Bought hardware from friend, doesn't OC nearly as well for me

M

Micand

n00b
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
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5
Howdy! I recently purchased a used AMD Opteron 165 processor, DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D motherboard, and two 1 GB sticks of Geil PC4000 RAM from a friend. He had been running the CPU at 2.6 GHz with a 1.4 v vcore (stock vcore being 1.35 v) ever since buying the hardware new a year-and-a-half ago. Limited experimentation on his part suggested he could run as high as 3.0 GHz on that voltage, albeit with compromised stability.

Sadly, since installing the processor, motherboard, and RAM myself, I haven't been able to get anywhere near 2.5 GHz. With my vcore at 1.45 v, HTT at 280, and CPU multiplier at 9 for a clockspeed of 2520 MHz, Prime95 fails after one minute. At a vcore of 1.5 v (the highest I dare test at), a HTT of 290 and CPU multiplier of 9, yielding a clockspeed of 2610 MHz, Prime95 crashed immediately upon launching it. Throughout my overclocking adventures, I have kept the memory/HTT divider at 1:2, so my RAM has never been running above 145 MHz, with relaxed timings. Upping DRAM voltage from the default 2.6 v to 2.7 v or 2.8 v yields no improvement. The PCI express bus has remained locked at 100 MHz. I've tried the LDT/FSB frequency ratio both at "auto" (which I understand is a good setting for this board, regardless of HTT) and to numbers yielding the closest approximation to 1000 without exceeding it.

The only major change from my friend's hardware configuration is my power supply, a 550 W Enermax EG565V-PE – I'm using exactly the same CPU, motherboard, and RAM that he was. My power supply, as well as all my other hardware, was previously in a system using the same model of motherboard and an AMD64 3200+ 1.8 GHz Venice, which I had been running perfectly stably at 2.78 GHz for the preceding two-and-a-half years.

Idle temperatures are around 24 C, only a couple degrees above ambient; load temperatures, even at a vcore of 1.475, never exceed 45 C. I'm using a Thermalright SI-120 heatsink, which I took great pains to lap to a mirror finish; for thermal interface material I'm using Arctic Silver 5, which I applied exactly in accordance with the official instructions. Mounted on the heatsink is a Delta 120 mm fan pushing 130 CFM. I also lapped the chipset heatsink and then applied Arctic Silver 5 to it; the chipset's temperature hovers around 35 C. Cooling throughout the rest of the case is quite ample, particularly since I have my side panel off.

The one hazy area is with BIOS revisions – before I began overclocking, I flashed to the latest BIOS provided by DFI, 2006/04/06. After receiving poor results with the official 2006/04/06, I flashed to the official 2005/11/14, but saw no improvement. Both flashes had been performed with WinFlash, and I had neglected to clear the CMOS after flashing, though I had used the “load optimized defaults” function both before and after flashing. In talking to my friend, I learned he had installed a version modified by OCZ Tony using Tmod's bootable BIOS flash CD, but could not remember what version he used. I, of course, overwrote it with my ill-thought-out initial flash. I tried flashing to OCZ Tony's 704-2bta, which I assumed to be very similar to the version my friend had been using, if not exactly the same. To do so, I used Tmod's bootable BIOS flash CD, not WinFlash. Afterwards, I was careful to shut down the system, remove the power cord, remove the CMOS battery, and activate the clear CMOS jumper for ten minutes. Still, upon loading optimized defaults, I saw no improvement in overclocking results.

What could possibly account for the discrepancy in overclocking results between my friend and I? Using almost the same hardware, save for a different power supply (which ought to be more than up to the task), why can I not even reach 2.6 GHz stable with a 1.5 v vcore, while my friend achieved it all-but effortlessly with only a 1.4 v vcore? Anything above 2.6 GHz, such as the 3 GHz at which he was able to boot Windows and run Prime95 at, is but a pipe dream. Temperatures seem well within the acceptable range, and while BIOS version discrepancies are a cause for some concern, I saw no improvement moving between two official revisions, as well as a modified one by OCZ Tony. Could the hardware possibly have been damaged during shipping? Given that it was shipped from North Carolina to Alberta, Canada, could some border official have handled it outside of an anti-static bag and caused electrostatic discharge-related damage (even though it sounds quite ludicrous that the damage would manifest itself in so subtle a manner)? Is there anything I might try to obtain the results that my friend did with the very hardware he sold to me?

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Sta!nless said:
Are your timings the same as he was running?
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response. I don't believe the timings are the same -- my friend hadn't used the board in some months, so by the time I received it, the BIOS settings had reset. Still, the RAM is only running at half the frequency of the HTT, and so never exceeds 145 MHz; timings are all set in accordance with the SPD values or the BIOS' conservative default values. For fun, I tried higher RAM dividers that would bring the RAM's speed closer to 200 MHz, but they had neither a positive nor negative effect on stability. My (quite unstable) overclocking-related settings are as follows:

Code: 
GENIE BIOS Setting
>DRAM Configuration..................Press Enter = New Menu
FSB BUS Frequency....................280
LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio..............X 3.0 (tried X 2.0, auto)
LDT BUS Transfer Width...............16 16
CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio..............X 9 
PCI eXpress Frequency................100Mhz 
K8 Cool 'n' Quiet Support............Disable 
Cool 'n' Quiet MAX FID...............AUTO 
CPU VID StartUp Value................StartUp

CPU VID Control......................1.475 V (began at 1.35 V [stock], worked way up in 0.025 V increments -- still unstable at 280*9 MHz, 1.475 V)
CPU VID Special Control..............AUTO 
LDT Voltage Control..................1.20 V 
Chip Set Voltage Control.............1.50 V 
DRAM Voltage Control.................2.60 V (tried 2.70 V and 2.80 V)
+0.3v if not 3.2v....................Disabled

Run MemTest86+.......................Enabled 

GENIE BIOS Setting >DRAM Configuration
DRAM Frequency Set (MHZ).............100 (DRAM/FSB:1/2)
Command per clock (CPC)..............Enabled 
Cas latency (tCL)....................AUTO
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)..............AUTO
Min RAS active time (tRAS)...........AUTO
Row precharge time (tRP).............AUTO
Row cycle time (tRC).................12 
Row refresh cycle time(tRFC).........24
Row to Row delay (tRRD)..............3 
Write recovery time (tWR)............3 
Write to read delay (tWTR)...........2 
Read to write delay (tRWT)...........3 
Refresh period (tREF)................3120
DRAM Bank Interleave.................Enabled

DQS Skew Control.....................Auto
DQS Skew Value.......................0 
DRAM Drive Strength..................Auto
DRAM Data Drive Strength.............Auto
Max Async Latency....................Auto
Dram Response........................Normal
Read Preamble Time...................Auto
Idle Cycle Limit.....................256 Cycles
Dynamic Counter......................Disabled
R/W Queue Bypass.....................16 X
Bypass Max...........................04 X
32 Byte Granularity..................Disable(4 bursts)
 
Try this.

Cas latency (tCL)....................3
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)..............3
Min RAS active time (tRAS)..........8
Row precharge time (tRP).............3

And try
Command per clock disabled.

Also, it's been my experience that I've had better luck with a 133 and 166 divider. Nothing greater or lower.
 
Sta!nless said:
Try this. ...
Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestion. With the RAM timings you suggested, command per clock disabled, the 133 (that is, 2/3) RAM divider, a HTT of 270 and a CPU multiplier of 9 for 2430 MHz, at either stock vcore (1.35 v) or 1.375 v, the In-Place Large FFTs test of Prime95 still errors out within two minutes, just as before.

Given that I've tried using my two 1 GB sticks of Geil PC4000 RAM in both the orange and yellow slots, at multiple frequencies never exceeding 200 MHz and with loose timings, and at multiple voltages, it seems that it is my CPU holding me back. Is there any hope of my attaining results from my CPU similar to those of its former owner?
 
Thank you once again for your suggestions. I have thrown myself on the mercy of the Internets as a last resort, and though I've yet to achieve satisfaction, it is the burning hope that you guys give me that keeps me going.

xlt92explorer said:
For giggles..try setting your command rate to 2T
Click to expand...

I tried, and alas, no improvement.

RangerSVT said:
You got jipped bro, deal with it.
Click to expand...

I *know* (to the extent that we can truly know anything) that my friend was earnest with regard to the hardware's ability. I've known the fellow for five years, and speak to him most every day. Unless he has been lying to me over the last year-and-a-half with regard to the results he achieved, solely so that he might sell it to me one day (for less money, I should add, than he could get on the open market), then I can put absolute faith in what he told me. Of course, in the purely technical sense, I did get jipped -- something that ran effortlessly for him at 2.6 GHz with only a 1.4 v vcore won't even do 2.52 GHz with a 1.45 v vcore for me. There must be a tangible, technical reason why this is so, but darned if I have any idea what it is.
 
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