P35-DS3L - E8400 - FSB stuck at 333 after crash(can change multi/mem/etc).

[somegeek]

I recently started playin Dragon Age Origins and it pegs both of my E8400 cores while in game. I had a few hard crashes in the last few days. I noticed my OC is not 'taking' any more. 9x400 (same as in my sig) This has been a rock solid OC up until this point. I guess I didn't stress my system enough in the past year or so.

At any rate... I cleared the CMOS(battery removal, disconnected power, jumper CMOS pins, turned the PS on and pressed the power button with power still disconnected). System power was all drained - rebooted... the memory settings are recognized but not the CPU FSB setting.

I had the FSB set to 400 and for kicks I lowered the multiplier from 9 to 8. The system booted on 333 x 8. I tried setting the FSB to 325 and the system booted at 333 x 8.

I've also updated the BIOS to F9.

I've ran through all my settings and they're the same as they've been for the last year.

Anything else I can try to unstick my FSB from the stock 333 to accept other settings? Seems this is the setting that is being ignored.

somegeek

 

[redduc900]

Change the FSB from 400MHz to either 401 or 402MHz, and change the System Memory Multiplier from 2.50A (266 MCH strap) to 2.00 (333 or 400 MCH strap), for an effective 802 - 804MHz DRAM frequency. Also temporarily keep the timings at 5-5-5-15 until after a successful POST at 3.6GHz.

 

[MattNo5ss]

Definitely change your System Memory Multiplier to 2.00B (333MHz Strap)or 2.00D (400MHz Strap) for a 1:1 FSB:RAM ratio. You don't wanna try to run your DDR2-800 at DDR2-1000 while trying to fix an error. You want to reduce the number of factors as much as possible.

 

[somegeek]

I set FSB to 401 and the memory multiplier to 2.0 and rebooted.

FSB showed 333 and memory showed a speed of 667.

Any ideas on the 333 FSB being wedged somewhere besides the CMOS? I've drained the system of all power with the battery removed and CMOS pins jumpered. I'd read that some folks do a prolonged power drain(~1hr) to verify everything is drained but not sure that applies here?

 

[MattNo5ss]

I don't know where else it could be. Reducc900, knows more about this stuff than I do, so maybe he has some more insight.

The last thing you should try if nothing else works, would be a BIOS reflash. I've done that with an old 650i motherboard.

 

[redduc900]

Besides manually setting the four primary timings tp 5-5-5-15-2T, try setting Refresh to ACT Delay from 52 to 54, and Static tRead Value from 6 to AUTO (or a higher value than 6, like 7 or 8 for example; and the rest of the sub-timings on AUTO). Also add +0.1V to both MCH and FSB OverVoltage Control settings.

Edit: Also change the FSB from 401 to 402MHz, and change PCI-E Frequency from 100MHz to AUTO.

 

[somegeek]

Besides manually setting the four primary timings tp 5-5-5-15-2T, try setting Refresh to ACT Delay from 52 to 54, and Static tRead Value from 6 to AUTO (or a higher value than 6, like 7 or 8 for example; and the rest of the sub-timings on AUTO). Also add +0.1V to both MCH and FSB OverVoltage Control settings.

Edit: Also change the FSB from 401 to 402MHz, and change PCI-E Frequency from 100MHz to AUTO.

I tried these settings... also tried flashing with the latest BIOS from Gigabyte's page to no avail. Still using 333 FSB.

Appreciate you help with this... where to next?

 

[somegeek]

I've tried the F8, F9 and F9c(via the @BioS tool to download) and all have the same results with the FSB stuck at 333 regardless of the manual setting. I am up on F9 at the moment.

I can't go any lower on BIOS revisions as the Wolfdale support was added in F8.

 

[muddocktor]

OK, I had this happen to my old P35-DS3L board when I had it. What fixed my problem was powering it off, unplug psu and then drain residual power by depressing the power switch, then pulling the cmos battery and jumping the clear cmos jumpers for a couple of hours. After that it booted up just fine and the fsb options started working again. Hope that works for you.

 

[somegeek]

Thanks for the help on this... it's fixed.

My memory sticks are configured as follows
slot 1: 2 gig module
slot 2: empty
slot 3: 2 gig module
slot 4: empty

I removed the memory last night a stick at a time to see if that was it to no avail. Today, I pulled the sticks from memory slots 1 and 3 and just put one in slot 2. The box booted at 3.6gig. I moved it to slot 4 - the box booted at 3.6 gig. I put it back in the original slot 1 - the box booted at 3.6gig. I reverted to my original setup above - one each in slots 1 & 3 and the box is now up on 3.6gig in XP.

I put my bios back to it's original settings and I am up and in XP on 3.6gig.

Thanks again for the replies to help me with this - appreciate it.

So now... thoughts on why this memory shuffle worked? Is there some sort of memory register or the like?

 

[muddocktor]

I'm not sure. I do know these P35-DS3L boards do some wonky things for no reason though, just like your experience and me with mine.