Is this normal?

[argada]

Little background info:
E8500
Asus P5N-D
G.Skill DDR2 2x2GB 4-4-4-12

Last week when I initially decided to OC my system a little, Increasing the fsb to 1600. I Had to tweak the voltages a little to get it stable. For example, NB voltage at 1.34v produced boot failure, upping this to 1.4v booted into windows fine but I get bsod after a couple of minutes, I had to loosen the memory timings to 5-5-5-15 to get it running stable. Anyway, I got it all working great, and ran it like that for a week.

Then I came across a message on asus forum, guy with same setup, same amount of oc, was able to get it running with lower NB voltage. Since the NB runs kinda hot on my board, I decided to give it a try and lower it.

To my surprise.. I lowered it to 1.34v and it booted! (Last week I had this exact same setting and was no go.) I stress tested the system for good 24 hours, seems to be stable enough. Then I figure.. worth a shot, I'll lower memory timing back down to 4-4-4-12. Hey?... runs fine now...?

I mean...these same settings I am running now (stable) were failing to post last week.... is this normal? Is there like a run in period or something? Because I'm sure I didn't do anything! lol

 

[Perp]

Not sure, but my guess is that your bsod came from vdroop or memory not the NB voltage. Chips do settle in (so to speak) so it's entirely possible that was the cause.

 

[argada]

Ah, I wasn't suggesting there was a direct relationship between memory timing and NB voltage.

Thing is, the lower NB voltage, it wouldn't even post, had to reverse to previous bios settings.

The memory/stability was another separate issue I just happen to have noticed.

 

[Evilonigiri]

Perhaps high voltage also causes instability? I had my ram voltage too high so my pc wouldn't boot. After lowering it some, it booted fine without any issues.