Howdy! I recently purchased a used AMD Opteron 165 processor, DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D motherboard, and two 1 GB sticks of Geil PC4000 RAM from a friend. He had been running the CPU at 2.6 GHz with a 1.4 v vcore (stock vcore being 1.35 v) ever since buying the hardware new a year-and-a-half ago. Limited experimentation on his part suggested he could run as high as 3.0 GHz on that voltage, albeit with compromised stability.
Sadly, since installing the processor, motherboard, and RAM myself, I haven't been able to get anywhere near 2.5 GHz. With my vcore at 1.45 v, HTT at 280, and CPU multiplier at 9 for a clockspeed of 2520 MHz, Prime95 fails after one minute. At a vcore of 1.5 v (the highest I dare test at), a HTT of 290 and CPU multiplier of 9, yielding a clockspeed of 2610 MHz, Prime95 crashed immediately upon launching it. Throughout my overclocking adventures, I have kept the memory/HTT divider at 1:2, so my RAM has never been running above 145 MHz, with relaxed timings. Upping DRAM voltage from the default 2.6 v to 2.7 v or 2.8 v yields no improvement. The PCI express bus has remained locked at 100 MHz. I've tried the LDT/FSB frequency ratio both at "auto" (which I understand is a good setting for this board, regardless of HTT) and to numbers yielding the closest approximation to 1000 without exceeding it.
The only major change from my friend's hardware configuration is my power supply, a 550 W Enermax EG565V-PE ? I'm using exactly the same CPU, motherboard, and RAM that he was. My power supply, as well as all my other hardware, was previously in a system using the same model of motherboard and an AMD64 3200+ 1.8 GHz Venice, which I had been running perfectly stably at 2.78 GHz for the preceding two-and-a-half years.
Idle temperatures are around 24 C, only a couple degrees above ambient; load temperatures, even at a vcore of 1.475, never exceed 45 C. I'm using a Thermalright SI-120 heatsink, which I took great pains to lap to a mirror finish; for thermal interface material I'm using Arctic Silver 5, which I applied exactly in accordance with the official instructions. Mounted on the heatsink is a Delta 120 mm fan pushing 130 CFM. I also lapped the chipset heatsink and then applied Arctic Silver 5 to it; the chipset's temperature hovers around 35 C. Cooling throughout the rest of the case is quite ample, particularly since I have my side panel off.
The one hazy area is with BIOS revisions ? before I began overclocking, I flashed to the latest BIOS provided by DFI, 2006/04/06. After receiving poor results with the official 2006/04/06, I flashed to the official 2005/11/14, but saw no improvement. Both flashes had been performed with WinFlash, and I had neglected to clear the CMOS after flashing, though I had used the ?load optimized defaults? function both before and after flashing. In talking to my friend, I learned he had installed a version modified by OCZ Tony using Tmod's bootable BIOS flash CD (http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22031), but could not remember what version he used. I, of course, overwrote it with my ill-thought-out initial flash. I tried flashing to OCZ Tony's 704-2bta, which I assumed to be very similar to the version my friend had been using, if not exactly the same. To do so, I used Tmod's bootable BIOS flash CD, not WinFlash. Afterwards, I was careful to shut down the system, remove the power cord, remove the CMOS battery, and activate the clear CMOS jumper for ten minutes. Still, upon loading optimized defaults, I saw no improvement in overclocking results.
What could possibly account for the discrepancy in overclocking results between my friend and I? Using almost the same hardware, save for a different power supply (which ought to be more than up to the task), why can I not even reach 2.6 GHz stable with a 1.5 v vcore, while my friend achieved it all-but effortlessly with only a 1.4 v vcore? Anything above 2.6 GHz, such as the 3 GHz at which he was able to boot Windows and run Prime95 at, is but a pipe dream. Temperatures seem well within the acceptable range, and while BIOS version discrepancies are a cause for some concern, I saw no improvement moving between two official revisions, as well as a modified one by OCZ Tony. Could the hardware possibly have been damaged during shipping? Given that it was shipped from North Carolina to Alberta, Canada, could some border official have handled it outside of an anti-static bag and caused electrostatic discharge-related damage (even though it sounds quite ludicrous that the damage would manifest itself in so subtle a manner)? Is there anything I might try to obtain the results that my friend did with the very hardware he sold to me?
Thanks,
Jeff
Sadly, since installing the processor, motherboard, and RAM myself, I haven't been able to get anywhere near 2.5 GHz. With my vcore at 1.45 v, HTT at 280, and CPU multiplier at 9 for a clockspeed of 2520 MHz, Prime95 fails after one minute. At a vcore of 1.5 v (the highest I dare test at), a HTT of 290 and CPU multiplier of 9, yielding a clockspeed of 2610 MHz, Prime95 crashed immediately upon launching it. Throughout my overclocking adventures, I have kept the memory/HTT divider at 1:2, so my RAM has never been running above 145 MHz, with relaxed timings. Upping DRAM voltage from the default 2.6 v to 2.7 v or 2.8 v yields no improvement. The PCI express bus has remained locked at 100 MHz. I've tried the LDT/FSB frequency ratio both at "auto" (which I understand is a good setting for this board, regardless of HTT) and to numbers yielding the closest approximation to 1000 without exceeding it.
The only major change from my friend's hardware configuration is my power supply, a 550 W Enermax EG565V-PE ? I'm using exactly the same CPU, motherboard, and RAM that he was. My power supply, as well as all my other hardware, was previously in a system using the same model of motherboard and an AMD64 3200+ 1.8 GHz Venice, which I had been running perfectly stably at 2.78 GHz for the preceding two-and-a-half years.
Idle temperatures are around 24 C, only a couple degrees above ambient; load temperatures, even at a vcore of 1.475, never exceed 45 C. I'm using a Thermalright SI-120 heatsink, which I took great pains to lap to a mirror finish; for thermal interface material I'm using Arctic Silver 5, which I applied exactly in accordance with the official instructions. Mounted on the heatsink is a Delta 120 mm fan pushing 130 CFM. I also lapped the chipset heatsink and then applied Arctic Silver 5 to it; the chipset's temperature hovers around 35 C. Cooling throughout the rest of the case is quite ample, particularly since I have my side panel off.
The one hazy area is with BIOS revisions ? before I began overclocking, I flashed to the latest BIOS provided by DFI, 2006/04/06. After receiving poor results with the official 2006/04/06, I flashed to the official 2005/11/14, but saw no improvement. Both flashes had been performed with WinFlash, and I had neglected to clear the CMOS after flashing, though I had used the ?load optimized defaults? function both before and after flashing. In talking to my friend, I learned he had installed a version modified by OCZ Tony using Tmod's bootable BIOS flash CD (http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22031), but could not remember what version he used. I, of course, overwrote it with my ill-thought-out initial flash. I tried flashing to OCZ Tony's 704-2bta, which I assumed to be very similar to the version my friend had been using, if not exactly the same. To do so, I used Tmod's bootable BIOS flash CD, not WinFlash. Afterwards, I was careful to shut down the system, remove the power cord, remove the CMOS battery, and activate the clear CMOS jumper for ten minutes. Still, upon loading optimized defaults, I saw no improvement in overclocking results.
What could possibly account for the discrepancy in overclocking results between my friend and I? Using almost the same hardware, save for a different power supply (which ought to be more than up to the task), why can I not even reach 2.6 GHz stable with a 1.5 v vcore, while my friend achieved it all-but effortlessly with only a 1.4 v vcore? Anything above 2.6 GHz, such as the 3 GHz at which he was able to boot Windows and run Prime95 at, is but a pipe dream. Temperatures seem well within the acceptable range, and while BIOS version discrepancies are a cause for some concern, I saw no improvement moving between two official revisions, as well as a modified one by OCZ Tony. Could the hardware possibly have been damaged during shipping? Given that it was shipped from North Carolina to Alberta, Canada, could some border official have handled it outside of an anti-static bag and caused electrostatic discharge-related damage (even though it sounds quite ludicrous that the damage would manifest itself in so subtle a manner)? Is there anything I might try to obtain the results that my friend did with the very hardware he sold to me?
Thanks,
Jeff
Facebook
Twitter