Help overclock my AMD x6 1100t..

[dedeij]

Hey all, i'm new here, and new to overclocking in General.

I was having a few issues I thought you guys could help me with.

My systerm
Sabertooth 990fx
Phenom x6 1100t cpu
4x8(32gb)Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz ram 10-10-10-27
Xfx Radeon 6950 2gb version
Zalman 9700 cpu cooler.
1tb WD black adition HDD
256gb samsung 830 SSD

ok, here is my issue, I can't get my RAM to run on 1600mhz, and after doing a little reading someone had said the 1100t memory is only capable of 1333mhz,

I ran memtest86 when the RAM was at 1600mhz and I got Errors galore. Backed it off to 1333mhz, and memtest ran fine with no errors. I thought I seen someone mention that you could overclock the CPU so it can support fastest RAM speeds, but I've never done any overclocking aside from setting bios to turbo mode. So I guess my question is do I need a new CPU to run 1600mhz RAM or is there a something I can do to get this CPU to utilize the RAM?

 

[ice445]

Thubans can run 1600 ram no problems, so it sounds like one of your ram sticks is faulty (aka, not able to run at advertised speeds). Try running one stick at a time at 1600 until you get to the one that can't, and RMA.

Actually I didn't see that you were running 32GB of ram. Even a thuban might have challenges running that much ram at that high a speed. Before you try the first thing, bump CPU/NB voltage up to around 1.25 and retest.

 

[boucher91]

prolly have ti give the nb-cpu voltage a slight bump as well as the mem itself..
but it might not like 4 sticks at 1600..lots have trouble running 1600+ with 4 sticks

 

[storm-chaser]

there's not "lots" of trouble when using four memory sticks. It does put an extra load on the system but for the most part, they work fine if you have a decent power supply.

The thuban only does 1333 ram, however, the majority of newer boards will support 1600 (IE have a setting in the bios called overclock. enable it. then you should see a DRAM section. Go in there. Everything will be set to auto, which could be giving the 1600ram incorrect timings or voltage, may be your problem. XMP works great with intel, with AMD it SUCKS oftem times you have to set the timings manually. So anyway, that will be set to auto, switch it to manual and it should bring up a list of available memory speeds. if you have a cheap motherboard, it may be limited to only supporting ddr3 1333. If you see an option for 1600, select it. Then below it will be set to auto again for all the timings. You will want to again select DCT0 and fill out the proper timings and you should have no trouble.

Also try with just two sticks of ram. and make sure the RAM voltage is correct.
The timings on your ram seem very low performance, just fyi

 

[trents]

A little clarity here. The Thuban ICM (Integrated Memory Controller) is "officially" rated at 1333 mhz, just like it's predecessors but it's ICM is in fact more robust than those before it and it will generally do ram at 1600 mhz without a problem. More than likely there is a problem with the ram timings in this case as when you buy ram rated for 1600 mhz it is usually 1333 mhz ram that will do 1600 mhz in "XMP" mode (xtreme Memory Profile) which generally requires manually setting the timings and voltage. Most motherboards don't do the XMP level settings correctly on Auto.

dedeij, configure your memory to run at 1333 for the moment. Then please download and install a free program called CPU-z. Run the program and click on these three tabs to view the information they contain: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD". The Memory tab will reveal what your current ram settings are. The SPD tab will reveal what the manufacturer suggests for timings and voltages at various frequencies. Then please upload screenshots of those same thee tabs. To do that, crop them with Windows Accessories Snipping Tool. Then click on the Go Advanced button at the bottom of any new post window. That will take you to the Advanced Post view. Go to the top and click on the little paperclip tool. That will load the built in file browser and uploader tool. The rest is obvious.

Having said that, as others have said, there could be more problem running ram at 1600 with four sticks. As boucher said, bumping the CPU/NB voltage up to about 1.225 may help as might giving the ram itself a voltage bump of about .05.

 

[dedeij]

Ok here is the CPU-Z screen shots

I also added a screen shot of my mobo, because someone said that if i had I slower mobo it wouldn't recognize it.









Also could someone tell me why when I run 3Dmark 11
it says my GPU core clock is 250mhz, and memory at 150mhz?

specifications for the card say core clock 800mhz
and memory clock 1250mhz

I don't know if this is normal, or if there is a setting somewhere I need to change it to use the card properly.

 

[trents]

I just noticed from your first post that you are running 32gb of ram? You're kidding, right? I'm not sure I've run across anybody on this forum that has had that much ram installed before. There is no way you will run that much ram at 1600 mhz on a Thuban. Just too much strain on the ICM. What in the world kind of computing do you do that you need so much ram?

 

[dedeij]

I just noticed from your first post that you are running 32gb of ram? You're kidding, right? I'm not sure I've run across anybody on this forum that has had that much ram installed before. There is no way you will run that much ram at 1600 mhz on a Thuban. Just too much strain on the ICM. What in the world kind of computing do you do that you need so much ram?

I have that much installed because I'm in school for network engineering and i'm starting to play with VMware quite a bit, having at least 4 Vmware stations running server 2008, and one running XP, but also one running Cent Os,(honestly just so i can play with it.) so right there is I wanted to give each machine 2gb ram, then that would be 12gb just for my VMmachines, sure 16gb would be fine...but then that only leaves my host machine with 4gb, I know it's overkill, but figured if I eventually(my goal) wanted to run a complete VMware based network then i'd need at least 4 client machines as well...that adds another 8Gb for a total of 20gb ram being used....i'm not there yet...but I plan on being able to do that so I can take down, and troubleshoot my network anytime I want without fear of breaking my host machine.

 

[storm-chaser]

I have that much installed because I'm in school for network engineering and i'm starting to play with VMware quite a bit, having at least 4 Vmware stations running server 2008, and one running XP, but also one running Cent Os,(honestly just so i can play with it.) so right there is I wanted to give each machine 2gb ram, then that would be 12gb just for my VMmachines, sure 16gb would be fine...but then that only leaves my host machine with 4gb, I know it's overkill, but figured if I eventually(my goal) wanted to run a complete VMware based network then i'd need at least 4 client machines as well...that adds another 8Gb for a total of 20gb ram being used....i'm not there yet...but I plan on being able to do that so I can take down, and troubleshoot my network anytime I want without fear of breaking my host machine.

Seems like a decent motherboard you should be about to run your memory at 1600mhz, using the XMP mem settings. 2T command rate perhaps will help. Have you gone in and set the memory timings accordingly?

But gosh, 4 vms on there is going to slow you down a bit I'd suspect. I hope you did all of your mem testing with the vms off??

You could try taking two of the memory modules out, use the other two in dual channel to see if it makes a difference may allow you to run 1600mhz.

A little clarity here. The Thuban ICM (Integrated Memory Controller) is "officially" rated at 1333 mhz, just like it's predecessors but it's ICM is in fact more robust than those before it and it will generally do ram at 1600 mhz without a problem. More than likely there is a problem with the ram timings in this case as when you buy ram rated for 1600 mhz it is usually 1333 mhz ram that will do 1600 mhz in "XMP" mode (xtreme Memory Profile) which generally requires manually setting the timings and voltage. Most motherboards don't do the XMP level settings correctly on Auto.

Additional clarity, the ram he purchased is true 1600mhz hardware (see JEDEC #4) in the cpuz screenshot. Also, the XMP profile is an Intel creation, so it obviously won’t auto fill timings on an AMD system, however, on an Intel system, it will fill in all the correct timings and voltages, pretty nice feature.

So you have to set everything manually, as trents suggested. Your motherboard supports 1600 ram, so I'd capitalize on that if you can. But 32GB, especially with 4 chips is pushing it, I'd drop it down to two follow trents advice to assure proper timings @ 2T command rate and re-check your memory. Not impressed with the timings on that ram, not that you will notice a huge difference, but you can get XMS3 corsair memory for about the same cost with timings of 7-8-7-20 @ 1600mhz vs yours @ 10-10-10-27. Timings are crucial if you want a real snappy system.