Advice on Overclocking an NForce 4 Board -- Do I need to increase the Chipset Voltage?

[MajorPayne]

I have one of the new Chaintech VNF4 Ultra boards, with an A64 3000+ winchester core. I have been working for a few weeks to overclock this board, and I have gotten it to HTT240, but cannot get past this point, no matter what I do. I have tried dropping the HTT multi (down even as far as 2x), relaxed my memory timings, increase the CPU Voltage (as high as 1.7, up from 1.4 stock), upped the RAM voltage to 2.8, set the RAM divider as low as 133, and turned off Cool-N-Quiet, but I still cannot get past 240HTT (which is VERY stable).

In the voltage section, there is an option to set the chipset voltage (in addition to chip and RAM voltage) -- I have never had to up the Chipset voltage on a motherboard to overclock before, but this is the first A64 board I have ever really pushed. Has anyone here had to up thier Nforce chipset voltage for an overclock, and if so, does this help? If so, what is a safe voltage increase for the chipset (if you know?). Thanks!

 

[Insomniak]

RAM voltage at 1.8? I hope to god that's a typo.

Anyway, how high have you gotten the chip's total driven clock? It's possible the processor just doesn't want to go any higher. Same possibility for the chipset.

 

[MajorPayne]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
RAM voltage at 1.8? I hope to god that's a typo.

Anyway, how high have you gotten the chip's total driven clock? It's possible the processor just doesn't want to go any higher. Same possibility for the chipset.

Yes it was a typo... I have corrected it to 2.8!

I have pushed the CPU's clock to 2.16 GHZ, at a 240HTT, with HTT multi set to 3x (I cannot seem to get it to go to 240 at 4x, even though this would be below the 1000MHZ spec). I suppose that it could be the processor/chipset not wanting to go higher, but just judging by how cool and stable they are at this overclock, I feel that I can get more out of them. This is why I wonder about upping the Chipset Voltage... I will try a small bump to this tonight, and see if this gets me a little further -- if it does, then this is probably my limitation.

 

[Insomniak]

Not sure. I have an Athlon 64 3000+ Winnie myself right now, and it's pumping around at 2.2Ghz in an A8N-SLI Deluxe as well. RAM at 2.6v and CPU at 1.5v, and I have no problems. Stock voltage on the mobo.

 

[MajorPayne]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Not sure. I have an Athlon 64 3000+ Winnie myself right now, and it's pumping around at 2.2Ghz in an A8N-SLI Deluxe as well. RAM at 2.6v and CPU at 1.5v, and I have no problems. Stock voltage on the mobo.

I will try upping the Chipset voltage later tonight, since I feel that this CPU/motherboard can overclock further, but something is holding me back since everything is cool and stable at 240 HTT. I meant to do this last night, but did not get off work until almost midnight, and since I was out the door at 5:30am, I never had time. I do not know if this will help though.

One thing I heard mentioned earlier in Anandtech's review of the SIS 755FX Chipset for the A64 is that the that board (not the VNF4, which as far as reviewers etc. are concerned does not exist!) has a poor stock clock generator built in, which will not let you past an effective speed of 233 (even though it appears to pass this, the CPU speed does not really change past this point). I am starting to wonder if this board has a similar situation -- I do not know much about motherboard clock generators, so I cannot say for sure, but it definitely seems that some kind of artificial limitation is preventing passing the 240HTT point. Hopefully this is not the case tho, since the clock generator is a physical part (that cannot be changed by a BIOS update) and this would relegate us permanently to the 240 point.