Anusha
12-17-2007, 12:37 PM
Hi folks,
Day before yesterday I got a chance to upgrade the amount of RAM on my PC to 4GB by, moving out 2x512MB sticks to my dad's new build. :toast: I had 2x1GB RAM as well. All are Kingston ValueRAM DDR2-667.
I had my CPU overclocked to 2.94GHz, i.e. 420x7. The RAM sticks (3GB then) worked fine at that clock speed, at slightly loosened timings (5-6-6-17 from 5-5-5-15 @ 667) and 2.1V. Pretty good overclock on the RAM imho. :rockout:
When I removed the 2x512MB RAM sticks, and installed the newly bought 2x1GB RAM sticks, the PC wouldn't POST. I was a disappointed, thinking that maybe the new RAM sticks can't do 820MHz. Well, I then reset the BIOS and lowered the overclock until it POSTed. I had to go all the way down to 395MHz FSB. (Still, a 2.765GHz on the CPU).
I had the FSB Termination, Northbridge and Southbridge at the lowest allowed voltages, manually set. ICH voltage was set to AUTO. CPU Vcore was at 1.30V.
I still wanted to try and get the previous overclock of 2.94GHz. At that time, I was limited by the RAM clocks, not the mobo or anything else. So I tried FSB400, and it wouldn't POST. I played with the voltages and I still couldn't get a combination of voltages that would make the system POST. I didn't want to go more than one notch above the default voltages. Then I tried AUTO for FSB Termination, Northbridge and Southbridge. Weirdly, it POSTed. :twitch: However, it wasn't a convincing POST. It looked like it had to retry to POST. :rolleyes:
Anyway, let's say it POSTed fine. PC was very stable in Windows. However, I was checking things in CPU-Z and then noticed that the PCI-E link was running at x1 instead of x16. :wtf:
I tried changing PCI-E clocks in BIOS as some people have claimed that by doing so it fixed for them. I couldn't get it to work. So I thought for a while, and wanted to know if that unconvincing POST had anything to do with it. :confused:
Indeed it did. I think the mobo thought that something was not right and fell back to a failsafe setting. I also found out that increasing the northbridge voltage would let me reach my previous overclock as well. But I'm not sure if I should increase it. There is no active cooling or heatpipes on the northbridge, and it runs pretty hot even at stock voltages.
Right now I'm back at 2.765GHz with all the voltages set to low except NB voltage, which is one notch above the default. :(
I wanna know whether it is OK to try the next NB voltage level and hopefully get the overclock I previously had. What do you guys think? :o
Day before yesterday I got a chance to upgrade the amount of RAM on my PC to 4GB by, moving out 2x512MB sticks to my dad's new build. :toast: I had 2x1GB RAM as well. All are Kingston ValueRAM DDR2-667.
I had my CPU overclocked to 2.94GHz, i.e. 420x7. The RAM sticks (3GB then) worked fine at that clock speed, at slightly loosened timings (5-6-6-17 from 5-5-5-15 @ 667) and 2.1V. Pretty good overclock on the RAM imho. :rockout:
When I removed the 2x512MB RAM sticks, and installed the newly bought 2x1GB RAM sticks, the PC wouldn't POST. I was a disappointed, thinking that maybe the new RAM sticks can't do 820MHz. Well, I then reset the BIOS and lowered the overclock until it POSTed. I had to go all the way down to 395MHz FSB. (Still, a 2.765GHz on the CPU).
I had the FSB Termination, Northbridge and Southbridge at the lowest allowed voltages, manually set. ICH voltage was set to AUTO. CPU Vcore was at 1.30V.
I still wanted to try and get the previous overclock of 2.94GHz. At that time, I was limited by the RAM clocks, not the mobo or anything else. So I tried FSB400, and it wouldn't POST. I played with the voltages and I still couldn't get a combination of voltages that would make the system POST. I didn't want to go more than one notch above the default voltages. Then I tried AUTO for FSB Termination, Northbridge and Southbridge. Weirdly, it POSTed. :twitch: However, it wasn't a convincing POST. It looked like it had to retry to POST. :rolleyes:
Anyway, let's say it POSTed fine. PC was very stable in Windows. However, I was checking things in CPU-Z and then noticed that the PCI-E link was running at x1 instead of x16. :wtf:
I tried changing PCI-E clocks in BIOS as some people have claimed that by doing so it fixed for them. I couldn't get it to work. So I thought for a while, and wanted to know if that unconvincing POST had anything to do with it. :confused:
Indeed it did. I think the mobo thought that something was not right and fell back to a failsafe setting. I also found out that increasing the northbridge voltage would let me reach my previous overclock as well. But I'm not sure if I should increase it. There is no active cooling or heatpipes on the northbridge, and it runs pretty hot even at stock voltages.
Right now I'm back at 2.765GHz with all the voltages set to low except NB voltage, which is one notch above the default. :(
I wanna know whether it is OK to try the next NB voltage level and hopefully get the overclock I previously had. What do you guys think? :o