Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L bios settings and o/c

[TheMagnificentCheese]

I bought this board paired with an Intel E2160 with the intentions of overclocking straight out of the box. Well I'm having some issues. I can't get the 1.8mhz stock chip to reach any higher than 2ghz even with a generous voltage bump (1.325 default up to 1.425)

It's running on stock cooling. Rock solid at core speed and vcore, but if I bump it even modestly it won't post.

I figure I'm missing a setting or two of some importance in the bios. Anyone have experience with this mobo or other P35 boards that might be able to point it out?

Here's the system entirely:
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
Intel E2160
2gb Patriot ddr2 800mhz (4-4-4-12 timing)
ATI Radeon x1950pro 512mb
160gb IDE HDD
IDE DVD-ROM

That's it. All powered by a Rosewill 550w psu, which I bought separately and by my own calculations with its 72+% utilization of max power, should be more than adequate to power this system.

Any ideas/suggestions/similar experiences?

Thanks.

 

[TheMagnificentCheese]

bump?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Clear CMOS. Flash to the latest BIOS. Go into BIOS and manually set RAM voltage and timing to specs. Change memory divider to 1:1. Increase Vcore to 1.38. Dial in 270MHz FSB. Save BIOS.

 

[TheMagnificentCheese]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Clear CMOS. Flash to the latest BIOS. Go into BIOS and manually set RAM voltage and timing to specs. Change memory divider to 1:1. Increase Vcore to 1.38. Dial in 270MHz FSB. Save BIOS.

Alright I flashed to latest BIOS, but now setting memory timings is proving to be difficult with this particular BIOS.

It's an Award setup, and the only place where I can adjust any frequencies is the "MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)" menu. There it allows me to adjust Memory Multiplier (SPD), which also allows me to set memory frequency. Then there is an option called High Speed DRAM DLL Settings, which gives me "Option 1" or "Option 2". I'm not sure which one is better to choose here, and the manual states that the option determines timing but isn't more specific than that.

Last is the DDR2 OverVoltage Control. I can go +0.1, +0.2 etc here.

Tried it at 270 FSB, no luck. Maybe these options are the key?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I don't have this board. However, Gigabyte's BIOS is not very user-friendly. You have no idea what is the actual value of default Vdimm because the voltage is not shown. I believe this vendor violates JEDEC standard of 1.8Vdimm to facilitate POSTING with POS OCZ RAMs (nominally rated at 2.0-2.1V). Default voltage is probably set at 2.1V. This may make life simple for noobs but may also damage RAMs if you start bumping up Vdimm.

The RAM timing is located under another sub-menu. It has been a while since I use a Gigabyte board.

 

[Vortex22]

Hit control+F1 in the bios for more options if you haven't already.

 

[TheMagnificentCheese]

Hit ctrl-F1, definitely more options.

Set my ram timings manually to 4-4-4-12. System posted, made it to windows loading, but immediately afterward restarted itself.

Bad RAM?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Check memory voltage. Some RAMs will require more juice to run at rated timing.

 

[Triton67]

did you "Load Optimized Defaults" after bios flash ? if not, do so.

 

[jmreedy]

Can someone please tell me what the default DDR2 voltage is on the GA-P35-DS3L Rev. 2.0 board. I am getting different numbers over multiple threads and I would really not like to fry my sticks.

Got 4x1gig XMS2 and whenever I put in more than 1 stick I lose all functionality to the back input panel and video display. I am assuming it has something to do with the default voltage being too low for multiple sticks, would this be a safe assumption?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Use the lowest setting to pass Memtest86, test #5. Run 50 loops.

 

[ripchord]

Default DDR2 voltage on the GA-P35-DS3L is 1.8v so you have to set DDR2 OverVoltage Control to +.3v in bios if your RAM is rated 2.1v.