Well, its not the memory

[reverse]

2.4C M0/AI7/1gb Mush 3500 lvl 2/SP-94/Tornado


Seems to hold @ 240-245 1:1

Highest I clocked tonight was 3122 260.2 5:4 default vcore. I could do
265/270 (laxed timings 2.5-8-4-4) 5:4 and hang in windows for a minute before I got a nice BSOD. Ouch. Lifting the vcore at that point didnt do squat. Already running DDR @ 3.2v at the time.

It's not looking good.

 

[reverse]

Damn. Just BSOD'd 260 5:4 w/ tight timings... and then again doing 245 1:1, which seemed to be doin ok earlier. Darn.


Nitey nite.

 

[musk]

Put your vdimm back to 2.75. Set you ratio to 3:2 and your memory by SPD.

Slowly move your fsb up to see where you chip can handle. Once this is established try and get more aggressive with your memory. This will isolate the problem to your CPU. Also up your AGP to 1.6v.

I will watch for your results.
'
musk

 

[stan03]

how much did you raise the vcore? doing that on stock seems pretty nice.

 

[micamica1217]

Put your vdimm back to 2.75. Set you ratio to 3:2 and your memory by SPD.

Slowly move your fsb up to see where you chip can handle. Once this is established try and get more aggressive with your memory. This will isolate the problem to your CPU. Also up your AGP to 1.6v.

I will watch for your results.
'
musk

well said...I too will hope for the best.

mica

 

[reverse]

how much did you raise the vcore? doing that on stock seems pretty nice.

Ended up not being so stable. Its very erratic in behavior. I have had the vcore up at 1.7 at times, and it doesn't seem to change.

I usually start clocking in steps and well organized, then by the end of the night frustration causes me to try all sorts of things and I end up forgetting what worked well and what didn't because I wasn't logging.



I *truly* appreciate the support. I will definately all of the advice into consideration.

 

[deathman20]

Hmmmm confusing I can see. Don't know what to say on this subject except maybe you just hit a brick wall with the CPU

 

[reverse]

It's a good possibility. But hey, thats the fun of overclocking. Sometimes you get a great clock, sometimes you don't. I'll see what happens after getting down and dirty.

 

[deathman20]

True its like my brick wall basically with my CPU hitting 275FSB and no more without giving it all shes got vcore wise. My ram is killing me and just orderd some new stuff so well see how that turns out.

To bad it wasn't the memory at least you can switch it with a different type really easily.

 

[reverse]

Exactly... but since I did spend the extra bucks on solid memory, I might just try to get in another m0 if this one turns out to be what it seems so far. I'm really targeting that 275+ mark myself, and I'd be disappointed if I settled for less.

I'm going to take HardOCP's review of the AI7 as incentive to do it all over again tonight -

"The one issue that was run in to with overclocking was the Northbridge chipset cooling. We were not able to increase the FSB beyond 235MHz. The board would not stabilize with stock cooling, so we employed a bit of help as shown in the picture below and this did solve our OC issues.

However, it was later found that the Northbridge HSF itself was not making good contact. After reapplying thermal paste and reseating the ABIT HSF on the Northbridge, the board was fully stable at a 275 MHz FSB. In fact the stock cooling solution did not seem to hinder us at all compared to our hearty Northbridge cooling."

 

[deathman20]

Hmmm intresting. Well start playing around. Can't wait to see more peoples results on this.

 

[reverse]

If that turns out to be whats holding me back - I'll be doing backflips.

 

[deathman20]

Well it is possible maybe you got some bad sticks of memory. You try maybe with one stick and see if it would go higher?

 

[reverse]

Yeah I tried with single sticks. Oddly enough, sometimes it would boot 5:4 and then crash but not boot 3:2 at all. Once I hit 240's @ 1:1 it seems like the ram probably has it in it... but then again, I havent really done any stress testing at that speed. Loose timings would help when getting into the 3.1-3.2ghz range... it seems. Everything is so inconsistent, but I think its because of how I'm testing and not really setting aside any variables to base results upon.

 

[batboy]

A note about northbridge chip and the heatsink contact. I have two IC7 mobos. When I pulled the NB sink off one in order to lap the sink and apply AS, it was making good contact. I pulled the NB sink off the second one to install a Zalman sink and discovered from looking at the "footprint" in the stock heat pad gunk that only about 1/3 of the chip core was making contact. A quick check of your system temps should tell the story. I have removed the NB sink of the last 5-6 mobos I've owned and reapplied AS to it or did other mods. If the NB sink looks rough, then I lap it. This usually helps system cooling by at least a couple degrees or more. High FSB requires good NB cooling.

 

[larva]

Yeah I tried with single sticks. Oddly enough, sometimes it would boot 5:4 and then crash but not boot 3:2 at all. Once I hit 240's @ 1:1 it seems like the ram probably has it in it... but then again, I havent really done any stress testing at that speed. Loose timings would help when getting into the 3.1-3.2ghz range... it seems. Everything is so inconsistent, but I think its because of how I'm testing and not really setting aside any variables to base results upon.

Do you have the last two GAT fields disabled?

 

[Jimbob7]

Do you have the last two GAT fields disabled?

Yeh ive heard people having problems with these settings enabled

 

[reverse]

Do you have the last two GAT fields disabled?

I don't know how much to thank you for that tip. Just booted 267 5:4 @ default vcore. Hasn't hitched.

Incredible.

I'll let all of you know how it goes - thanks to everyone so far for your help!

 

[reverse]

280 5:4 default vcore. Lets see.....

 

[reverse]

This is @ 1.6vcore, and I somewhat jumped the gun on the voltage. I'll play and see what comes of it later. I wonder how much more this thing has. (Stability is probably a different issue altogether, but so far, hasn't locked)