Very strange overclocking with 4 Ram sticks?...

[Minotar]

Well, I have 4 sticks of 512 PC 3500 DDR RAM, and my goal was to get my ram to actually run at 433Mhz speeds. It has been talked about at length on these forums of the limitations of the A64 memory controller when 4 sticks are installed, but I am still trying to get around this, somehow. It was quite easy to get around the 333Mhz default with regular memory timings, but to get it to 433 seems a little tougher. Here's what I tried...

First I tried manually setting my ram to 433. When this is done, it, indeed works, however, for some reason it forces my processor down to 2.36Ghz!? Next, I tried manually setting ram and processor multipliers. What I have found is that every time I change the multiplier from 13X, it resets all of my ram setting to auto!!!!!!! So, that didn't work either. Now, what I have found is strange, but seems to work. If I manually set my ram timings and speed to 400DDR and then set my muliplier to 13X and bump up my processor speed, it also bumps up my HTT and my RAM, but in my BIOS the RAM still shows up as 400DDR... This is very strange stuff, indeed. My plan is to keep slowly bumping up my CPU to see how close I can get my ram to 433Mhz. What do you all think about this? I really did not want to OC my processor at all, as it already runs pretty warm (65-70C under Prime 95 full load), but this seems to be the only way to get my ram close to its rated 433Mhz speeds? Any help here is appreciated!

 

[Minotar]

bump

Update: I changed some settings and now I am able to run my ram at full 433Mhz speed (with 4 sticks!) by overclocking my HTT slightly (~%10) and lowering my multiplier to 12X. So, now my processor is running at its rated speed of 2.6Ghz. This is starting to get addictive, LOL! I can probably squeeze a lot more outta this rig since I have such great cooling, but I am afraid too because the rig cost me so much, LOL. System appears rock solid stable thus far. Also, I found that by enabling Q-fan control my temps have dropped wayyyyy down as well. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[monster64]

That 433 mhz you see in the bios is a divider not the ram speed. If you set the divider to drr 400 in the bios it will go exactly 1:1 with the fsb. Got the same mobo as you. Aslong as you leave the the cpu config on ddr 400 (with the timings you can do what you want, its just that ddr 400 that matters) in jumperfree set the fsb to 216, multi to x13, etc. You can change any setting you want aslong as that divider is set to ddr 400-that is the most important part.

 

[Minotar]

Originally posted by: monster64
That 433 mhz you see in the bios is a divider not the ram speed. If you set the divider to drr 400 in the bios it will go exactly 1:1 with the fsb. Got the same mobo as you. Aslong as you leave the the cpu config on ddr 400 (with the timings you can do what you want, its just that ddr 400 that matters) in jumperfree set the fsb to 216, multi to x13, etc. You can change any setting you want aslong as that divider is set to ddr 400-that is the most important part.

Yeah, I do stil have my ram set to DDR400 in the bios, but CPU-Z reads 217 X 2 = 434Mhz, because my HTT is set to 217Mhz in the bios. At this point, if I want to overclock my processor, I am more limited because of having 4 sticks of ram it seems. What would you try following the steps I have already done?

 

[monster64]

So your saying your ram does work at 217 mhz but your Cpu wont let you? 12x217 is ~ 2600mhz. Whats the problem?

 

[Minotar]

Originally posted by: monster64
So your saying your ram does work at 217 mhz but your Cpu wont let you? 12x217 is ~ 2600mhz. Whats the problem?

No real "problem" per say. Initially I wasn't sure how to get my ram to run at 433Mhz. I am new to all of this stuff to be honest with you. So, again, no real problem because now I seem to have figured it out. But, let's say I want to now try to overclock my processor a little... To do this, it seems the only way I can go about it is to set my CPU clock to 200Mhz then set my mult to 13X then begin increasing CPU clock in small increments... Is this the best way to do it at this point? This is all much tougher I think due to having 4 sticks of ram instead of two. Thanks.