Gigabyte P35-DS3R....I love it

[thisisapen]

Meh..
just hit 8 hours of PRIME95.. almost exact, give or take a few minute (though one went on for another 2 hours) and I got an error, one core went down, and another followed.

not sure if this is 99% stable because that's an awful long time.. or are we looking for 100% running time with PRIME95? As in 24hour+

I'm gonna bump my vcore by a notch regardless and cross my fingers.

 

[Sam__]

Meh..
just hit 8 hours of PRIME95.. almost exact, give or take a few minute (though one went on for another 2 hours) and I got an error, one core went down, and another followed.

not sure if this is 99% stable because that's an awful long time.. or are we looking for 100% running time with PRIME95? As in 24hour+

I'm gonna bump my vcore by a notch regardless and cross my fingers.

It depends on how long ur gunna run it for in one go.....if its gunna be on 24/7 then it needs to be 100%.
I personally dont run 24/7 as my comp is right next to my bed and there is no way im getting to sleep with a few 100+cfm fans on,lol. I tend to run it when im awake so maybe 10hours a day on ave. I like mine to be 8 hours stable...i have no need for it being 24+ hours stable.

 

[JamesXP]

Memtest86+

 

[thisisapen]

Memtest86+

Doesn't seem to work and I have no idea why. I burnt it using two drives, one in a laptop, one on this computer. It'll say "loading...." the drive will spin up then nothing.

I've disabled legacy support and stuff in the BIOS, any idea what could cause this?

Edit; also for you overclockers using this board, is it normal to increase your northbridge and FSB voltage by +0.2 or even +0.3? I havent read any guide that even hints towards needing to increase these, yet going up to 1.5v doesn't help my CPU stay stable, and my RAM isn't overclocked at all.

 

[Femto]

Sweet, glad you're having nice results with it. I'm going to pick up the P35-DS3L within the next couple weeks, by xmas and hope I have as good results as you do

 

[disk11]

Man, I max out at 420 fsb. Maybe its my chip, since the stock vcore is 1.35

 

[hypertek]

hey guys i swapped my p965 s3 back in and it just seems to be more stable, rocking 463x8 right now, jus a hair under 3.7 and rock solid stable.... Im thinkin the ds3r was a dud.. ill see about an RMA.. otherwise my S3 is more then satisfying..

 

[thisisapen]

Man, I max out at 420 fsb. Maybe its my chip, since the stock vcore is 1.35

I've got the exact same problem.

Also this board/CPU/RAM is ****ing me off no end. At the moment I'm at 1.4v CPU in the BIOS, which apparently is being read at 1.29/1.3v (fluxuates) by CPU-Z, yet it doesn't change when I increase the voltage by small amounts (0.25ish) yet the tempatures do.

So I whack my RAM to 2.1, since it isn't overclocked and is running complete stock (PC2-6400/800Mhz), my FSB and Northbridge to +0.2 and yeah, my CPU to 1.4v for 3.2Ghz (8*400), yet PRIME85 STILL won't run stable.

I've booted up into windows and ran memory tests with this RAM running at 1050+Mhz, 5-5-5-18, so I am certain it isn't the RAM, and I can't believe I'd need more FSB/Northbridge as I'm only at 400FSB.

Only idea is that it's the CPU but that seems to be fine at 2.8Ghz at about 1.3v in the BIOS



I suppose I need to re-go over each part again to find out which is weak.. after I pump the CPU voltage to 1.45v.

edit; According to CPU-Z I'm at 1.325v, looking around online they're people hitting 3.6Ghz stable using 1.35v :/ I don't really want to push it past this as I'm hitting 65C full load pretty easily. Lord help me if I try to hit 3.6Ghz ever.

edit again; Same things happening at 2.8Ghz too. With about 1.3v which is more than enough, same +0.4v DDR, +0.2v Northbridge/FSB
I need to try to burn MEMTEST for the fourth time I guess.

 

[Blazing fire]

This review certainly bodes well for when i WC it.

http://sg.vr-zone.com/articles/Gigabyte_P35-DS3R_Intel_Bearlake_Review/4966-8.html

Wow, 1.2v at 4ghz. Seams like quads clock better than duo. I thought it was the other way around.

 

[Blazing fire]

Meh..
just hit 8 hours of PRIME95.. almost exact, give or take a few minute (though one went on for another 2 hours) and I got an error, one core went down, and another followed.

not sure if this is 99% stable because that's an awful long time.. or are we looking for 100% running time with PRIME95? As in 24hour+

I'm gonna bump my vcore by a notch regardless and cross my fingers.

You better! I got errors at 9th hour, drop fsb by 2, 11th hour error. Running 24 hours now.

 

[Blazing fire]

I've got the exact same problem.

Also this board/CPU/RAM is ****ing me off no end. At the moment I'm at 1.4v CPU in the BIOS, which apparently is being read at 1.29/1.3v (fluxuates) by CPU-Z, yet it doesn't change when I increase the voltage by small amounts (0.25ish) yet the tempatures do.

So I whack my RAM to 2.1, since it isn't overclocked and is running complete stock (PC2-6400/800Mhz), my FSB and Northbridge to +0.2 and yeah, my CPU to 1.4v for 3.2Ghz (8*400), yet PRIME85 STILL won't run stable.

I've booted up into windows and ran memory tests with this RAM running at 1050+Mhz, 5-5-5-18, so I am certain it isn't the RAM, and I can't believe I'd need more FSB/Northbridge as I'm only at 400FSB.

Only idea is that it's the CPU but that seems to be fine at 2.8Ghz at about 1.3v in the BIOS



I suppose I need to re-go over each part again to find out which is weak.. after I pump the CPU voltage to 1.45v.

edit; According to CPU-Z I'm at 1.325v, looking around online they're people hitting 3.6Ghz stable using 1.35v :/ I don't really want to push it past this as I'm hitting 65C full load pretty easily. Lord help me if I try to hit 3.6Ghz ever.

edit again; Same things happening at 2.8Ghz too. With about 1.3v which is more than enough, same +0.4v DDR, +0.2v Northbridge/FSB
I need to try to burn MEMTEST for the fourth time I guess.

Isn't vcore not linear to the speed of the CPU?

 

[Sam__]

Isn't vcore not linear to the speed of the CPU?

very true....usually you can get the best out of the chip upto 1.5v and anything above that doesnt really warrant the heat unless you can cool it very well. (water or extreme)

Wow, 1.2v at 4ghz. Seams like quads clock better than duo. I thought it was the other way around.

Its a dual...look at the cores. I dont see how it shows 1.2v in cpuz....it must be wrong...i swear i read it was using 1.6.

Man, I max out at 420 fsb. Maybe its my chip, since the stock vcore is 1.35

Interesting to see that some of you are hitting FSB walls at only 420....have you tried +0.3v? thats what i set mine to to get 490.btw the 490 that i got i did not stress test at all so its probably unstable making it an unrealistic figure...i just got into windows and cpuz'd it then restarted.

After long talks with my PSU vendor i should be getting a new one mid next week so i will be testing my rig thoroughly and bringing back any results i find.

 

[disk11]

I've got the exact same problem.

Also this board/CPU/RAM is ****ing me off no end. At the moment I'm at 1.4v CPU in the BIOS, which apparently is being read at 1.29/1.3v (fluxuates) by CPU-Z, yet it doesn't change when I increase the voltage by small amounts (0.25ish) yet the tempatures do.

Don't use CPU-Z to check voltage, it is way off. Though you are right this board has some vdroop issues, hence why this board isn't too good for quads. IIRC, my board droops around 0.07 volts or so under load at stock speed and vcore. We need a vdroop mod, but I haven't seen one that works.

Interesting to see that some of you are hitting FSB walls at only 420....have you tried +0.3v? thats what i set mine to to get 490.btw the 490 that i got i did not stress test at all so its probably unstable making it an unrealistic figure...i just got into windows and cpuz'd it then restarted.

I've got FSB and NB voltage set to 0.3. One of the problems I noticed is a 19-bot practice server in CS:Source runs perfectly fine at 430 fsb, but when I play online it locks up within 5 minutes. I dunno how to remedy this, and I've been a bit busy with the Orange Box and school winding down.

 

[Sam__]

Don't use CPU-Z to check voltage, it is way off. Though you are right this board has some vdroop issues, hence why this board isn't too good for quads. IIRC, my board droops around 0.07 volts or so under load at stock speed and vcore. We need a vdroop mod, but I haven't seen one that works.

Iv seen some volt mods around for this board. ill see if i can find em again n post some linkies

 

[Sam__]

Found one:

Now, there are 2 mods you can do. If you're loading up the CPU heavy with voltage and high speeds, and if you notice that the voltage swings between idle and load is quite big, then you may consider the VDroop mod. Pencil the SMD capacitor seen below to reduce the droop. Alternatively, you can solder on a 500K ohms Variable resistor across the 2 points shown. Set at Max 500K ohms, Decrease resistance until you find very little droop in VCore. .

I may try the pencil mod if i find that mine as a large vdroop

 

[Sam__]

Another thing to consider is the PCI-e speed....apparently overclocks are better if its set to auto, and the pci-e voltage...maybe try upping that if your one of the ones stuck at 420-430.

 

[thisisapen]

So apparently all my overclocking stability issues have came from one place..
a dodgy stick of 2GB RAM. I got the same error twice while testing in dual channel, so I took out a stick and let it run, and got an error with exactly HALF the MB value of the error while in dual channel.

I'm running with only one stick of 2GB at the moment which is painful but atleast it works, I hope.

I also reaised I had to set my drive to IDE because it was set as AHCI as it's a SATA DVD burner, otherwise MEMTEST refused to run.

 

[Sam__]

So apparently all my overclocking stability issues have came from one place..
a dodgy stick of 2GB RAM. I got the same error twice while testing in dual channel, so I took out a stick and let it run, and got an error with exactly HALF the MB value of the error while in dual channel.

I'm running with only one stick of 2GB at the moment which is painful but atleast it works, I hope.

I also reaised I had to set my drive to IDE because it was set as AHCI as it's a SATA DVD burner, otherwise MEMTEST refused to run.

methinks you should RMA the RAM then. I didnt realize you were running 2x2gb...would that put more stress on the nb and thus decrease max OC?just a thought.

Interesting bout the DVD drive.

 

[disk11]

Found one:



I may try the pencil mod if i find that mine as a large vdroop

On XS they say it doesn't work, any a lot of people said it increased the vdroop.

Seems to be a new suggestion here: http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=190342&page=2

 

[thisisapen]

methinks you should RMA the RAM then. I didnt realize you were running 2x2gb...would that put more stress on the nb and thus decrease max OC?just a thought.

Interesting bout the DVD drive.

Yeah I'm definately RMA this RAM, it goes to the manufactuer right? My first faulty piece of hardware in 7 years, not so bad of a record I guess.
And I have no idea if it'd put more stress on the NB, but I am guessing so.
Running in single channel is painful

I knew it had got serious when Crysis stopped working, so I closed it down and rebooted. Turns out it corrupted EVERY SINGLE PROFILE in Crysis, and I guess the game. Now I've lost all my progress :/

I'm grateful it isn't my motherboard though, or is that still a possibility?