something not working, please help!!

[phill9700]

well i have managed to do some testing now..
i have tried:-

166 x 12.5 = xp2600 speeds, ran pcmark 2002 fine (memory set to cas 2 2-2-5, will say whether or not its changed otherwise its not.)
180 x 12.5 = fast CPU!!! ran pcmark 2002 fine.
190 x 12.5 = even faster CPU!! ran pcmark 2002 fine.
195 x 12.5 = bloody fast CPU!! ran pcmark 2002 fine.
198 x 12.5 = crashed, didnt complete pcmark 2002, tried with cas 2 3-3-6 still didnt complete test.
200 x 12.5 = crashed same test as before the one with all the lines, dont like that one... so....
196 x 12.5 = still no go, tried with faster latency timings and slower ones mentioned, still dont load..

so now im putting it through my 'test of stablity' and seeing how that goes, then i will just leave it and see what happens!
i use pcmark 2002, i run 4 tests on sandra (hard drive, cpu multimedia, arithmetric and memory bandwidth which i save as a screen shot... ) 3dmark 2001se and 3dmark 03 and if it can do that without crashing, locking up or anything else, i feel its stable. then i just use the machine and see what happens...
im using a 1.8v for the cpu (gives me a little hand room then), im running the memory at 100% at cas 2 2-2-5 and im pretty darn happy.. next up folding.. will see if it crashes through doing 12 hours + of folding...

what do you think i could get from a 8rd3a+ board then? i dont believe the cpu is the limiting factor with my current setup, nor is the memory... (thanks go out to The Overclocking Store for all their help with this problem and esp thanks for john (the manager) for getting me through all this!!
what does anyone think?

[phill9700]

Originally posted by airspirit
You need some lessons in overclocking. First of all, disconnect your HDD when experimenting with system speeds or you get what you deserve when your HDD craps out. Second, you need to do some speed testing to see what each individual component in your system can handle.

http://12.18.239.202/heatercores/primer.htm

Read that and follow the testing procedure. Before you do that, though, put a better northbridge cooler on your board. Really, you can NOT expect a good measure of stability unless you swap that aluminum monstrosity off of your board.

well i think so far its not going to bad... what do you think? this is with the 'aluminum monstrosity' on my board still!!!
i might be changing the board (or just buying another one) to get myself the latest C1 stepping, the 8rd3a+... which im told by bigben2k that it will be garenteed..
oh thank you for the overclocking advice, i will be looking through that with a great eye to see what i need or will need.. oh by the way guys im only using a falcon rock cooler in a xaser 2 case, is a 45C temp ok at full load? (i do live in england so that might help a little... )

[bigben2k]

Airspirit would be right, if the PCI speed wasn't locked.

Good luck to you.

[phill9700]

thanks for all the help! i hope to be posting a few pics (if thats ok with everyone) and showing what i have managed so far..
i think im going pretty well, but i still have a little bit left before i get to my goal of 12.5 x 200 (minimum)... i just hope i can get there..
thanks again mate!!!!

[airspirit]

Ben would be right, if he didn't realize that the NForce2 boards are known to scramble HDDs even though their PCI is locked. When the bridges are running unstable and sending gibberish during the boot process, the boot sector of the HDD doesn't stand much of a chance. Most of the time I can recover my disks when they get scrambled by doing boot sector repair, but sometimes it is beyond that.

Don't be foolish enough to believe that a PCI lock will completely protect your hard drives from system instability.

8RDA boards are probably the notorious out of the NForce2 lineup for this particular problem.

[bigben2k]

Nice tip!

So the data makes it to the HDD OK, but it's scrambled before it's sent out to the HDD?

[airspirit]

Preeecisely. When I do initial OC tests now I NEVER leave my drives hooked up. Since they will not cause instability to the board because of the lock (generally speaking), they won't be a factor when testing the bounds of the chip. Once I know where the chip craps out at, I back down a bit, hook up the drive, and hope windows/linux loads.

This is something you should do on ALL boards if you value your data, btw.

During the boot up process the MBR of the drive is accessed, and if that is done incorrectly it can cause the MBR to be overwritten, possibly losing all data on the drive since that is where your partition data is stored.

[phill9700]

well im not to worried.. hard drive will be formatted over the weekend anyway... to much crap on there for my own good!!
although i must admit, a couple of overclocks have made my drives unbootable.. its a good thing i have a clone on the same drive.. although really it would be better if i had a SECOND hard drive.. sadly, i cant aford that just yet i will be getting one tho...

[phill9700]

i have now just recieved my 8rd3a+ and im having problems with getting it stable..
im just trying to update the bios for the board and the download from the main website (epox that is) dont work!! comes up the file has an error basically..
it is a C1 stepping as well, which i think is a good thing?
when i get the bios flashed, i will be able to try and get the board to boot properly at 11 x 200... crashes because it reckons the temp of the cpu is 60C.... i dont know...