E6750 and Gigabyte GA-P31-S3G Overclock

[mikebc]

Hi Everyone,

I'm just looking for some advice or to find out if anyone else has come across this problem before.

A mate has asked me to assemble his computer for him. Here's what he has purchased:

E6750
GA-P31-S3G
2x1GB PC5300
512MB 8600GT

I've got it all up and running but overclocking is proving to be a headache. Effectively the problem is the Memory Ratio. The options are Auto, 2, 3, etc, etc.

If I push the FSB up a little to 345, the RAM runs at 690MHz. I can't find a way to set the ratio lower to drop the RAM speed back. If I push the FSB any higher, it won't POST. I can't find an option on the board to lower the ratio to less than 2.

Has anyone else run into this problem?

It runs stable at 345, but that isn't much of an overclock (2.76). Obviously a change of the RAM to PC6400 would make a difference, but I'm trying to find a way around that.

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[VirtualLarry]

You're not going to like this... but... there is no RAM ratio on an Intel chipset that is slower than 1:1 with the FSB. Isn't going to happen. So if you have a 333Mhz FSB, your RAM will run at DDR2-667. If you have a 400Mhz FSB, your RAM will run at DDR2-800. It sounds like you need to purchase faster RAM.

 

[DSF]

What's your friend doing with his computer? It's possible he's not going to see much benefit from the extra few hundred MHz anyway.

Edit: You could try bumping up the RAM voltage if you haven't already though.

 

[mikebc]

Thanks for the reply VirtualLarry.

I figured as much, but wanted to be sure before I told my mate that he bought the wrong RAM speed. Oh well...

 

[mikebc]

No I haven't bumped up the RAM voltage. What should I be setting it to without risking damage?

 

[DSF]

2.2V is definitely the limit, but I wouldn't go any higher than 2.1V. Gigabyte's BIOS doesn't show the actual RAM voltage, just the additional voltage over default. Don't go any higher than +0.3V.

I'd up it bit by bit and see if you get it stable at somewhere between +0.1 and +0.3V. Check the timings too. If they're set at 4-4-4-x, try loosening them up to 5-5-5-15 and see if that helps.

 

[mikebc]

Originally posted by: DSF
2.2V is definitely the limit, but I wouldn't go any higher than 2.1V. Gigabyte's BIOS doesn't show the actual RAM voltage, just the additional voltage over default. Don't go any higher than +0.3V.

I'd up it bit by bit and see if you get it stable at somewhere between +0.1 and +0.3V. Check the timings too. If they're set at 4-4-4-x, try loosening them up to 5-5-5-15 and see if that helps.

Yep I've upped the RAM voltage to +.02V and set the timings to 5-5-5-15.

On that I pushed the FSB to the previous no-POST max of 350. So far I've had Orthos running for the past couple hours - no problems. I'll push the FSB up 5 more and try again.

 

[mikebc]

Here's an update for anyone interested.

After upping the RAM voltage by +0.2, I've been able to run several benchmarks with an FSB of 390, giving a speed of 3.12GHz.

I'm not going to push it any further, so he'll have to be happy with that

Thanks everyone for the advice!