So has anyone actually got their EB to work?

I have done extensive testing as I have stated on the DFI NFII B and The NF7-s 2.0 and have a few insights. I have been using a 1gb, 2 x 512mb kit of PC3200 EB RAM exclusively. All of the below tests were at 2.5-2-2-10 or 11 timings. Your timings and speeds may vary due to your board and RAM.

1) DFI: Using a standard unlocked Barton 2500+, I was able to get to 240 FSB and higher stable in Windows running Prime 95 and 3dMark 2001 in a loop for 7 hours each. Due to a known 2-17 Alpha bios bug, I was unable to complete memtest86+ test 5. It just froze up every time after about 15 seconds. Supposedly the newest bios fixes that. With the latest official bios I hit 237 fsb stable with great performance. To hit over 240fsb can require in excess of 3.0v, so make sure you have a fan blowing on the modules as they will get hot.

NF7-S 2.0: Make sure to replace the "cooler" on the northbrigdge chip. Mine failed after 2 hours of use on a new board. Before replacing it with a standard chipset HS and fan, I wa stuck at 218mhz with the PC3200 EB RAM. After the replacement and fan addition I was able to hit 223fsb. I was using the latest bios and will experiment more with the Tic-Tac and possibly another modded bios. This was on a completely stock board, other than the NB cooler.

3) DFI Ultra Infinity and Mobile Barton CPU: I just ordered this setup and expect it by Tuesday. I will be testing to prove or disprove Catus Jacks experience with the "wire mod" the changes the CPU to a 166fsb part. This is commonly used on the ABIT boards, to aid in overclocking and is generally not needed for the DFI's. Stay tuned......

Andy, cut right to the chase on the NF7-S..... use the original D10 mod'd by Equito/MikeyPage to have the 4247 Sata bios in it.

This bios I cant hit 250Mhz 11,2,2,2 @ 3.3Vdimm on CH5 and be 2D stable, and 240Mhz 11,2,3,2 @ 3.3Vdimm and be 3D stable. All with 2600+Mobile.

Anyone going for high OC on NF7-S will likely be using D10 at this point too, so please add it to your test regime. Im looking forward to your results, our hunt for Red BH5 has not worked out yet, so the 3200EB may be the solution after all. Thanks!

Quote:

---

Originally posted by andyOCZ
I have done extensive testing as I have stated on the DFI NFII B and The NF7-s 2.0 and have a few insights. I have been using a 1gb, 2 x 512mb kit of PC3200 EB RAM exclusively. All of the below tests were at 2.5-2-2-10 or 11 timings. Your timings and speeds may vary due to your board and RAM.

1) DFI: Using a standard unlocked Barton 2500+, I was able to get to 240 FSB and higher stable in Windows running Prime 95 and 3dMark 2001 in a loop for 7 hours each. Due to a known 2-17 Alpha bios bug, I was unable to complete memtest86+ test 5. It just froze up every time after about 15 seconds. Supposedly the newest bios fixes that. With the latest official bios I hit 237 fsb stable with great performance. To hit over 240fsb can require in excess of 3.0v, so make sure you have a fan blowing on the modules as they will get hot.

NF7-S 2.0: Make sure to replace the "cooler" on the northbrigdge chip. Mine failed after 2 hours of use on a new board. Before replacing it with a standard chipset HS and fan, I wa stuck at
218mhz with the PC3200 EB RAM. After the replacement and fan addition I was able to hit 223fsb. I was using the latest bios and will experiment more with the Tic-Tac and possibly another modded bios. This was on a completely stock board, other than the NB cooler.

3) DFI Ultra Infinity and Mobile Barton CPU: I just ordered this setup and expect it by Tuesday. I will be testing to prove or disprove Catus Jacks experience with the "wire mod" the changes the CPU to a 166fsb part. This is commonly used on the ABIT boards, to aid in overclocking and is generally not needed for the DFI's. Stay tuned......

---

Andy, what timings where you running and what slots were you using? I seem to have taken two steps back, now I can't run stable beyond 236. This was while trying to find my highest stable fsb while using a multiplier of 9.5 and stock clocks on my vid card. At 236, I was getting falls back to desktop when running 3D and I needed 3.0volts to run 233 @ 8-2-2-2-2.5-10-12 CPC on. Running again with the memory timings defaulted to "Turbo" did not help. It is still better than before I did the 200fsb mod, though.

I think I may need to download memtest. Is there a particular version you recommend?

Cactus Jack, I spoke to bigtoe and he says when you flash the newer bios be cautious and use a BIOS Savior or have a spare bios chip handy as many have said the 4/29 is a bios killer. He also says you need to udate the bootblock area of your bios. He feels there may be an issue with flashing and not updating the entire bios. Clear you CMOS and load setup defaults and then flash, using the switch "awdflash xxxxx.bin /WB /CC"

I was using slots 1 and 3 and as I as you and I discussed by IM the bios version is critical. The bios issue will take some experimenting as there are a dozen or so.

I orderd a DFI Ultra Infinity and a 2600+ Mobile last night, so I should have them by tomorrow. I wanted to duplicae your setup (less the Xtreme cooling).

i just passed 8hours of memtest test 5 @ 217 2.5-3-2-8 2.85v

btw im using tictac's 22 bios, with it ive gotten mushkin 2x256 3500 to 234 2.5-3-3-7 3v

with my stick of kingston 256 BH5 memtest did std test for 12 hours @ 230 2-2-2-6 3v, i couldn't get prime blend stable @ 223 2-2-2-6 3v, but 223 2.5-3-3-7 was fine

is it possible for the mobo to not like tight timings?

try 2.5-2-2

HAYUP, are you running our EB RAM in a 2 x 512mb 1gb kit? Or a 2 x 256mb 512mb kit? I have been doing some tseting with the Tic Tac 22 Turbo and official bios 23. I was able to hit 223mhz with the bios 23 on an unmodded boatrd with the PC3200 EB 1 gb kit, and I was back to about 218mhz with 22 Turbo or Tic Tac 23. Try some better cooling on your northbridge chip. I have a feeling the tighter timings and 1 gb of memory create more heat.

You might try a little more voltage, but have a fan on the RAM as it will get warm.

im using 2x512 3500EB
changing NB cooling might be a prob cos my heatpipe kinda hangs over the NB

OK, well the 1gb kits runs slower in this board, I don't have a 512mb kit of EB to try ATM. I experimented with cooling the NB chip more than I had been and it helped very little (anything is better than the stock fan that froze up). I did have better results with the official ABIT bios 23.

This memory does work very well given that 512mb modules usually don't run in this board worth a hoot. :)

Cactus - Tried 3-2-2-2-x or 3-3-2-2-x or 3-2-3-2-x or 2.5-x-x-2-x since the wiremod? :D

Quote:

---

Originally posted by STEvil
Cactus - Tried 3-2-2-2-x or 3-3-2-2-x or 3-2-3-2-x or 2.5-x-x-2-x since the wiremod? :D

---

Yeah, I tried Cas 3 and it got me as high as 250 fsb. But I still wasn't stable. I'm going to be trying some other stuff at some point today. I had a conversation with Andy and Tony last night which gave me a few things to look into.

I'm using the official NF7 d23 bios now, @ 217 2.5-2-2-11 3v i was able to complete 3 consecutive sandra mem runs, which had my hopes up
but prime blend still failed after 5 seconds :(

The NF7S isn't to good it seems, i know Andy has hit 220ish but not much more.Same ram on the DFI is awesome so its not the modules.

Also i had a play with oskars latest 4/29 bios and i must say its damn fast..well worth the flash.Also Oskar has OCZ ram now so he may be fine tuning a little..(I hope so :))

Quote:

---

Originally posted by bigtoe
.....Also Oskar has OCZ ram now so he may be fine tuning a little..(I hope so :))

---

That's good to know :).

I went a little bit drastic today. My system is still not playing ball, though I did get upto 243 again though by no means 24/7 stable. So I've done a full stripdown, lapped the Nbridge slightly (perfectly flat now), sinked everything, put a nice big Zalman Nbridge sink on the Sb and should be recieving a nice new SP-97, a Neo Backplate for my CPU and a NB1 to stick on the Nbridge.

The down side is that I've found a tiny, tiny, tiny nick on my CPU :(. Now I don't know how long it's been there, but I do know my CPU was working when I shut it down. I hope I haven't knackered it because I was pretty damn lucky to have a 2.8Ghz chip.

Update tomorrow after my rebuild.

Just got a knock on my door. I know have my 2600+ Mobile and a Tawain DFI Ultra Infinty for testing. Gonna load bios 4/29 and "have a go" with the PC3200 EB. I'll keep the thread updated

I am running 2x512 of pc3200 EB in my K8Npro right now at 253x10 2.5-2-2-11. I am at 3.3v vddr but only because my vdimm is modded to my +3.3v rail. This ram feels like it would do this much lower. Gonna drop the multi and see how high we can go.

i got desperate last night and tried 220 2.5-3-2-8 3v in single channel... it failed prime blend after 12mins

I just finished some extensive ABIT NF7-S 2.0 testing. The brand new board I have will not run 2 x 512mb BH5 RAM any faster than it will run the PC3200 EB. I feel that the chipset and/or bios on these boards is holding back the overclocking with the 1gb (2 x 512mb) kits, no matter what RAM type they are. I was able to hit 217fsb in dual channel mode with ZERO errors. This was using the Tic Tac D22 and Official D23 bios.

The ABIT board is being held back by the 2.9v DDR and 1.7v Chipset maximum settings. The Nforce 2 chipset is very agressive and needs the voltages and a bios that will allow the higher FSB settings.

The same RAM in a DFI Ultra Infinity NF2 board with the latest official bios will run 237fsb stable with ZERO errors in memtest using the advanced voltage settings.

Each board will be different as the NF7's seem to vary quite a bit. The good news is that the 1gb kit will work and overclock better on some boards than others.

With a Barton Mobile CPU the 166fsb "wire mod" IS required to be stable at 200fsb or over.

I hope this info helps.

have you tried prime blend on the NF7?

Has anyone tried an Epox 8rda+/3+ yet?

Hayup, I am using memtest86+ to verify memory and CPU stability. As far as Windows goes you may have issues there with your install (don't we all at some time). Using memtest and getting zero errors in a loop of test 5 and then running the standard test is the best indicator of memory stability.

Many customers have "memory" issues that miraculously clear up after a fresh Windows install.

What's an Epox? I had my shots.

I no longer have access to an Epox, but the one I had, the 8rda+ would not EVER go over 215fsb with any RAM. I suspect that with higher voltages available on the Epox boards the results would be as good or better than the ABIT. So far all NF2 boards are liking the EB RAM.

Did you try it to see if it made any improvement at all (maybe move the highs higher?):D
Thanks MikeE

Quote:

---

Originally posted by andyOCZ
What's an Epox? I had my shots.

I no longer have access to an Epox, but the one I had, the 8rda+ would not EVER go over 215fsb with any RAM. I suspect that with higher voltages available on the Epox boards the results would be as good or better than the ABIT. So far all NF2 boards are liking the EB RAM.

---

....apart from mine, that is, j/k.

Getting this ram to work has become quite expensive. I've forked out for several lumps of aluminium and copper and in the process of refitting my system I seem to have killed my 2.8Ghz mobile, so now I'm having the use the 2.7Ghz one instead.

Still, I did manage a run at 240fsb x 11 @ 9-3-3-2-3-11-13 but without the extra performance of my faster CPU, I've lost 1000 marks. (I bought this ram solely for benching)

The 200fsb wire has popped out as well, so now I've got to remove my CPU again!!.

A tip for SP-97/NB-1/DFI users. The Clips of the '97 and the NB-1 will foul. It is better to glue the Nb fan to the NB-1 to prevent fouling.

On the DFI...10-2-2-2-2.5-12-14 seems best with EB.If you are on the 4/29 bios with the 4200EL 8-4-3-3-2.5-12-1-4 is nice with cpc enabled on both.EB to 250 on my board and 4200EL at 263.

Oskar worked some magic with the 4/29 and i strongly suggest you flash it if using the Infinity or LP rev B.

If you EB is not quite as fast as mine 10-3-2-2-2.5-12-14 is pretty good with 10-3-3-3-2-2.5-12-14 being a little slacker.All the other added teaks set to auto.

CPC with DS dimms is a much better option on the DFI now, at 258fsb i did see over 2000MB/s in memtest and would imagine well over 4000 bugffered in sandra.