Help with 3500+ and Neo2 Plat setup

[palindrome]

Ok, I'm running an A64 3500+ Newcastle on the MSI K8N Neo2 Plat board. I was hoping someone possibly had this setup and could share some numbers with me. I seem to be limited by my ram, but I'm not sure... I have a gig (2x512) of pc3200 Kingston HyperX, which will run 2-3-2-7 w/o OCing in DC @ 400 mhz effective just fine. I can't seem to break 208mhz FSB without major stability issues. I already know its not the PSU, I've tried 3 different ones. I'll post some specifics on hardware and BIOS info as soon as I reboot =) . I'm currently running version 1.B BIOS. Lemme know what you think.

Also, pending my overclocking with this, I was debating on the Opty 165 and some RAM (keeping my current MOBO of course).

 

[Ricemarine]

You did lower the timings to 2.5-3-3-7 before you advanced further correct?

 

[palindrome]

lol, yes. If I couldn't do that much, I don't deserve to post.... The point was to show the ram was fairly decent. I've used prime95 on my 208FSB for about 12 hours, no errors. But when I increase it my chances of IDE detection on startup become slim, not sure why.

 

[Ricemarine]

-Did you try the 1.B bios by sideeffect?
-Turn off cool and quiet?

or the big killer...

-Did you put your SATA drive on 1 or 2 by any chance? You should put it on 3 and 4.

 

[palindrome]

I tried sideeffect's 1.C Final Beta mod BIOS. I DID have my SATA drives (2 HDs: one maxtor 250gig 16mb cache, and a hitachi 160gig 8mb cache) plugged into the SATA 1 and 2 (to the right of the PCI slots). After I rebooted with the new drivers and was like "WTF OMG! Where did my HDs GO!?" So now I have my HDDs plugged into 3 and 4. I then go into windows to find my gigabit and my nvidia ethernet controllers where missing. I thought this was the BIOS being weird, so I reloaded my 1.B. THEN, come to find out..., the stinking default is OFF for both ethernet controllers AND firewire (go figure). Why, I don't know. So, I'm waiting for suggestions before I tear into this. And yes, cool 'n quiet is off.

Edited, sorry i didnt make sense before, it IS plugged into 3 and 4, thus my being able to respond... lol

 

[Ricemarine]

You should really move em to sata 3 and 4 and install new nforce drivers if you have the HDD problem again.

 

[palindrome]

edited the above post, i am plugged into 3 and 4

 

[palindrome]

Btw, what ram is compatible with this mobo. I know many can't use anything above PC3200, but i see in your rig you have PC4400. Does that help?

 

[Ricemarine]

Originally posted by: palindrome
Btw, what ram is compatible with this mobo. I know many can't use anything above PC3200, but i see in your rig you have PC4400. Does that help?

Not really. Pc4400 is just a rated clock speed above pc3200. You can use anything above pc3200, its just not recommended to use anything below pc3200.

 

[Mogadon]

Your RAM is probably fine.

I have this board too. Have you tried using the official 1.8 BIOS, many people find it's best for overclocking, especially with an older CPU like you have. There's not much reason to use any of the newer BIOSs unless you have dual core or an E4 CPU (San Diegos, Opterons and 1 rev. of the Venice core). I have an opteron 146 @ 2.9GHz and run the official 1.9 BIOS as it allows me to run my RAM at 1T.

Also make sure you have the LDT multi at X3 and run your RAM at the 100 divider to take it out of the equation whilst you find your CPU's max overclock, you can optimise the RAM's settings later.

What VCore are you running at the moment, you will have to give your CPU more juice to overclock though 208MHz still seems a little low for stock VCore.

 

[palindrome]

2.61 Ghz Unstable?

Take a look. I don't know what that error in prime95 means, anyone wanna take a wack at it? Yes, this is my overclock, not someone elses. I'm trying to incrementally up the voltage until the error goes away (hopefully). Also perhaps getting a few more mhz. My CPU temp is still under 50 =)

 

[palindrome]

Ok, I'm down to 2.5634 ghz, 233HTT, and 1.7 volts.... that kinda sucks for the voltage doesn't it? I'm thinking it might be my ram that I don't have configured right. It's set to 183.6x2 Mhz with 2.5-3-3-8 timings (what it's rated for pc3200). As I'm writing this, I failed the 3rd test in prime95. Should I run memtest86?

 

[furballi]

Check RAM with memtest at 1:1 divider. Try 208MHz and gradually bump up the FSB. If the CPU will overclock MORE at a lower memory divider, then the problem may be the board or the RAM. I have $50 Corsair VS sticks that will do 1:1 at 230MHz, 2.5-3-3-5-1T.

 

[palindrome]

I'm up to 2.52 (9x280) on the cpu with ~1.52volts going to the cpu. It was stables on prime95 for 3 hours and 30 minutes before quitting on me, not too shabby. I'm going to try the 8x multiplier before doing my extreme tweaking. What should my ram voltage be? It was stable at DDR460 at 2.7 volts, but made prime95 fail earlier (not sure if that had an effect or not, its kinda random). Thanx.

Also, how good are newcastle's at ocing?