Abit VH6-2 Softmenu question

[Godfodda]

Can someone explain to me the settings in Abit's SoftMenu for DRAM Clock? I don't understand it and the manual doesn't help. I have mine set at Host Clock, but I'm wondering if changing this to HCLK-PCICLK might ease some instability at high FSB.

I'm stable at 155. 157 offers occasional faults (software), and above that is rife with errors. BTW, the CPU is a PIII 733 (133FSB).

 

[JuDgE_DrEaD]

Well host clock generally just means that your memory and fsb are runing at the same speed: 155. If you change it to HCLK-PCICLK the memory clock will run at an asynchronous(independant speed). HCLK-PCICLK means the speed will be 155 subtracted by the pci bus speed which at 155 is probably 39, which is the reccomended max for your pci bus. The speed should then be 116..hope this helps(if its right)...my 0.02 cents

 

[batboy]

Anything above 155 FSB gets extremely hard to reach. I'm in the same boat, 155 is stable, but 157 becames unstable. Northbridge chip cooling becames critical at those high speeds. You also need better than average air flow across the motherboard. Sometimes a heatsink installed on the ICS clock generator helps a little at high bus speed. Only the best RAM will run at those speeds. You need good quality PC-150 at a minimum unless you have memory bus divider settings.

 

[outhouse]

Yep setting your memory timing to minus clock speed will help as your running your memory over spec's. using sisandra you can benchmark your memory to make up for your loss when setting it to minus clock speed. You can try running with cas 2 at minusclock speed as well as set it to turbo in Advanced Chipset Features this will help your bandwidth, if it becomes unstable try lower settings until its stable again, like cas 3 and the fast setting medium ect ect

goodluck

 

[Godfodda]

Okay. I've set it to HCLK-PCICLK and I'm running at 160 FSB with no problems so far. WinME would previously halt at this speed, but it starts and restarts okay now. Also, I was having problems at 150+ with SETI causing faults at shutdown/restart, but now it's well behaved. All this is at default voltage, too (1.65).

Also moved one of my fans and laid an intel CPU fan near the NB. I have a spare 486 fan that will fit almost perfectly on the NB heatsink, so I may attach that when I get around to finding some screws.

Let Win get used to this speed and then time to shoot for >160.