Confusion Central? or just a crappy setup?

[Shadowsan]

Hi, got a question to run by all you master overclockers out there:

I have an MSI KT3 Ultra ARU mobo (bought for £40, as I was skint), an AXP pally 2100+, a radeon 9600 pro (as a replacement for a buggered ti4200) and 512mb of samsung ddr 2700 ram.

I am having issues with any kind of speeds attainable from this setup at all.

I try to clock the board up, and it seems as if the ram is having issues running at anything past 166 (even with the slackest timings the bios allows) The chip I have multiplier clocked to 1905mhz, but it craps out (though I am running an air rig atm, but that will be sorted asap).

I bought the ram on a recommendation in a review saying that this ram is stable at 200mhz fsb @ 2.8v (I forget the link, but if it's relevant I will go hunt for it), and I am stumped as to what is preventing me from getting any decent overclocks on this board (which from the reviews I have seen is meant to be good for at least 180fsb)

It just seems as if this system is running slower than the sum of it's parts indicate.

Any help would be fantastic

Shadowsan

[Shadowsan]

Spose this should really be in 'Extreme Overclocking' but atm it is not extreme at all! lol

Will re-post it there too :)

[Shadowsan]

Please don't double post I've merged both your threads together now.

Any help would be fantastic

Shadowsan

[TerroH8er]

Hmm not exactly sure if I understand the question but I'll give it a shot.

First of all, the 2100+ Pally was never a good overclocker. Unless your chip is unlocked, then there isn't a way to attain a high FSB and take advantage of your RAM. For example, your multiplier is 13x and your stock FSB is 133, which gives you the stock speed of the 2100+, 1733mhz. If you increase the FSB to 166 then that would give the processor a speed of 2158mhz, which I am very doubtful that a pally could run that high on regular air-cooling. Also I'm not familair with the divider on that mobo but remember that AMD motherboards other than nforce2 motherboards don't have a PCI lock, so if you run your FSB too high then some components in your system could "crap out" because of them running out of spec.

Now, if you mean you are running it async, then it could be a case of the reviewers getting a good stick and you got a not-so-great stick. PC2700 RAM is only rated up to a 166fsb remember.

edit: had to fix a small detail

[CCW]

You say they said the RAM was stable @ 2.8volts, first off, what voltage are you running the RAM at?

TerroH8er is right about the 2100+, your going to have to lower the multiplier however I imagine this chip will be locked.

What chips does the Samsung RAM use?

Oh and welcome to the Xtreme :congrats: you qualify as the nearest person from Xtreme living near me :D

Craig

[Pita^Norf]

Originally posted by Shadowsan
Hi, got a question to run by all you master overclockers out there:

I have an MSI KT3 Ultra ARU mobo (bought for £40, as I was skint), an AXP pally 2100+, a radeon 9600 pro (as a replacement for a buggered ti4200) and 512mb of samsung ddr 2700 ram.

I am having issues with any kind of speeds attainable from this setup at all.

I try to clock the board up, and it seems as if the ram is having issues running at anything past 166 (even with the slackest timings the bios allows) The chip I have multiplier clocked to 1905mhz, but it craps out (though I am running an air rig atm, but that will be sorted asap).

I bought the ram on a recommendation in a review saying that this ram is stable at 200mhz fsb @ 2.8v (I forget the link, but if it's relevant I will go hunt for it), and I am stumped as to what is preventing me from getting any decent overclocks on this board (which from the reviews I have seen is meant to be good for at least 180fsb)

It just seems as if this system is running slower than the sum of it's parts indicate.

Any help would be fantastic

Shadowsan

Shadowman,

Does your board feature a PCI lock or some dividers that keeps the PCI bus as low as possible when overclocking ?

My experience with some Asus boards in the past is that even if your ram and CPU can handle the OC, the PCI bus has been the limiting factor as it does not like high OC's.

HTH.

***Just read TerroH8er's reply and I agree***

[Shadowsan]

Ok, afaik the KT3 Ultra has a hidden bios feature where if you go above 158 MHz FSB, the KT3 defaults to a 1/5 PCI divider with a 2/5 AGP bus.

The pally is unlocked, and I am running the ram at 2.8v. With the slackest timings I can get nothing out of it over 166 stable really.

I was thinking it might be a bios/voltage problem, but checking my lines with a multimeter reveals nothing out of the ordinary (well within the 5% limit)

Any ideas?

[Shadowsan]

There's an article on lostcircuits reviewing the board, and they have taken it to 200mhz fsb comfortably, with a seemingly similar setup (and lower rated ram)
http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/msi_kt3/8.shtml
If anything I don't want to get an insane clock out of the pally, as I know it won't do it, but I would like to feed it plenty of bandwidth to make up for its slow speed :)

[Pita^Norf]

Originally posted by Shadowsan
There's an article on lostcircuits reviewing the board, and they have taken it to 200mhz fsb comfortably, with a seemingly similar setup (and lower rated ram)
http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/msi_kt3/8.shtml
If anything I don't want to get an insane clock out of the pally, as I know it won't do it, but I would like to feed it plenty of bandwidth to make up for its slow speed :)

Just had a quick look at the link and I'm quite impressed with the board.

The main difference between your rig and the review rig are the CPUs.

TerroH8er has already mentioned that Pally's are not good overclockers and it may be the case that the 166 FSB you have managed to get out of it is the limit that the CPU will do.

cheers.

[Shadowsan]

Ok then, so you reckon the board is good enough to simply swap out a chip for a relatively decent one (I am eyeing up a TBred B 1800+ with a DLT3C JIUHB stepping) and that would be ok?

[MediOCre]

Just to toss another possible variable in here, you may want to look a little closer at the ram. Had a 512 stick of Sammy 2700 that I picked up after reading all the glowing 200fsb reviews. Didn't realize it at the time but there were two different modules available. A CTL part that would ramp up pretty high and the DTL part that haunted me. Max fsb I could get with tight timing was 145, loose timings would only get me stable at 168 on an ABIT KX7-333.
Had an unlocked 2100 Palomino in there for a while, topped out about 1830 on air.

[Shadowsan]

/me goes to whip out mem and possibly read then weep....

Cheers for the suggestion tho :)

Will post back with any news

[Evil_Spork]

samsung will do higher speeds with more voltage i think, also what vcore is the cpu at that it craps at 1900?

[Tweaked!]

Welcome to Xtreme:cool:

A few things come to mind here, 1st- raise your vcore, but monitor your temps and don't let them get too high. You should be safe up to 1.8 or so with decent cooling. 2nd- relax your ram timings and raise the voltage to them slightly. 3rd- Lock or lower the divider on your agp/pci slots, once at or above 166, the standard divider will have those slots too far out of synch.

[Shadowsan]

Ok guys, I whipped the mem out of my system, and I came up with some interesting stats...

The code on my sticker for my samsung 2700 stick are as follows:

M368L6423DTM-CB3

From what I have seen on the web, these sticks are supposedly recommended.

Also, what is weirder is I know a friend of mine with another stick of samsung ram that he picked up at a computer fair for 40 quid, and this is his code:

M368L6423DTL-CB0

This ram is currently running at 200fsb, and it is PC2100 rated, according to the sticker...

Lucky son of a...

Ah well...

So do we reckon my stick can handle 200fsb?

There's only one way to find out methinks...

Stick it in me mates board in place of his sammy stick :)

Sounds like a plan :D

[Shadowsan]

The vcore of the pally is set at 1.85V in bios, actual 1.82V, and is clocked currently to 1826 stable (166 x 11)

So, do we think that the proc is simply crapping out the overclock, or the ram?

Well, I will test this stick tonight and get straight back to you all

[Shadowsan]

Ok, got some news back now...

The pc2700 samsung of mine will not run at 200mhz fsb, but WILL run at 190mhz fsb.

After that, I wanted to know whether ther was any possible factor in why my proc wouldn't handle the high fsb. I decided to check to see what bios releases had happened, and realised that there was a 5.7 release of a driver for my motherboard - so I thought 'plenty of fixes and optimisations there' and I gladly took it. After that, I borrowed my friends pc2100 stick that is guaranteed to 200mhz, and proceeded to overclock my system to see whether it was stable. I am currently at 185fsb, running the pally at 1850 (185x10) and everything is stable, so it seems it was in need of a bios revision.

Second consequential problem is the fact that MSI drivers are rather poor at compatability with ati for some reason. I now get slight graphical corruption with my 9600 pro in windows (where before the flash I had none) and serious graphical errors in 3dmark 01. Though in 2003 there are none?!? and there are a few here and there with certain games, but nowhere near as bad as 3dmark 01.

I have emailed msi with a screen capture from 3dmark 01, and am waiting to see if they know about the problem, I can now only live in hope.

On another note, do you guys reckon a nice 1800+ TBred B would go well in my system at 190fsb? ;)