When O/Cing, what should you usually do when you start getting errors?

[srygonic]

What do you usually do when your computer starts getting errors?

1) Increase the voltage and see if it is stabler?
2) Decrease the FSB?
3) Others. Please specify.

I overclocked my Venice 3000+ to 240 FSB on stock HSF and voltages and it passed Prime95.
After I increased it to 245 FSB and and my Prime95 ran into errors.
So I increased my voltage to 3.3% and and ran it at it still ran errors.
Tried decrease my FSB to 240 and running at 3.3% more voltage and still errors.

Is this the maximum my system can reach?

 

[Furen]

You lowered your memory frequency and your ht multiplier, correct? Feed it 10% and try again, just to see if you can go any higher with that.

 

[srygonic]

Ya I did... feed what with 10%? My HT multiplier is currently at x4 and my memory frequency(divider if I'm not wrong) is at 180MHz..

 

[Furen]

Go down to 3x on the HT multi, set your dram to 166 or so and feed the CPU +10% voltage and the ram 2.9 or so volts. You can always back down on the voltage later on, you just want to see if your CPU will go higher.

Hell, I'd go down to DDR 133 or so. What motherboard are you using? Have you tested to see how high the motherboard can go up to?

 

[interchange]

If your memory divider is 180Mhz, then you are overclocking your memory @ 240 HTT.

 

[Furen]

Yup, and quite a bit, too.

 

[srygonic]

Firstly, thanks for all your replies..

I'm using default HSF, will it be wise to raise the voltage so much, it already goes up to about 50C under load... But I'll try your advice out..
I ran my memory at about 230-235 FSB 1:1 stable before so I don't think it will be the cause of my problems right?

 

[Furen]

I'd try it, just to be absolutely sure of whether or not you've hit your CPU's limit (which I doubt).

 

[Bona Fide]

1. Lower your divider to DDR200 (100MHz)
2. Give your CPU more volts, but not more than 1.6V
3. Lower the HT multiplier to 3x

Check again. If it doesn't pass Prime within 10 minutes, back down on the clock, 5MHz at a time.

Your Venice should be reaching around 250MHz at least. Maybe it's your motherboard?

 

[srygonic]

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
1. Lower your divider to DDR200 (100MHz)
2. Give your CPU more volts, but not more than 1.6V
3. Lower the HT multiplier to 3x

Check again. If it doesn't pass Prime within 10 minutes, back down on the clock, 5MHz at a time.

Your Venice should be reaching around 250MHz at least. Maybe it's your motherboard?

I've just done all you said...
- lowered my divider to 100Mhz
- Gave my CPU 6.6% more volts from 1.45 = 1.545
- Lowered my HT to 3x.

Now I'm running Prime95 to see if it passes. If it passes do I go higher?

 

[srygonic]

Passed Prime95 at 260 FSB x 9 for 14 hours. Do I still try to go higher?

 

[Furen]

Go as high as you want to. I'd try to get to 300HTT just for kicks (but I doubt you'll get there). Keep an eye on the temperature as well.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Yep, keep going you should be able to get to 280mhz at least, maybe 300 or higher if your lucky 300x9=2700mhz which is very doable with a good 3000+

 

[srygonic]

Sorry if I seem like making you guys guide me step-by-step but I want to be safe and you guys give the most helpful advice ever!

I think I hit my limit at 260 FSB...
- at 270 FSB Prime95 fails within 0 minutes..
- at 265 FSB Prime95 fails at 7 minutes..

I'm considering getting a XP-90C... is the price advisable? How much more performance should I be able to get with it?

 

[Hacp]

What ram are you running?

 

[Furen]

You can probably go higher if you feed your CPU more volts. What's the voltage in CPUZ? Most mobos undervolt venices so you might be running at something like 1.44v or something.

 

[srygonic]

But I'm only using stock cooling... and the voltage goes up to like 50C in SpeedFan when under load... CPU-Z reports my voltage at like 1.504v jumping to 1.488v, 1.520v & 1.552v every few seconds.

I'm running 2x512MB Kingston RAMs in dual channel mode.. It's at 2.5-3-3-8-12-16 in CPU-Z.

 

[Furen]

Ok, if you dont want feel safe going higher then dont, you got two extra speed grades out of your CPU ^^. OK, so now you have your HTT and CPU clock. Your ram is running way below spec, though, so we need to take care of that. You might be able to pull off having your DRAM clock setting @ 166MHz if you set your DRAM voltage to around 2.8-2.9v (Which would effectively set your DRAM to around 211-212MHz--I got DDR400 out of some pretty old kingston DDR333 the other day). If not then you can increase your latency a bit or drop your DRAM setting to the next lower (which would hopefully be 150MHz/DDR300) but not all mobos can handle that.

 

[srygonic]

For my memory...

- Set HT to x3
- Mem Settings at 200Mhz
- Set FSB at 230MHz

Ran Memtest in windows while using opera and bitcomet. Computer hanged for no reason when I was using Opera after about 15 minutes. (Signs of instability?)

Rebooted and set Memory voltage to _____ and FSB at 235Mhz.
Computer just rebooted by itself when running Memtest. Twice.
Lowered FSB down to 225Mhz. Multiplier to x6.
Ran Memtest in Windows for 2 days. Passed. About 2000% +
Was using the computer after that. Watching some videos when suddenly computer restarted randomly. The Serious error reporting message told me it has something to do with my 6600GT graphics card driver... I didn't overclock my graphics card at all. So what does this mean?

 

[Furen]

Memory can lead to all kinds of errors, I think your ram is running too much over spec. Personally I like to keep my ram close to 200MHz, so I'd recommend that you do the same. So, basically, I'd go back to 260HTT and a memory divider of like 150MHz or so. That way you'll be very close to DDR400 and can just use the default settings.

 

[srygonic]

Oh... okok so I shouldn't try to overclock my memory then?

Even if the memtest passes it does not mean anything then eh?

Ok I'll take your advise then...