Disappointing E4300 o/c

Put together the following system:-

E4300 Core 2
Thermalright Ultra-120
ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400
7900GT

and am having problems getting a stable system

The RAM is no problem and I'm fairly happy with the 12-4-4-4 @980 I
can get from it.

The problems a-

1) No matter what I do the machine wont post with a FSB over 370
(even dropping the multiplier to make sure its not a CPU speed limit),
in fact 350 seems to be the stable limit.

2) I can get the machine to 3150Mhz (350x9) by upping the vcore to
1.4688, with RAM at 980(12-4-4-4) and this results in a machine which
seems to be almost rock solid but it fails running Orthos anywhere
between 30 minutes and 6 hours. Temperature under load does concern
me as (using NVIDIA MonitorView) it wobbles between around 55C and
62C, at idle its around 28C.

All voltages are set to [Auto] except Vcore and RAM, I have tried
upping the voltage if the NB and HT (advice from sites on the web)
but it makes no difference I could see.

Have I just got a relatively crappy example of a E4300 that require so
much voltage and hence runs so hot and o/c relatively poor or there
something I've missed?

Any advice appreciated.

wrote:
Put together the following system:-

E4300 Core 2
Thermalright Ultra-120
ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400
7900GT

1) No matter what I do the machine wont post with a FSB over 370

2) I can get the machine to 3150Mhz (350x9) by upping the vcore to
1.4688, with RAM at 980(12-4-4-4) and this results in a machine which
seems to be almost rock solid but it fails running Orthos anywhere
between 30 minutes and 6 hours. Temperature under load does concern
me as (using NVIDIA MonitorView) it wobbles between around 55C and
62C, at idle its around 28C.

There are no guaranteed overclocks... And I heard someone say in a previous
thread, that the later samples of the E4300's are less overclockable (about
2.8 to 2.9 GHz), where the earlier samples sometimes were good for 3.6 GHz.

Also see the results of Phil Weldon (a project still in progress of course).
With the stock cooler he managed about 3 GHz, so your result is not that bad
at all...

I'm still awaiting my E4300 and components, but I must say, if I can get it
to 3 GHz, I won't be disappointed...

Enjoy yr overclocking adventures ;-)

--
Met vriendelijke groeten, Thomas vd Horst.

On Apr 21, 9:48 pm, "Thomas" wrote:
wrote:
Put together the following system:-

E4300 Core 2
Thermalright Ultra-120
ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400
7900GT

1) No matter what I do the machine wont post with a FSB over 370

2) I can get the machine to 3150Mhz (350x9) by upping the vcore to
1.4688, with RAM at 980(12-4-4-4) and this results in a machine which
seems to be almost rock solid but it fails running Orthos anywhere
between 30 minutes and 6 hours. Temperature under load does concern
me as (using NVIDIA MonitorView) it wobbles between around 55C and
62C, at idle its around 28C.

There are no guaranteed overclocks... And I heard someone say in a previous
thread, that the later samples of the E4300's are less overclockable (about
2.8 to 2.9 GHz), where the earlier samples sometimes were good for 3.6 GHz.

Also see the results of Phil Weldon (a project still in progress of course).
With the stock cooler he managed about 3 GHz, so your result is not that bad
at all...

I'm still awaiting my E4300 and components, but I must say, if I can get it
to 3 GHz, I won't be disappointed...

Enjoy yr overclocking adventures ;-)

--
Met vriendelijke groeten, Thomas vd Horst.

I knows theres no guarantee when o/c at all, Its a crap shoot where
I've been on both sides of the fence before having both bad
overclockers (Slot A - Athlon which wouldnt o/c more than 50Mhz and a
number of Athlon 64 which would barely o/c more than 200Mhz) and good
ones (Athlon/AthlonXP which would o/c more than 60%+).

Don't get me wrong a +1.35Ghz overclock to 3.15Ghz is nice, but "the
grass is always greener elsewhere" springs to mind, especially when
you see ppl reaching 3.4 to 3.6Ghz with seemingly less trouble (and
sometimes less expense!). Based on reviews of the Ultra-120 H/S I'm
using (which comprehensively beat the stock cooler) I expected lower
temperatures to it barely coping is puzzling.

I had set myself the not seemingly unreasonable (judging by other ppls
experience) goal of 3.3Ghz and coming so short is frustrating and not
only 99.99% rock solid stable (atm).

If I can get this almost stable config working 100% I'd probably
settle for it (until the next o/c urge strikes!).

I'm just hoping theres some setting or something I've missed somewhere
that someone knows about which can help.

Hope your o/c goes well and isnt as frustrating as mine is.

wrote:
On Apr 21, 9:48 pm, "Thomas" wrote:
wrote:
Put together the following system:-

E4300 Core 2
Thermalright Ultra-120
ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400
7900GT

1) No matter what I do the machine wont post with a FSB over 370

2) I can get the machine to 3150Mhz (350x9) by upping the vcore to
1.4688, with RAM at 980(12-4-4-4) and this results in a machine
which seems to be almost rock solid but it fails running Orthos
anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours. Temperature under load
does concern me as (using NVIDIA MonitorView) it wobbles between
around 55C and 62C, at idle its around 28C.

There are no guaranteed overclocks... And I heard someone say in a
previous thread, that the later samples of the E4300's are less
overclockable (about
2.8 to 2.9 GHz), where the earlier samples sometimes were good for
3.6 GHz.

Also see the results of Phil Weldon (a project still in progress of
course). With the stock cooler he managed about 3 GHz, so your
result is not that bad at all...

I'm still awaiting my E4300 and components, but I must say, if I can
get it to 3 GHz, I won't be disappointed...

Enjoy yr overclocking adventures ;-)

--
Met vriendelijke groeten, Thomas vd Horst.

I knows theres no guarantee when o/c at all, Its a crap shoot where
I've been on both sides of the fence before having both bad
overclockers (Slot A - Athlon which wouldnt o/c more than 50Mhz and a
number of Athlon 64 which would barely o/c more than 200Mhz) and good
ones (Athlon/AthlonXP which would o/c more than 60%+).

Don't get me wrong a +1.35Ghz overclock to 3.15Ghz is nice, but "the
grass is always greener elsewhere" springs to mind, especially when
you see ppl reaching 3.4 to 3.6Ghz with seemingly less trouble (and
sometimes less expense!). Based on reviews of the Ultra-120 H/S I'm
using (which comprehensively beat the stock cooler) I expected lower
temperatures to it barely coping is puzzling.

I had set myself the not seemingly unreasonable (judging by other ppls
experience) goal of 3.3Ghz and coming so short is frustrating and not
only 99.99% rock solid stable (atm).

If I can get this almost stable config working 100% I'd probably
settle for it (until the next o/c urge strikes!).

I'm just hoping theres some setting or something I've missed somewhere
that someone knows about which can help.

Hope your o/c goes well and isnt as frustrating as mine is.

Is the performance what you're looking for, or is it the numbers? Honestly,
if you just want bragging rights, go look for a E4300 that's week 40 or
earlier. Or pay for a 6300 or 6600. I'm hoping to get 3.0GHz rock-steady
on my 4300 build next week for everyday use. The extra 6-10% to 3.2 or
3.3GHz is not going to kill me if I don't get it...

You hear about all the good samples but never really hear about the bad ones
because it's run-of-the-mill to have a bad one.

--
Phil

wrote in message
oups.com...
Put together the following system:-

E4300 Core 2
Thermalright Ultra-120
ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400
7900GT

and am having problems getting a stable system

The RAM is no problem and I'm fairly happy with the 12-4-4-4 @980 I
can get from it.

The problems a-

1) No matter what I do the machine wont post with a FSB over 370
(even dropping the multiplier to make sure its not a CPU speed limit),
in fact 350 seems to be the stable limit.

2) I can get the machine to 3150Mhz (350x9) by upping the vcore to
1.4688, with RAM at 980(12-4-4-4) and this results in a machine which
seems to be almost rock solid but it fails running Orthos anywhere
between 30 minutes and 6 hours. Temperature under load does concern
me as (using NVIDIA MonitorView) it wobbles between around 55C and
62C, at idle its around 28C.

All voltages are set to [Auto] except Vcore and RAM, I have tried
upping the voltage if the NB and HT (advice from sites on the web)
but it makes no difference I could see.

Have I just got a relatively crappy example of a E4300 that require so
much voltage and hence runs so hot and o/c relatively poor or there
something I've missed?

Any advice appreciated.

One thing that make me wonder: you say you overclock your PC2-6400 mem to
980. PC2-6400 is in fact made from DDR2 800 chips. Going from 800 to 980 is
quite an agressive overclock for memory. Memory don't tend to be a good
overclocker.
Another thing that you might look at: what is the power rating of your PSU.
And what brand?
I would suspect the mem overclocking first. Did you try to go to 15-5-5-5
timings for example?

Michka

On Apr 21, 11:17 pm, "Phil, Non-Squid"
wrote:
wrote:
On Apr 21, 9:48 pm, "Thomas" wrote:
wrote:
Put together the following system:-

E4300 Core 2
Thermalright Ultra-120
ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400
7900GT

1) No matter what I do the machine wont post with a FSB over 370

2) I can get the machine to 3150Mhz (350x9) by upping the vcore to
1.4688, with RAM at 980(12-4-4-4) and this results in a machine
which seems to be almost rock solid but it fails running Orthos
anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours. Temperature under load
does concern me as (using NVIDIA MonitorView) it wobbles between
around 55C and 62C, at idle its around 28C.

There are no guaranteed overclocks... And I heard someone say in a
previous thread, that the later samples of the E4300's are less
overclockable (about
2.8 to 2.9 GHz), where the earlier samples sometimes were good for
3.6 GHz.

Also see the results of Phil Weldon (a project still in progress of
course). With the stock cooler he managed about 3 GHz, so your
result is not that bad at all...

I'm still awaiting my E4300 and components, but I must say, if I can
get it to 3 GHz, I won't be disappointed...

Enjoy yr overclocking adventures ;-)

--
Met vriendelijke groeten, Thomas vd Horst.

I knows theres no guarantee when o/c at all, Its a crap shoot where
I've been on both sides of the fence before having both bad
overclockers (Slot A - Athlon which wouldnt o/c more than 50Mhz and a
number of Athlon 64 which would barely o/c more than 200Mhz) and good
ones (Athlon/AthlonXP which would o/c more than 60%+).

Don't get me wrong a +1.35Ghz overclock to 3.15Ghz is nice, but "the
grass is always greener elsewhere" springs to mind, especially when
you see ppl reaching 3.4 to 3.6Ghz with seemingly less trouble (and
sometimes less expense!). Based on reviews of the Ultra-120 H/S I'm
using (which comprehensively beat the stock cooler) I expected lower
temperatures to it barely coping is puzzling.

I had set myself the not seemingly unreasonable (judging by other ppls
experience) goal of 3.3Ghz and coming so short is frustrating and not
only 99.99% rock solid stable (atm).

If I can get this almost stable config working 100% I'd probably
settle for it (until the next o/c urge strikes!).

I'm just hoping theres some setting or something I've missed somewhere
that someone knows about which can help.

Hope your o/c goes well and isnt as frustrating as mine is.

Is the performance what you're looking for, or is it the numbers? Honestly,
if you just want bragging rights, go look for a E4300 that's week 40 or
earlier. Or pay for a 6300 or 6600. I'm hoping to get 3.0GHz rock-steady
on my 4300 build next week for everyday use. The extra 6-10% to 3.2 or
3.3GHz is not going to kill me if I don't get it...

You hear about all the good samples but never really hear about the bad ones
because it's run-of-the-mill to have a bad one.

--
Phil

Its performance I'm looking for of course. I don't want bragging
rights just the most for my limited budget, as long as I can see some
*real* gains in *real* applications/games then thats fine for me, I've
never been one for chasing a few more points from some meaningless
artificial benchmark.

That said it still doesnt stop people (me) wanting more for nothing/
little if possible. Otherwise why would anyone overclock?
not counting the extreme guys with expensive cooling setups where it
more like a sport ;-

p.s. Just as a matter of interest where can I decypher the week of
manufacturer? Only date I can see on the retail box is a packaging
date of January 29th 2007.

On Apr 22, 12:15 am, "Michel R. Carleer" wrote:
wrote in message

oups.com...

Put together the following system:-

E4300 Core 2
Thermalright Ultra-120
ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400
7900GT

and am having problems getting a stable system

The RAM is no problem and I'm fairly happy with the 12-4-4-4 @980 I
can get from it.

The problems a-

1) No matter what I do the machine wont post with a FSB over 370
(even dropping the multiplier to make sure its not a CPU speed limit),
in fact 350 seems to be the stable limit.

2) I can get the machine to 3150Mhz (350x9) by upping the vcore to
1.4688, with RAM at 980(12-4-4-4) and this results in a machine which
seems to be almost rock solid but it fails running Orthos anywhere
between 30 minutes and 6 hours. Temperature under load does concern
me as (using NVIDIA MonitorView) it wobbles between around 55C and
62C, at idle its around 28C.

All voltages are set to [Auto] except Vcore and RAM, I have tried
upping the voltage if the NB and HT (advice from sites on the web)
but it makes no difference I could see.

Have I just got a relatively crappy example of a E4300 that require so
much voltage and hence runs so hot and o/c relatively poor or there
something I've missed?

Any advice appreciated.

One thing that make me wonder: you say you overclock your PC2-6400 mem to
980. PC2-6400 is in fact made from DDR2 800 chips. Going from 800 to 980 is
quite an agressive overclock for memory. Memory don't tend to be a good
overclocker.
Another thing that you might look at: what is the power rating of your PSU.
And what brand?
I would suspect the mem overclocking first. Did you try to go to 15-5-5-5
timings for example?

Michka

I've ruled out the memory from being any problem, as the motherboard
uses a 680i chipset the FSB:RAM can be unlinked and I still get the
same problems when running everything the same except ram at 800 with
sloppy timings (15-5-5-5 or worse) as with the 12-4-4-4 @980 I've
settled on. Besides Ballistix ram is well known to overclock well
into 900 and some as high as 1066.

As for the PSU I've tried a few with no noticable difference,
including :-

460W Asaka Paxpower
550W Qtec
600W Blue ICE
640W Generic

The 460W Asaka is my "normal" PSU I use and trust, the others being
rather cheap ones (where I would take their rating with a dose of
salt). While 460W is rather "puny" these days I'm not running a fully
loaded system (2xDVD, 2HDD, 1x 7900GT) and I'm not seeing evidence of
the PSU struggling (ie problems maintaining voltages).

I probably will invest in a decent 700W+ PSU when I can, but justifing
another £70-100 for such is hard atm unless I can get proof it will
help (ie I will need to borrow such a decent PSU first).

wrote in message
oups.com...
Its performance I'm looking for of course. I don't want bragging
rights just the most for my limited budget, as long as I can see some
*real* gains in *real* applications/games then thats fine for me, I've
never been one for chasing a few more points from some meaningless
artificial benchmark.

That said it still doesnt stop people (me) wanting more for nothing/
little if possible. Otherwise why would anyone overclock?
not counting the extreme guys with expensive cooling setups where it
more like a sport ;-

p.s. Just as a matter of interest where can I decypher the week of
manufacturer? Only date I can see on the retail box is a packaging
date of January 29th 2007.

Well I never overclocked before, because gaining 5 or even 10% was not
really interesting. Which is what you could get without using exotic and
unpractical cooling systems.
But now with my 2.4 GHz C2D running at 3+ GHz without any change to stock
voltages and cooling, it becomes tempting, doesn't it?

Michka

On Apr 22, 1:41 am, "Michel R. Carleer" wrote:
wrote in message

oups.com... Its performance I'm looking for of course. I don't want bragging
rights just the most for my limited budget, as long as I can see some
*real* gains in *real* applications/games then thats fine for me, I've
never been one for chasing a few more points from some meaningless
artificial benchmark.

That said it still doesnt stop people (me) wanting more for nothing/
little if possible. Otherwise why would anyone overclock?
not counting the extreme guys with expensive cooling setups where it
more like a sport ;-

p.s. Just as a matter of interest where can I decypher the week of
manufacturer? Only date I can see on the retail box is a packaging
date of January 29th 2007.

Well I never overclocked before, because gaining 5 or even 10% was not
really interesting. Which is what you could get without using exotic and
unpractical cooling systems.
But now with my 2.4 GHz C2D running at 3+ GHz without any change to stock
voltages and cooling, it becomes tempting, doesn't it?

Michka

It certainly is tempting as you say with 50 - 100% overclocks (75% for
me) the core 2 are overclocking monsters without equal. I admire
Intel for the obvious leaps in quality of their production methods
(this is a hard thing to say coming from someone who built almost
nothing but AMD machines for years).

Now if they would drop prices on the mainstream CPUs to something
reasonable it would be the icing on the cake.

wrote in message
oups.com...

I've ruled out the memory from being any problem, as the motherboard
uses a 680i chipset the FSB:RAM can be unlinked and I still get the
same problems when running everything the same except ram at 800 with
sloppy timings (15-5-5-5 or worse) as with the 12-4-4-4 @980 I've
settled on. Besides Ballistix ram is well known to overclock well
into 900 and some as high as 1066.

As for the PSU I've tried a few with no noticable difference,
including :-

460W Asaka Paxpower
550W Qtec
600W Blue ICE
640W Generic

The 460W Asaka is my "normal" PSU I use and trust, the others being
rather cheap ones (where I would take their rating with a dose of
salt). While 460W is rather "puny" these days I'm not running a fully
loaded system (2xDVD, 2HDD, 1x 7900GT) and I'm not seeing evidence of
the PSU struggling (ie problems maintaining voltages).

I probably will invest in a decent 700W+ PSU when I can, but justifing
another £70-100 for such is hard atm unless I can get proof it will
help (ie I will need to borrow such a decent PSU first).

Sorry, I can't be of any more help. You will have to admit your E4300 cannot
go to the overclocking value you want, I guess.
But someone else will hopefully come with some bright idea...
By the way, I am running my E6600 overclocked at 3.0 GHz with an ATI 1650, 2
GB mem, 2 HDD, 2 DVD, a TV tuner, a Pinnacle DV500 DV capture card on a P5W
DH mobo with a 430W CoolerMaster PSU. So your PSU should be OK.

Michka