Need some help with my 3200 Venice

[SuperDave1685]

Hi guys.... just got a 3200 Venice last week and I've been trying to get her to 2.6Ghz with no luck so far. I made the mistake of going all out and setting the HTT to 260, bumping my vcore up to 1.650 (1.500v x 110% special) (Also my board seems to undervolt by around .05v....), upping the RAM voltage to 2.8v with the +.03v enabled... Ended up corrupting driver installations, crashing Prime95, Super PI, and an overall murdered Windows install So... here I am.. I reinstalled Windows last night with these settings as reccomended by SteveOCZ here on the forums:

Try these out

FSB Bus Frequency............................. 250 MHz
LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio....................... Auto
CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio....................... 8
PCI eXpress Frequency......................... 100

CPU Voltage .................................. 1.400v
LDT Voltage .................................. 1.30v
ChipSet (NF4) Voltage ........................ 1.60V
DRAM Voltage ................................. 2.60v
+0.03 if not 3.2V ............................ enable

Memclock (DRAM Frequency) .................... 200
1T/2T Timing (Command Per Clock).............. 1T
CAS Latency (Tcl)............................. 2.5T
RAS# to CAS# delay (Trcd)..................... 4T
Min RAS# active time (Tras)................... 8T
Row precharge time (Trp)...................... 4T
Row Cycle time (Trc).......................... 11T
Row refresh cyc time (Trfc)................... 16T
Row to Row delay (Trrd)....................... 3T
Write recovery time (Twr)..................... 3T
Write to Read delay (Twtr).................... 2T
Read to Write delay (Trwt).................... 3T
Refresh Period (Tref)......................... 3120
DRAM Bank Interleave.......................... Enabled

DQS Skew Control.............................. Auto
DQS Skew Value................................ 0
DRAM Drive Strength........................... Normal 3 or 4 (called Level 6 or 8 in other bios')
DRAM Data Drive Strength...................... Level 2
Max Async Latency............................. 8ns
DRAM Response Time............................ Normal
Read Preamble Time............................ 6ns
IdleCycle Limit............................... 256
Dynamic Counter............................... Disable
R/W Queue Bypass.............................. 16x
Bypass Max.................................... 7x
32 Byte Granularity........................... Disable (4 Bursts)

The only things I changed a little from those timings was my Tras, which I set at 9 and my DRAM voltage- which I set to 2.8v (which is whats on the sticker on the RAM)... Now heres the fun part... I finished installing all the Windows updates and video, sound, and chipset drivers. I opened up Prime95 to prime the computer while my wife and I went out to eat and to go fishing I came home about 4 hours later to see that it had failed Prime after only 2 minutes!!! At stock volts, stock clocks for the cpu, and stock HTT (250HTT x 4x LDT)...WTH?? :
My RAM is OCZ PC4000, rated at 2.5-4-4-7 according to the sticker on the heatspreader (CPU-Z reports it as 2.5-5-5-9 though??) Any help guys?



P.S. I ran a quick test of Memtest last night with the HTT at 260, vcore at 1.650v (1.500 x 110%), CPU Multiplier at 10x, LDT at 4x, vdimm at 2.8v + .03v enabled, and the RAM at 2.5-4-4-8 and 2.5-4-4-9 (ran two tests) and I got 2 errors on test 5 and 6 errors on test 8... Don't know if that's acceptable or not... I ran all 10 tests as well

 

[Sir. BOBSONATOR]

Dude, thats way too mucho voltages.

Try 250 X 4, ram 1:1 Vcore 1.45

 

[iLLestOne]

From my experience, just run like 2 loops of test 8 for quick testing. Test 8 always seems to give errors the quickest.

And to be stable, you should have ZERO errors. So your probably failed prime due to your ram....I'm not fimiliar with that ram, so I can't help you. Try a quick run at 250, 2.5-5-5-9 and see if you get any errors. If you do, you might have defective ram.....

 

[SuperDave1685]

yea.... I ran memtest last night while I went to the ER with my wife... I checked it this morning... 650 errors!! all on test 8... I think it said it ran 24 passes... I ran the ram at 2.5-4-4-9 with 2.8v (+.03v disabled) at 250 HTT (LDT-4x, vcore-1.400v, cpu multi-8x)... guess it could be my RAM, eh?

 

[TeaBoy]

yea.... I ran memtest last night while I went to the ER with my wife... I checked it this morning... 650 errors!! all on test 8... I think it said it ran 24 passes... I ran the ram at 2.5-4-4-9 with 2.8v (+.03v disabled) at 250 HTT (LDT-4x, vcore-1.400v, cpu multi-8x)... guess it could be my RAM, eh?

Hmm, you might want to raise the vCore volts a bit; 1.4v seems a little low for 250 but not impossible. The only thing I would suggest is to loosen the ram timings some more until they are stable. Then if the ram deosn't perform to the timings specified you could always RMA the sticks?

Also, this is a shot in the dark, but some DFI Lanparty motherboards have to have the AGP bus speed set to 67 or 68 Mhz for the lock to work. Won't do any harm to try.

 

[SuperDave1685]

I have a nF4 SLI-DR... no AGP Port ... Yea I tried loosening the timings to 3-5-5-9 with 2.8v with the "+ .03v if DRAM is below 3.2v" enabled.... no avail...

 

[KillrBuckeye]

It definitely sounds like your RAM can't run at its rated speeds and timings. Have you tried running 2T? I know everybody is in love with 1T, but it really doesn't make much difference outside of benchmarking. Your other option is to run a memory divider, but you probably don't want to do that considering you shelled out cash for good RAM with the intention of running 1:1.

Another word of advice: make an image of your OS partition (saved to another partition or physical drive) using Ghost or Acronis True Image before shooting for the limits of your hardware. Unstable memory settings will quickly corrupt an OS, and it's bound to happen again if you keep playing around with the settings. You can restore the OS image in about 5 minutes, and that sure beats spending 1-3 hours on a full reinstallation.

 

[TeaBoy]

I have a nF4 SLI-DR... no AGP Port ...

Oops, sorry missed the SLI bit, lol. Yeah I would go with what KillrBuckeye said. Try 2T to see if it helps. If it can't run 2T then I think your RAM needs to be RMA'd. How long have you had it?

 

[TeaBoy]

Just a thought but can you run the recommened memory timings when you only have 1 stick of RAM installed? How long have you had that Antec Neo Power 480W PSU? It might not be relevent but I had to replace my 3 year old Antec True Blue 480W PSU this week as it was starting to die on me. Perhaps yours is getting long in the tooth?

Edit: This thread says that the recommended memory timings for PC4000 (DDR500) OCZ/512MB/Dual CH EL are CL3,4,4,8. Have you tried this?

 

[SuperDave1685]

Teaboy- yep I tried those this morning... same thing... within seconds, errors on test 8. I bought my NeoPower back sometime last year... I think spring of 2005.. I've checked the rails and they're all strong and well within spec... 12v is putting out 12.1v, 3.3v is putting out 3.35v, and 5v is putting out 4.96v...

Buckeye- Yes I tried 2T at 2.5-5-5-9 with no avail either.. spits out errors on test 8 as well...

I got the RAM in December of 2004 I thinks its dying

 

[TeaBoy]

That's a shame, I can't think of anything else. I wasn't aware that RAM could die over time but maybe it does degrade. Where you running the RAM at 3200 speeds before?

 

[KillrBuckeye]

I got the RAM in December of 2004 I thinks its dying

I've had 2 sets of 2x512MB Ballistix go bad on me, and in each case only 1 of the modules went bad. As somebody else mentioned, you could try running 1 stick at a time to determine if only 1 is bad. This might allow you to find the limits of your CPU if you're dying to know .

I wasn't aware that RAM could die over time but maybe it does degrade.

Yep, each of my first 2 Ballistix sets lasted a few months before dying. My current set has been running strong for a few months now. Also, if you do some searching around about the Ballistix 1GB modules, you will see that a LOT of people had these modules go bad over time.

 

[SuperDave1685]

I think I'll just RMA them and get a new set... hopefully the Rev 2 ones with the Hynix D5 chips... I was running the RAM on my old Athlon XP Setup at 238FSB at 2.5-4-4-8 if I remember right...

 

[TeaBoy]

I guess that's why I like my XP-90; blows cool air on the RAM sticks. (I'm assuming heat is a factor in RAM degradation).

Good luck with the replacements. Let us know if the new sticks work.

 

[SuperDave1685]

well they never really got hot... maybe a bit warm to the touch, but never hot...I had an SI-97 on my Athlon Xp setup

 

[SuperDave1685]

locked up after trying Prime at 230HTT x 10 with the RAM at a 133 divider and 2.8v... my RAM!! well I sent off for an RMA request.. we'll wait and see.. any ideas as to why it crapped out?

 

[freeagent]

locked up after trying Prime at 230HTT x 10 with the RAM at a 133 divider and 2.8v... my RAM!! well I sent off for an RMA request.. we'll wait and see.. any ideas as to why it crapped out?

i expereinced a similar situation with my ram.. its rated at cas 2.5, butwill not run at that speed, it will run only cas2. on my nf7-s i was able to run at 240mhz fsb 2-3-3-11. then when i moved to my 939 system, useing the an8 sli fatality i was only able to get the same ram to do 233mhz max at 2-3-3-8. then my fat died and went for rma, and i got a cheap asus a8n sli, and was able to run 240mhz at 2-3-3-7. maybe you need to try a diff bios for those chips?

 

[SuperDave1685]

well the thing is I'm using the 704 Bios as reccomended by OCZ reps... maybe I'll try flashing it when I get home...thanks for the suggestion!