overclock causing file corruption?

[RichM499]

ok i've been through this on another post, and i'd like to delete the other thread but i cant=P

anyway i'd like some input if anyone knows anything

i use an asus a8v-x motherboard
corsair xms ddr400 ram
and athlon x2 3800+ (2.0ghz stock)

heres the thing, my ram maxed out at 212.5mhz (@166 in bios with 255 bus)
my hyperthreading bus worked fine at 1200mhz
and i eventually got the core up to 2.55ghz (255 busx10)

so the result was
2.55ghz cpu
1.019ghz hyperthreading
and 212mhz ram(@ 255mhz bus and 166mhz ram setting in bios)

(this means hyperthreading has some overhead to play with, and ram needs to be dropped to 133)

so i got it to 2.6, when i lowered the ram to 133, and raised the FSB to 260.

prime95 was flawless, and memtest worked fine

so i decided to go for 2.7ghz.. this is where things started getting weird

2.7ghz booted fine, memtest ran fine, Prime95 ran fine for nearly an hour.

but my asus probe2 software was acting really weird...
i was also using coretemp, and coretemp never had any issues

Asus probe 2 reported a huge 20c spike in the cpu temperature , and then it dissapeared when i freaked out and re-checked it to see if i was going crazy.

about 3 minutes later, Asus probe 2 reported that my chassis fan was spinning at 100rpm
(i would notice, its got 4 blue LEDS, and some red shiny spinny LEDS and stuff. it never slowed down....)

this motherboard automatically raises the core voltage (its 1.35v stock, and at my 2.55ghz settings, its hovering from 1.39v-1.42v)

so, i ignored it, and since prime95 was fine, and memtest was fine, my games worked fine, i decided to bump it to 2750..

as soon as i did, windows gave me the "windows/system is corrupt or missing"

i lowered it to 2600, got the same message
lowered it to stock, got the same message


so im wondering wtf went wrong

maybe the northbridge didnt like the auto-increase in voltage?

at 2.7 i cant be sure what the voltage was, i didnt write it down, and im not going to test it again untill i install another instance of windows (i'll use a blank windows install for testing, that way if i screw it up i still have this one)

thanks for any information

 

[thirdshiftdj]

It happens when you push an overclock too far.. It has happened to me before. I would consider your overclock at 2.6-2.7 as being its max. I keep HT around 1000mhz. Alittle over or alittle under. At 260 w/ an HT multi of 4 should be good. Another thing you should start to manually input vcore. You can never trust the auto feature. Knowing that its 1.4v for 2.55ghz, you should manually add vcore as you go up. What I do is set it to auto and get to a comfortable overclock. Then manually raise the vcore or in some cases I'll get to the overclock I want set to auto and manually bring down the voltages and check for stability. I do this for NB,SB,CPU etc....

 

[NosBoost300]

and its not hyper threading by the way.. only intel pentium 4 cpu's and upcoming nahalems along with a few atoms contain hyperthreading

that is hypertransport

 

[RichM499]

2.55ghz cpu, 1.019ghz hyperTRANSPORT, 212.5mhz ram-- 1.392-1.418v STABLE
2.6ghz cpu, 780mhz HT link, 173mhz ram-1.392-1.44v STABLE
2.65ghs cpu, 1058mhz HT link, 176mhz ram-1.424v-1.44v (Testing)
2.68ghz cpu 804mhz HT link, 178.7mhz ram-1.424-1.44v System locked up after 3 min-

so 2.68 seems like it wont work, im going to check everything between 2.65 and 2.67 to see what the max is (10 extra mhz might be the extra .01 frames thats going to save me against ultima weapon in FFX. lol...)

2.65 seems ok so far, and its 100mhz higher than my previous best..

this ram is only sitting at 176mhz and i know it works well at 212.5mhz (3-3-3-8 2t)

i know i can tighten the memory timings to make up for the drop in frequency, any suggestions? (i was thinking 2.5-3-3-6 2t (maybe lower it to 1t))

i think its just a limitation of the core, and its integrated memory controller thats causing the issue=), so 2.65-2.67 is probably my max

(cant complain, the CPU was free, and its 2.0ghz stock)

any other ideas how i can squeeze 1 more % out of this thing?

 

[thirdshiftdj]

you should be running 1t period. I'd do 2-3-3-6 1t. Its still a good clock for a windsor core?

 

[RichM499]

oh uh, =P this is a toledo, most people got 2.7/2.8

 

[thirdshiftdj]

Your right there. My system used an opteron 165 and it does 2.9. Brisbanes like the x2 3600+ get around the same clock sometimes 3+ if you have a good batch. My mistake x2 3800's use either manchester or toledo

 

[RichM499]

sell me ur opteron o.o

 

[thirdshiftdj]

My bro is using it. Try finding a x2 3600 brisbane. They are cheap and overclock nicely

 

[RichM499]

yeah cheap, if u can find it selling from someone that isnt completely retarded

these guys are selling high-end 939 chips online for 200-500 a pop,

lol screw that, i'd just get a new e8xxx or phenom setup for that......

(this is my problem, 939 chips are selling for 10-20x as much as the am2 equivilent)