OCZ confusion

[Danzilla]

Hey. Just building my first system in years. Picked up a pack of OCZ platinum r2 for around $35 after rebate. I just put the system together last night and damn, but I had a lot of problems. Finally after disconnecting everthing and pulling memory, I got it to post. Thinking it might be the memory I tried one stick then the other. With only 1 stick in, the system sorta works, but keeps having problems and usually doesn't finish booting. Finally after a couple hours switching out hardware and rebooting, I try upping DDR2 voltage to 1.9 and eventhough it also bumps DDR2 800 to DDR2 816 and 6750 CPU from 2666 to 2720, the problems finally seem to clear up and I get all the way to the invalid boot disk message for the first time.

Now, I know the OCZ specs call for higher voltage to reach the 4-4-4-x timing that's quoted, but from what I read I thought they were still suppposed to do 5-5-5-x at default 1.8v. Is that wrong? Or do I just have a bum pair?

And a more general question... I haven't overclocked much since the classic C300a->450 on BH6 days. Can I boost memory speed (and voltage I guess) without overclocking the CPU too? Would I really want to? Just not sure about OC'ing the CPU as I'm running on the stock intel HS/fan for now.

Thanks for looking,
Dan.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Ahhh...that's why you paid $35 AR for the OCZ RAMs. Quality DDR2 667 or 800 RAMs should run well at rated speed with 1.8Vdimm and 4-4-4-12-2T timing. You will need to juice up the voltage with inferior RAMs.

You can increase the memory speed via the use of memory divider.

 

[ryderOCZ]

Hello Danzilla,

What motherboard are you using?

Raising the ram voltage will not overclock anything, the board must run a little over 333 FSB by default.

Slightly more than 1.8V will probably be necessary even at DDR2-800 with slacker timings.

Depending on the motherboard there are other dividers for the ram, but the next one up will probably be too fast for the ram, so to increase ram speed, you will have to OC the FSB/CPU.

You can always lower the CPU multi to run the ram faster without overclocking the CPU.

 

[Danzilla]

Motherboard is Abit IP35-E. What I was assuming was that OCZ ram has different timing/spd (?) settings depending on the voltage. The quoted better timings being in effect when you up the voltage (ie. 2.0-2.1)

I assumed that in part from what I heard about the OCZ quoted timing needing voltage bump to work and something about lower timings in effect at default voltage.

I didn't change anything accept the DDR2 voltage (1.8 to 1.9) and instead of saying DDR2 800 during the boot, it says DDR2 816. I saw that the 'external' clock was bumped up from 333 it had been to 340 immediately after I upped the DDR2 voltage and restarted, which explained the ddr2 816 and 2.720GHz. The CPU and DDR timing are still on auto though, so what else could be going on? Maybe I misunderstood what was causing it, but that is what happened.

Originally posted by: ryderOCZ
Hello Danzilla,

What motherboard are you using?

Raising the ram voltage will not overclock anything, the board must run a little over 333 FSB by default.

Slightly more than 1.8V will probably be necessary even at DDR2-800 with slacker timings.

Depending on the motherboard there are other dividers for the ram, but the next one up will probably be too fast for the ram, so to increase ram speed, you will have to OC the FSB/CPU.

You can always lower the CPU multi to run the ram faster without overclocking the CPU.

 

[Danzilla]

Okay, so an update. I tried changing the DDR2 voltage a few more times. Anywhere from 1.85 to 2.2 it seems stable and boot screen shows DDR2 816. I drop it to 1.8 and I see DDR2 800, and it starts screwing up again. Freezing here, there, had to try 1/2 dozen times before I made it back into bios to up voltage again. Any ideas? Oh, also saw bios says DDR2 voltage at 1.87 in monitoring section, when set to 1.9. That make a difference?

I think the PSU is fine. 500W antec basiq, but only running 7900GS, 1 sata, 1 ide optical.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Like I said, those RAMs need more juice to run at DDR2 800 speed.

 

[brencat]

Hi Dan. My suggestion is you use 2.0 vDIMM to stabilize the RAM and also that you set your timings manually. Go to the Advanced Chipset Features menu in Bios and set the first 4 timings in the list to 4-4-4-12 or 5-5-5-15 and the Command Rate line item further down the list to 2T, not Auto. Auto for everything else is okay.

I believe the Abit automatically defaults to a FSB: DRAM divider of 1:1.2 if you don't set anything manually, hence why your RAM was showing 816 DDR when your FSB was at 340. If you want to overclock CPU, set the FSB: DRAM to 1:1 first until you get the core speed you want. Then go back and play with RAM dividers later to OC the RAM.

2.0 vDIMM may be more than you thought you needed to use, but it is by no means too much. I used 2.0v from day 1 b/c I didn't want to deal with any RAM issues during CPU OCing...and this was even when I was running 1:1 at only 325 FSB and 5-5-5-15 timings.

I'm currently testing the 1:1.5 divider (i.e. RAM speed of 488 FSB/976 DDR on my system) @ 5-5-5-15 and 2.0v.

 

[Danzilla]

hence why your RAM was showing 816 DDR when your FSB was at 340

That's what I assumed. The question in part was WHY the system clock might be moving to 340 when I up vdimm from default 1.8v.

Also, anyone else that owns the OCZ line, is it expected that it's memory fails at default settings or should I consider trying to RMA the memory? I've also now tried another pair of OCZ DDR2 I have, PC6400 'gold' version that I picked up from Frys.com on black friday, and they seem to work the same. The only difference is that with the gold pair the system needs DDR2 voltage setting of 1.9v to completely boot while the platinum pair only needed 1.85.

 

[ryderOCZ]

Dan,

Both kits of ram you have are rated at 2.0 - 2.1V for DDR2-800 operation at stated timings on the sticker.

Yes you need to manually set this voltage, the ram cannot tell the board what voltage to set.

Gold Product page: http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...ld_gx_xtc_dual_channel

Platinum Product page: http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...evision_2_dual_channel

 

[Danzilla]

Thanks for the reply. Isn't the memory supposed to run slower, but stable, at default voltages? I guess that's where my problems came in, I read something posted that said it would, though I no longer remember the source.

Also, still no clue why clock's bumping up to 340 on it's own with auto settings... maybe that's a MB issue though... Oh the joy of putting together a new system from parts.

Originally posted by: ryderOCZ
Dan,

Both kits of ram you have are rated at 2.0 - 2.1V for DDR2-800 operation at stated timings on the sticker.

Yes you need to manually set this voltage, the ram cannot tell the board what voltage to set.

Gold Product page: http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...ld_gx_xtc_dual_channel

Platinum Product page: http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...evision_2_dual_channel

 

[brencat]

Originally posted by: Danzilla
Also, still no clue why clock's bumping up to 340 on it's own with auto settings... maybe that's a MB issue though...

Sorry...I missed what you were asking about before. You should be aware that Abit boards automatically OC the FSB by 4 - 6 mhz at the stock setting (Helps with marketing benchmarks). When I first put in my E2180 and loaded optimized defaults, the FSB was set to 204 even though this is a 200 FSB CPU. Your E6750 is a 333 FSB CPU and it set yours to 340. Perfectly normal - nothing to worry about.

 

[Danzilla]

Alright, thanks. I was concerned it had something to do with the memory. Like I said, it was at 333 while I has having problems with the memory and doesn't go to 340 till up up the memory voltage. Maybe then it would have 340 from the start, with memory that runs at default voltage.

Originally posted by: brencat

Originally posted by: Danzilla
Also, still no clue why clock's bumping up to 340 on it's own with auto settings... maybe that's a MB issue though...

Sorry...I missed what you were asking about before. You should be aware that Abit boards automatically OC the FSB by 4 - 6 mhz at the stock setting (Helps with marketing benchmarks). When I first put in my E2180 and loaded optimized defaults, the FSB was set to 204 even though this is a 200 FSB CPU. Your E6750 is a 333 FSB CPU and it set yours to 340. Perfectly normal - nothing to worry about.