Newbie needs help with memory change

[Sepyx]

Hi,

I'm not a technical person.

My system is:

INTEL CORE I7 965 EXTREME EDITION 3.2GHZ
ASUS P6T DELUXE I7 X58 MOTHERBOARD
CRUCIAL 6GB (3X2GB) DDR3 PC3-8500
2 X NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 285 1GB PCIE
WD VELOCIRAPTOR 300GB 10KRPM SATA (C drive)
2 X WD 1002FBYS WD RE3 1 TB 7200RPM
MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP PRO SP3 32 (will change to window 7 Ultimate 64 when it comes out)

I'm changing my memory to OCZ 6GB (3x2048) 2000MHz DD3 T/C Kit PN - OCZ3B2000LV6GK (reviewed here)

I got an email from OCZ regarding the setup for it:

"The 965 has an unlocked memory multiplier, so all you have to do is increase the memory multiplier to 15x (15x 133 = 2000MHz). You will also need to increase your memory voltage to 1.65 volts."

Right now I'm still waiting for the OCZ 6GB 2000MHz DD3 to arrive (should come tomorrow).

I checked my BOIS > Ai Tweaker and I can see the the memory voltage (CRUCIAL 6GB (3X2GB) DDR3 PC3-8500) right now is 1.5 and the BCLK Frequency is 133

I know for OCZ I have to change the voltage from 1.5 to 1.65 voltas.

However, I can't see any memory multiplier in Ai Tweaker. Do I just enter 2000 in the BCLK Frequency?

Can someone give me a step by step to setup my BOIS for the OCZ 6GB 2000MHz DD3 please?

Thanks

sepyx

[DMB2000uk]

I can't help but feel sad that you've got all that gear and no idea how to begin to use it for it's full potential

I mean, you've got an extreme edition CPU and you're not even running it overclocked?! Please tell me you've at least gotten a cooler that isn't the stock one it came with

Know that this is by no means a personal attack on yourself, just would love to help you get the most out of your machine

For starters, I'm gonna suggest that you drop 32bit XP straight away and get hold of the Win 7 64bit RC, otherwise you're wasting 2.8GB of your 6GB of RAM.



BCLK is not what you need to change in this instance (if you tried to set it to 2000 your PC wouldn't turn on afterwards!).

The option you need to change is the "DRAM frequency" setting in the Ai Menu page, you should find the option to run at 2000Mhz there. Though it might be that we do have to mess with the BCLK setting if there isn't an option to go all the way up to 2000Mhz memory in that setting.

Report back with the options you've got in that BIOS menu thing

Dan

[Sepyx]

Hi Dan,

To make you even more upset I don't even play games. In fact this is my first desktop. I always used IBM Thinkpad (over 12 years) for financial work which costs about the same as this!

I use this system for DNS Pro which requires a lot of CPU power and photoshop. As I mentioned I will upgrade to Window 7 once it officially comes out. Right now I'm stuck with window xp because some of my softwares won't work with window 7 64. Now to make you happy I'm using liquid cooler.

Before I go forward bear in mind that I'm probably your dad's age if not older. But I think its never too late to learn new things even if initially you make a fool of yourself.

BIOS menu has the following options:

CPU Ratio Setting
Intel SpeedStep
DRAM Frequency
DRAM Timing Control

Etc.

Regards

sepyx

[DMB2000uk]

I'll try not to point out where you could have saved lots of money with this PC

I'm glad you've got watercooling
(I just hope that it was done properly, but with the performance of the rest of the rig, I trust that it will have been )

Like I said earlier, the DRAM Frequency is what you will be needing to change. I'm not sure if the XE (eXtreme Edition) processor unlocks options in the BIOS that aren't normally there in terms of memory frequencies, but the official spec states that it only offers options to memory speeds up to 1066Mhz (according to the manual).

If there isn't anything higher than 1066Mhz, then we will have to overclock your CPU a bit to get the memory running at full speed.

Dan

[Sepyx]

I have 1066, 1333,1600, 1866, 2133 as choices

LegitReviews did a review written by Brian Wallace on the OCZ Blade DDR3 6GB 2000MHz Memory

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/956/1/

The motherboard was ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm which I think it should be similar to my ASUS P6T Deluxe.

How was the motherboard configured for the Ocz memory?

In the "Final Thoughts & Conclusion"

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/956/10/

It states that "Our P6T Deluxe only asked us to set the voltage and the primary timings, while it took care of the rest. Hitting insane memory speeds is really quite easy ......"

Where is primary timings?

Sepyx

P.S. If I survive this adventure I make sure to ask you how to save money on my next PC.

[DMB2000uk]

RAM timings are the settings in the "DRAM Timing Control" option.

And the primary ones are the first 4 timings (which will be listed on the side of the RAM module).

For your new memory these will be 7-8-7-20

In your BIOS these will be called:
CAS Latency will be set to 7
RAS to CAS delay will be 8
RAS PRE Time will be 7
RAS ACT Time will be 20

As there isn't a direct BIOS option to run at 2000Mhz on your memory, we will have to set them at 1866Mhz, and then raise the BCLK till it has increased the RAM speed to the full 2000Mhz. I'm not sure what BCLK number this is off the top of my head, but by changing the BCLK setting in the BIOS, it should update your memory frequency in the "DRAM Frequency" setting without having to apply and reboot to see.

Note that doing this will be overclocking your CPU too (as they're all connected), so if it pushes the CPU core speed much over 3200Mhz you might have to drop the CPU multiplier to 23 to make this as hassle free as possible.

Dan

PS. You've definitely jumped in at the deep end here, so lets hope you pick up swimming pretty quickly

[Apoptosis]

I'll get you some screen shots up later on my P6T on how to setup the BIOS for you.

[Sepyx]

Thanks Dan.

I'll wait for Apoptosis screen shots before I start my adventure.

Thanks Apoptosis.

Please let me know when you put the screen shots up.

Sepyx

[Sepyx]

Hello Dan,

This morning I installed the OCZ memories.

The first thing I did was to run Memtest86+ v2.11. After 45 minutes, they passed the test without any errors.

Next I went to BOIS > Ai Tweaker.

1- I put the Ai Overclook Tuner to [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- QPI/DRAM Voltage [Auto]
4- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.64] *There was no 1.65 I had a choice of 1.64 or 1.66 However, when I put it on 1.66 ASUS gave a message from Intel that if I put it on 1.66 and above I’ll will die and burn in hell.

I started by:

1- CPU Ratio Setting [22]
2- BCLK Frequency [143]
I got DRAM Frequency of 2003 MHz

I booted up and window came up. However, after a minute or two the computer shut down!

I tried different BCLK Frequency until my computer was stable at

1- CPU Ratio Setting [23]
2- BCLK Frequency [137]
DRAM Frequency of 1922MHz

But at that setting the CPU was 3.14GHz. Since I didn’t want to give you a heart attack by under clocking my CPU, I increased the CPU Ratio Setting to [24], which gave me a CPU of 3.29 GHz, and DRAM Frequency of 1922MHz.
The Motherboard Temp is 43 and CPU Temp is 36 at idle.

I ran the Everest Ultimate Edition > System Stability Test and after 10 second the pc shutdown. But for normal use so far its working dandy.

Do you have any idea how I can increase the DRAM Frequency? Do I need to change the QPI/DRAM Voltage from [Auto]?

Sepyx

P.S. Apoptosis you forgot about the screen shots.

[DMB2000uk]

You've certainly been heading in the right direction here

I too think the answer here is increasing the QPI/DRAM voltage.

I'd take the risk of burning in hell, and set the RAM voltage to 1.66v, then set the QPI to 1.3v.

See how far that gets you to running the stress tests (if it passes the everest thing, then run a pass of memtest again, btw, impressed that you did that to start off with, you might not be as much of a noob as you think )

Dan

[Sepyx]

No joy.

I tried RAM voltage 1.66v with QPI/DRAM voltage of 1.3

I didn't go to hell but the pc wouldn't even go to BIOS.

On the 3rd try it just reset the whole setting.

I'm back were I was before.

Any idea how to pass stress test?

Sepyx

[DMB2000uk]

Try these settings:

1- Ai Overclook Tuner [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- QPI/DRAM Voltage [1.30]
4- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.66]

CPU Ratio Setting [Auto]
BCLK Frequency [Auto]

DRAM Frequency [1866Mhz]

And try running a pass or two of memtest to see if it is letting us run your memory that 'high' while being stable.

Dan

[Sepyx]

Again no joy. I think it has to do with QPI/DRAM Voltage.

With my old setting:

1- Ai Overclook Tuner [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- CPU Ratio Setting [24]
CPU 3.29GHz
4- BCLK Frequency [137]
DRAM Frequency of 1922MHz
5- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.65]

I did run the Memtest86+ v2.11 with 3 pass and didn't get any error.

Sepyx

[DMB2000uk]

Do you have Asus probe installed in windows, so that you can see what voltage the 'auto setting' is giving the QPI/DRAM setting?

Does the Everest stress test pass/run alright at your current settings?

Dan

[Sepyx]

Yes, I have ASUS PC Probe II

While I was working on my PC it shutdown again with the following:

1- Ai Overclook Tuner [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- CPU Ratio Setting [24]
CPU 3.29GHz
4- BCLK Frequency [137]
DRAM Frequency of 1922MHz
5- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.64]

I tried Everest Ultimate Edition > System Stability Test with BCLK [137], [136], [135], [134], [133], [132], and [131]. It failed for all. At [131] I stopped because it was getting silly. I'm beginning to think that test is not suppose to pass.

I did run the Memtest86+ v2.11 with 4 pass on BLCK [136] and I didn't get any error.

Now to be on the safe side I have the following settings:

1- Ai Overclook Tuner [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- CPU Ratio Setting [24]
CPU 3.25GHz
4- BCLK Frequency [135]
DRAM Frequency of 1894MHz
5- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.64]

For ASUS PC Probe II I have the following:

Vcore [1.21v]
+3.3V [3.23v]
+5V [5.19v]
+12v [12.19]

Frankly they absolutely mean nothing to me.

Please let me know what you think. At this stage I just want stable system.

Sepyx

[DMB2000uk]

Well the good news is that your memory is running stable, but your CPU or QPI currently isn't playing nice with it.

The stress test is supposed to run without turning off your computer (run everything but your memory on the auto setting (so your memory wont be running at 2000Mhz) and you'll see it will do alright).

For such small jumps in BCLK and CPU speed, they shouldn't really be running unstable like they are. Can you run the stress test ok with the memory set at something really low like 1333Mhz?

Also, would it be possible for you to post pictures (or write out) all the options in the Ai Tweaker menu, so I can see what else there is to play with (as your extreme edition CPU unlocks options that aren't available on normal cpus and that's all I can find with the board when I've searched for all the BIOS options available)

Dan

[Sepyx]

Hi,

I have 8 pictures of Ai tweaker menu but don't know how to put it in my post.

Sepyx

[DMB2000uk]

If you use something like photobucket, imageshack or flickr to host the pictures, enter the address of the image, then stick [img] [/ img] (without the space at the end) around the img url.

Dan

[Sepyx]

Good morning Dan,

Unfortunately, I don’t have any of those.
The AI Tweaker for extreme edition is basically the same except for DRAM Frequency which I get 1066, 1333,1600, 1866, 2133 as choices.

This time I did the Everest System Stability Test choices individually.

1- Stress System Memory:
Using the DRAM Frequency of 1894MHz the computer just shutdown.
I changed it to following:
1- Ai Overclook Tuner [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- CPU Ratio Setting [24]
CPU 3.25GHz
4- BCLK Frequency [134]
DRAM Frequency of 1880MHz
5- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.64]
With above setup it didn’t have any problem.
For 40 minutes testing:
Temp Motherboard 44c
Temp CPU 54C

2- Stress CPU (same setting as above):
For 40 minutes testing:
Temp Motherboard 42c
Temp CPU 60C

3- Stress FPU
For 45 minutes testing:
Temp Motherboard 44c
Temp CPU 76C

4- Stress Cache
It failed the test. However, once I changed the DRAM Frequency to 1066MHz it worked.
For 5 minutes testing:
Temp Motherboard 43c
Temp CPU 76C
*Anything above 1066MHz wasn’t working.

Now, I was checking the CORSAIR site and found this:

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=75918

For CORSAIR Dominator TR3X6G1866C9DF / TR3X3G1866C9DF, Spec 1866Mhz 9-9-9-24 1.65v, XMP Spec QPI voltage= 1.60V
The setup for Asus P6T Deluxe is

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76699

I saw that for QPI/DRAM Core Voltage they have put [1.48750]. I realized why when I put QPI/DRAM Core Voltage at [1.3] my computer wouldn’t even POST. It was too low.

I decided to become adventurous. I put the DRAM Bus Voltage at [1.66] (I listened to you! So if I die and go to hell I’ll come back and hunt you).
1- Ai Overclook Tuner [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- CPU Ratio Setting [23]
CPU 3.26GHz
4- BCLK Frequency [142]
DRAM Frequency of 1992MHz
5- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.66]
6- QPI/DRAM Core Voltage at [~]

Then I began testing with QPI/DRAM Core Voltage. I started with [1.50] the computer didn’t POST. I kept increasing it, at [1.52500] I got blue screen. After [1.52500] I didn’t get any blue screen and pc worked normally. I continued until QPI/DRAM Core Voltage at [1.7] (I had read somewhere on the net that ‘As long as one keeps their DRAM Bus and QPI/DRAM Core voltages within 0.5V, they will not need to worry’). At each 0.1 voltage increase, I tested the memory with Everest Stress System Memory. Unfortunately, after between 5 to 11 minutes they all failed except one. The magic number was [1.69375].

I put the Ai Tweaker at:
1- Ai Overclook Tuner [Manual]
2- CAS Latency [7]
RAS to CAS delay [8]
RAS PRE Time [7]
RAS ACT Time [20]
3- CPU Ratio Setting [23]
CPU 3.26GHz
4- BCLK Frequency [142]
DRAM Frequency of 1992MHz
5- DRAM Bus Voltage [1.66]
6- QPI/DRAM Core Voltage at [1.69375]

Everest System Stability Test results:
1- Stress System Memory:
For 33 minutes:
Temp Motherboard 43c
Temp CPU 61C

2- Stress CPU:
For 55 minutes:
Temp Motherboard 43c
Temp CPU 67C

3- Stress FPU
For 30 minutes:
Temp Motherboard 43c
Temp CPU 83C

4- Stress Cache
As expected, it failed since I was above 1066MHz.

For ASUS PC Probe II I have the following:
Vcore [1.22v]
+3.3V [3.15v]
+5V [5.17v]
+12v [12.19v]

I did run the Memtest86+ v2.11 with 10 pass and I didn't get any error.

Please let me know if I should worry with my setup. I don’t want to fry my pc.

Thanks

Sepyx

[DMB2000uk]

I too had read about the 0.5v thing, but was still wary of suggesting going so high with the QPI voltage, but it does seem from your testing that it needs it that high to actually boot/run at those speeds. It'd probably be a good idea to make sure you've got some good airflow around the CPU area to keep all the components around there cool.

I'd like you to run one more stress test for me please, get hold of prime95 and run that in the stress-test mode. Set it with 8 threads, and run it with small FFTs for like an hour, and then again on blend for like an hour. You'll have to check the option "round off error checking" in one of the drop-down menus at the top too.

It seems you've found your feet with this overclocking stuff

Dan