8rda+ is not liking my Barton 2500+ at high FSB and clock speed.

[Hexedit]

Hey everyone, I'm a regular poster over at amdforums and I just found out about these forums so maybe I can get some help here where there was none over there.

I have an 8rda+ rev 1.1, barton 2500+ AQXDA 0319, and 1 gig of pc3200 Twinmos w/ CH5s.

My problem is that when I overclock my system to lets say 210 mhz FSB and 2310 mhz (11x multiplier), my computer will run through memtest through 100 passes of test 5 without a problem; however, when I run prime95 I'll get through the 1024k FFT, 8K FFT, and 10K FFT tests, but I'll always crash on the 896K FFT tests. This isn't some random occurence, it has happened on 3 different CPUs, 2 sets of ram (pc3200 and pc3700), and 3 different BIOSes so far (3712, 3609, 3507). The only time I can get my computer stable is when I'm not overclocking my CPU.

If anyone can help it'll be a miracle because I've tried almost everything and nothing seems to work.

Hexedit

[Calcu]

Try running test 8 in MemTest86, 5 isn't as tough as 8. If you have any memory problems, they will show up in test 8,

Calcu

[William_Lee]

Originally Posted by Hexedit

Hey everyone, I'm a regular poster over at amdforums and I just found out about these forums so maybe I can get some help here where there was none over there.

I have an 8rda+ rev 1.1, barton 2500+ AQXDA 0319, and 1 gig of pc3200 Twinmos w/ CH5s.

My problem is that when I overclock my system to lets say 210 mhz FSB and 2310 mhz (11x multiplier), my computer will run through memtest through 100 passes of test 5 without a problem; however, when I run prime95 I'll get through the 1024k FFT, 8K FFT, and 10K FFT tests, but I'll always crash on the 896K FFT tests. This isn't some random occurence, it has happened on 3 different CPUs, 2 sets of ram (pc3200 and pc3700), and 3 different BIOSes so far (3712, 3609, 3507). The only time I can get my computer stable is when I'm not overclocking my CPU.

If anyone can help it'll be a miracle because I've tried almost everything and nothing seems to work.

Hexedit

Hexedit,

At the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, your combination of components may not work out to a system that allows that kind of overall speed and FSB overclock. Speaking from personal experience, I cannot overclock my 8RGA+ with high quality Mushkin 2-2-2 3200LL ram, and a AMD 2500 Barton above 215x10 with any stability I am happy with. At this combination, I can run Prime95 for days while looping the 3dmark2001se demo with a bunch of features turned on. One component that may be holding you back is the cooling or lack thereof on your Northbridge and MOSFETS. I just switched to a new Northbridge heatsink with a fan that raised my maximum stable FSB from around 202 up to 215 (thought it was 219 originally, but that's another story and another thread ) Anyways, I also had to increase my Vcore voltage alot to 1.90V and my VDD to 2.0. I don't know if the 8RDA+ now allows VDD changes in the bios (would guess it does) but don't jack that up without upgrading your Northbridge cooling.

You don't mention your cooling method or your voltage settings, but if you have adequate cooling, upping your voltages will help as far as pushing the system to its maximum stable overclock in many cases. You can play with Vcore, VDD, and RAM voltages. You can also try loosening up the timing settings on your RAM in the bios and see if that helps. You're overclocking your RAM (the 3200 anyways) if you're running it in synch with the processor which means you may need looser timings or higher voltage or both. It may also be your power supply holding you back. What I would recommend is starting out slowly on the overclock settings until you find a stable one that passes Prime95 for an acceptable time period, then start moving your settings up until you hit the error. Back off a bit, and you've got your max stable oc. I would start with a low multiplier and see how high you can push your FSB first since that will give you a better overall boost, then start raising the multiplier.

Good luck!

[Hexedit]

I have an Antec True Control 550, SLk900U + 92mm Tornado, heatsinks on the mofsets, Zalmans on the NB and SB, and 4 panaflo 80mm H1A for case ventilation. If that isn't adequate cooling I don't know what is.

I'm gonna keep trying new things but this problem is really irking me.

lol Prime test 896K fails? so what? I've never even heard of that one - I always stopped prime after 45 minutes or so when (I think) 1024K test was completed...
If I was you I would rather test stability with a few loops of 3dmark (about 3-5 not all night ) or playing your favourite game for a few hours.
All these "it failed prime after 8 hours" nonsense is IMHO useless - if you can run your system 24/7 folding, gaming & so on not encountering any problems, I would uninstall prime if I was you (I did )
Of course it could be a heat/voltage issue if your PC isn't stable at high FSBs, do you have C1 NB?
Maybe you need to do the VDD mod or cool your mosfets or both

[Drisler]

Hey Hex.

I have to to agree with jcool..
If you can do all the things you do on your system (gaming, folding, etc) stably....then screw prime!

Maybe the miracle you're looking for is in doing the vdd mod.

[MasterAtArms]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...225#post141225

I just read the title and thought you may be interested.

[SteveI]

The 8RDA+ is a fine mobo... but many will not do better than 200, some even less. I think there is some luck of the draw. Without voltmods, you may be overtaxing your FSB for the mobo. Keep in mind that for the 1.1, 166 is the highest guaranteed FSB.

[Hexedit]

I have a C1 mobo that is volt modded already. I understand that it fails prime95 blah blah blah may not be important but isnt that a sign that there is something wrong with my computer. I'll start doing loops of 3dmark and everything but i still think my computer should be able to loop through prime95 without getting errors within the first 46 minutes because that is when it always crashes.

I just swapped out my AQXDA back to my AQXEA 0324 to see if that helps but on the assumption that it doesn't, would you say the problem is motherboard or memory related. before I flashed to the latest bios I could run 220 stable through 15 passes of test 8 before I would come up with 6 errors. I wasn't sure whether that was due to my CPU overclock or FSB overclock. I'm currently going through prime95 again to see if the problem is gone so I'll post back when i'm done.

[Hexedit]

Well for those of you who said prime95 doesn't matter I decided to start looping 3dmark and wait, it locked up. This whole ordeal is making me wanna scream. I'm hoping that something in my computer fries so I can RMA it or something.


Any other suggestions how to fix my problem?

[LouTheBlueGuru]

I have to agree with SteveI. I have an 8RDA+ with a Barton 2500+ and c1 chip. Unmoded, the most I could do was 12x175 without prime95 errors. I put a Iceburq on the NB, Zallman on the SB, Tweakmonsters on the mosfets, Vdd mod for 1.86V solid. Result - 12x175 max, no gain, nada, prime95 would fail after about 40 minutes or sooner for any higher FSB, same as before the mods! I replaced the Corsair xms PC2700 with Twinmos PC3200 - result - 12x175 max! No gain, nothing. My concusion, for this MB/CPU combination, thats all I'm going to get. Run at 11x166 like your supposed to and be happy. Thats all thats guaranteed.

[mrlobber]

I also agree with what others here say about all the stability tests.

If you don't run any software where the cpu would need to carry out highly accurate calculations (prime is failing mostly on them, right?), the best stability test is to run the software you're using most of the time (and 3dmark also should not be the one , better try some demanding games if you play any)

For example, with 1.65 Vcore I can't pass prime because it locks up after some 5 minutes. With 1.75 Vcore I can. But 1.65 Vcore so far has not given me any crashes in games I play and other software I run. So I stay at 1.65 Vcore and am quite happy with my system. Of course, this should not be considered the ultimate rock stable overclock but I overclock not for telling others what a mega overclocked system I have but just for my system to run a bit faster.

So it remains up to your attitude to it all I personally would not bother if the system remains stable for ordinary usage.

[MasterAtArms]

I tried to run at 210 with my 8RDA+ with Vdd at 1.6v. It ran prime95 but I would get a crash once a day no matter. Running at 200Mhz I don't have theis problem and can run a week or more without rebooting. This was all whilst running 222 11 but vdimm to 2.9v did allow prime 95 to run without error, but as I said I would crash once a day. Not sure if more relaxed timings would help but I hope more Vdd would correct the problem, since I can't find any better make of RAM for my board.

[Hexedit]

err well its morning now and i'm a bit calmer than I was last night. Anyways I tried reseating my ram to different slots and I ran memtest86 overnight and after like 5 hours i got 30 errors. So I upped the VDimm to 2.9 to see if that'll help. I'm gonna run prime95 because i dont feel like waiting 5 hours to see if I have errors or not.

if 3dmark locks up then prime wasn't kidding this time - you either need more volts or better cooling somewhere...

[Hexedit]

Well I tested memtest86 stable on test 8 for 9 hours and then i crashed in prime95 in 10 minutes at 2.3 ghz, 200 mhz fsb, 1.775 Vcore. Lowering the Vcore to 1.75 improved stability a little but prime still crashed. I'm aiming for 210 fsb for my ram and 2.3 ghz for my cpu.

Two questions, would doing something with the JCLK jumper help at all and would the slots my ram use help at all?

it seems to be either still too low VDD or its a heat issue...
I dunno if removing the jumper would help, possibly it would. just try it out

[Hexedit]

I was overclocking with the jumper out. when I put it back on I was able to take my board up to 235 mhz instead of 225 however the memory won't go that high either way. I will try taking out the jumper again. I was almost stable at 200 mhz; got through 3 hours of prime95 before it crashed. Not sure if it's Vcore or VDimm so I'll do some more testing later tonight.

[Hexedit]

Well I'm making progress. After switching my ram around in it's slots I think I've found its most stable configuration. I was able to run prime95 for 5 hours 37 minutes before it crashed...at a 2.5 vdimm (2.44 actual reported) for 1 gig of ram. I imagine that the failure was most likely due to a lack of voltage to the ram since I was running it under spec so I boosted that voltage and I'm trying again. Things are looking good since I don't keep crashing in the first 45 minutes anymore.

Also, I doubt this helped much but I chopped up a fan and screwed it onto the zalman on my NB. There is just enough room for that with some of the shroud cut off the fan to fit next to my slk900. I was running stable before I put the fan on but this can't hurt.

[DEZMOND]

I had the same prob with the new bios,try the 3129 ,that works best for me.