Dual Channel = Lower overclocking potential?

[Gophermofur]

Well, I am by no means done overclocking or testing, but I thought i'd post and get a rough idea of what might be an ideal situation given my current situation.

So far, i've set the mem divider to 1:2, so it shouldn't be an issue. I'm trying to find my max CPU potential and it turns out that when I run the ram in dual channel (actually, if i run two stick period, dual channel or not) my max HTT/FSB is 250. If i run 1 stick my max is about 292. Oh and when two sticks, it turns out that I see the windows loading splash screen, but before I can actually get to windows, it reboots.

My current system is in my sig, but just so you don't have to look, I'm running the venice 3000+ so the speeds are:

250 x 9 = 2.250 ghz
292 x 9 = 2.628 ghz

In case you were wondering, i'm running my vdimm voltage at 2.80.

So, i'm not sure about how much of a difference, for games, the extra 400 mhz or so will make. Any thoughts? Opinions? Ideas?

Thanks,
Mo

 

[Gophermofur]

I think i read it somewhere, but I might as well confirm. The maximum voltages for OCZ Premier series ram is about about 2.9 right? Don't really want to go any higher?

Mo

 

[Lonyo]

2.250GHz seems horribly low for a Venice overcloc, are you sure there's not some other kind of issue?
2.6GHz seems to be almost the monimum overclock for most Venice chips (many hit 2.7~2.8GHz) so getting 2.25 seems like a different issue to running dual channel. Maybe there's an issue with a stick of RAM you have?

 

[Gophermofur]

Well, it's not even the whole 'dual channel' issue, the problem occurs when I run both sticks, regardless of single or dual channel.

I tried loosening timings, but I don't think that made a difference because I'm running the divider at 1/2 anyways, so I don't think the ram is 'stressed' out or anything like that. I tried bumping up the ram to 2.9, but i didn't feel comfortable going any higher because I didn't think id be able to run it at > 2.9 for an extended period of time anyways. I tried setting it to run at 2T, but that didn't really help either.

LDT voltage is 1.4
Cpu vid: 1.5
above 110%
Mem voltage: 2.8
Chipset voltage: 1.6

It seems that the ram isn't really getting enough power. Im not really sure what else to try? Suggestions?

Mo

 

[Lonyo]

Try each stick on its own and run Memtest on it at stock speeds, then try each in different slots.
It could be there's some kind of issue with a RAM slot or a stick of RAM, although if you're using a divider it seems odd that might be the issue.

 

[theMan]

thats because one of your sticks goes up to 250 and the other goes higher, so its limited to 250.

 

[Gophermofur]

I tried swapping the sticks with each other and the both run fine individually. Mind you this is at 290 HTT with a 2:1 divider, so it is really a bit less than 150 so they really aren't running at 250.

Mo