overclocking a GA-965P-DS4

MooseJam

firstly how come there's no overclocking forum ?

secondly I'm toying with my newish motherboard a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4, I can only get the fsb up to 380, any higher than that and it won't boot, does anyone else have this board and have you managed to get it to boot at 400 or higher , if so what bios settings/voltages did you have to change ?

dazftw

I dont have the board but this is basically the overclocking forum..

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=85

Conar

I have the GA-965P-DS3P and I set it to 400MHz without any issue.
I don't think I even had to put up the voltage.
I think I moved it up something minimal in the end just to ward off evil instability gremlins but definitely didn't have to jump through any hoops.
I'm not at home at the moment but if I remember I'll post my settings over the next few days.

TerrorFirmer

What ram do you have?

MooseJam

HavoK wrote: »

What ram do you have?

I had got four gigs of Corsair PC5300 DDR2, I thought that might be the issue so this week I bought 2 gigs OCZ nVIDIA SLI DDR2 PC6400, cost me 82 beans including shipping and what difference does it make ? none lol, they are very nice modules though, nicest i've ever had , this pic doesn't do them justice
http://www.komplett.ie/img/p/400/335299.jpg

Anyway @ conar I'm amazed you had no issue at all getting it to 400 mhz, mine won't boot at all past 380, and thats even with putting the FSB overvoltage and the (G)mch overvoltage up a good bit and with the cpu voltage up a good bit too, if you can post your settings at 400mhz i'd be very gratefull, maybe I just got a dud cpu but i've had the same issue with an e6600 and a q6700 so I'd have to have been very unlucky

Conar

I'm using OCZ Platinum PC6400 memory so yours is better and should definitely not be holding you back.

Anyway, here's what I've got setup:

CPU Clock Ratio - 8x
CPU Host Clock Control - Enabled
CPU Host Frequency - 400
PCI Express Frequency - 100
CIA2 - disabled
Memory Multiplier SPD - 2
Memory Frequency - 800 (obviously)
High Speed DRAM DLL Settings - Option 1
DRAM Timing - Manual
CAS - 4
DRAM Ras to CAS - 4
DRAM RAS Precharge - 4
TRAS - 12
(memory defaulted to 5-5-5-15 when set to auto)
ACT to ACT delay - Auto
Rank Write to Read delay - auto
Write to precharge delay - Auto
Refresh to ACT delay - 0
Read to precharge delay - Auto
Memory Performance enhance - Normal
System Voltage Control - Manual
DDR2 Overvoltage control - +0.275
PCI-E Overvoltage Control - Normal
(G0MCH Overvoltage Control - Normal
FSB Overvoltage Control - +0.05V
CPU Voltage Control - 1.375V
Normal CPU Vcore - 1.3


Anyway, I know you didn't need all that info but better too much than too little.
Let me know how you get on.

MooseJam

cheers Conar more than I could have asked for, have been playing around with it here for an hour or so and no joy, It runs fine at 395 no problems at all, can bench it with 3dmark but when I put it up to 396 it doesn't boot. I can't even get it to boot at 400 with the multiplier set to 6 and thats underclocking the cpu. So I don't know what the story is, maybe the cpu just can't do it, no real way of investigating any further without splashing out on another cpu or board

Conar

That sounds very werid.
You'd expect to have some sort of area of slight instability between the point where it works fine and doesn't work at all.

Have you made sure that you don't have the PCI Express frequency or memory set to auto, so directly affected by the increase?

What sort of temperatures are you seeing?
I know my Northbridge is quite hot 38C in the BIOS when just turned on and 50-55 in the OS under load.
My CPU is idling at 32C odd and hitting the late 50's under load using a Thermaltake Blue Orb.

The air flow in my chassis is terrible so I have an Antec P182 waiting to be opened on Christmas day along with a Switftech H20 Ultra watercooling kit and I'm hoping to be able get a lot better temps and speeds once thats in action.

I'm raging now that I didn't get a water block for my northbridge too because unless the improved airflow etc drops the temps then I don't think I'm going to be able to get much further than the 400 I'm already at.

Unfortunately my girlfriend keeps a close eye on how much I spend and I've already gone over budget but she's agreed to let me spend another 10-15 as part of my crimbo present on another cooler so I will probably order the Zalman cooler from Elara
http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=EQP52217

I'll let you know how I get on anyway.

Conar

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=2156&cid=6&pg=3

According to this review they say you should reach the 400 mark easily on the DS4.
What rev is your board thats a rev 2 but they say there's not much difference from rev 1 other than improved support for quads. Rev 3.3 can only be the same or better.

Did you compare your settings to mine? I can't see what would be blocking you from hitting that 400MHz level or even much higher as you have better cooling than my board. Those guys can get 485MHz.

Grim.

have the DS4 with a Q6600 running at 3.20ghz 400x8 with no probs say i could go higher but think 4 1gig modules are holding me back

edit: btw mine is rev 3.3

MooseJam

mine is rev 3.3, yea saw that article and it's what has me scratching my head here, whats wrong with my baby boo hoo ? I don't know what the story is, maybe it's a bad cpu is all ? tried booting with the very same settings as yourself but no joy, haven't looked at temps though will check them out in the morning. I'm kicking myself cause I sold an E6300 the other day, should have tried it out and saw if I hit the same issue. I'm thinking I may go out and buy a new board, i'd be super super peeved if I hit the same issue with it

Conar

Well if you want to see if its the board and not the CPU then just lower the multiplier.
If it won't do 400 x 6 but you can do 266 x 9 then you can be pretty sure its the board.

I reckon that would prove it either way anyway but I'm a bit of a novice so maybe someone else will throw in their 2 cents worth.

MooseJam

gave it a go there and both booted, i was pretty sure i had tried it before and it didn't but there you go, so now I can hit 400 mhz but only with a multiplier of 6 lol, hmm is that info any good to me ? i'll try increasing the multiplier by stages and see if I get anywhere, upping the voltages along the way, a job for the morning I think

Conar

Well that kinda proves that your northbridge can go that far.

Now its down to what CPU you are using and what cooling you have.

I could get to about 2.8GHz on stock cooling with the e6600 and 3.2GHz on the thermaltake blue orb.

EDIT (400 x 7 on stock, 400 x 8 on blue orb)

MODS maybe this should be moved to the Tweaking & Modding forum so the lads in the know will see it and give some decent advice.