What's holding me back?

[Sunner]

I'm sure I've missed something silly, so help me find out why

Setup as follows:
DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D
Venice 3000+
2x512 MB of Corsair XMS3200C2.
Radeon X800XL
ChiefTec 400W PSU, most likely made by Fortron or Seasonic(pretty much identical to one of Seasonics 400W models).
2x250 GB Seagate 7200.8 S-ATA.
ThermalRight XP90.

Now, this rig is entirely stable at stock speeds, Prime95, WoW, Far Cry, whatever.
CPU temp is around 35C at load after several hours of Prime.

If I overclock it so little as to 1.9 GHz it becomes unstable though, sometimes crashing in Windows, pushing to ~2 GHz(220x9) renders it unable to even begin booting Windows, just hangs after POST.
I've tried messing with mem and HT settings, setting the memory to 1/2 and HT multiplier as low as 2x, doesn't help, slightest overclock causes instability.

Don't know what else to do really, voltages look fine, and as I said, so do temps, chipset is at ~45C which is a tad high but not alarmingly so.

Any takers?

 

[Hacp]

Can you type out all your settings?

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Hacp
Can you type out all your settings?

That's an assload on this mobo, probably easier to just say I'm running defaults except for the mentioned changes, plus some irrelevant stuff such as changing boot order, not using the flashy logo, etc.

Oh and I forgot to mention, I've triep upping the core voltage, even 1.55 doesn't do anything.

 

[rise]

which bios are you on?

youv'e got all 4 power connectors in and what are the rails on that psu?

when you're increasing your speed are you memtesting? set your dram to 2.8v, the vcore should be good at 1.4v+104% upto 2200 anyway.

set your ldt to 3x or 4x as well.

 

[Shimmishim]

update your bios. that'd be the best bet to start with.

these boards are very finicky about memory. updating bios should fix this.

www.dfi-bios.tk has all the bioses that have ever been released for this board...

if i were you, i'd try the 623-1 or 623-2 bios.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Whats the 12v rating on your power supply? Is it a 20pin or 24pin? I'm not familar with that PS but 400w is on the low side for overclocking

 

[SlowSpyder]

I've heard that DFI Nforce 4 boards and Corsair memory do not get a long, I think.

 

[imported_Kensai]

12v rating?
Push up the voltage?

 

[Sunner]

I've flashed the board with DFI's latest BIOS, and here are the specs on the PSU.
Don't think it's the PSU, a mere 5% overclock would be pretty unlikely to push it into instability.

As I said in the first post, I've tried setting both memory and LDT down, so they shouldn't be a problem.
Got three power connectors plugged in, the 24 pin ATXv2 connector, 4 pin whatever it's called, and a molex connector, is there a fourth I've missed?

 

[rise]

the forth is a floppy type in between the cpu and the top pci-e 16 slot. anyway, i don't think thats the whole problem but it would help to have it in.

also, how high can your ram go on memtest using Zebos isolation?

what volts are you using? i'd disregard ldt and chipset voltage and push up the dram to 2.8-2.9v and vcore a bit to like 1.4+110%

and that psu is definitely going to hurt you later but like you said a 5% shouldn't kill it.

 

[Sunner]

Tried going to 1.55 volts on the CPU, haven't bothered to go above 2.6 VDIMM since I've set it down to 1/2 to isolate the problem.
Is there a specific reason to use the +xxx% voltage modifiers rather than just upping the "normal way", aside from wanting to go above 1.55V that is?

Gonna see what I can get on the RAM, haven't pushed it yet.

Oh and with those BIOS'es on dfi-bios.tk, are they a bunch of hacked together BIOS'es or just versions DFI hasn't publically released?

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Tried going to 1.55 volts on the CPU, haven't bothered to go above 2.6 VDIMM since I've set it down to 1/2 to isolate the problem.
Is there a specific reason to use the +xxx% voltage modifiers rather than just upping the "normal way", aside from wanting to go above 1.55V that is?

not really. the winnys sometimes didn't take a properly set vcore over 1.4v so i got used to using the spec%. if you were to set 1.475 say, bios would still read 1.4v. i dunno if a bios fixd it or not.

Gonna see what I can get on the RAM, haven't pushed it yet.

Oh and with those BIOS'es on dfi-bios.tk, are they a bunch of hacked together BIOS'es or just versions DFI hasn't publically released?

just flavor of the day bios' really. they seem to release ridiculous amount of bios and then settle on an official eventually. aside from the shipping 1.25 i've only used the 3.10-2 and the 5.10-2 as well as the new 6.23 on one of my boards.

some were written to address specific problems, like the cold boot or usb problems and alot are just performance gain attempts. the -1 are for vx, the -2 for tccd/tcc5, the -3 general purpose or something like that.

i'd just stick with whatever you have unless you really are stuck at 5%.

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Tried going to 1.55 volts on the CPU, haven't bothered to go above 2.6 VDIMM since I've set it down to 1/2 to isolate the problem.
Is there a specific reason to use the +xxx% voltage modifiers rather than just upping the "normal way", aside from wanting to go above 1.55V that is?

Gonna see what I can get on the RAM, haven't pushed it yet.

Oh and with those BIOS'es on dfi-bios.tk, are they a bunch of hacked together BIOS'es or just versions DFI hasn't publically released?

Get the official bios from dfi.com.tw. The latest official is 623. If you use 1.45 + 110%, it will roughly be 1.55 actual for vcore. You should also up your vdimm up to 2.8 at least if you are using any cl2 timings.

 

[Hacp]

1=general 2=UTT 3=TCCD

 

[Thorny]

Is your PCI frequency lock on?

 

[NetZeroZeus]

Wrong, it's -1 TCCD -2 UTT -3 General purpose
All DFI boards have their PCI frequency locked at factory.....

 

[NetZeroZeus]

And don't use Corsair memory, go to dfi-street.com and yoyu will see why........
DFI has specifically said it doesn't validate it's boards with Corsair memory, many times it won't even POST, you are lucky it actually works....
And DFI only guarantees it's boards if you are using a 24-pin native PSU with at least 26A on the 12v rail and at least 480w total wattage.....

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: NetZeroZeus
And don't use Corsair memory, go to dfi-street.com and yoyu will see why........
DFI has specifically said it doesn't validate it's boards with Corsair memory, many times it won't even POST, you are lucky it actually works....
And DFI only guarantees it's boards if you are using a 24-pin native PSU with at least 26A on the 12v rail and at least 480w total wattage.....

Hmm, guess I'm gonna have to try some other memory modules then...guess I should have looked into that, but I figured a good brand such as Corsair wouldn't cause trouble.
Problem is I can't get a whole lot of other overclocking geared memory around here.
Corsair is available everywhere, TwinMOS is pretty common as well.
Looking around, Kingston and OCZ are both available, but grotesquely overpriced(how about $100 for 256 MB of OCZ PC3500 ram?).

As for the PSU, if it becomes limiting I'll chnage it, setup a rig for a friend using a Chieftec 360/380(can't remember) PSU and it went to 2.25 GHz easily, so for now I'm sticking with this one.

 

[NetZeroZeus]

TwinMOS BH-5 would work wonders......

 

[Sunner]

Sounds good because those are actually pretty cheap as well.

 

[Sunner]

Well, TwinMOS BH5 in the mail now...I'll report back to see what it can offer.

 

[nealh]

quick question on these DFI mobo..do you need to plug in the 4pin molex and floppy like connector with power connectors???

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: nealh
quick question on these DFI mobo..do you need to plug in the 4pin molex and floppy like connector with power connectors???

It can't hurt. I use them, and my power rails never waver using a Powerstream 520watt.

 

[nealh]

it appears all 4 power adapters should be used...but after doing this my x800xl produced artifacts all the time accroding to ATI Tray Tool 3d renderer..at stock speeds...never did that before

This mobo is a bitch to setup...now I hear Benq 1620 maybe not work with this mobo

 

[11427]

Originally posted by: nealh
quick question on these DFI mobo..do you need to plug in the 4pin molex and floppy like connector with power connectors???

Yes,... especially if you are going to OC.
After plugging in all 4 your vid card has problems??? I'd suspect your PSU is not up to the task.