Q9550 + DDR3 OC Help Needed

[PolRoger]

Unfortunately, ET6 doesn't allow me to see or tweak any voltages on my board, just CPU multiplier and other frequencies. Frankly, the application seems to behave very strange and is kinda 'buggy'. I guess it's the board.

Did you try clicking the adavanced mode tab first under the Tuner section and then click the voltage tab? Hopefully that will display your voltages...

Running under "auto" prevents you from knowing what voltages the Auto "rules" are defaulting too for a selected setting(s)/overclock. ET6 is quite useful for finding out what voltages you are actually running. You can also adjust the voltages on the fly to further help with dialing in your in your settings. Still there is nothing wrong manually setting voltages in BIOS for overclocking but I like to know what is actually being set.

I tried your 4.00D memory multi [400-strap(1:2)] with my 2XGB GSkill kit and I didn't seem to have much luck but I switched out to some older (high voltage) 775 DDR3 kits and I seem to have it running good now at ~1866C8.

Could you tell me the other memory BIOS (multi/divider) settings that you are running for your other overclocks? I like to test hem as well.

I wasn't trying to suggest an upgrade more like that there are not that many people still running 775 and those who who did run this platform and once might have been able to give information have now moved on to newer generations.

 

[neverwind]

IT turns out the problems I'm having with ET6 behaving strange are due to the fact I always try to update it whenever I install it to my computer...
Now I just downloaded the one for my motherboard and didn't update it - works way better



Other dividers that worked for me are as follows:
3.00A for 1474 on 7-9-7-11
3.33D for 1603 on 8-10-8-24

Could you tell me the voltage levels that you use for 1866 CL8? Also, what DRAM performance level is set up in BIOS? I Don't know if this can be seen with CPU-Z, but it shows in AIDA for sure. And the BIOS of course

 

[PolRoger]

Other dividers that worked for me are as follows:
3.00A for 1474 on 7-9-7-11
3.33D for 1603 on 8-10-8-24

Thanks I'll try those two on my board.


Your HyperX kit is single-sided and most likely Hynix (4Gbit) MFR ic under the heatspreader. These are not the best ic for running tight timings and I'm surprised that you have been able to run your 4GB dimm sticks as high as 1800+ on your socket 775 setup. 1GB dimm kits were common in the marketplace back then and 2GB dimm kits were just starting to appear. Higher density kits are harder to stabilze at high fsb and memory speed(s) especially for the C2Quad which are really two C2Duo cpu tied together on one package. My high voltage (1.8v) Corsair kits are most likely some type of Micron D9 GTN/GTR/GTS ic which can scale as high ~2.2v on air. I also have other kits with higher density (both 2x2GB and 2x4GB) but I'm not sure that I can run them as fast??

Here is a link to a thread regarding all the various DDR3 ic that have been used over the years in different DDR3 kits:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?285767-DDR3-IC-thread

The 4.00D memory profile defaulted performance level to 10 and I manually tighten them up to level 9. I might try and see if I can adjust voltages and perhaps get them to run at level 8??

[email protected] DDR3-1900C8 (4x1GB):

 

[neverwind]

Your HyperX kit is single-sided and most likely Hynix (4Gbit) MFR ic under the heatspreader. These are not the best ic for running tight timings and I'm surprised that you have been able to run your 4GB dimm sticks as high as 1800+ on your socket 775 setup. 1GB dimm kits were common in the marketplace back then and 2GB dimm kits were just starting to appear. Higher density kits are harder to stabilze at high fsb and memory speed(s) especially for the C2Quad which are really two C2Duo cpu tied together on one package. My high voltage (1.8v) Corsair kits are most likely some type of Micron D9 GTN/GTR/GTS ic which can scale as high ~2.2v on air. I also have other kits with higher density (both 2x2GB and 2x4GB) but I'm not sure that I can run them as fast??

Actually, you're wrong. My motherboard doesn't support high-density ram sticks (learned that the hard way with a Corsair Vengeance - won't even POST).
The Kingston ones were recently bought and were the only ones I could find at this advertised speed (1866@9-11-9-24) and being low-density (double-sided) at the same time.

About running your memory faster...well, what worked for me for achieving this speed is definately the MCH Voltage (1.6 BIOS, 1.58V Easytune) which increased the stability and gave me A LOT of headroom and a 50ps delay of MCH signals compared to the main clock signal generator in the ICH. (That's MCH clock skew +50ps).
I'm pretty sure that playing with the clock skew at different FSB frequencies could give you more headroom as well. For me, it's done wonders but since I don't know any details about it, setting it up was purely based on a lot of patience, trials and errors. Maybe a bit of luck, too
Also, as I've stated before - it's really unpredictable, since for example it could work for 500Mhz FSB but not for 495Mhz...so basically, you wouldn't know if you've really reached the maximum limit or just have to try a little higher...and it seems 1Mhz difference DOES matter here.

Unfortunately, I don't have any other ddr3 ram sticks and I would really like to test my setup with 4x2GB instead of 2x4GB, as in theory it should behave considerably better this way.
Thanks for the voltages! I'll see if I could use some of those, although a 1.8V for the memory sticks seems pretty high. I should ask the Kingston support, maybe they can tell me if it's safe or not for the model I have.
Also, If you play around with the MCH skew and MCH Voltage and achieve better results, please do share

 

[freeagent]

Nice board, I have wanted a good clocking ddr3 s775 board for sometime, as I have a few sets of ram that will do 1600 at 6-6-6-X, and much higher as you relax the timings. Cas 9 to me is yucky unless it's going fast. Old school ddr3 is hard to come by these days, as most people hoard them I recently moved, I left my Xeon equivalent to the 9550, and my ddr2 rampage formula at my moms. It's still a decent setup if you use an ssd

Edit:

I could run mine at 471 fsb 24/7 but more is fairly difficult. The board itself was able to run 550fsb 24/7 and topped out at 602fsb but I'm not sure if it was my g.skill ram or the board itself. That was with an e8600 ES.

 

[PolRoger]

Actually, you're wrong. My motherboard doesn't support high-density ram sticks (learned that the hard way with a Corsair Vengeance - won't even POST).
The Kingston ones were recently bought and were the only ones I could find at this advertised speed (1866@9-11-9-24) and being low-density (double-sided) at the same time.

No problems mate...

At first I thought based on the timings that your kit might be Hynix (2GBit) BFR or CFR ic which would be double-sided sticks but after looking at the PDF link you posted which shows a 8x4Gbit ic stick (single-sided)... I posted up MFR ic.

http://www.kingston.com/datasheets/KHX1866C9D3_4G.pdf

I still consider a 4GB stick (16x2Gbit) double-sided to be high density compared 1Gbit density sticks... Either a (8x1Gbit) single-sided (1GB) stick or (16x1Gbit) double-sided (2GB) stick. Back when DDR3 first came on the scene those were the only choices available... 2X1GB kits and 2x2GB kits.


Check this post here on how to help identify what kind of ic is being used on your Kingston kit:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...R3-IC-thread&p=5234967&viewfull=1#post5234967

 

[neverwind]

No problems mate...

At first I thought based on the timings that your kit might be Hynix (2GBit) BFR or CFR ic which would be double-sided sticks but after looking at the PDF link you posted which shows a 8x4Gbit ic stick (single-sided)... I posted up MFR ic.

http://www.kingston.com/datasheets/KHX1866C9D3_4G.pdf

Oh Man, my bad...I'm really sorry. I used AIDA to get the exact model for my memory sticks so I could find the link more easily but it seems it reads them wrong or they present themselves in a wrong way to the system.

Oddly enough, all apps say they are the ones posted in the link, but actually these are my memory modules. I remember clearly that on Kingston's website it was stated they were LOW-DENSITY modules.


Anyway, thanks for both links, I'll check out and try to identify my chips. According to the second link and the id number on my casing, they should be Hynix based.

 

[PolRoger]

I have some Hynix 2x4GB kits... I'll give them a trial/test run in my setup.

I don't think your kit is old enough to have BFR which were used on kits back around 2011 up through early 2012... CFR started to be used around early to mid 2012. If you download TaPaKaH's Kingston excel sheet from the previous link you might be able to surmise the ic by the batch# for your kit. I'm kind of leaning towards CFR.

I think with a Hynix based kit you would also best be served by trying to run your setup at DDR3-1600(+) speed with tighter timings... Maybe 7-8-7-24 to 7-9-7-24??... Or 8-9-8-24 to 8-10-8-24??

I've also tried the 3.33D memory multi and it is working well for me.

I switched out to some other older high voltage (1.8/1.9v) 2x2GB kits...

Q9650 4.365GHz DDR3-1616C7 (P/L 9):

 

[neverwind]

Hey,
Thanks to your advice, I'm now running 1667Mhz on 7-8-7-21 CR2 Performance Level 8

These are the ones with the least latency and ~13GB/s read speed so maybe I'm gonna run them daily.

Thanks, PolRoger!!!