Help me OC my AMD 64 3000+ 90nm Winchester

[funkahdafi]

Hi,

I recently upgraded my rusty XP 2200+ to an all new and shiny 939 motherboard (MSI K8N Neo2 Plat.) and AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (90 nm Winchester). While upgrading these, I kept my original Kingston DDR266 Ram.

With that combination I was able to overclock the CPU to 2.6 Ghz easily, while having set the memory to 140 Mhz (by using dividers set to DDR100). Great stuff, but I wanted more so I also bought some new (and frankly: cheap) DDR400 memory (TwinMOS 512 Twin.x2). And that'S where my problem starts:

That memory doesn't seem to like me. I have set it to DDR333 (166 Mhz) and can not go over 2250 Mhz CPU Clock now. Going higher results in total system instability, crashes and system resets. Strangly enough, setting the memory further down to DDR266 (133 Mhz) makes it even worse (strangely, at that divider I can only overclock the HTT to like 220).

What could be my problem here? I know it must be the memory but I am sure this can be tweaked somehow. Maybe I am using too much/less voltage on the RAM (I read some RAM doesn't like increasing the voltage)? Or I will need to have some other timing settings, but I have no idea of those.

So some help would be greatly appreciated. My current settings:

RAM: 166 Mhz, 1T, CAL 2.5, rest is auto
RAM Voltage: 1.7
HTT: 250
HT: 3x
Multiplier: 9x

Let me know if you need more details.

Thanks!
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[cbehnken]

Hmm, that Ram voltage can't be right. Are you sure it isn't 2.7? Bump it to 2.8. I have 2 chips of that same ram running 225 in my machine here with no problems.

Also, try upgrading your bios, the 133 Mhz fluke sounds really weird.

You do realize that your ram is running about 230 at that 166 Mhz setting? You should be able to run that, but maybe not. Set Cas to 3.0

 

[ZobarStyl]

Overclocking and cheap memory don't go together. You can try the loosest timings but there's also little chance you can overclock cheap RAM and use any timings lower than CAS 3.0. Set the timings to 3.0 or auto and try again, or just take the RAM back and try again with something decent.

 

[funkahdafi]

yes of course, I ment 2.7. I also tried seetings like 2.75, 2.8 and 2.85 but that did not help. Also, when setting it to CAS 3 the whole thing wouldn't even POST anymore.

what really bug me is that when setting the RAM to 133 mhz I can't get over 220 Mhz HTT. Not posting. Maybe I should really try another BIOS....

Note that the twinmos Ram is the cheap version, not the "twister" brand....

 

[gururu]

try it with one stick, see if it goes higher. if it does and you find a sweet spot, run it for a few days to ensure its stable. throw int he second stick and see if it holds. it may automatically drop your timings. if the first stick doesn't do well, repeat with the other stick first.

 

[BW86]

Originally posted by: ZobarStyl
Overclocking and cheap memory don't go together.

sure it does, i have some and it's great

 

[jpeyton]

Where'd you get the Winchester from?

 

[funkahdafi]

I tried losening the timings but that didn't help either. Actually I am not really interested in overclocking the memory so the biggest question and concern to me is why I can not drive my HTT any higher than 220 when setting the memory to a 133 Mhz divider. This is really odd... Any idea on this? I would be happy to drive the memory at 133 Mhz and pump it up through HTT... but that at 133 just doesn't work (while at 100 I have no problems to even go to a 300 HTT). I think this memory just plain sucks. Or it's the BIOS...?

@jpeyton: bought it an Ingram Micro, a distributor. You can only buy there if you run a business...