Big thanks to $Solid$Necro and also to Cpt. Planet for helping me out with my OC troubles Without them I would still be setting at 2.3GHz.


I am running a DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI-D and an AMD Opteron 165. For RAM I am using OCZ Platinum DDR 400 LL. I was able to reach about 2.3 daily driven, but I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get any higher...

I was running it at 260X9 for the longest time. But I found some time to do some clocking.

First thing I did was max out the voltages for the chipset and ldt. Next I set the RAM to 2.8v. Then, I set the LDT multi to 3x.

I set a huge divider on the RAM in order to take it out of the equation(1/2). My RAM timings are stock 2-3-2-5 so I loosened them a bit (2-3-3-7).

Since my chipset and PWM temps were a little high, I strategically placed a 120 fan to blow across both of them.

The next step was to raise the FSB in increments of 10 until it wouldn't boot. 260, 270, 280, 290, 300, 310, 320, and finally 334. I was able to get there with the CPU volts at 1.4




After finding the max I walked it back down a little until I didn't need the fan and it was prime95 stable for at least an hour. I ended up at 2.7GHz. (I know this chip will go higher, but I wanted to leave some leg room for my RAM.)

At this point the RAM was 150MHz or DDR 300. I was running the latest BIOS from DFI's website and I was stuck. As soon as I would raise the RAM divider up one notch the machine would not boot.

After a lot of frustration and some MSN conversations later, The guys suggested I try a different BIOS. techPowerUp! :: DFI LanParty NF4 Bios & Tools I tried the one on the bottom of that list and that is where I am currently at. I did manage to get another 10FSB without the extra fan & stable so right now my settings are 310x9=2.79GHz with my RAM at 155MHz or DDR 310.

My idle cpu temps are about 35c, and load not much over 40. I am absolutely STUCK! If I bump the Ram divider up one notch it won't boot. Now don't get me wrong, 2.7 is awesome for me, and my pi times have never been better (32.532 on the 1M) but wouldn't more RAM speed help tremendously?

Should I try a different BIOS? Anyone have any more suggestions? Any help is greatly appreciated Thanks for reading

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Lower the muli to 8 and raise the FSB to around 350 so your ram speeds at 175Mhz. Or put the muli at 7 and raise the FSB to 400 then your ram speeds at 200Mhz. Both will have you set at 2.8Ghz

Did you try CAS 2.5 or 3?

@Killert: That's one thing that's really weird about this board. Necro couldn't figure it out either...When you set the multi to anything other than 9x, everything still sees it as 9x. I tried 6x and 8x, but when I got back into windows, cpuz and everest both still seen the 9x multi. Only thing I could figure is maybe something wrong with the board...

@Zaltan: No I haven't tried either one yet. I will try that and let you know how it went.

What is really strange to me though, is that I am not even running stock speed on this RAM. Any ideas why it would be doing that?

Thanks for the help guys

EDIT: I tried CAS 2.5 & 3. Neither one will boot.

Reset the bios to all default settings, and see how far you can OC with the ram at 1 to 1, then drop the ram ratio one notch, try and OC again, and keep going like that, one notch at a time, and see if you can get back to your max OC that way.

On my Asus a8n-sli loosening the ram timings helps more than raising the voltage.

My Kingston HyperX runs at 250 (ddr500) when I set it at the recommended 3-4-4-8. The default timings on the chips were actually incorrect in my case, and it wouldn't really go over ddr400.

Figure out the speed of your next highest memory divider, if it puts your memory over 200mhz, there's a good chance it won't work at regular timings.

Take a look at the timings of "PC4000" ram, especially if you can find any by OCZ, chances are that's the timings you'll need to use for an overclock.

Quote: Originally Posted by symph0ny On my Asus a8n-sli loosening the ram timings helps more than raising the voltage. My Kingston HyperX runs at 250 (ddr500) when I set it at the recommended 3-4-4-8. The default timings on the chips were actually incorrect in my case, and it wouldn't really go over ddr400. Figure out the speed of your next highest memory divider, if it puts your memory over 200mhz, there's a good chance it won't work at regular timings. Take a look at the timings of "PC4000" ram, especially if you can find any by OCZ, chances are that's the timings you'll need to use for an overclock.

maybe having a quick look of threads dates before posting? (over 1 year old)

haha Thanks for all the advice guys on this thread. I did manage to get a fairly decent OC before selling the board. I am now running a X48 LanParty LT with a Q6600 (Damn this thing is fast!!)

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wMan haha Thanks for all the advice guys on this thread. I did manage to get a fairly decent OC before selling the board. I am now running a X48 LanParty LT with a Q6600 (Damn this thing is fast!!)

Lucky you , i wich i could do the same but living on tight budget , just bought a house so saving money is priority right now.