Legit Reviews

Here's the scenario. On Saturday, I decided to try overclocking my system (D975XBX2 BIOS 2507, E6400, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400 Xtreme Performance Memory at 5-5-5-15 @ 1.96v). After a few false starts, I ended up with a "successful" overclock: 8x333==2,664 CPU, memory at 667 4/5 == 836. I let memtest86+ run for 3 hours -- no problems. I run 2 copies of prime95 for 2 hours -- no problems. It's late. I turn the system off, button up the case and move it back to its home beside my desk and go to bed.

Sunday morning, I power it on and am greeted with the "your system seems to have failed to boot with the current BIOS settings, press Y to enter setup or N to try again." (approximately)

Rats!

I set everything to their non-overclocked settings and went to work.

Any ideas how to make the overclock permanent?

Separate but related note: any way to access the C1E setting without setting the jumper on the motherboard?

thanks much,
aleph6

I'd try the same settings and increase the voltage on the memory up a bit. What voltage is the processor running at?

Hmmmm. My notes weren't as good as I thought they were, but as best I can make out from my scratches, everything was at stock voltages except memory (1.96).

I'm open to any and all advice. The last system I overclocked was a 300MHz Celeron!

By the way, there seems to be plenty of cooling on the processor. It never got out of the 40s while running two copies of prime95.

2.6Ghz on stock voltage is pretty good for an Intel E6400... More than likely you need to increase the CPU voltage a bit for it to reach stability... My E6300 can to 400 x 7 at 1.4V just fine... I lowered my voltage for 24/7 use... I can't remember what I went down to, but try less than 1.4V and watch the temps.

What happens if you hit "No" and continued the attempt to boot normally with the OC'd settings? Does this message always appear now when you try to OC or just with these particular settings?

The message only occurs when I try and overclock. If I tell the system to continue, it tries, fails, and loops back to this message.

I tried bumping the volts. No joy. Something which puzzles me is that the memory settings don't persist. I'll set them as I want, but after the failed boot, when I look at them, they're back at default values.

Im having the same problem with this board with a e6300. Any luck? I think its the bios holding us back.

jschoef wrote:Im having the same problem with this board with a e6300. Any luck? I think its the bios holding us back.

I haven't tried anything else. I was considering trying one of the older BIOSes, but haven't had the motivation. I was thinking about 2333 as a start.

Please let me know what happens if you put it in older bios or if you find out anything else...and ill do the same.

Check this out, my chronicles of my problems.
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread. ... ge=1&pp=15

Alright, I did the dirty work for ya. 2333 worked but has a serious bug about having your computer boot correctly to Raid (if you are running raid) You have to disable network boot and go into "advance" for the boot control to set it up.

2395 said something along those lines as being a one of the bugs fixed in that version, so I loaded that. It still overclocked but I already had it set up to boot correctly from the previous version...so dont know if it really fixed it.

There is another bug in both versions though. I overclocked to 2.8ghz from 1.8ghz. I did many cold reboots and it was fine. When I went back to stock settings (1.8ghz), it didnt reboot and gave a error beep code (I think saying there is no ram present). The only way to clear the beep code is a little unconventional. You just cant clear cmos, thats not enough. You have to cut all power to the board (so unplug it). Remove the cmos battery, move the cmos jumper to maintenance mode, replace the battery, start it back up, go into bios, save settings, power off, move jumper back to regular, reboot....it takes less then 5 minutes to do if you know to do it. If not, you end up freaking out and RMAing your board like someone else did on the net.

Have fun.

Jschoef-

When I was testing various overclock settings I occasionally got the "3 beeps" error. The first time I yanked a DIMM and powered back up and it worked. Then I found I could just pull the power cord and then push the on button to drain power, move the jumper to maintenance (I put a switch on it to make it easier) then power back up and reset the BIOS settings. I don't think you need to pull the CMOS battery.

Sean

I tried what everything you said before, I needed to pull the battery.

Jschoef-

Bummer. What I have to do is enough work, but removing and reinstalling the battery is a lot worse. Thank goodness I don't have too, because my video card makes it a pain to get to the battery.

When I first emailed Intel about the Vista-64 bit issue, they recommended that I pull the CMOS battery and leave it out for 20 minutes to make sure everything was clear.

I'll mention that I've only gotten the "3 beeps" error a few times, and always when I'm experimenting with BIOS settings.

Sean

The battery is very easy for me to pull...all i have to do is cut the power, pull the battery, move the jumper, try to power it on to clear everything, then restore battery and power....then im back in. Its funny it lets me overclock without a problem now but doesnt let me go back to defaults without a reset.

I wonder if I could go back to defaults with smaller increments...but its still faster to do the battery thing then all those reboots if the incremental steps worked. Im just psyched I can finally overclock this thing. Ive been trying so much and going to an old bios lets me. The new one doesnt at all.

Just to be clear, 2333 worked for you? You successfully overclocked and cold boot worked? If so, what settings did you end up using?

Thanks.

2333 worked but 2395 was better. I lowered my ram from 800 to 533 then raised the mutliplier to 400 from 266 and thats it (2.8ghz from 1.. Many cold reboots and it worked fine. Before that I couldnt even overclock to 2.3. I didnt test stability or anything...just if it booted. If you are using raid, remember that going backwards on the bios will most likely mess up your raid settings, so hit f2 to stop it from booting without raid or you will have to rebuild the raid...which isnt a big deal.

The overclock bug is now when you go back to defaults, you might have to clear the cmos with what was talked about above.

My moderate OC (with no "cold start" issues):

MB = 975XBX2 rev 505
RAM = Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 (not the fast stuff, rated at 5,5,5,18)
Video = EVGA 8800GTS
CPU = E6600 (it's an "A")

CPU cooler = Stock Intel (crappy cooling tape and all)
Voltages (set at default)"

FSB = 1.250v
CPU = 1.325 (in BIOS, 1.282 in IDU 3.0)
MCH/ICH = 1.525
VDIMM = 1.84 (the RAM is supposed to run at 1.91 AFAIK)

RAM set to DDR2-667 (4:5) = ~850mhz
FSB set to 340

This only gets me to 3G on the E6600 which I know is wimpy but what is slowing me down are the temps. (I at least need some paste vs. the stock tape)

With TAT set at 100% on both cores I can get to 65C

On 90% both cores I get roughly 61-63C. Idle is 43C.

Orthos, while it runs fine, pegs out at 68C after awhile so I'll wait for better cooling to go further but I'm thinking I can hit 3.6G without much problem.

Intel just released a new bios and it seems good. When I overclocked from 1.8 to 2.8ghz, it ran fine and i rebooted multible times including a cold reboot. The best thing was when I went back to default settings, I didnt have to clear cmos. I got a bios error though like I used to get when I overclocked...but all I had to do was go back into the bios and click save again and it booted right up to my defaults.

This bios also plays games better...i had this weird lagging line when I moved around playing doom, now its gone and much smoother. So they must of done something to the pci express.

I should also mention that after this bios upgrade, I had to reinstall my video card drivers....so it definitely does something to the pci express. Windows Vista seems slightly faster also...