Troubles in O/C land with e6400 & DS3

[Norco]

I've been trying to overclock my machine, but whenever I overclock it at all Prime95 always fails on me. Here's my specs and what I've tried:

e6400
Gigabyte DS3
OCZ PC2-5400 DDR2 Gold 4-4-4-12

I've got my computer doing pretty good with cooling now, so I know none of this is a heat issue. What I'll try is simply to raise the Bus Speed to get the CPU a higher speed, but then change the ram settings to mulitiplier of 2.0 so that I keep my memory Frequency at 333.3Mhz. My rated FSB will get up higher as well as Bus Speed as reported in CPU-Z, but Prime95 always gives me an error before completing Test 1 in the torture test>Blend option. Pretty much any overclock setting I do I can boot up into windows, but I know it won't be stable as Prime95 won't complete. I've tried upping the voltage of my CPU to 1.4v and also the ram all the way up to 2.1v but still it gives me the same issues. I haven't tried upping the FSB voltage though, so I'm not sure if I should try that next.

Any suggestions?

 

[Pabster]

OCZ RAM is crap. Especially on a DS3. Try different RAM.

 

[Norco]

If I sell off these sticks what should I get instead? The more I read it sounds like I should have gone with DDR2-800, Corsair or Patriot.

 

[Pabster]

Both Corsair and Patriot are excellent choices for the DS3.

Problematic seem to be OCZ and (some) G.Skill modules.

 

[Mogadon]

The G Skill 6400HZ's work more than fine with the DS3, other G Skill models however, do not.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: Pabster
OCZ RAM is crap. Especially on a DS3. Try different RAM.

I guess it's really luck of the draw. I setup my new system w/ the follow specs -

E6400
Artic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
DS3 (F5c BIOS)
OCZ EL DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800 MHz / Enhanced Latency / Platinum XTC Edition / Dual Channel
X1600Pro
Enhance 500W PSU

VCore: 1.300v
Vmem: 1.9v (4-5-4-15)

I'm doing Orthos @ 8x400 right now. Core Temp's reporting 57C. I reapplied AS5 on the CPU, GPU, NB, and SB. I'll report back later tonight. Gonna leave it running for now. Maybe have to buy a better HSF later this week. I kind of like the Thermalright Ultra 120.

And here's a screen cap. E6400 @ 3200 (pretty big pic)

 

[Pabster]

Yeah, it seems really luck of the draw. You're using Plat's though, he has Gold. The Gold modules seem to REALLY be problematic with the Gigabyte boards.

 

[Norco]

Yah no kidding. I had to take a stick of Mushkin DDR2 out of a different computer just so I could update the Gigabyte bios to make the gold sticks even work.

Edit: What's your opinions on the Patriot 2gb DDR2-800 Kit with 4-4-4-12 timings vs. Corsair 2gb DDR2-800 kit with 5-5-5-12 timings? I've always heard that you want the lower timings one, but I wasn't sure if anybody has had better luck with one over the other. With my cooling I want to see if I can hit 3.4ghz being stable and I need ram that'll get the job done.