Sleep Problem when Overclocking Old p5n-d and e8400

[lokistar09]

Sorry, this is very long as I've put a lot of detail to my problem and my numerous attempts to fix it. My system specs are listed under my system specs. When I overclock my my fsb from stock to anything (usually 1500mhz fsb), my computer will not resume from sleep properly. Everything else is stable and running prime for 2-6 hours will be stable. However, this is the only issue and I have searched the internet everywhere and tried researching this but have come up with no solid answer.

So I'll put the computer to sleep and when I try to wake it, the internal computer parts power on and the fan powers on at full speed, but not the screen. If I press the reset button, then the fans will slow down and the computer will wake up like normal. However, all the overclock settings are gone and back to stock. Later if I reboot, the BIOS will show a "BIOS FAILED TO POST" and require me to go into setup. However, if i just go into setup and exit w/o making any changes, I'll get back into windows fine.

I have tried various settings for voltages with a 1500mhz fsb (this is the highest I can overclock as i believe this is where my motherboard "hole" is and nothing pass that will even load) and have changed my RAM timings, clock speed, and voltage.
I've also attempted the pencil-mod for this board but unsure if it worked.

I have used many different combinations of vcore voltages from 1.268 up to 1.4.
I have used many combinations for HT and NB settings from 1.3 up to 1.56 (1.6 caused me to reset the bios through CMOS(?) battery removal).
The minimum I can set SB is 1.5 and i've gone up to 1.56 (that also caused me to have to reset the bios manually).

I have turned on and off the intel settings in almost every combination but usually leave them all off for overclocking purposes.

I have changed the ram settings down to 667 and overclocked them to 936 mhz and timings of 4-4-4-15 for 667mhz through 800mhz and 5-5-5-18 for 667mhz up to 936 mhz. (those timings are the two stock settings, unlike others that are 444-13 and 555-15). I have used voltages from auto to 1.97. (I've also noticed that once I started using 1.97, it seems to not like going back to stock or anything lower). I have tried both 4gb and 8gb combinations.

Btw, the e8400 is an e0 stepping. and I have 4 harddrives, C:\ is a 250 seagate 7200.10, D,E,F are all 7200.11 and are 1.5TB, 1TB and 500 GB respectively.

I once had a 8800gts 512 in SLI. I tried both single and sli configuration. Now i'm using the GTX 560 ti. Issue did not go away.

Currently, the only settings that are completely stable for usage in gaming and benchmarking w/o crashes are:
1. 1500mhz, minimum vcore of 1.268, every other voltage is auto. Ram can be any timing settings, clock and voltage combination I listed above.
2. 1500mhz, minimum vcore of 1.268, NB 1.3 through 1.4 everything else auto. Again, ram also doesn't matter.
3. 1500mhz, minimum vcore of 1.268, NB at 1.42 through 1.48, requires HT of either 1.4 or 1.42 to not produce a fatal error in prime. Again ram also doesn't matter.

I have used every single combination between those ranges I have provided (i've been at this for 2 months, every other day and have a handwritten notepad of all those combination tests). My temperatures for all stress tests under all combinations that were stable enough to even do tests have never exceed 72 Celsius max but 100% load is usually around 69 Celsius. I have also tried loading up many many combinations for 1600 mhz up to 1880 mhz and none have even loaded pass the first few lines of the initial bios screen. (That was only twice that it wasn't just a black screen or scrambled words/symbols)

I have also installed a fresh windows 7 64 to do some testing, but not as comprehensive as a whole notepad of notes, but the problem remained.

So can anyone suggest what the problem may be that causes a SLEEP issue or even better, a solution to this??? If not, thanks for reading this long piece of crap. I'm actually already giving up and feeling quite defeated in wasting so much time on this on last gen hardware. Also, please don't suggest to just turn off the computer or hibernate. Hibernate has the exact same issue, but because the overclock settings reset, for some reason, the entire o/s performs as if i had change the fsb to 100mhz and is not running at 1ghz. Shutting down is not a solution because it takes me probably 30 sec to load into windows and it's slow for the first minute or so to load up programs. Sleep when it works, literally just turns on the computer from the time i press the buttons and my eyes are on my monitor. And yes, using stock is a solution that I am now most likely taking.

As I write this, I have two very long shot ideas to additional causes that I never thought of before either. 1.) I have too many harddrives. 2.) It could be my ANTEC p160 case, as the power/reset connectors to the front buttons were all individuals plugs (about 8 plugs for the ground/reset/voltages etc) that didnt quite fit the Asus Quick Connect for the mobo perfectly but i made sure to use each plug and followed the mobo's guide and made it fit for each label and maybe that's why pressing reset jolts the system to wake it up again? just not sure why it loses overclock.

 

[Mussels]

i can tell you outright, the problem is that your machine is not stable.


these test programs are NOT perfect - they're just a guide.


simply lower your OC, or work on the lesser settings - IMO, focus on the ram settings, as thats what usually causes problems waking from sleep (where everything is powered off except ram, which has just enough power to maintain whats stored inside it for when you wake the machine up)

 

[robal]

Hi,

Man.. you are indeed persistent.
My experience with deep Sleep (S3 state) on various PCs from years back up to now, is this:

- Resuming from S3 quite often doesn't work..

I think that mobo manufacturers simply don't care and don't spend enough time testing.
It is diffucult to test, especially when you've got so many factors (CPU, GPU, mem, PSU).
I'm 90% sure, that it's simply BIOS in you mobo that fails to resume h/w parameters correctly, when they're not set to stock.
You've spent a lot of time on this, and it's probably just mobo's design fault.

In you post, you haven't mentioned upgrading BIOS....
It seems like a silly question, but... Do you have the latest BIOS ?

Cheers,

 

[Mussels]

Hi,

Man.. you are indeed persistent.
My experience with deep Sleep (S3 state) on various PCs from years back up to now, is this:

- Resuming from S3 quite often doesn't work..

I think that mobo manufacturers simply don't care and don't spend enough time testing.
It is diffucult to test, especially when you've got so many factors (CPU, GPU, mem, PSU).
I'm 90% sure, that it's simply BIOS in you mobo that fails to resume h/w parameters correctly, when they're not set to stock.
You've spent a lot of time on this, and it's probably just mobo's design fault.

In you post, you haven't mentioned upgrading BIOS....
It seems like a silly question, but... Do you have the latest BIOS ?

Cheers,

i've got it working on every single system i've ever tried without a single problem, with the exception of RAM issues (where replacing ram/setting timings/voltages properly has fixed it). even if a system crashes out of a game once a month and fails to wake from sleep once a week, that aint normal - thats a sign of a problem. if that problem goes away at stock clocks, then its really clear what the problem is.

 

[Steve-007UK]

I used to have strange problems with this pc, My screen would go on standby and when i resumed the pc it seemed to be locked up for upto 5 mins then it just started working as normal, It hasen't done it since i installed service pack 1 tho so i wounder if that might have anything to do with sleep mode.

 

[lokistar09]

Thanks for all the quick replies guys, much appreciated it. Those are the 3 things I found to be the primary theories as well from my research 1.) memory/NB needs better timing/voltages 2.) sleep never works for them 3.) mobo has a design flaw.

Mussels, I agree with you that may be the case. However, its puzzling me why sleep waking up is the only very apparent and consistent issue in all cases of overclock. I do not have any hang ups or blue screen of deaths otherwise. I'm also very new to overclocking so unsure how to tell whether to increase or decrease timings and voltages for memory.

i can tell you outright, the problem is that your machine is not stable.


these test programs are NOT perfect - they're just a guide.


simply lower your OC, or work on the lesser settings - IMO, focus on the ram settings, as thats what usually causes problems waking from sleep (where everything is powered off except ram, which has just enough power to maintain whats stored inside it for when you wake the machine up)

Oh wells, I give up... just going to wait for socket 2011 to settle itself into the market and whether that's my next viable upgrade. Stock until then.