Help with RAM overclocking - no idea :(

[Technex]

Hey guys, long time no see! (sorry about that!)

Vista keeps saying my RAM is the weak part of my system, coming out at 5.6 on the tester compared to 5.9 on everything else.

My ram is 4x 1GB Dual channel A-Data Vitesta DDR2 1066 PC2-850 5-5-5-15.

My CPU is the Intel core 2 quad Q6600.

My MB is the Abit IP35 PRO.

My current settings:

External clock 272

Multiplier Factor (x9) (Max setting it goes)

Estimated CPU clock is 2448MHz.

DRAM speed CPU : DRAM (default DDR2-816)

When I run memtest it passes fine without any errors and shows my RAM as being currently: 408MHz DDR816 CAS 5-5-5-18.

I've spent all of today reading about overclocking RAM and I still have no clue, really don't understand.

If anyone can give me some help on boosting up the RAM/CPU ratio for best performance that would be great! The CPU is just fine but I understand you have to mess with it to change the ram? (I dunno!)

Thank you very much for helping someone like me, haha!

 

[Mul.]

So as I understand, everything is as good as untouched at the moment? While the Q6600 has a default FSB of 266, Abit boards tend to overclock ~4-6MHz on the FSB I believe.

Essentially, to atain the PC2-8500 that you're after, you'll need to use the maximum memory ratio available. I'd imagine that your motherboard offers DDR2-1066 support at 1066FSB (266).

See this image from Anandtech's Abit IP35 Pro review

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/motherboards/abit/ip35-pro/ip35biosOC.jpg

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3142&p=4

The maximum memory ratio offered in BIOS is 1:2.00. This means, when your FSB is at 266, it will offer a maximum DRAM Frequency of 533. Remember that DDR stands for double data rate which effectively results in an effective frequency of DDR2-1066. So there's your answer. Locate DRAM Speed in OC Tuner and assign 1:2.00.

That's not it though! You will need to manually assign a Memory Voltage of 2.2V for this kit and the following memory timings

CAS Latency (CL) - 5

RAS to CAS Delay (TrCD) - 5

RAS Precharge (Trp) - 5

Cycle Time (TRAS) - 15

TRAS - 15

If you do not manually assign the voltage of 2.2V, your system may not boot.

 

[Technex]

Wow, thanks ever so much for your help! I'm too tired to do it now but first thing tomorrow I'll do it. Better get some sleep lol, 3am haha. The joys of gaming .

Yes everything is untouched and yep the Abit does OC by a little bit.

You really worded that out great and perfect for this MB, really awesome help!

Thanks again!

 

[Mul.]

Most welcome

 

[Technex]

Darn, I knew that would be too good to be true...

I done everything you said word for word and now when I boot up just as it's loading my desktop I get a load of errors about explorer.exe has crashed etc and I can't do anything. I can shutdown though.

I'm running memtest now (I'm posting on laptop).

I did notice a few things:

I can't go higher than DDR2-1064 when the FSB is set to 266. I guess this is close enough?

(If I set it to 267 if I remember it skips to 1068) (I didn't use this)

There are also many more ram options.

tRFC

tWR

tWTR

tRRD

tRTP

I didn't touch any of them and left them on auto.

All the voltages before were set on auto. I had to change the main menu setting to manual to change the RAM voltage to 2.2v. Hopefully this hasn't changed the voltage for anything else...

I will post back with the memtest+ results.

 

[Technex]

Damn... 64 errors at only about a quarter of the way of a pass. Really not sure what to do now, lower or higher the voltage...

I guess it's safer to lower it first and try again, will try that now.

 

[Mul.]

The slight discrepencies with RAM speeds are due to what FSB speeds tend to be in reality. In an ideal world with these ratings, your FSB should be operating at 266.66MHz. As FSB is set in 1MHz integer increments, actual FSB and DRAM speeds are consquentially as much as +/-4MHz out, which explains your DDR2-1064 at 266 and DDR2-1068 at 267. It's nothing to worry about.

Your memory is rated at up to 2.2V. Try running memtest86+ (don't boot into windows yet at the risk of corrupting system files), at 2.1V and see if it'll play ball. If you get even more errors then that isn't the issue. I'd try about as low as 2.0V and failing that, I would hazard a guess that the RAM is simply not capable of meeting the speeds that it's rated at.

 

[Technex]

Thanks again for your post. I tried 2v in Memtest+ and it gave some errors still, I rebooted and tried default auto voltage, big mistake haha, wont boot as you said. I'm going to reset the cmos and try again at 2.1v.

If I still can't get it to run do you recommend I try putting all the ram settings back to default and keeping the DDR2 running at 1066? (back to 5-5-5-18)

Also thanks for the explanation again, makes sense.

 

[Mul.]

Is the default Tras for your RAM kit 18 rather than 15? If so, my apologies as this could well be why it's erroring out. Try 5-5-5-18

 

[Technex]

No, no it's rated at 5-5-5-15. Although the first time I ran memtest+ (before I changed anything) it showed the specs as 5-5-5-18. Which is rather strange, maybe the MB wasn't picking it up right...

 

[Technex]

Argh, stuck with "C1" post code error and can't seem to get it to boot by resetting CMOS...

 

[Mul.]

Assuming you've removed power from the mains, remove the CMOS battery for a minute. If that fails, try it again but with a single stick.

 

[Technex]

Yeah, tried the battery too... I even removed all but one ram stick, still done it. Swapped that ram stick out with another one of the 4 and I can get to the BIOS but can't select a HDD on boot (neither will windows load).

I'm using memtest+ on each RAM stick seperatly. Is this a good idea?

It's really funny, I was only trying to get them to run at the rated speed within the rated voltages (says on the ram stick 2.2~2.3v).

Good job they have a lifetime warranty, I have a feeling I'll be sending some back...

 

[Mul.]

Yeah, I'd test each dual channel kit independantly and work out which one's the trouble maker.

 

[llwyd]

x86 or x64 vista? Whatever you do with overclocking, be sure to run 64-bit vista to get the most out of your ram

 

[Technex]

None of them report any problems on memtest+.

I put all 4 back in (making sure they're in matched pairs) and it's working again. Except my dad's HD is now reporting that it's not a geniune Vista key and won't let him register it online or by phone... Bloody great... My HD is working fine which is damn strange.

Yeah, both Vista's are 64bit.

Stuff this RAM, if it can't even run at what it says on the heatspreaders... Oh well, back to how it was before minus a day's work and a Vista reformat (which hopefully will fix)

I would like to say regardless thanks for the help, next RAM will be a top of the line brand.

Funny how in all the reviews they say this ram is very good for overclocking !

Edit:

Well, the RAM did work great before, just annoyed me with all this and it still doesn't run at the specced speed.

 

[Mul.]

Unfortunately this happens to all sets regardless of brand. I had a nice set made by GeIL that also didn't work at PC2-8500 spec and I still need to return it.

 

[Technex]

Damn, that sucks . I did look at a few reviews before buying this RAM and couldn't find a bad thing about it really. I will look a a lot and ask on these forums before getting my next set . Will be a while yet, hehehe!

Cheers,

Laurence

Edit:

Almost forgot, dad's HDD is now working fine with the new reinstalled Vista, sometimes I really hate there stupid security measures, why the hell did it mess up anyway!