Lots of instability with E6600 and P5W DH Deluxe

[Cactus]

Righty, i hope this is the right place to be posting a troubleshooting question, if not can it kindly be moved please :)

Right, so. Finally got around to a new PC, but i cant overclock it, i cant even run everything stock without errors...

intel core duo E6600@ stock 2.4 (2404, according to CPU z)
Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, with the latest bios (1407)
OCZ Titanium PC8000 2x1gb sticks 1000mhz (timings of 4-4-4-15)
OCZ 520watt PSU
BFG 7800gtoc
And a half decent watercooling setup.

Right, now here are my current BIOS settings;
CPU frequency: 266
Dram freqency: 889
Performance: Auto
PCI Express: locked at 100
PCI Clock sync: locked at 33.33mhz
Memory Voltage: Auto - also tried 2.40
CPU Vcore: Auto - also tried 1.35v
FSB termination votage: Auto
MCH chipset voltage: Auto
ICH chipset voltage: Auto
Ram timings at 4-4-4-15, also tried 5-5-5-15

Now, everything is stock, bar the ram, it is currently running slower than it was made (889mhz instead of 1000mhz).

When it came to overclocking, everything goes to pot. I tried a simple overclock with these settings:
CPU frequency: 300
Dram freqency: 1000
Performance: Auto
PCI Express: locked at 100
PCI Clock sync: locked at 33.33mhz
Memory Voltage: 2.40
CPU Vcore: 1.35v
FSB termination votage: Auto
MCH chipset voltage: Auto
ICH chipset voltage: Auto
Ram timings at 4-4-4-15, also tried 5-5-5-15

And EVEYRTHING goes screwy, Pi gives me "not round" errors, Orthos prime 95 thing gives me "expected .4 recived .5" errors, games crash and general instability ensues.

Motherboard temp never rises above 40, and CPU temp never above 35.

Can someone please give me some help, i really want to be overclocking to around 3.0-3.5ghz stable, but nothing is going right for me.

If there is anything i've missed plase let me know and i'll update it asap. My last rig was un-overclockable for a year, and i'd not like to have the same problem, especially after spending all my money on it.

[xpsentity]

Why such high voltage on the ram? What's rated spec for stock speed?

If you're keeping the ram at stock speed (for now), run the specified stock voltage.

Run memtest on the ram overnight, both sticks, would be the first thing I'd do.

[lawrywild]

Go to (in BIOS), Chipset -> Hyperpath 3 -> DISABLED

You should read my thread in the mother forum of this one

[Cactus]

Stock ram voltage is 2.3v if i remember correctly, so 2.4 shouldnt be a problem.Not able to run memtest overnight, but i can leave it going through the day tomorrow.

Already had hyperpath 3 disabled, i forgot to mention it when going through my bios, sorry. I have that thread bookmarked, been going through it for a while, its like a bible to me right now :p

Annoyingly, it seems to have pulled a singing-frog right now, i'm at 3ghz and it only crashes with orthos (crashes everytime in under 30 seconds) but everything else seems stable... :confused:

Still its odd that orthos has a problem, usually gives me "FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4" in under 30 seconds.
EDIT: nevermind, 32m in pi gives "not exact in round" errors again.

[Thickbrit]

Boot at less than 500 mhz memory,change trd from 6 to 7 with memset and then clock with clockgen.1407 is old bios,try 1503 or newer.Also the 3/5 devider is going to be too high,as the ram will most likely hit a wall around 540/550,therefore you will be better off on the 4/5.

[Cactus]

Updated bios just now, didnt expect to need an update, only did it a few days ago, heh. Updates to 1506 now.

Memset says my tRD is already at 7 though... so i'm not sure whats going on there?

I guess its not possible to stick with overclocking via the BIOS only then? I still dont really trust something as crucial to windows, but its better than not overclocking at all i guess.

EDIT: After the new bios, memset now things that my tRD is 6. But damn, i set the tRD to 7, everything is ok. Then i increased the FSB by 1 in clockgen, my screen fills with diagnol grey flickering lines and i ended up having to reset. Scarey.

Additionally, i think there is a mistake in the new Asus bios, as i can now set my CPU Vcore to: PS/2 mouse support, typematic rate, bootable num-lock, and floppy drive seek.

[Thickbrit]

go back to 1503 bios or you could try clearing cmos,that clockgen thing is wierd though,did you choose the right pll chip ?

[Cactus]

Yup, i used ICS 954123 pll, from the clockgen website. It could well have been a one-time glitch or something, but i'm in no rush to try it again!

I'll try finding the 1503 to use then. It's just getting on my nerves now that with the same setup people are getting awesome overclocks and i'm struggling to even raise my fsb by 10!

Anyways, bios flashing time. Cheers for the help so far guys :)

EDIT: bah, it wont let me flash backwards using Asus's program, i'm gonna have to dig out a floppy disk.......

[Rattle]

if you wanna OC set the machine to stock, set mem 1:1 and top out the cpu with 9 multi, after you find your stable cpu mhz then start with the ram, your killing that board with the high mem OC cuz the hidden NB freq is whats stopping you.

[Cactus]

Ok, trying that now rattle. Can i ask how i was killing the board with a high memory overclock though? Because i thought i hadnt even hit stock ram speeds?

[bjp999]

How are yoiu flashing your BIOS? There have been reports that doing through the BIOS ezflash is not reliable. I have a boot floppy for the purpose and have not had any trouble, I am running 1503 and have not tried 1506. Remember to reset to defaults and then reboot when upgrading. Also, don't recall any overclock profiles saved from prior BIOS configurations.

Your settings seem very reasonable. You should not be having problems at stock FSB. I was able to get to FSB370 before I started to have any issues. Do you have any extra DDR2 memory that you could put in to eliminate potential problem / incompatibility of the MB with that memory? I don't remember hearing of many people using PC8000 memory.

You may have a defective MB? or CPU?

[Rattle]

Ok, trying that now rattle. Can i ask how i was killing the board with a high memory overclock though? Because i thought i hadnt even hit stock ram speeds?


read this thread

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=114998&highlight=p5b+secrets

straight from the man, the rams default speeds have nothing to do with it, thats like saying your ram does 5000mhz out of the box but it wont do it so there's a problem lol

[Cactus]

Hmm... well to be honest i still dont really get it, but i am thankfull that i can overclock now and be fully stable (3ghz so far). I still feel kinda cheated after paying for expensive ram and having to run it at a 3rd of its real speed, but i'm guessing thats because i dont understand how things work.

I understand the strapping part now, and how it changes above 400fsb and such, but i still havnt figured out how running the ram at 889mhz is overclocking it... i'll keep reading through the thread to see if anything makes more sense.

But regardless, it works now (albiet with slow ram) so i'm happy enough. Cheers for the help guys.