Problem when Overclocking E4300 running Vista

[jiashyuan]

I have a little problem in overclocking Core 2 Duo E4300 as i managed to reach 3.11Ghz. I knew that E4300 can achieve much more than 3.11Ghz. Here is my PC spec.

1. Intel core 2 duo E4300 with Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
2. Gigabyte 965P-DS3
3. Kingston 1GB DDR2 667 MHz CL5 RAM X 2
4. Asus 7600GS TOP
5. Western Digital 160GB SATA2
6. Windows Vista Home Premium

I disabled EIST and C1E as well as others that might affect the OC, but i dont know if i left out anything. I set my RAM multiplier to 2 so that it''ll give my FSBRAM ratio 1:1. But this only works till 3.11GHz = 345 FSB. I decided to raise the FSB a little more just 5Mhz, the com works fine, but vista could not detect my CPU speed, CPU-Z could not start. What exactly is the problem? I dont think is the VCore or any other voltage causing the problem but you guys could tell me what are the appropriate voltages to set just in case i'm wrong.

 

[Kursah]

I've heard of some 4300's only going that far without a decent ammount more of a voltage increase...and 3.11 isn't a bad oc...did you manually set voltages and increase the voltages to maintain stability under orthos stress test/prime under the current OC conditions? Did you manually adjust memory timings? Is your PCI/PCI-E Bus speeds locked (most likely...but gotta ask anyways)?

List your settings...need more than a few options you disabled for the CPU, FSB speed and memory ratio in order to better help you.

What are your idle/full load temps? How hot is your memory to the touch under load? Also...I've noticed that OC-ing with Vista is more interesting that XP...but with some work and tweaking it can be done!

 

[jiashyuan]

Kursah, i got a better OC now. 3.24Ghz!!! Its kind of weird though. I'll explain later. For start, i'll tell you bout the settings. The voltage is set to around 1.35V but because of voltage droop, CPU-Z only detected 1.312V. Its normal i think. The core speed is 3240Mhz
(360Mhz X 9 multiplier). FSB : DRAM is 1 : 1. My memory latency is set to 5-6-6-17(auto). I didn't set it to 5-5-5-15 as advised because whenever i set to that latency, vista can't boot up properly. It came out a blue screen saying something bout physical dump memory and restarted. So i set it to auto. And the DRAM voltage is 2.1V(+0.3V). When i set to 2.2V(+0.4V) the same blue screen appears again.

I read on some sites that when overclocking on a 667Mhz DDR2 RAM, the memory muliti plier should set to 2.5 as 553Mhz to 2.0 and 800Mhz to 3.0. But the thing is, if it set to 2.5, the frequency of the memory would be too high. Will that affect my OC? I also plus another 0.2V for my motherboard (Gigabyte 965P-DS3).

For my system's temp its quite cool, because i am using Artic cooling Freezer 7 pro which has a big heatsink. And a cooler master 12cm fan is placed just behind the heatsink, so airflow is excellent. SpeedFan recorded around 38C during idle and when i stress test my system, running 3DMark06, it around 45C.

Here comes the weird thing, i dont know how to explain, but please try to understand ok. When i OC to 3.0GHz, vista is fine. After 3.05Ghz, vista still boots up normally, BUT my intergrated network adapter cannot connect to the network as i'm using a broadband router, and vista can't detect my clock speed, CPU-z cant be started. Now come the interesting part. WHEN, i unplug the cable from the router and plug it back again, the intergrated network adapter connects to the network that i wnated perfectly and vista could detect all the settings that i changed and CPU-Z pops up showing me the new clock speed...

I really have no idea why is this happening. hope you could solve this mystery for me Thanks

 

[Kursah]

Read below..revised POST

 

[Kursah]

Kursah, i got a better OC now. 3.24Ghz!!! Its kind of weird though. I'll explain later. For start, i'll tell you bout the settings. The voltage is set to around 1.35V but because of voltage droop, CPU-Z only detected 1.312V. Its normal i think. The core speed is 3240Mhz

Yeah, that ammount of vDroop is normal...I run my e6300 up to 3.36 stable with bios set to 1.32...reads (in bios and windows) 1.28v, and under load droops to 1.26. You may try upping it to 1.375 or 1.4 for a better oc. I've heard that 4300's may require 1.5v+ to maintain 3.5 speeds or more...some don't..it's kind of a crapshoot that way.

(360Mhz X 9 multiplier). FSB : DRAM is 1 : 1. My memory latency is set to 5-6-6-17(auto). I didn't set it to 5-5-5-15 as advised because whenever i set to that latency, vista can't boot up properly. It came out a blue screen saying something bout physical dump memory and restarted. So i set it to auto. And the DRAM voltage is 2.1V(+0.3V). When i set to 2.2V(+0.4V) the same blue screen appears again.

Well what is your memory's rated voltage? Your MB will stock run at 1.8v..but my memory is recommended to be ran at 2.0-2.1v for the rated 4-4-4-12 at DDR2 800 speeds, and that is perfectly normal to have to up your voltage as per MFG specs. I am at 2.25v, DDR2 960, 4-4-4-5 timings with my memory, it's good stuff.

I read on some sites that when overclocking on a 667Mhz DDR2 RAM, the memory muliti plier should set to 2.5 as 553Mhz to 2.0 and 800Mhz to 3.0. But the thing is, if it set to 2.5, the frequency of the memory would be too high. Will that affect my OC? I also plus another 0.2V for my motherboard (Gigabyte 965P-DS3).

Well you want to have your memory set to match 1:1 to your CPU at STOCK speeds for 1:1 OC, which for my ddr2 800 memory I had to set it to 533 (my cpu stock bus speed is 266), your bus speed is 200, so see if you can set it lower (Possibly 400?, I haven't OC'd with lower than DDR2 800 memory). It depends on your memory quality as far as how high you can OC it, look up specs on your RAM, find reviews, read forums about what other users were able to get and what they had to adjust to get there.

For my system's temp its quite cool, because i am using Artic cooling Freezer 7 pro which has a big heatsink. And a cooler master 12cm fan is placed just behind the heatsink, so airflow is excellent. SpeedFan recorded around 38C during idle and when i stress test my system, running 3DMark06, it around 45C.

I use the same CPU heatsink..it is great. I have my bios set to Performance mode so it doesn't kick on 100% till about 48C, but it will progressively increase speeds once I hit about 38C, so it stays very quiet and is very effective for the price! I idle around 33-35c, and load around 52-54c. Do you have front intake fans? A 12 cm fan in the rear is definately a posotive boost in cooling.

What are your load temps with ORTHOS set to Priority 9? Also if you want to see some high temps, load up TAT, intel made it to run the CPU hotter than anything else out there, and you'll never be able to get those kind of temps under gaming or anything else. If i use TAT I'll it about 62C in a hurry, but it stays there. Not recomended for a lot of stress testing/burn in though, but do try Orthos and let me know what you get.

Here comes the weird thing, i dont know how to explain, but please try to understand ok. When i OC to 3.0GHz, vista is fine. After 3.05Ghz, vista still boots up normally, BUT my intergrated network adapter cannot connect to the network as i'm using a broadband router, and vista can't detect my clock speed, CPU-z cant be started. Now come the interesting part. WHEN, i unplug the cable from the router and plug it back again, the intergrated network adapter connects to the network that i wnated perfectly and vista could detect all the settings that i changed and CPU-Z pops up showing me the new clock speed...

Read up on your board for a "dead spot" in the FSB. It may cause issues like this, you may have to skip 10-20+mhz of FSB to alleviate that issue, as you'll be stable below that range and stable above that range, dunno why this is, and I have heard Gigabyte has implementations in new bios releases to solve this, but not completely. But do a search on your board for the FSB range you are having problems with.

If you want to skip that range, the best way is to up all of your voltages by 1 or 2 notches..some set up all but CPU on the highest and then OC to their top and start backing off voltages until it becomes unstable to know what kind of power it takes them to maintain that OC level with stability. I do the reverse route, I only increase once I see instability or failed tests in ORTHOS/Prime 95. But with your issue it may help you to OC further, and yes your system will run a lot warmer most likely so it's best to ensure you have enough airflow to help dissapate all of that extra heat. But you may have to keep voltages higher than you want to maintain a higher OC, and if you're not kosher with that or don't have enough cooling to maintain good temps, then you may be stuck at your current OC.

Good luck! I hope I have been of some help to ya! If you really want some help, get a P5B Deluxe as I have that board currently, I love it, and I know it very well now!

 

[jiashyuan]

Well what is your memory's rated voltage? Your MB will stock run at 1.8v..but my memory is recommended to be ran at 2.0-2.1v for the rated 4-4-4-12 at DDR2 800 speeds, and that is perfectly normal to have to up your voltage as per MFG specs. I am at 2.25v, DDR2 960, 4-4-4-5 timings with my memory, it's good stuff.

My Kingston memory's rated violtage is 1.8V so i added another 0.3V for it till 2.1V. And at this stage, i found that my com is stable. Kursah, f you don't mind can you explain to me bout the CAS latency thing? I'm a little confused bout the difference in 5-5-5-15 and 5-6-6-17. My 2 sticks of memory came with a factory default of CL5 latency. Is greater the value the performace would be hampered or likewise??

Well you want to have your memory set to match 1:1 to your CPU at STOCK speeds for 1:1 OC, which for my ddr2 800 memory I had to set it to 533 (my cpu stock bus speed is 266), your bus speed is 200, so see if you can set it lower (Possibly 400?, I haven't OC'd with lower than DDR2 800 memory). It depends on your memory quality as far as how high you can OC it, look up specs on your RAM, find reviews, read forums about what other users were able to get and what they had to adjust to get there.

About my memory... i think i pushed my memory beyond its limits because, most of them who uses 667Mhz memory can only reached around 3.05Ghz. For me i think its because of the heast dissipation in my system. you know that our heatsink's fan is place right before the memory, this would maybe makes our memory cooler than usual. If i buy heat spreader for my memories, will it be better in performance wise?

I use the same CPU heatsink..it is great. I have my bios set to Performance mode so it doesn't kick on 100% till about 48C, but it will progressively increase speeds once I hit about 38C, so it stays very quiet and is very effective for the price! I idle around 33-35c, and load around 52-54c. Do you have front intake fans? A 12 cm fan in the rear is definately a posotive boost in cooling.

I'm planning to buy another fron intake fan. I set my artic cooling to its max as i'm afraid that due to this overclocking, CPU would get overheated. A little noise is bearable. For your info, i'm using a cooler master Elite casing

What are your load temps with ORTHOS set to Priority 9? Also if you want to see some high temps, load up TAT, intel made it to run the CPU hotter than anything else out there, and you'll never be able to get those kind of temps under gaming or anything else. If i use TAT I'll it about 62C in a hurry, but it stays there. Not recomended for a lot of stress testing/burn in though, but do try Orthos and let me know what you get.

I havent run these apps yet, would be doing soon and post you my results.

Read up on your board for a "dead spot" in the FSB. It may cause issues like this, you may have to skip 10-20+mhz of FSB to alleviate that issue, as you'll be stable below that range and stable above that range, dunno why this is, and I have heard Gigabyte has implementations in new bios releases to solve this, but not completely. But do a search on your board for the FSB range you are having problems with.

Erm... bout the deadspot and update thing, gigabyte's lates bious is F10 and i'm alreay using it. Sure, i'll google it up.

Good luck! I hope I have been of some help to ya! If you really want some help, get a P5B Deluxe as I have that board currently, I love it, and I know it very well now!

Yeah, i know that P5B is great, but i'm already contented with my current gigabyte 965P-DS3. Look at my 3.24Ghz OC and you'll know what i mean Thank you very much for your time Kursah, and i hope you could help me along the way. Thank YOU!!

 

[Kursah]

My Kingston memory's rated violtage is 1.8V so i added another 0.3V for it till 2.1V. And at this stage, i found that my com is stable. Kursah, f you don't mind can you explain to me bout the CAS latency thing? I'm a little confused bout the difference in 5-5-5-15 and 5-6-6-17. My 2 sticks of memory came with a factory default of CL5 latency. Is greater the value the performace would be hampered or likewise??

Read up on memory a little here: http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/memory/131
Also you can google up more if ya need. I do not know all of the specifics of memory, and don't need to, I just need to know what numbers need set. Those four are the most important to stability, speed and latency for OC-ers (not including CR).
And when OC-ing memory you will have to loosen timings (higher numbers) and add voltage to be stable. Some memory is made to take more OC with less changes to the settings. 5-5-5-15 (loose timings) will give you some more bandwidth, response and some may say stability than compared to 5-6-6-17 (very loose timings), where as my memory is at 4-4-4-5 (tighter timings).

About my memory... i think i pushed my memory beyond its limits because, most of them who uses 667Mhz memory can only reached around 3.05Ghz. For me i think its because of the heast dissipation in my system. you know that our heatsink's fan is place right before the memory, this would maybe makes our memory cooler than usual. If i buy heat spreader for my memories, will it be better in performance wise?

If your memory is getting pretty toasty, consider getting
heatsinks and active cooling, such as what I purchased from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835704001
Very good deal for keeping your investment in memory safe and cool! I stuck my 2 sticks in the second and fourth slots on the MB and moved the XMS cooler over a little so it wasn't so close to the CPU fan, and it works great! Made a huge difference in cooling my memory and motherboard!

I'm planning to buy another fron intake fan. I set my artic cooling to its max as i'm afraid that due to this overclocking, CPU would get overheated. A little noise is bearable. For your info, i'm using a cooler master Elite casing

That works! As long as you keep your system cool, you're good to go, and that case should have good airflow when more fans are installed! Good deal.

I havent run these apps yet, would be doing soon and post you my results.

Well run Orthos all night...over 8 hours if possible, if I can pass 8 hours I'll push for more OC...until it fails, then I back off and run it for abotu 24 hours. It's good for stress test stability for sure!

Yeah, i know that P5B is great, but i'm already contented with my current gigabyte 965P-DS3. Look at my 3.24Ghz OC and you'll know what i mean Thank you very much for your time Kursah, and i hope you could help me along the way. Thank YOU!!

You have a great OC MB, it's very capable and the price is nicer. 3.24 is a great OC dude! If you can tighten up the memory timings and tune in final voltage settings, you'll be set. If you want more though, I'm afraid more cooling, voltage, and maybe more capable memory may be required...but we'll see what you can get done! Good luck and I'll be more than happy to help you along the way!