Hello guys,

I just got myself an Opteron 165 and an Asus A8n-e mobo. I've been trying to get a modest overclock, but now the BIOS says 2.1Ghz, but when XP loads up everything indicates that it is still at 1.8Ghz.

Here's roughly what I did before hitting this stage.

I first used AIBooster to ramp it up to 2.0Ghz using just HTT. When I realized that everything I did on AIBooster to go higher just hung my machine, I uninstalled that and went to the BIOS.

At the BIOS level, it still displayed 2.0Ghz even without AIBooster. So I managed to push it up higher by increasing the HTT and also RAM and CPU voltage. I got to slightly more than 2.1Ghz.

Anything I did after 2.1Ghz wouldn't remain stable (windows would flicker, menus would disappear in XP etc), so I maintained it at 2.1Ghz and tried to play with some RAM timings. As soon as I changed any timings (even CAS latency from 3 to 2.5 or 2T to 1T), windows wouldn't load up (would hang on the hardware loadup screen). The worst was at first when the computer wouldn't start at all (not even BIOS). I had to reseat the RAMs.

Anyways, so I installed AIBooster again (wanted the temperature gauges) thinking that I'll just stick at 2Ghz. But now when I restart the machine, it would constantly reset to 1.8Ghz.

So I uninstalled it again, and found that the BIOS would show whatever Ghz that I wanted it to, but when WinXP loaded up, CPU-Z and my system would ALWAYS show that it is at 1.8Ghz.

Any ideas why this is happening and how I can rectify it?

Again, I'm using an Asus A8n-e mobo, Corsair Valueselect RAM, and Opteron 165.

I'm using Prime95 for burn-ins, and Memtest for RAM.

Thanks!

Hi Gengstapo,

Running at Bios v.1010 now, I think. Will update to the latest 1011 if that will help.

Thanks.

It was a recommendation from another friend . . .

Seriously, I have no clue when it comes to RAM timing . . . any other suggestions on it?

I'm using Corsair Valueselect 2x1Gb.

Thanks!

p.s. will be updating BIOS after lunch and will update then.

hmm, updated to latest BIOS already.

Still the same thing.

Anyone has any ideas?

HELP!!

wierd, came back from lunch and voila! My modest 215x9 is reflected as 1.9Ghz! Hope it'll be fine at higher speeds.

Any ideas on what Ram timings I should try?

TQ . . . you guys are life savers.

Ok, will try both the RAM timings and Spread Spectrum.

Thanks guys!

Okie PeowYong,

Will try loosening the RAM timing first then - although I'll have to read up on what that means in all the numbers and which numbers means which . . .

Kulus, when you said try 3-3-3-8 timing, do you mean:

Cas latency - trp - trcd - tras ? If so, what about the other values?

Also, how do you guys know which number to try based just on what RAM?

Thanks!

This post has been edited by Diazepam: Apr 8 2006, 03:45 AM

Ok. This has been really frustrating.

So when I updated my BIOS that day, I tried 215x9 and got about 1.9Ghz, hence why I said it worked.

So today, I set the RAM timing to 3-3-3-8, and tried to look for the spread spectrum as advised. Couldn't find the spread spectrum thing, btw.

So I pushed up the voltage to 2.8V for DDR and pushed HTT up to 225 to get another 1Ghz.

Now its back to the same thing. Windows is back at 1.8Ghz.

So I flashed the BIOS again, but its still the same no matter what I do.

Even tried putting the DDR voltage and Vcore voltage at AUTO.

HELP!

This post has been edited by Diazepam: Apr 8 2006, 10:37 PM

Ha. Super-wierd.

Found that once I turned off 'Disabled' for my Legacy floppy drive, it works now.

Hi.

Yup. Increased Vcore incrementally.

I tried lowering LDT multi before, and the machine hung at the loadup. I tried 225x8, for example. RAM was at 3-3-3-8. Vcore was at 1.37, and DDRV was at 1.6.

I did not install the CnQ features, and they are not enabled in BIOS.

Ok.

Its damn stable now at 2.1Ghz.

Tried these settings to bring it up another 1Ghz, but whenever it loads up XP, the screen goes crazy.

Settings are:

CPU Frequency : 245
Multiplier : 9
DDR Voltage : 2.8 (also tried 2.75 -same)
CPU Voltage : 1.3875 (in CPU-Z, it shows 1.4) (also tried 1.375)

I set the DRAM to auto because I'm not too sure how to set it, but the AUTO settings set it to:

Speed : 245.45mhz
CAS : 3T
Tras : 8T
Trcd : 3T
Trp : 3T
Trc : 22T
Trfc : 24T
Trwt : 6T
Twr : 3T
1T/2T Mem timing : 2T

Hope this makes it clearer.

Oh, Hypertransport is set to AUTO.
PCI is 100mhz
PCI clock is set to AUTO (the one which is maxed out at 33.33mhz).

Thanks!

This post has been edited by Diazepam: Apr 10 2006, 09:44 AM

LOL.

Even worse wor. Got the blue screen of death with the Hypertransport set to either of those 2 settings . . .

Ok,

Set PCI clock to 33.33, HT to 3x, and reverted settings to what I've posted before for 245x9 to get 2.2Ghz.

So, everything loads up fine and its stable. I set it to run Prime95 and I wake up to find that it has restarted.

Event viewer says that a save dump occured and the bug check was:

0x1000008e (0xc0000005, 0xbf804996, 0xb507a7bc, 0x00000000)

So I try Prime95 again with HT now set to 4x, and within 30mins, I get another blue screen with event viewer saying:

0x100000d1 (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000008, 0x00000000)

Any ideas?

Would increasing the Vcore help? Or the DDR voltage? Or should I be trying with 2x (isn't that like reaaaally low? Would I gain from the extra Ghz, even if this is set so low?)?

Thanks.

But gengstapo, I have been OC'ing it slowly.

I raise it by only 1Ghz every 1-2 nights (200x9, 215x9, 225x9, 235x9), and do a 4-8hour Prime95 torture test on both cores everytime I up the HTT.

Its just that I can't get it to work past 2.1Ghz without something going wrong.

Would resetting the BIOS still work in this case?

Thanks.

Ok.

Seems to be stable for now at 2.208Ghz.

Changed the BIOS memory speed from AUTO (400mhz) to 333Mhz. That made all the difference. Everything else is as per my post above.

Now under CPU-Z, the memory reads 200.8MHz instead of 245.45mhz.

Question, what does FSB:DRAM in CPU-Z means? Initially it was CPU/12, now it is CPU/11.

What does that mean?

Thanks!

This post has been edited by Diazepam: Apr 12 2006, 03:35 PM

Thanks Sniper69.

Its now running at 2.4Ghz with HT set to 4x and its pretty stable . . .

Going to slowly try for 2.7Ghz . . .

Just worried about the heat.

This post has been edited by Diazepam: Apr 13 2006, 12:22 AM