Biostar TA690G + Brisbane 3600+ Overclocking

[rexian96]

Several forum members have successfully overclocked their Brisbane 3600+ above 2.8GHz with this board, so asking the question.

I have the latest BIOS (516) from the Chinese site and this memory running @373MHz with 4-4-4-12.

I am running the board clock at 276MHz (default 200), memory clock as DDR 533 (default DDR 667), vcore +0.075V, dimm 2.05V and everything else normal. CPU ID reports CPU@2612MHz and memory@373MHz. The computer is stable after about 9 hours of orthos and 5+ hours of memtest and temperature was ~43°C.

But when I try to increase the clock to 290 or above, the machine simply refuses to boot. On the POST screen, it says the computer is running in SAFE MODE and CPU clock value is not there (or something like that). I have even tried to lower the memory multiplier by selecting DDR 400, at which memory runs below 300MHz, but it still runs in SAFE MODE and halts.

Everything except my hard drive runs pretty cool, so I think it's not the CPU or memory that is limiting me. I haven't messed with the HT Link options. I don't even know what those are, but may be someone can shed a little light

Thanks.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I've not made the jump to AM2 yet, but it sounds like a problem with the HTT multiplier being too high. You might try lowering it to 3 or 4x and see if that lets you hit 290Mhz+.

 

[DrMrLordX]

BlueWeasel is on the right track, methinks. Also, that board may need more chipset/htt voltage to hit higher htt speeds. Be careful with that, though.

 

[rexian96]

Thanks friends. I reduced the HT Link multiplier to 3 from 5 and I could increase the clock to 295MHz. Now CPUZ reports 885MHz HT Link, 2802MHz for CPU. I reduced memory multiplier and now memory running at 275MHz (it's rated 333MHz), so memory is not limiting me anymore.

But it's not stable at all and every now and then it fails to boot and locks up. Also some 1080p video playback is very choppy. CPU is still very cool, memory running much less than it's rating and even HT Link is more than 100MHz below it's rating. So I think only thing causing the instability is either the GPU clock (IGP) or the BIOS itself. Am I right? Reducing the IGP clock to 300 from 400 didn't help at all ... I think I'll try the 4/27 bios now. Anything else you guys think I am missing?

 

[Zap]

The limitation may be the chipset itself. Highest reports are at 310MHz HTT, but most are in the mid-high 200 range (250-285MHz). This chipset isn't getting the crazy clocks like the Nvidia chipsets.

see this thread

 

[rexian96]

Originally posted by: Zap
The limitation may be the chipset itself. Highest reports are at 310MHz HTT, but most are in the mid-high 200 range (250-285MHz). This chipset isn't getting the crazy clocks like the Nvidia chipsets.

see this thread

Both these boards seem to overclock similarly, at lest 1 person has been able to do the same with both the boards. See this and this

Today I flashed bios 4/27 and could reach 310. Almost stable, except a few blank screens under gaming/heavy 3D operations, which is a known bug for 4/27 bios, so I got back to 5/16 again. It seems there are 2 new BIOS on Biostar TW site, I'll try those and report.

 

[rexian96]

The BIOS' are having some issues, I get an alert saying "BIOS ID Error, are you sure to program?" and wasn't brave enough to proceed. I am still having a few stability issues, but somehow Orthos runs fine for several hours without any issues and the system locks up when left unused for few hours. When in use, it never has any problem, even sleep is disabled.

 

[MarcVenice]

give the cpu some more juice ? 1.45v should be safe ...

 

[rexian96]

Thanks MarcVenice for the hint The memory defaulted to 1.95V after I flashed the BIOS to 5/16 version. Made it 2.15V and things are much better. Only issue I have now is not related to OC. I'll post it if it happens again.