To be honest, the amount of Vcore needed is relatively high for 4Ghz and I used to have an IP35-PRO which I think it has some weird problems at high FSB too. First of all, did you try running 7 x 500 to see if it works? If your board doesn't do 7 x 500, it means 500FSB is not possible.

If that is the case, it'll either be the RAM or motherboard. 7.5 x 440 is 3.3Ghz and easily achievable with the E8200 so if it doesn't work, it can't be the CPU

razr_sped, I know MARS can hit 500FSB and I'm doing 502FSB stable. If I want to do a 533FSB screenshot then there's no issue but I'm talking about stability at that FSB and speed.

If you want a lesser vdroop then consider getting the Foxconn MARS. Besides, it is a lot cheaper these days

If you use the voltage multiplier then you have to refer back to the "Target CPU voltage" for the actual Vcore (in BIOS). CPU-Z gives problematic reading sometimes so maybe you can try with Everest? Btw, you need not necessarily need to use that voltage multiplier function

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Added on May 7, 2008, 11:29 amIf you're using a normal Core Duo (E2xxx) series CPU then I suggest you not to get MARS It has problems going above 37xFSB on both my Core Duo's previously. I put up a comment in the "quantumforce" forums but I don't think they'll do anything about it since it's an old CPU model. The Gigabyte or Abit would be a better bet in this case.

This post has been edited by clawhammer: May 7 2008, 11:29 AM

I have E2140 and E2160 that can overclock to 3.4Ghz and 3.3Ghz respectively on other motherboards (Gigabyte DS3L, Asus P5KR) but when I put it onto my MARS, it simply can't do more than 37x FSB. I've also bought another new E2140 during that time to try out and it was the same. I've tested with all the BIOS available back then from beta to official BIOS-es with no luck. Maybe you guys can try to see if it gives you 400FSB but base on my experience, it didn't work (at least in my case). However, the MARS took the Core2Duo perfectly fine (E8400 and E8200)

You can do 9 x 356 to get 3.2Ghz with an E2160 but I'm not sure if you can do 8 x 400 on the MARS. Maybe you can try and share the results

It's worth a try but I've sold all my CoreDuo's off and only have E8200 for now I guess my next upgrade would be E8500 and hopefully it'll hit 4.3Ghz stable at least.

Why do you need to change the board? Almost every board has this thing and it's normal

How did you justify that 310x10 was faster than 430x7? Benchmarks or real-time testing or personal feeling?

I'm sure you need to increase some Vcore to get 400x8 Did you try that?

I've mentioned before that the MARS doesn't like E2xxx series CPU I tried 3 CoreDuo's with no luck on the MARS where all of them overclocks like mad on Gigabyte, Abit or Asus.

This is weird Did you try clearing your CMOS and try again? I don't think the voltage is locked at default.

When a CPU boots up at 3.5Ghz or even 4Ghz, it doesn't necessarily mean it's stable. At least it shows potential and I believe some additional voltage is required for proper usage.

PCI and PCI-E frequency is two seperate things. Increasing the PCI bus doesn't give a lot of significant improvements but more disadvantages if you'd ask me which includes instability of the overall system. One of the things that rely on the PCI bus is your hard disk and back in those days, there were no PCI bus lock (only dividers) and when you overclock the FSB, the PCI frequency tends to go higher up to a stage where it'll run 40Mhz and give you a dead hard disk over time

As such, newer boards/chipset have a PCI lock and it made all these 500-600FSB thing a reality today.

Some people reported that we will get better temps by removing the IHS since the core contacts directly with the HSF so I guess he is just trying out of curiousity Anyway, it's a great challenge for myself wouldn't even dare to do it.

It's alright, we learn from mistakes I've killed hardwares before too so part of the "trying out process". Honestly, I feel that removing the IHS is not an easy task to do and I'm not confident doing it myself either but at least you dare. The most I did was just to lap my processor.

If we go by benchmarks, theory or even numbers, of course 3-3-3-9 would be better than 4-4-4-12. However in real life, you could merely feel the differences. Hence, go for 4-4-4-12 for lesser problems and headaches It'll take more voltage and extra work to get things running at 3-3-3-9. As for the RAMs, I am using PC6400 Crucial Ballistix Tracer on my Foxconn Mars and they can easily hit 450FSB stable. If you have the budget, I would certainly recommend the PC8500 instead.

I seldom use memtest too and most of the time I'll go with Orthos Blend or OCCT
I thought of trying out the Dominators but comments weren't very good on them (don't know why)

These RAMs can fly high and get into Windows but if we want to get a stable daily usage, it might not be that high anymore. That is why we need to do some stress tests to determine. It's true that the D9 Ballistix Tracers are indeed good stuffs.