Crucal Ballistix 1GBx4 DDR2-800 Unstable at 890Mhz

[beurling]

Hey all. I've been struggling with stabalizing my memory at a 90mhz overclock to be at 1:1 with my 4Ghz E8400. I had voltage up to 2.2 volts and it was failing orthos within 11minutes. When I keep it at stock speeds and 2.1 Volts with my E8400 at 3.6Ghz (9x400) it is rock solid stable with no issues.

I tested the CPU on orthos and then a blend test with CPU and memory, and it always failed the blend test when I was overclocked to 4Ghz and 890mhz on memory. I tried to find a way to keep my memory at stock settings in the BIOS while keeping the CPU at 4Ghz, but it was somehow locked in at a 1:1 ratio no matter what I did. Anyone know how to change that?

I'm just worried that pumping too many volts into my memory could do some damage considering I don't have a memory fan.

What are your thoughts?

 

[T8RR8R]

timings please?

 

[badgtx1969]

Is it stable with 2GB (or 2 DIMMS)? I am guessing your chipset, specifically NB and VTT, needs more voltage to OC those 4 DIMMS. On my chipset (P965) I had to bump those voltages way up to go over 350 FSB when I had 4x1GB.

Also don't be worried about 2.2 volts, that is what the Ballistix PC2-6400 are rated for at 4-4-4-12. I don't know if Crucial has a maximum allowable voltage that could void the warranty. I know I have seen guys on Extreme Systems pushing those Ballistix well over 2.3 volts.

 

[beurling]

Well, I tried some more tweaking tonight. I've always had the Northbridge at 1.46V which is what most suggest for 4 dimms, and I upped the DRAM voltage to 2.2 in bios, which works out to about 2.27 volts in my hardware monitors.

Also set my Vcore to 1.425V in bios which CPU-Z shows as 1.368V under load. Any lower and it was unstable in orthos.

Currently my E8400 is at 58-59C load, 38-40C idle. Northbridge is 47-50C.

All these temps are well within tolerance so if Orthos keeps steady for another hour or two I'll be pleased.

Thanks for the reply badgtx, and T84484, my timings are in my sig.

 

[T8RR8R]

All I can say is that I sent my Maximus SE back to the Egg because it just took too much voltage and made too much heat compared to all the other boards. Yes it was faster than most but never seems right and then all the sudden sound stopped working, ethernet stopped, and random BSOD even at stock settings.

Now that I have my DFI I can go past 500 FSB at less than 1.5v on the core and less than 1.45v on the NB. I dunno, maybe it's just me but I've never had much luck with ASUS. My guess is it's not the RAM it's the board. If you can try your ram in another similar board.

 

[badgtx1969]

So I figure 2x1GB is stable at 445 FSB? If not you should loosen up your timings (5-5-5-5-15 or so) and have a go with that.

Are there any other chipset voltages that you can tweak in your BIOS? For me to be Orthos stable I HAD to raise the VTT voltage. For some reason my rig was stable on most other torture tests without raising VTT, but Orthos blend always crashed with-in 2-3 iterations (usually starting the second).

T8RR8R - DFI generally makes the best motherboards out there, they are the sportscars of the motherboard world. They allow so many more tweaks than any other board, you just have to slog through all the options to get things just right (like most sports cars they don't always want to run, despite the potential!).

 

[beurling]

Well orthos was stable all night so I guess I found the sweet spot.... I knew the maximus was going to run hot before I bought it, but that's allright, I have some badass airflow in my p182.

 

[badgtx1969]

Wow, so it was upping your Vcore voltage! Those Penryns aren't very different from the Conroes. My E6420 can go ~430 FSB before I need to touch Vcore voltage.