU solved your issues As for dual channel memory well on an AMD machine it has less significance than it does for an Intel, maybe a 5% boost to system performance (when you consider that running in dual channel typically will limit your maximum fsb a little bit).

 

[c627627]

nForce2 mobos have a PCI lock. Leave the AGP alone I'd say.

Up Vdimm and Vcore to get as high of an FSB as you can while adjusting the multiplier.

 

[qbas]

Well my settings now are:

FSB 170x12 with 1.75 Vcore (temperature in Winbond Hardware doctor is 50.50 celsius)

Memory timings: 5-2-2-2.5 with 2.8 DDR voltage.

Is this better than having a FSB 200x11 with stock memory timings? 7-3-3-2.5

 

[Deathknight]

Is this better than having a FSB 200x11 with stock memory timings? 7-3-3-2.5 is definatly better for 2 reasons. First off its more CPU speed and 2nd off its more fsb speed. Memory timings do make a difference but first and foremost FSB is important and then CPU speed. Timings typically can be sacrificed for more FSB.

 

[qbas]

Is this better than having a FSB 200x11 with stock memory timings? 7-3-3-2.5 is definatly better for 2 reasons. First off its more CPU speed and 2nd off its more fsb speed. Memory timings do make a difference but first and foremost FSB is important and then CPU speed. Timings typically can be sacrificed for more FSB.

Ok i have now FSB at 200x11 with Vcore at 1.7 and i have memory timings at 8-3-3-2.5 (optimal), if i try to go lower my mobo starts to make long beeps.

 

[qbas]

Ok now i have FSB at 200 and multiplier at 11.5 but i had to dumb Vcore to 1.8 (54.5 celsius at the moment)...what is the extreme max for CPU temperature?

 

[shiyan]

well... I remember hitechjb1 saying how you should stay below 65C.

but I wouldn't recommend going any further before you get a better heatsink.

but 2300Mhz from a 2500+ is quite a nice overclock.