IC7 MAX3 OC help

[confused]

history:

I typically run Asus boards as of late however, after RMA'ing 3 P4C800E's I bought the IC7 MAX3 because of the features and from what i have read online in reviews the OC'in potential of the board.

I have a 2.6C and Kingston HyperX RAM (2 sticks of 512) ATI AIW 9800 Pro and an SP94 with a thermaltake 92 mm smart fan on it. I have micro sinked all the VRM's mosfets.

Why cant i seem to figure out how to OC this thing. I am running BIOS 16. The oc'in settings are somewhat different for me but still i have tried everything short of putting the thing in the freezer. Would someone just give me somewhere to start with the settings or could someone explain some of the settings in the CPU overclocking screen please.

Thanks in advance
confused, thoroughly

 

[veryhumid]

dude first of all open your manual , lots of good stuff in there starting at page 3-2.

So now go into your bios. You will find all the cpu stuff and voltages in the first option in the bios "softmenu setup". If you are trying to max your overclock with a 1:1 ratio between fsb and memory turn up DDR voltage to 2.8 or so, then turn up cpu volts to 1.65 MAX. Fix your agp/pci frequency at 66/33 and then increase fsb where it says "ext. clock". good luck

by the way what kind of memory do you have. pc????.

 

[confused]

DDR 500 (see sig)

I have done all this before and had nothing but flashing the CMOS failures, i have:

Fixed the AGP PCI bus at 66/33
turned the power up on the chip to 1.6 v
set the memory to 800MHz FSB
set the memory to 1:1
turned the power on the memory to 2.8v
i tried 225 FSB and nothing but CMOS time

I was just wondering if there are some tricks in the Softmemu that helps with the OC'in or if the memory settings have a trick to them

thanks

 

[veryhumid]

do you get any specific error message? does windows start to load or anything? you don't have to have "N/B Strap CPU As" set to fsb 800, you can leave it on auto.

have you tried setting bios back to default and then adjusting the overclock options in the soft menu? you may have changed something along the way elsewhere that might be hanging it up.

 

[Chaos_Being]

If you haven't already, set your game accelerator settings to auto-auto-auto-disable-disable. Having all of those settings on can really hinder your overclock.

 

[BigStan]

This guide was written by a guy that has had a lot of success OCing a Max3. Maybe it will help

http://www.jscustomcomputers.com/overclocking.htm

 

[veryhumid]

This guide was written by a guy that has had a lot of success OCing a Max3. Maybe it will help

http://www.jscustomcomputers.com/overclocking.htm

yeah that is a great guide. by the way, big stan you are running 200 MHz memory at 255?!!! Holy crap!!!

 

[BigStan]

yeah that is a great guide. by the way, big stan you are running 200 MHz memory at 255?!!! Holy crap!!!

That Corsair 3200XL will actually do 258fsb 1:1, but I have to lower the timings to 2.5,3,3,7. The performance hit I take isn't worth the extra 3fsb points.

 

[confused]

Ok I used the guide and have somewhat of an OC (FSB 210) going but nothing like i was expecting out of this rig, yet. Ill post some results after i get some more difinitive answers as to what little trick is working correctly

thanks everyone that sure did help alot
confused

 

[brint]

Your ram is timed at 3-4-4-8.
In the bios the is 3-8-4-4 or something like that.
I have the same ram and at 3-4-4-7 I could only get to 210Mhz FSB. But at 3-4-4-8 I can hit 255Mhz.

 

[confused]

Changed my RAM timings to 3-4-4-8 and now running 225 FSB so far no problems as of yet, will be here awhile before i venture on dont have the time to keep playing with the puzzle.

Much thanks to all that pushed me in the right direction,
confused

 

[PHILIP1193]

[/quote] Originally Posted by BigStan
This guide was written by a guy that has had a lot of success OCing a Max3. Maybe it will help

http://www.jscustomcomputers.com/overclocking.htm [/quote]

That guide is real good, im glad i read it!!!

Cheers Phil

 

[BrandonV]

Good call Brint.

I had the same problem. I had my Corsair DDR500 running at SPD setting and couldn't get past 225fsb. Once I manually set the timing to 3448 it has been up to 250fsb no problems, the mobo SPD settings doesn't hold the same timing value as the RAM's..

 

[Sjaak]

regardless of what you set (SPD / maunual) if you dont adjust the GAT settings the right way (AAADD), the motherboard will still try to tighten the timings thereby often preventing boot.

 

[PHILIP1193]

when i got system up last night i changed agp ration to fixed and when booting it says i have changed something and i need to change it back in softmenu when the only thing i had changed was the agp ratio to fixed so WTF??

Phil

 

[Sjaak]

reboot, then it should be fine

 

[confused]

Going strong at 250 FSB ran Prime for 3 hrs and no problem. Does not shut down properly though so not completely perfect, so i backed down to 246 FSB and runs like a champ no issues and will Prime for hours

Thanks for all the help on the GAT timings and what not, im sold on Abit Mobo's

thanks again
confused

 

[batboy]

I've seen other people having shut down problems that fixed them by doing all the Windows updates. Another thing to try is updating the BIOS, but I see you have already done that.

 

[confused]

batboy,

im currently running the 1.6 BIOS, ill have to check for all the Win updates thanks for the help ill have to look into that. I think the rig has more in her just didnt like the way it was not shutting down properly, id have to hard off the system by holding down the power button.