Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R F3 BIOS bad for overclocking?

[dadams312]

Formatted and installed Vista Ultimate x64 and just decided to go with the latest BIOS for my motherboard (F3), had been running F2 in XP previously.

Running an E8400 @ 3.6GHz, on the F2 (XP) BIOS I had the voltage set to auto and it ran it at 1.28 in CPU-Z.

Updated to Vista x64 and the F3 BIOS, set up the E8400 for 3.6GHz again, and left the voltage for it on auto and with the new BIOS it set the voltage at 1.55V:Q

Anybody else with this mobo running the F3 BIOS have the same problem?

 

[toadeater]

Don't use Auto voltages for RAM or the CPU. The BIOS is often wrong once you OC, you are best off using as few Auto settings as possible. E.g. my RAM is rated for 5-5-5-15 @ 400 FSB, 1.8v, but it runs fine at 4-4-4-12 @ 2.0v.

Btw, 1.55v is going to kill that chip, set it manually to something reasonable ASAP! I'd stay under 1.4v, unless you have very good cooling, and even then some people say over 1.4v will degrade a Wolfdale.

Another note, with an E8400 at 1.28v, you may be able to hit 3.8GHz, so even 1.28v may be a little much for 3.6GHz. The BIOS knows nothing about overclocking, find the lowest stable voltage yourself.

 

[dadams312]

1.28V is the lowest I can set the voltage for the CPU and still remain stable. I did set the voltage manually, tried what it was on the F2 BIOS but it wasn't stable. I actually had to bump the voltage to 1.3V to get it stable.

I think I'll just end up going back to the F2 BIOS and see if that is the problem.