Terrible Venice experience...

[CMC79]

I'm not finding the Venice to do much for me at all. Before I even tried a systematic attempt to squeeze as much out as I could, I just tried a mild overclock, and it will not boot into Windows at 210 HTT. I've tried the following:

dropped HTT multiplier to 4 and to 3
upping the voltage on core, chipset, and LDT
put in a memory divider (I have corsair VS)

I get a blue screen when it attempts to boot into Windows.
Either I'm missing something, or this chip has NO headroom at all. I would certainly have thought that a 3200 would hit 3500 speeds!

 

[sangyup81]

try a BIOS update

 

[CMC79]

My motherboard/CPU was a combo from Monarch--they say they update the BIOS to the newest one.

 

[Lithan]

Make sure pci/pci-e are locked. Make sure you are running 2t.

 

[Jeff7181]

Are you using SATA devices? Are you 100% positive the ports you're using are locked?

 

[CMC79]

How can I check the locks? I have the PCI-E setting in the genie bios set to 100.

I don't have any SATA.

I'll try the 2T rate--haven't tried that one yet.

 

[CMC79]

Tried the 2T command rate. It made it into Windows. Does the command rate have more to do with the memory controller on the CPU, or the memory? Because my RAM will clock 2.5-3-3-8-T1 at 400Mhz. I would hope it's just a case of value memory not have much flexibility rather than the CPU's mem controller.

Should I give the chipset and LDT a voltage boost? Memory is at 2.6v, LDT at 1.2, and chipset is at 1.6.
thanks for everyone's suggestions so far!

 

[CMC79]

How high can I take the LDT bus and chipset voltages? 2T helped a LOT--hit 2.4GHz, which is enough to overcome the disadvantage of the 2T command rate.

 

[Aisengard]

So you have 4 sticks of RAM right?

 

[CMC79]

No, two double sided DIMMS, 512mb apiece.

 

[Painman]

Right now you should be raising HTT with the RAM timings totally in the basement... 3-4-4-10 2T on the lowest (100 MHz) divider... make sure the RAM has no chance of interfering with the OC so you can find the cpu's true ceiling.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Try 270 x 9 with ram divder 133, and raise it from there, I bet you can get 2.6(289 x 9) or more

 

[CMC79]

What are safe voltages for the chipset and LDT bus? I'm worried about the chipset temp since my video card does block a bit of its airflow. (or is this is a case of "if there aren't any problems then the temp is okay"?

 

[Aisengard]

Why does he have to run 2T again?

 

[CMC79]

I can post but not make into Windows at all at 1T above about 206HTT. I upped voltages, put in a divider, everything--but it wouldn't boot. 2T is fine--I've got it roughly dialed in at 10x250 right now, with a divider on the memory but I was able to drop the latency down to 2 instead of 2.5. I think I can definitely squeeze more out it, but I am going to assume it's (hopefully) my Corsair VS that's holding me back, although I'm not sure why it would at lower speeds. The chip, however, will run at 1T command rate at stock speeds just fine.

 

[Snowice]

Originally posted by: sangyup81
try a BIOS update

very important!

 

[Brian23]

Change the memory speed. Instead of running it at DDR400, run it at 333 or 266.

 

[imported_Cypress]

I have had a very similar experience with a Venice 3000 and the DFI NF4 Ultra. Can't use a 1T command rate for any decent overclock. CPU seems picky about dividers too. For example I can run a 3/4 divider but not a 7/10. Doesn't make sense as the 7/10 results in slower ram speed. I have tried the 3/10, 414-1 and 414-3 bios, all with the same result. I wonder if a future bios will address this issue.

 

[Painman]

Originally posted by: CMC79
I can post but not make into Windows at all at 1T above about 206HTT. I upped voltages, put in a divider, everything--but it wouldn't boot. 2T is fine--I've got it roughly dialed in at 10x250 right now, with a divider on the memory but I was able to drop the latency down to 2 instead of 2.5. I think I can definitely squeeze more out it, but I am going to assume it's (hopefully) my Corsair VS that's holding me back, although I'm not sure why it would at lower speeds. The chip, however, will run at 1T command rate at stock speeds just fine.

Seriously, now isn't the time to worry about tight RAM timings. Isolate the CPU. Keep the RAM speed and timings slack. You're making progress with the chip, keep it going.

BIOS has been mentioned a couple of times now... definitely make sure the board is runing 310 or later BIOS. The DFI board is known to be finicky about RAM, the more recent BIOS revisions help with that issue.

 

[CMC79]

Updated the BIOS to the 310, but the 2T problem remains. However, I am optimistic about getting enough out of the chip itself to not let that matter.

 

[Acanthus]

1t to 2t only matters in synthetic benchmarks.

seriously, youre talking 2% or less in all real apps, even a modest OC would more than make up for it.

 

[exar333]

memory timings are KEY on this DFI board...dont overlook them...check dfi-streetcom for more info and check if someone has some good settings for the venice 3000 you are running...u could have a faulty mem controller too...not being able to even use 1T on only 2 sticks is not what it is supposed to be able to do

 

[CMC79]

True, but I can't honestly say that it is faulty, since it performs 1T at stock as advertised.

 

[CMC79]

I also ran it up to 9x285 in Windows...was shooting for 2600MHZ but Windows reported that ntfs.sys was corrupted.

 

[Amplifier]

I was able to get an extra 70mhz out of my Winchester when I dropped my timings to 5-5-5-10 (as loose as I could get them).