Gigabyte GA X38 DQ6 Blog

[supershanks]

Hi Vbs,
Welcome to the forum
Great going with overclock
Thanks a lot for taking the time to share your settings and findings.

luck

[supershanks]

That's tough Zenoth, feel for you.
Can't really add to your settings only :-

PCI-E OverVoltage Control : Normal

Up it a notch or 2.

What might be worth a try is priming again but with memory by spd. If it runs ok that confirms it as a memory issue.


luck

[Vbs]

Zenoth, what BIOS are you using?

You can try Memtest86+ 2.00 to see if you are getting memory errors.

Cheers,
Vbs

[lokeey]

Originally Posted by Vbs

Hi all!

This is my first post. I've bought this week my new cpu/mobo/ram and after throughly reading most of this huge thread, I'd like to share with you guys my o/c so far. Many thanks to supershanks and dynapl (we have the same memory kit ) for their informative and helpful posts!

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 @ 3.6 GHz (BX80562Q6600SLACR, Version #: E10342-001)
Cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme + Scythe "S-FLEX™" S-FDB 120mm (SFF21F, 1600rpm) [review]
Motherboard: The one and only GA-X38-DQ6
RAM: G.Skill 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8000 (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ), CL5-5-5-15 2.0~2.1V
PSU: Enermax Liberty 500W (ELT500AWT) (has 2 +12V rails of 22A each)

My overclock so far has been 7+ hours stable in Prime 25.6 (on Vista x64) and 5+ hours Memtest x86+ 2.0!
Temps: 29ºC idle / 50ºC full load (Prime 4 cores, In-place large FFTs)

------------- BIOS Settings -----------------------------
MB Intelligent Tweaker (MIT) BIOS F5h
Robust Graphics Booster: [Turbo]
CPU Clock Ratio: [9X]
CPU Host Clock Control: [Enabled]
CPU Host Frequency(Mhz) : [400]
PCI Express Frequency (Mhz) : [100]
C.I.A.2: [Disabled]
Performance Enhance : [Extreme]
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) [2.66D]
Memory Frequency(Mhz): 800 1064
DRAM Timing Selectable : [Manual]
********Standard Timing Control ***********
CAS Latency Time: 5 [5]
DRAM RAS# to CAS# : 5 [5]
DRAM RAS# Precharge : 5 [5]
Precharge Delay(tRAS) : 15 [12]
******** Advanced Timing Control ***************
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD) : 3 [1]
Rank Write to READ Delay : 3 [3]
Write To Precharge Delay : 6 [3]
Refresh to ACT Delay : 52 [45]
Read To Precharge Delay : 3 [1]
Static tRead Value : 8 [6]
Static tRead Phase Adjust : 5 [Auto]
Command Rate (CMD) : 2 [2T]
******** Clock Driving and Skew Control **********
CPU/PCIEX Clock Driving Control : [1000mV]
CPU Clock Skew Control : [Normal]
(G)MCH Clock Skew Control : [Normal]
System Voltage Control: [Manual]
DDR2 OverVoltage Control : [+0.25V]
PCI-E OverVoltage Control : [+0.10V]
FSB OverVoltage Control : [+0.10V]
(G)MCH OverVoltage Control : [+0.025]
MCH Reference Voltage Control : [Normal]
DDR Reference Voltage Control : [Normal]
DDR Termination Voltage Control : [Normal]
CPU Voltage Control : [1.41250V]
Normal CPU Vcore: 1.26250

Memory timings are the most tight possible without crashes on boot or errors in Memtest

Things of note:
1) Disabling CPU Smart FAN Control is helpful on trying to get the right Vcore, to make sure the CPU is getting 100% cooled (you can Enable the fan control afterwards and use EasyTune to adjust the fan speeds)
2) BIOS F5h seems to be using "Loadline Calibration" Enabled by default (this setting doesn't even appear in this BIOS, only in BIOS F7). This rather "controversial" setting helps reduce Vdroop, and could be the reason why I had a stable o/c at this Vcore with BIOS F5h (I couldn't get stable in F7 with the same settings above and with Loadline Calibration on Disabled).
3) If you're gaming on Vista x64, get 4GB of RAM, the speed increase was noticeable in 2006, imagine now...

Cheers,
Vbs

i see you are on air cooling...what are your current temps? nevermind...i found them.

[TheKarmakazi]

Anyone have a sucessful over clock past 3.6-3.8 with the e8400?
I cant seem to get it stable beyond ~3.7 or so. Im at work so i will post my timings and settings when i get home. mem@ 5-5-5-15 trd=8, 9x multi, +.3 memory (to run @2.1), +.05 FSB, PCI-E @ 105Mhz ----thats all i can remember off the top of my head.
corsair dom 8500 2x1gb
xion 800wt psu
2x36gb raptors raid 0

[supershanks]

Hi TheKarmakazi,
Welcome to the forum
Zenoth has an E8400 but is tring to get stable at 3.6k, I used the Abit Ix38 Quad with my E8400 before i sold the CPU.

If you can post your settings it will help.
One thing that does seem an issue is that ram that will run at lower timings on other cpus need higher timings with E8400. I had to slacken tras from 10--> 12 to get stable, whilst also slackening Refresh to ACT Delay (tRFC) from 30-->35


Edit:
Morpheon's doing ok.
Post your E8500/8400 Stable clocks here!!
luck

[Zenoth]

Originally Posted by Vbs

Zenoth, what BIOS are you using?

You can try Memtest86+ 2.00 to see if you are getting memory errors.

Cheers,
Vbs

I am using BIOS F7, the latest official one. There's an F8c beta revision but I don't want to risk it, I will try it when it reaches the final status. As for Memtest86+, I must be honest and confess that I've never used that program before. I don't know how it works. I've always been using Prime95 and Orthos Blend tests (because apparently Blend tests both the CPU/FSB and the Memory).

All I know about Memtest86+ is that it cannot run in Windows and that I need to burn it to a CD-ROM and start from that CD-ROM instead of the Hard-Disk, right? Do I just burn an .ISO image to a CD-ROM and I'm ready to go?

[supershanks]

Do I just burn an .ISO image to a CD-ROM and I'm ready to go?

yep
see also Overclocker's Tool Kit. for more info.

there is also HCI Memtest which runs in windows.

luck

[Vbs]

Like supershanks said, you just burn it to a CD (or use the old floppy drive like me ) and boot it up. It boots a special DOS version and starts automatically, you just leave it running. Most RAM timing errors show just after a few minutes running (~5m). About 20m should be enough for checking if the RAM is stable or not. I usually test my "final" settings for a few hours too, just to be sure.

I like this program especially since it runs from its own boot OS, taking out of the equation the chance that overclock errors could come from windows.

Cheers!

[Zenoth]

supershanks, I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who told you that before, but let me tell you this man, you are a savior!

I've tried HCI Memtest (by the way is it more or equally or less reliable than the "regular" Memtest?), and that program definitely proved me that my Memory is... *drum rolls* ... NOT FAULTY! I am both surprised and... well, not surprised at all. Sometimes I would like to just on my own sorry self Alright enough with the emotional icons. But right now I am emotional.

Here's what happened...

So at first it gave me tons of errors after 10 seconds, and I do means tons of them (so much in fact that it caused Windows to just pop-up a message telling me that the system would restart in 60 seconds and that I had to back-up data before it shuts down... but who in the great heck has time to back-up data in a minute anyway?!). That worried me a lot, and I was certain at 110% that my Memory was faulty. Then I kept trying and trying, telling myself that "no, it cannot be the Memory, it doesn't have to be so and I don't want it to be so! YOU'RE GOING TO WORK YOU FREAKIN' MODULES YOU HEAR ME!?!" (well not the yelling part, but I still was quite frustrated inside, you know, but I'm actually not an impulsive person).

The... erm... crucial part (nice pun heh?) was to find out what timings was responsible. And now I believe that I've found it. The current test as I am typing this shown no errors whatsoever and has been going on for the past 30 minutes or so, and just like the help files suggest I should (and I did) run two instances of the program in a Dual-Core system and also to ensure that more than 1GB of Memory is filled with data in a 2GB system. The final result was that it filled up 1.86GB of RAM, which is considerably high indeed (no games out there will even fill up that much, but some of them do fill up near 1.2GB or so): http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/8141/memorynh1.png

Right now in the BIOS most of my timings are set very low (for example right now the four main timings are 6-6-6-18, and others are, from top to bottom, 5-10-10-68-10-10). So I will slowly but surely work my way "up" in the timings and I should eventually end up encountering errors again, at which point I will re-reduce the timings that caused the error... and so on, in an elimination process which in the end should give me the very best configuration for my memory under the current BIOS (I do believe that the actual BIOS has a lot to do with the problems and the fact that the memory works flawlessly but at the price greatly reduced timings).

Well guys, I'm happy, but I won't have the tranquility of mind until I find out what's the best for my Memory and not until I'm running under OC'ed settings on a 24/7 basis (I haven't bought an enthusiast Dual-Core CPU and an enthusiast Motherboard and a 1066Mhz memory kit to stay under stock settings, that would be a crime!).