UnOfficial Asus Rampage II Extreme Thread

[RoEy]

Hi all,

Ran into a problem. I decided to try and get 4ghz 20x200 stable.

Vcore - 1.30635
VTT - 1.3065
CPU PLL - 1.812
VDIMM - 1.65
IOH / ICH - all auto
CPU Spread Spectrum - disabled


Ram at 1600 8-8-8-24-1T

Passed 30 Max Runs on IBT

Started to run Prime95 and I get an error after 40 mins:

FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

Prime was still running but it was running at a load of 87%. I had the perfomance manager open and saw all 8 cores but the 3rd one was hardly running, hence the 87% load.

My CPU hasn't died has it? I'm guessing I need just a small bump in either VCORE or VTT or even both?

Temps were fine - 68 65 67 64

Hope someone can help.

Thanks,

RoEy

[RoEy]

Another error!

I upped vcore and vtt one nudge and started prime again.

Got this error on the 1st core after 14 minutes:

FATAL ERROR: Resulting sum was 2.099013477481677e+016, expected: 2.127392654314129e+016
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

I'm starting to think it's not vcore or vtt I need to up as before it was fine running IBT 30 Max mem runs.

IOH voltage maybe?

Running BLEND by the way.

Need help

Thanks,

RoEy

[CryptiK]

Seriously, if you don't have much (any?) experience with the platform or the principle of overclocking, start at a lower frequency and work your way up. You're not the first guy to just go straight for 4GHz + but as I have said quite a few times in this thread now, start low, work your way up. It's how you learn.

[RoEy]

Seriously, if you don't have much (any?) experience with the platform or the principle of overclocking, start at a lower frequency and work your way up. You're not the first guy to just go straight for 4GHz + but as I have said quite a few times in this thread now, start low, work your way up. It's how you learn.

I do have some experience with Overclocking. I was running a 920 C0 at 3.8 for 10 months until I updated to a D0.

I'd love to start at a lower clock but not all of use have bags of time to just sit around all day testing, testing and testing.

Anyway,

I've left vcore at 1.30635 and I've upped the VTT to 1.325.

So far so good, Prime has been running for over an hour. Fingers crossed. I'll ask for help else where in future as I'm obviously annoying some of you.

RoEy

[CryptiK]

Don't take what I said the wrong way, it's impossible to convey tone with just text on a page. I meant what I said sincerely, with the aim of helping you out. You appeared to be frustrated and lost, then were very worried you had killed your CPU when it simply wasn't stable. It's not often you see someone freak out thinking they killed their CPU because after a few test runs at a given speed they couldn't get it stable. I suggested you start lower so you learn your new hardware, and avoid unnecessary stress. I'm certainly not annoyed at all, but can you understand that when you see someone struggling due to aiming too high you want to help by suggesting they set their sights a little lower to begin with? You are of course welcome to ask anything you want here, we're all here to help each other.

[Leeghoofd]

RoEy, ditch the 20 multi mate and go 19 multi, will be far easier to stabilise (and strangely enough with lower volts).

Try to run first Custom with 20-20K set to see if the Vcore is sufficient, then go blend and work with VTT voltage... if that passes after a few hours, try Hyperpi 32mb with 8 threads, and play some more with B2B Cas delay and VTT voltage...

[RoEy]

Don't take what I said the wrong way, it's impossible to convey tone with just text on a page. I meant what I said sincerely, with the aim of helping you out. You appeared to be frustrated and lost, then were very worried you had killed your CPU when it simply wasn't stable. It's not often you see someone freak out thinking they killed their CPU because after a few test runs at a given speed they couldn't get it stable. I suggested you start lower so you learn your new hardware, and avoid unnecessary stress. I'm certainly not annoyed at all, but can you understand that when you see someone struggling due to aiming too high you want to help by suggesting they set their sights a little lower to begin with? You are of course welcome to ask anything you want here, we're all here to help each other.

Point taken. I apologise.

It's just that I've never seen a thread stop working before in Prime. I must have been lucky last time.

Anyway, it's still priming as I type this and I'm now at 2hours 35mins. So hopefully it will get to 8 hours. I totally agree with you saying take it slow and work your way up but I just don't have the time to do that. I've been messing with it all week after work and the wife is starting to get annoyed! lol

I've heard a few people say even multis are harder to get stable but I wanted my ram to run a full speed. I did want to push for 4.2 21x200 but I needed 1.33750 for both vcore and vtt and the load on vcore sent it upto 1.38 in IBT, which is over the intel recommend spec.

Is is ok going over 1.35 during load? I have LLC enabled. Didn't understand what the other chap said.

RoEy

[RoEy]

RoEy, ditch the 20 multi mate and go 19 multi, will be far easier to stabilise (and strangely enough with lower volts).

Try to run first Custom with 20-20K set to see if the Vcore is sufficient, then go blend and work with VTT voltage... if that passes after a few hours, try Hyperpi 32mb with 8 threads, and play some more with B2B Cas delay and VTT voltage...

That would give me 3.8 though and I want 4 or even 4.2 if I can be brave enough.

Unless you mean 19x210?

RoEy

[RoEy]

DOH!

Must have spoken too soon. Got a BSOD, after 2 hours 40 mins.

I give up with the 20 multi.

Blue screen said something about service exception?

got this when I rebooted:

BCCode: 3b
BCP1: 00000000C0000005
BCP2: FFFFF96000298B30
BCP3: FFFFF8800551D740
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1

I really want the ram at 1600 and I want 4ghz but I don't think it's going to happen.

Should I update the BIOS? Running 1504

Help.....Please....


RoEy

[CryptiK]

No problem, I understand the family time constraints, it usually takes a lot of small sessions to get anything really squared away. When I say start low I meant ~3.6GHz, and as leeghoofd said, use odd multi's if you can as it requires less vcore.

211 x 19 is a good setting for 4GHz I've found. Takes less vcore than 200 x 20 and has higher ram/uncore speed.

EDIT - I'm on 1504 with no issues, I found it better than 1704 stability wise. 1704 wasn't recovering from failed overclocks and couldnt quite do the same BCLK as 1504. YMMV though.

[RoEy]

No problem, I understand the family time constraints, it usually takes a lot of small sessions to get anything really squared away. When I say start low I meant ~3.6GHz, and as leeghoofd said, use odd multi's if you can as it requires less vcore.

211 x 19 is a good setting for 4GHz I've found. Takes less vcore than 200 x 20 and has higher ram/uncore speed.

Ok I'll try that mate. Won't that need more VTT though?

I may start at 3.6 and build.

Thanks again,

RoEy

[CryptiK]

Maybe, my CPU doesn't need much Vtt anyway but it's worth a try. I can run 218 BCLK at 1.224 Vtt prime stable so I'm well within specs still. The 20x multi is a nightmare compared to 19x and 21x in my experience.

[RoEy]

Maybe, my CPU doesn't need much Vtt anyway but it's worth a try. I can run 218 BCLK at 1.224 Vtt prime stable so I'm well within specs still. The 20x multi is a nightmare compared to 19x and 21x in my experience.

You got that right!

Ok, I'll have a play. One more thing, Can I still leave the IOH/ICH's on auto when going past 200bclk?

Do nb temps increase when raising bclk?

Thanks again,

RoEy

P.S. Could do with you on msn

EDIT - 19X211 Sets my RAM to 1693, won't this cause problems with ram seeing as its rated upto 1600, plus I don't have a fan on the RAM?

[CryptiK]

I'd simply set vIOH = 1.15v and vSB = 1.1 (whatever the lowest one is) You can always reduce later if unnecessary or increase if necessary but that's a good place to start.

NB temps for me don't change with BCLK, its more dependent on vIOH from what I've noticed. Around mid 50's load is what I'm seeing.

You ram may well do more than DDR3-1600, I'm not familiar with your model but perhaps just try and use a low CPU/BCLK and test your ram out first. If you can get DDR3-1700 or so stable, then go for 211 x 19 and see how it goes. X58's respond well to low latency though, at DDR3-1600 6-7-6-18 1T, I'm getting just under DDR3-2000 8-8-8-24 1T results. As triple channel provides so much bandwidth, lower speeds still provide the CPU with ample data. Of course benchmarks will still benefit from highest possible speeds, but for daily use I honestly can't tell the difference and I'm not going to thrash my CPU for what is, to me, an imperceptible gain.

Unfortunately I don't use msn, but I can help as much as I'm able to from here. Good luck and have fun with it.

EDIT - your ram shouldn't get that hot, feel it with the back of your fingers when you run a memory stress test (bootable memtest test 5 is very good) and see how hot it gets. If it's uncomfortable to hold your fingers on, you need a fan. If not I wouldn't be too concerned.

[JoeBar]

The 20x multi is a nightmare compared to 19x and 21x in my experience.

I second that. I couldn't get it totally stable @ 20X217. From time to time i got bsod's out of nowhere. Now @ 21X210 i'm 24/7 stable without the need for crazy qpi volts. Plus now with mem @ 1683mhz i'm able to run them 6-8-6-20 with nice scores.

A friend of mine with a DFI UT T3eH8 experiences the same behavior from his 920.

[RoEy]

I second that. I couldn't get it totally stable @ 20X217. From time to time i got bsod's out of nowhere. Now @ 21X210 i'm 24/7 stable without the need for crazy qpi volts. Plus now with mem @ 1683mhz i'm able to run them 6-8-6-20 with nice scores.

A friend of mine with a DFI UT T3eH8 experiences the same behavior from his 920.

Hi Joe,

Could you list all your settings? That would be great so it could help me understand better.

I've gone right back to the drawing board. Starting at 2.8 to determine my lowest vcore and VTT needed and see how far I can push it on that.

Cheers,

RoEy

[exe163]

I am still stuck on the system not waking up after putting into sleep mode. The debug screen shows time and monitor is black screen with no signal when I tries to wake her up. I tried every BIOS I can get on and still no luck. Anyone got an idea how to fix this? Also, how do I check what revision my board is on?

Thanks in advance.

[Le Titi]

I try the new bios 1802 last time because for me 1504 is very good.

[RoEy]

Hi all,

Ok so I went back to the drawing board and determined what my lowest voltage was in order to boot and stress.

Vcore - 1.21875 - (1.208 in CPU-Z)

VTT - 1.25 - I set this so it wouldnt drop below 1.20 - .5v within ram.

VDIMM - 1.65

I have turned all power saving options off, spread spectrums disabled, LLC enabled, turbo, C-tech and C1E disabled, all other voltages are set to auto, including CPU PLL. Memory timings have been put in - 8-8-8-24-1T.

I then set multi to 21x (sod doing 20 again ), DRAM frequency, UCLK and QPI was set manually and I always kept ram below 1600 depending on BCLK. My aim was to see how far I could push the BCLK at stock voltages, increasing the bclk by 10 after each stress. All testing was done on Prime95 Blend test, 8 threads which I ran for certain periods of time then stopped. Towards the later stages I've used IBT 20 Runs Max Mem too. When I get to 4ghz/4.2 I intend to run Prime for 14-16 hours.

Results so far:

21 x 133 = 2.8Ghz

Prime Stable for 2 hours - Temps - 54 52 53 49


21 x 143 = 3Ghz

Ram = 1433 - 8 8 8 24 - 1T

UCLK = 2866

QPI = 5161

Prime Stable for 1 hour 15 - Temps - 57 53 55 51


21 x 153 = 3.2Ghz

Ram = 1533 - 8 8 8 24 - 1T

UCLK = 3067

QPI = 5242

Prime Stable for 1 hour 15 - Temps - 56 53 55 51


21 x 163 = 3.4Ghz

Ram = 1306 - 8 8 8 24 - 1T

UCLK = 1614

QPI = 5883

Prime Stable for 1 hour 15 - Temps - 58 54 56 52


21 x 173 = 3.6Ghz

Ram = 1387 - 8 8 8 24 - 1T

UCLK = 2775

QPI = 6244

Prime Stable for 2 hours - Temps - 59 56 58 53


21 x 183 = 3.8Ghz

Ram = 1467 - 8 8 8 24 - 1T

UCLK = 2935

QPI = 6605

Prime Stable for 3 hours - Temps - 61 58 60 55

IBT Stable after 20 Max Mem runs 8 thread


Ok, I've noticed that when cpu is 100% load the vcore goes up to 1.25 and the VTT tends to drop to around 1.22-1.24 (Everest and LCD Poster readings).

This is as far as I can push the system at these volts.

I've booted into windows with:

21 x 193, stock voltage but I get a BSOD within a minute of just being on the desktop.

BSOD Error = IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Tech info = 0x00000000A (0x0000000000008006, etc.......

Now I'm guessing it's either a bump in vcore or vtt or even both. Do I need to set CPU PLL to 1.812 instead of auto also.

I've put loads of effort into this as you can see and now my wife hates me, but I'm so close to 4ghz / 4.2 that I can't stop now.

I'd love to get 4.2.

Hope anyone can help as I've listened to you guys about starting from the bottom and working my way up! lol

Thanks,

RoEy

[RoEy]

Where's all the overclocking gurus when you need them?

RoEy

[Mydog]

Why do you try to clock both CPU and ram at the same time?
Leave the ram low until you get CPU stable then at least you know where the problem is.

Sorry for the bad english

[RoEy]

Why do you try to clock both CPU and ram at the same time?
Leave the ram low until you get CPU stable then at least you know where the problem is.

Sorry for the bad english

Ok, I've heard this before but never been sure what to do. So when I take the cpu to 3.8 I should set the ram to lowest speed then? Does that mean I don't do the timings for it also, until I get clock stable?

What do I set UCLK and QPI, their lowest value also? Shall I do small ftts in Prime then, so it's just testing CPU?

Nothing wrong with your english.

Thanks,

RoEy

[Nuckin_Futs]

I 2nd that. I would also try to stay manual on the main voltages even if set to low defults but Auto is usually not the best options for good overclcks in my experiences on these ASUS ROG mobos as well s in general. Look in the beginning of htis tread to see examples of defults and up gently fro there as needed. particularly in the area of QPI, NB/SB. You may leave RAM in auto during in testing for higher CPU clock then reverse. Set CPU to lower or auto while tweaking RAM then begin to blend the two results. I do this because you may find a certain CPU/RAM divider is not as stable at a given FSB or clock. During CPU and RAM OC test, try to keep 1:1 0r 1:2 for stability.

"My_Two_Cents" hope it can help.

[Sizmik]

Who's using Mushkin Redlines 99805's or (998691) on this mobo? the 6-8-6-24 (6-8-6-18) v/s corsair's CMX6GX3M3C1600C7 @ 7-8-7-20 to the 1800 range and if so at what kind of timings and performances? Do you feel any performance trade of for the CL6 of the mushkins v/s the lower tRAS of 20 on the Corsair at stock and of corse in the OC range ov 1800? Are the 998691 really worth the slight extra cost when at or above 1900MHz? Keeping in mind I will be overclocking to at least 1800 so that's why I ask if the Mushkin 805's will do as good as 691's at upper speeds with like timings?

I use the redlines (998692), I am running at stock speeds with them.

[RoEy]

Ok, I've dropped ram down to whatever the lowest speed is for that particular bclk and also the uclk so it's double my dram frequency.

I'm now going to raise the bclk and see how far I can push the stock voltage, 1.208, currently sat at 3.9.

I'll test it using small ftts in prime and maybe IBT normal ram use perhaps? Hopefully I'll manage to get to 4.2 then when the cpu is stable I'll push ram upto 1600 and test it all.

I'm not taking ram over 1600 so I always thought I wasn't overclocking before.

Does this sound ok?

RoEy