help with overclocking an opteron 165

[AgentIce]

Hey all,

When I first got this system I didn't know much about dual core and tried to overclock it right away. I couldn't get it to pass superpi 32m calculation when I did two instances of it, and prime 95 was getting an error as well. I went back to my default settings and still couldn't get it to pass superpi. I figured I might have a dud but I'd try to let it burn in for a while.

Later I found out that I needed to manually set superpis affinity to each processor, once I did that two instances of it passed every time. I was however using prime95 correctly (it's how I got the idea to try the same thing with super pi) so the overclock was not stable, but I'm not sure at what cpu voltage I tried prime 95 at. Anyways, currently my system is very stable in superpi, I ran 8 hours of prime 95 on it and about 5 hours of memtest, all went well, so I'm thinking of giving overclocking a shot again.

On my first attempt heres the settings I tried:

CPU Frequency: 245
PCI Express Clock: 100MHz
DDR Voltage: 2.9V
CPU Multiplier: 9x
CPU Voltage: 1.45v
HTT: 4x

DRAM Config:
Max Memclock: DDR333
CAS# Latency: 3.0
Min RAS#: 8
RAS# to CAS#: 4
Row Precharge: 4
1T/2T Timing: 1T

I tried upping the voltage to 1.5v I believe and it was not stable afaik. 3d mark 06 and all that worked but I do remember prime95 having an error I'm just not sure at what voltage I tried it. I'd like to give this another shot, can anyone recommend a milder overclock or possibly a tweak to the overclock I tried above. Maybe I should just try the same thing again now that the systems had time to burn in?

I want to be VERY careful, I can afford if something goes wrong but it would be a huge pain in the ass and I'd really like to avoid it.

Thanks for any help!

 

[-Feller-]

Check out this link

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Opteron-165-Overclocking-ftopict177075.html

I was able to overclock my Opteron 165 at stock voltage to 278 X 9 = 2502.

From the overclocking i've seen on 165 your CPU voltage looks high. Check out the link i have posted, has some very good info.

 

[AgentIce]

Great thread, I just read that whole 939 overclocking guide at short media, feel I've got a pretty good grasp of the subject now.

Hey I noticed something about my ram, cpu-z is reporting its memory rating incorrectly on the tab, this is what I'm getting:

According to newegg where I bought the sticks from it should be 3-4-4-8 @ 250 mhz. Is this something to worry about or just a bug?

 

[PJ101]

The timings of the memory under the SPD tab just show you what the memory is rated for or what timings it will run at at that frequency. To see your actual timings look at the memory tab in CPU-Z. As an example my ddr400 shows 2.5-3-3-7 for the SPD tab and 2-3-3-7 for the Memory tab.

 

[AgentIce]

Currently my memory is running at 3-4-4-8 @ 200 mhz. In a review of this ram though the reviewer posts a cpu-z screenshot on the SPD tab and it says 3-4-4-8 @ 250 mhz which is what this ram is supposed to be rated for.

 

[PJ101]

The 250mhz and 3-4-4-8 timings are what the ram is rated for if you overclock enough high enough to get the ram to 250mhz. The advatage to your ram is that it doesn't lose timings at higher frequencies because it is already rated for ddr500. However if you are going to leave it at ddr400 then you can slowly tighten the timings and see what is stable to increase performance.