When to know if it's the RAM causing oc failure?

[francisA]

So I've been trying to go higher on the fsb slowly {was hoping surely} and managed to reach 490x8.5 on my Q9550. Next installment as 495fsb but it it hangs XP once OCCT or Prime starts romping up. No BSOD.

So natural reaction was to up the vcore. I was at 1.350v in the BIOS and went up to 1.3875 to get close to 1.36v actual. Still no go. Next was the nb volts but no-go either.

Here's the thing though, and I know my question might be a stupid one. I have DDR2 800 G.Skills and now am pushing them to DDR2 980 at 2.0v. Should I just pack it up and be happy with the 490fsb or my 24/7 of 475fsb and wait until I get higher rated RAM before continuing my quest for 500fsb?

Thanks in advance

 

[Idontcare]

The quick/easy answer here is to set your FSB back to stock and increase your ram clocks with the multi's in the BIOS and find out where you ram craps out clockspeed wise.

No guessing needed.

 

[francisA]

Awesome. Thanks, no guessing indeed. Gonna give it a shot tonight. {My noobness is showing }

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: francisA
Awesome. Thanks, no guessing indeed. Gonna give it a shot tonight. {My noobness is showing }

Its what forums like this are great for. Sometimes the obvious answer eludes even the best of us, until we pop the question to a friend and they shoot back the answer in 5 seconds.

Its not noobness, its taking advantage of the resources at your disposal. Like google...only with a lot more attitude if you happen to ever ever cross us! :frown:

 

[francisA]

Thanks for the tips again!

Well whatdya know, my G.Skills are running at DDR2 1000 right now under OCCT still ok. Did 10 loops of Crysis at all High and 1920x1200 and came back ok {lost a few fps as I was just doing 3.16GHz} but seems like the RAM are ok.

So looks like it's my CPU voltage settings Back to the drawing board.

But, it's so nice to see load temps in upper 40s while all stressed out

 

[Idontcare]

You might want to use something a little more memory-centric to stress out that ram and ensure they really are stable at that clockspeed. Something like memtest or prime95 large FFT.

Checkout http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2057083&enterthread=y for walk-thru's on stress testing components.

 

[Pelu]

hm... I was thinking that my restart problem is because the overclock lol...

 

[francisA]

Since my thread was bumped, thought I'd post an update.

Had my rig all the way to 500*8 as well as 500*8.5

At 500*8, with 1.344v vcore and the G.Skills at 2.0v (5-5-5-18), Prime95 Large FFTs (as suggested by IDK) lasted 1.75hrs. All cores failed one after the other
At 500*8.5, with 1.36v vcore and G.Skills at 2.0v, Prime95 Large FFTs lasted only 15mins All cores failed at the same time.

NB was at 1.3v for both tests. 1.2v {my current setting} just resulted to XP restart hehehe

The temps were a little too high for comfort so I backed off and gave it a rest. But the exercise proved that the G.Skills may be able to handle the 500fsb and it may just be my CPU holding me back or more fine-tuning on the voltages and grrrrrr GTLs

But as I mentioned, I didn't proceed as the temps already were close to 70C and climbing so have to address cooling first before going any further.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: francisA
Since my thread was bumped, thought I'd post an update.

Had my rig all the way to 500*8 as well as 500*8.5

At 500*8, with 1.344v vcore and the G.Skills at 2.0v (5-5-5-18), Prime95 Large FFTs (as suggested by IDK) lasted 1.75hrs. All cores failed one after the other
At 500*8.5, with 1.36v vcore and G.Skills at 2.0v, Prime95 Large FFTs lasted only 15mins All cores failed at the same time.

NB was at 1.3v for both tests. 1.2v {my current setting} just resulted to XP restart hehehe

The temps were a little too high for comfort so I backed off and gave it a rest. But the exercise proved that the G.Skills may be able to handle the 500fsb and it may just be my CPU holding me back or more fine-tuning on the voltages and grrrrrr GTLs

But as I mentioned, I didn't proceed as the temps already were close to 70C and climbing so have to address cooling first before going any further.

I agree, the ram sounds fine based on your prior testing. Now switch to small FFT to optimize your BIOS settings regarding the CPU itself (Vcore).