Conroe/8800GTX OC weirdness

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spock

Gawd
Joined
Apr 5, 2000
Messages
521
I'll be brief :)

- E6400 dual P95 stable at 6*400 = 2400MHz
- Corsair 6400C4 1:1 at 2.1v, 4-4-4-12
- eVga 8800GTX @ stock

Trouble is, the computer is 100% stable in windows/prime 95, but World of Warcraft blue screens and shuts down after a while (sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes 5 mins). It doesn't happen with the CPU at 8*266 (2133MHz), so there is something it doesn't like about the 400 fsb. I'm running a P5B deluxe with the latest BIOS, all JumperFree settings at auto except the memory voltage at 2.1V and the FSB at 400. Am I accidentally overclocking the PCIe bus? What is the stock speed, if not "Auto"? Maybe my Antec Neo HE 550W can't handle even a slight overclock AND the 8800 at the same time?

CPU is currently testing at 7*400 = 2800MHz at the same voltage (it's been overnight so far, no errors), and I've booted up at 8*400 = 3200MHz as well, so the CPU pretty much isn't crashing. Cooling is not the issue either (TJ09 case with a Zalman 9500 -- both the CPU and video card should be happy).

I'm really guessing there is some setting I'm missing out on by leaving 85% of them on "Auto" in the JumperFree BIOS. Is there someone else running a 400FSB on a P5B that could paste their settings here so I could try them? Thanks!
 
what board and what sound card do you have? And have you tried any other games or even ran 3dmark06 to see if it crashes?
 
It's a P5B Deluxe/Wifi with the latest BIOS. I am using a USB SoundBlaster Live 24 for a sound card.

Maybe you're right... The USB could be causing problems, although the blue screen is in nv4_disp.dll, which might finger the video card. I'll try disabling sound and see if that helps.

Oh, and the CPU just tested almost 24 hours in dual P95 at 7*400 (2.8GHz) at 1.4V (same voltage). I highly doubt the CPU is causing the crashes I was having at 6*400...
 
I noticed your running a 6x multi, Do you notice any programs(TAT or Orthos) giving you a false Ghz reading I.E. 3.6 ghz 400x8?

The reason I ask is because I would get the same problems with COD2, then I noticed in the game config it also was set at the wrong Ghz for the CPU. This can cause a problem if the CPU sync is screwed up. I fixed the problem by manually setting the correct CPU ghz in the Config and making it read only file.

I'm not positive, but I think WOW has a similar adaptive CPU GPU sync

Then again it may just be a driver issue :rolleyes:
 
No, the programs read the correct GHz speed, but if it helps, I'm just starting a dual P95 test at 8*400 (stock multi) for 3200MHz (same voltage again). It's run for 15 minutes so far no problems. If there are glitches with running the multi at 6x, they should be gone now.

I threw a few 3Dmark06 loops at it last night at 7*400, no errors or crashing. Maybe it was the sound??

Do the "Auto" settings in the P5B BIOS work well for overclocking? Should I "fix" the PCI bus to 33.33MHz, etc? So many options ... the state space is huge... don't want to test them all by hand :(
 
spock said:
No, the programs read the correct GHz speed, but if it helps, I'm just starting a dual P95 test at 8*400 (stock multi) for 3200MHz (same voltage again). It's run for 15 minutes so far no problems. If there are glitches with running the multi at 6x, they should be gone now.

I threw a few 3Dmark06 loops at it last night at 7*400, no errors or crashing. Maybe it was the sound??

Do the "Auto" settings in the P5B BIOS work well for overclocking? Should I "fix" the PCI bus to 33.33MHz, etc? So many options ... the state space is huge... don't want to test them all by hand :(
Click to expand...

Yes the Auto option works to get you started for the V.core, I adjust it higher/lower to help stability.

Also locking the PCI-bus to 33.3 is a must.
 
My buddy is having the same issues with WOW. Or very similar anyways. He gets random crashes to desktop after just a few minutes of WOW. He has an Nvidia 9800 card and keeps getting VPU related errors. He still can't figure it out. Check the WOW forums and see if someone has come up with a solution or at least tracked the problem down.
 
shooting from the hip here.. seems power related to me.

or.. maybe not if it's making through 3dmark06 loops.. yes, locking the pci sync @ 33.3 and then pci-e freq @ 105 or so is a good idea.. those values when left at auto can really cause issues when you bring the fsb to and beyond 400.. if you want to rule out sound with the game, maybe just pull the sound card and test it.. get it physically out of the machine.. should be fairly easy test. anyways. good luck!
 
I'm suprised you can even BOOT at 400FSB. Raise it to 405 to get into the 1333mhz chip-strap.

I can boot fully stable at 500FSB, but I'm unstable between 380 and 400.
 
Dual P95 just ran like 18hrs at 8*400. I set the PCI to 33.33 and the PCIe to 100MHz. I wish this BIOS showed you what "auto" is going to choose, the way my old Abit IC7 used to. It would say like "Auto (37.5MHz)". Very helpful...

I wonder how high I was running my PCI/PCIe? Oh well. I'm off to try WoW again, *with* sound I think. If it's gonna crash, let's see it :)

What happens at the 1333 strap (looser timings)? Also, I thought it got engaged at 401 fsb (not 405)? If I'm stable at 400, should I care?

BTW thanks for all the help :)
 
spock said:
Dual P95 just ran like 18hrs at 8*400. I set the PCI to 33.33 and the PCIe to 100MHz. I wish this BIOS showed you what "auto" is going to choose, the way my old Abit IC7 used to. It would say like "Auto (37.5MHz)". Very helpful...

I wonder how high I was running my PCI/PCIe? Oh well. I'm off to try WoW again, *with* sound I think. If it's gonna crash, let's see it :)

What happens at the 1333 strap (looser timings)? Also, I thought it got engaged at 401 fsb (not 405)? If I'm stable at 400, should I care?

BTW thanks for all the help :)
Click to expand...

if you still get lockups, try setting the PCIe bus to 101mhz. That solved all my graphical wierdness.

I'd still recommend at least 401fsb. The "strap" is the operating frequency of the NB chip. Within certain FSB ranges, the NB will operate faster than others. For example, it might start at a base of 100mhz, when the FSB is around 300mhz. Every +1mhz on the FSB would also add 1mhz to the NB frequency... until a point. For example, at 399FSB, the NB would be running at 199mhz. But at 401mhz it would have a divider applied to it, that might make it run alot slower... Maybe 101mhz again.

Confusing kinda (at least how I describe it :p) but I hope that (simlified) explanation helps.
 
Hmm, interesting explanation. 401 can't hurt much I guess, so I'll give it a try. WoW just worked for like 30 minutes, but the FPS was low so I checked CPU-Z and of course it's running the PCI-E at x1 :mad:

I guess I get to search for what causes the P5B to go into x1 mode now... I'll try the 101MHz thing too.
 
Rebooting (soft reboot) seems to alternate randomly between x16 and x1 modes for the PCIe video card. I remember people talking about this issue -- anyone have the link to those discussions?
 
Crashed again in WoW after about 30 minutes. FSB was 402, PCIe was 101, PCI was 33.33. I'm going to try one of the new BIOS's that just released.
 
New BIOS (1004) still has the x1 PCIe issue, so I decided not to screw around. I'm back at stock E6400 speeds, voltages, etc. I know the CPU can do at least 3.2, but I guess I need to wait until I understand what's crashing before I can OC again. Any ideas, feel free to post 'em and I'll give it a go. Thanks!
 
spock said:
Rebooting (soft reboot) seems to alternate randomly between x16 and x1 modes for the PCIe video card. I remember people talking about this issue -- anyone have the link to those discussions?
Click to expand...

Setting my PCIe to 101mhz fixed this.

Try it without your sound card (if you havn't already).
 
Just completed an overnight looping run of 3dmark06 at 3.2GHz (402fsb). I'll try the no sound thing in WoW after work.
 
I just... I can SWEAR I heard something about Creative X-FI's drivers not working 100% with WoW...
 
spock said:
[snip]
I wonder how high I was running my PCI/PCIe?
[snip]
Click to expand...

prolly in excess of 110mhz.. I tried my p5w dh on auto @ 400 and I got the same behavoir out of the graphics cards as I did when I manually set it to 112mhz.. the cards (ATi x1900s at that time) were NOT happy. lol.

I agree, showing what "auto" was going to set things at would be very helpful.
 
Update: I ran 3DMark06's "Demo" looping mode (WITH sound enabled) all day with no crashes or errors. I considered running winamp and two low priority low memory usage P95 threads in the background as well, but I decided to take one thing at a time.

Arcygenical: I'm running a USB SoundBlaster Live 24, not an X-FI, and WoW works for hours upon hours at stock speeds on this hardware. Thanks for the input though, I'll look into it.

It looks like it might only be WoW that has problems. Maybe Vikodemous was right about the adaptive CPU->GPU sync. I'll look through the config files...
 
WoW ran all night without failing. I'm pretty happy at this point. The only thing I changed was to set the other voltages in the BIOS to their lowest settings, not Auto. Only the memory voltage (2.1) and the CPU core voltage (1.4) are anything but minimum.

Finally I can sit back and enjoy some speed :) Thanks everyone for their suggestions.
 
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