Disappointing oc results on new opteron 165 - help

whisper

whisper

Limp Gawd
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Mar 16, 2003
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I'm an old school Athlon XP overclocker and am just getting into o'cing my new opteron 165 (see rig in sig). I've been referring to the Eclipse OC guide and have already determined that I can hit at least 260 HTT with a 1:2 divider (DDR200) and a 9x multi. That's pretty modest but it's a starting point.

From there, however, things start to go downhill. With a 2:3 divider (DDR266) I can only hit 240 HTT before windows reboots, and with a 5:6 divider (DDR333) I max out at 231 HTT. I carried my RAM over from my old Athlon XP rig and have never had a problem (I also recently ran memtest for over 1 hr without a hitch). I have tried relaxing the timings to 2.5-3-3-8 but that did not help even in the slightest.

Should I try giving more juice to the cpu? So far I've just left it at the stock 1.35v. I'm just using stock cooling but my temps have remained low (~42 full load), so I could probably add another +0.05 - 0.1 and still be alright. Anything else that could be holding me back? I bought this rig thinking I could easily hit at least 300 HTT using the 2:3 divider, but as I said I can barely hit 240. I'm using the most recent bios (KN8 SLi bios 19). Thanks in advance.
 
ram: 3-3-3-11 and give it some voltage. try 2.8 or 2.9. there's no reason that you should be maxing out like like, at 240 fsb with those dividers its not even running at ddr400. Maybe your sticks just like more juice than usual.
 
So... You can't post in DDR266 (divider) at more than 240 HT?

I don't think it's your RAM then, as that's only running it at just over 319mhz DDR.

Could be the RAM controller on your CPU... But I think your CPU just needs more voltage, try running 1.4v through it.
 
I can't imagine needing 1.4v to run at 2160mhz though on that opteron... but it can't hurt to try.
 
thrawn86 said:
I can't imagine needing 1.4v to run at 2160mhz though on that opteron... but it can't hurt to try.
Click to expand...

yeah... me niether, but cmon RAM's running at about 315mhz... Can't be that...

OP, Have you limited your LDT (aka HTT) multipler to 3x?
 
What is the batch number of the processor? What voltage is your RAM running at currently? What kind of RAM is it?

I'm thinking the RAM needs more voltage and that you may have gotten a bad batch Opty...
 
I'll have to check into the batch number of the cpu (I didn't write it down before I installed it). I played around with it a little more though, and it seems to run stable at 300x9 (stock 1.35 vcore), but that is still with the 1:2 divider. Past 240 HTT with a 2:3 divider and it won't post. Past 231 HTT with a 5:6 divider and it won't post. I guess all this is making me think it is somehow related either to the RAM or the memory controller on the chip. Would increasing vcore really help performance of the memory controller? Maybe, I don't know.

To answer some more of your questions:

RAM is in my sig: Corsair XMS PC3200LL (low latency: stock timings are 2-3-2-6) 2x512mb
vdimm: 2.7
LDT: 3x (unless I'm running at stock 200x9 and then it seems to work fine both at 4x or 5x)

I'll see what happens if I leave vdimm alone and increase vcore, and then I'll see what happens if I increase vdimm but leave vcore alone. I will also try those 3-3-3-11 timings.
 
just remember that RAM bandwidth doesn't mean much of anything to an a64.
 
quadnad said:
just remember that RAM bandwidth doesn't mean much of anything to an a64.
Click to expand...

So are you basically saying that I shouldn't worry about using the low 1:2 divider (DDR200)? As I said, at that divider I got it to do 2.7 ghz (300x9) with no trouble at stock voltage, and I could probably push higher especially if I added another +0.05 or so to vcore.
 
whisper said:
So are you basically saying that I shouldn't worry about using the low 1:2 divider (DDR200)? As I said, at that divider I got it to do 2.7 ghz (300x9) with no trouble at stock voltage, and I could probably push higher especially if I added another +0.05 or so to vcore.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Keep pushing harder (more voltage!), and perhaps if you have the time boot up memtest86 and see how far your RAM will go (with some good ole voltage) to establish a better divider later, but overall the RAM bandwidth doesn't matter at all in real-world apps nearly as much as it does in a P4 kind of environment, only in a memory bandwidth benchmark app. Thank the imc for that.
 
Yeah, until your RAM is working sub 200mhz DDR (so, like you're running the 1:2 divider at stock FSB speeds) you won't notice anything...
 
Well, it's still running very stable at 300x9 with the 1:2 divider. I had noticed that vdimm was set by default in the bios to 1.65v, so I turned it up to 1.7v (which is what I used to run it at in my old rig). I also added +0.02 to vcore. With these settings I was able to max at 305x9, but at 307 HTT windows crashed and rebooted. I think for the time being I'm pretty satisfied with 300x9 (2.7 ghz) even if it means running the low divider. A 900 mhz oc on a proc ain't bad in my book :D

For the record, I also tried relaxing the RAM timings to 3-3-3-11 (with the voltages above) and still could not get past 240 HTT when running at 266DDR. Right now I just set my timings back to stock 2-3-2-6 and that seems to be working fine.
 
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