Burst Length?

[Quarl]

I'm trying to OC my new system. It's a P4C 800-E Delux with a 2.6 P4 and 2 x 512mg Mushkin 3500 L2 RAM.

I started by setting the RAM timings to 2,2,2,5 and the last setting is Burst Length and I can choose 4 or 8. What is burst length and which is the better choice? I set it to 4 (going with the lower is better theme) but I'm not sure which is best.

Also I'm a little worried about temperatures. I just have stock cooling and wanted to see if I could at least get 3.0ghz on that. However, my idle temps according to asusprobe is about 35 C and when running prime95 at 50% capacity it was all the way up to 50 C, and this is at the default 2.6 ghz. Any suggestions on what I can do to fix this? I'm a little worried I might have put too much AS 5 on and plan to go back and wipe most of it off tonight.

I have a Xaser III 3000A with the 7 stock fans (which I plan on modding a little to improve airflow).

Sorry about the newb questions but this stuff is really complicated and none of the guides answers a lot of my questions or aren't specific enough for me. Plus I'm worried I'm going to blow up the processor or something.

 

[ciku]

I'd say go for 8 burst length, with the memory you have, it should support 1,4,8 burst length... and with temps, they say mother board monitor 5 (mbm 5) is more accurate, try that one... and since u have 7 fans, make sure your airflow is good.. front in, back out, or top left side in, bottom left side out... i'm only using 4 fans and temp idle with mobo and cpu is 29C

 

[Quarl]

Is having a higher burst length better?

 

[ciku]

as what I have read... yes it is better having higher burst length...

 

[craigmci]

wow almost identical systems,had mine 1 week!!I also had the same question,but never got an answer.
Do yo know about 2 other settings?
dram idleTIMER/infin,0t,8t,16t,64tor auto
and dram refresh rate/auto,15.6usec ,7.8 usec,64 usec or 64t?
I should hAVE GOT THE PC3500

 

[ciku]

use 64/64 for both

 

[craigmci]

ill try that thanks

 

[ciku]

np and lemme know the results

 

[Grandpa Dan]

8 is more aggressive for the burst length setting. For idle timer and refresh rate I've tried multiple combinations of settings to find no real boost in performance and so I leave mine both on auto. If you must 7.8 and infinite are supposedly the best settings.

Here is a guide to all bios settings.

 

[ciku]

I suggested 64/64 since in the forums, specially here, i noticed that they use that.. with their relaxed timings, they are prime stable me myself, im using auto as of the moment...

 

[craigmci]

i tried 64/64 last nite.Ran prime overnight no errors.But i also backed off to 239fsb.I am also using 8 clocks for burst.
I am wondering what to try to get higher with no errors??or am i maxed now??
Possibly turbo and pat disabled.Would i get higher?Itried 2.5,3,3,7(2,3,3,6 now) but didnt seem to hjelp(at 243 fsb)still got errors

 

[craigmci]

Just to let you know when i used 64,64 i ran 3dmark03,lost 8 or 9 points on cpu test 1,so i switched both to auto and got the points back.
Thanks for the help guys,going to keep playing around here.Ill let you know results

 

[ciku]

u using stock hs&f?

 

[craigmci]

no a coolermaster jet 4

 

[ciku]

hmmm thats a good hs&f as what i have read...

 

[craigmci]

My temps dont go over 40.

 

[ciku]

at full load? 100% cpu usage? that's cool!

 

[Quarl]

Wish I had those temps. I'm on stock cooling and go from 32c cold idle to 54 or so under prime 95 load. It does seem stable though, ran it for over 7 hours and no errors.

2,2,2,5 8 burst length. Left everything else on auto.

Speaking of, I have an issue with the vcore on this motherboard. I had it set to auto and under asusprobe it shows the vcore fluctuating from 1.58 to 1.60. I've tried setting it lower to 1.55 or 1.75 and it still jumps up to 1.6.

Now I don't want any CPU death so this worries me. Am I right to worry or should it be ok at those voltages?

 

[Propilot]

All Asus boards have a vcore fluctuation.
Don't worry about it.

 

[ciku]

yup, thats pretty normal.. what ram u using? seems ur timings are very agressive.. btw, u overclocking? or not?