Hit a wall on an athlon 6 3700+?

[Nistomax]

For some reason I am having trouble getting the socket 939 athlon 64 3700+ to go faster then 2900mhz. Right now Core Temp reads temperatures of -15C to -20C under load at 2860mhz(260x11). I figured at these temperatures it could get to a little over 3Ghz, but even at 1.6V it doesn't really improve. Is there something else that is bottlenecking the overclock? I have been able to increase the bus speed to 320 or so with a low multi, so i dont think its ram. Could it just be a bad processor? :shrug:

[SOLDNER-MOFO64]

What setting are you using? For HTmulti? Which mobo are you using, memory divider, timings,etc?

A couple of CPUZ screeny's with all the tabs open may help. I've yet to see a sandy fail to break 3ghz,especially at those temps......so I reckon it's most likely something else at fault.

[Nistomax]

Cant get under the minimum attachment size...so ill just post it in text
Its an athlon 64 3700+ San Diego.
Core Speed: 2860 (260x11).
HT Link: 780Mhz
Voltage: 1.5V

Memory is Kingston Valueram, 2GB dual channel
Frequency: 168.2Mhz
FSB to DRAM: CPU/17(Thats auto divider, i cant get dividers to work right manually)
CAS Latency: 3
Ras-Cas delay: 3
RAS precharge: 3
Cycle Time: 8
Bank Cycle Time: 14
Command Rate 1T
DRAM Idle Timer: 16 clocks

[freakBYnature]

For some reason I am having trouble getting the socket 939 athlon 64 3700+ to go faster then 2900mhz. Right now Core Temp reads temperatures of -15C to -20C under load at 2860mhz(260x11). I figured at these temperatures it could get to a little over 3Ghz, but even at 1.6V it doesn't really improve. Is there something else that is bottlenecking the overclock? I have been able to increase the bus speed to 320 or so with a low multi, so i dont think its ram. Could it just be a bad processor? :shrug:

With that board you have to overvolt northbridge when going over fsb 300+, it helps oc'ing, and use the overvolt cpu option aswell, this gives +200 mv for an extended stability (prevents vdrop to some extent), if you use overvolt cpu option you must remember taht 1.45V + this option gives 1.65V, I use 1.225~1.25V + overvolt cpu, which gives 1.425~1.45V.

I also set hypertransport AND nortbridge to southbridge both to 3x, also gave me more stability.

[Nistomax]

My processors steppings are:
KAB2E 0548EPMW
To my knowledge, the KAB2E overclocks well but requires lots of voltage. Does that mean 1.6+?
Fixed up the HT link by changing its multiplier, but still not stability increase after the NB overvolt and NB/SB frequency change. It simply refuses to post if i increase the FSB by any more, and I have no way to explain it.

[biohead]

loosen read preamble and max async latency

[Nistomax]

Hmmm...still cant get it up any further. I distinctly remember being able to push it to 260x11 before, but now FSB refuses to break 250. Tried changing all the settings, but it simply wont post. Also tried flashing the bios but got an error trying to run the motherboards flash utility but got "Unable to get BIOS information." Also, clockgen for nforce4 wont recognize my clocks.

[Gothic]

I would solve this BIOS issue before attempting to clock anything...

[freakBYnature]

I had some issues with this mobo... nothing serious, but still... might be worth mentioning.

When oc'ing, I sometimes can't get boot... normal, right? Wrong... on this mobo, the oc still can be good, but I have to turn off my PSU and boot again. Then when windows boot I can still verify that the clock is ok.

Other thing, some of the options (when using latest beta bios) will make the previous thing happen, like some voltage options when tampered with made everything go insane, kinda stupid. What I had to do then was to go into bios and turn back to "default settings" and start all over again. To make sure that the clock was ok from bios I pushed F10, reboot and then repeated once JUST TO VERIFY that it wasn't some stupid setting with a bug. Did this with changing one setting at a time.. seriously... like one timing at a time with the RAM and soforth!

Might also be some vdrop on it.

[Nistomax]

Got the bios updated, but the board wont let me adjust any settings through desktop overclocks except that silly AIbooster, which is basically bios overclocking anyway. The only good experience ive had with this board and overclocking is that it will restore cpu to default speed if an overclock fails, but thats about it.

[wedfighter]

it might be your mobo
get the DFI Ultra-D