Do I need new RAM?

[KevinsHope]

So...thanks to Shyguy's help, Ive become somewhat of an overclocking enthusiest. I am running a P5QL/EPU...for now...and this board has limmited overclocking options. I use an overclocking profile to overclock my CPU at 10 percent. It works fine at this speed and runs at low temperatures. However, on occassion, I get the BSoD when I'm putting a little presure on it, even though it is not overheating. I was thinking maybe I need faster RAM to handle the faster clock speeds. I have 8 gigs of DDR2 800 installed right now. What do you guys think? Should I be looking at faster RAM?

If so, what kind of RAM should I be looking for...what speed...what brand name?
Are there any brandnames I should avoid?

[JLK03F150]

What CPU are you using? The CPU's base FSB is a huge factor in deciding if you need faster RAM.

[RicheemxX]

Yeah you really need to post more info, make model of the current ram, cpu, settings you are running ect. If the board is really that limited on OC options then more than likely faster ram isn't going to help much.

And I got bad news for ya, this is obviously en erroneous statement It works fine at this speed - if you are getting BSOD's then no its not working fine at those speeds!!

[KevinsHope]

Yeah you really need to post more info, make model of the current ram, cpu, settings you are running ect. If the board is really that limited on OC options then more than likely faster ram isn't going to help much.

And I got bad news for ya, this is obviously en erroneous statement It works fine at this speed - if you are getting BSOD's then no its not working fine at those speeds!!

Sorry...I should have known better. Here is some info on my cpu, strait from Direct X:

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9705 @ 3.16GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.3GHz

FBS is set to 345 I believe..but you can't see that when you are using a overclock profile.

Let me refine that statement to make it more accurate: It runs fine in all forums at normal speed and runs very well at current clock speeds as shown above. However, at 3.4 ghz, it runs very well until I use a program that uses a lot of the CPU. Is that better?

I do not know the makers of my RAM. I bought it years ago. It registers in DxDiag as:

Memory: 8192MB RAM DDR2 800

I'm not really questioning the quality of the RAM, so name brand shouldn't be important here...unless there are specification differences to consider. I just need to know if I need faster RAM than what I have. If this info is necessary, I'll pull the ram and see what company made it. I apreciate your responses. Thankyou.

[RicheemxX]

Well when you are OC'ing you need to start with the right tools, download CPU-z so you get all the correct info CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting, then get a screen shot of both the CPU settings and the RAM.

After all that you'll want to get prime95 or another test program to stress your CPU to make sure its stable, which obviously its not. Saying its running OK w/o stress means very little, a stable OC should run fine when the CPU is pushed hard!!

BSOD's when OC'ing could mean a few different things, it may or may not be RAM related. It may just be you need a tad more voltage it may be something else. Until you get your exact specs and info its going to be hard to say for sure.

[JLK03F150]

Oh yea, I forgot about that CPU, it's a cool one.

It has a 1333 FSB, 333MHz base frequency, and the RAM is DDR800, 400MHz base frequency. The CPU has a 9.5 multiplier, which is how you get the 3.16GHz (9.5x333) clock. You can lower the RAM from DDR800/400MHz to DDR667/333MHz, then you have headroom to reach 3.8GHz (9.5x400) without overclocking the RAM.

I'm not saying you will reach 3.8GHz on the CPU, I'm saying you won't need faster RAM until you've reached 3.8GHz (if that can even happen) and you want to go even faster. So, no, you don't need faster RAM... yet.

Hopefully that wasn't too confusing. lol

[KevinsHope]

Well when you are OC'ing you need to start with the right tools, download CPU-z so you get all the correct info CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting, then get a screen shot of both the CPU settings and the RAM.

After all that you'll want to get prime95 or another test program to stress your CPU to make sure its stable, which obviously its not. Saying its running OK w/o stress means very little, a stable OC should run fine when the CPU is pushed hard!!

BSOD's when OC'ing could mean a few different things, it may or may not be RAM related. It may just be you need a tad more voltage it may be something else. Until you get your exact specs and info its going to be hard to say for sure.

Ahhh...Ive been using CPU-z for a while, but this prime95. This is cool. Thanks for showing it to me. How long do I let it run? It seems to function indefinitely? Well...anyway, just tell me what to post here to get answers and I will post it. Do you want to see a screen shot of CPU-z?

[ShyguyXPC]

Prime95, you should have the ability to set it for various time frames, I forget whats used often these days, but for some reason I want to say its something like an hour or maybe 3 hour intervals?

I remember reading recently about some that were OCing letting it run for an Odd number of hours (1, 3, 5, etc) to stress test.

haven't used Prime95 in probably 4 years or so.

[JLK03F150]

You want to run the Blend Torture Test for an hour or so, than run the Small FFT Torture Test for an hour. Make sure it is running 4 threads to stress all 4 cores. Also be sure to monitor your CPU core temperatures during the Small FFT test - it can get the CPU pretty hot.

If a thread fails running Small FFT it is CPU related. If Small FFT runs for an hour, but Blend fails it is a RAM related problem.

[Tech-3]

Just curious, but what OS are you running? I hope you are running a 64 bit OS in order to run 8 GB of memory. Your motherboard will determine what type and speed memory to use. I don't think you will notice any difference in speed if you increase the memory speed anyway.

[ShyguyXPC]

they're using Windows 7 64-bit if memory serves me right from his other threads.

[RicheemxX]

Just curious, but what OS are you running? I hope you are running a 64 bit OS in order to run 8 GB of memory. Your motherboard will determine what type and speed memory to use. I don't think you will notice any difference in speed if you increase the memory speed anyway.

Nice of you to jump in and state some of the obvious, but I will have to agree I think either way its a bit of a moot point. I mean I don't see spending hundreds on another 4-8gbs of ram just to maybe squeeze a few hundred mhz out of that cpu. It really wouldn't be that cost effective. Not to mention if I read the specs right it says it only support 1066mhz RAM with an OC so you still might be pushing the limits of the board.

JLK- mentioned dropping the fsb/ram ratio which might help, however since you are using OC profiles (and I haven't checked the manual) I'm not sure you'll have that option.

[KevinsHope]

Just curious, but what OS are you running? I hope you are running a 64 bit OS in order to run 8 GB of memory. Your motherboard will determine what type and speed memory to use. I don't think you will notice any difference in speed if you increase the memory speed anyway.

Oh yeah...I'm running Windows 7 64 bit. Well...I'm not looking for speed with the RAM right now as much as stability...a system that can handle what I want to do with it. Good news on the CPU front. I ran prime 95. Ran the blended test for three hours with pretty positive results. I had to manually scroll back through each of the four threads to see my results though. Is there a way to just get a report when your done? Anyway, the CPU ran about 45 C on all cores for the duration of testing. All tests came back as "passed". Right now, I'm only overclocking the CPU by 5 percent, but these are promising results, I think. I guess it is not the CPU that is causing the blue screen.

[KevinsHope]

Nice of you to jump in and state some of the obvious, but I will have to agree I think either way its a bit of a moot point. I mean I don't see spending hundreds on another 4-8gbs of ram just to maybe squeeze a few hundred mhz out of that cpu. It really wouldn't be that cost effective. Not to mention if I read the specs right it says it only support 1066mhz RAM with an OC so you still might be pushing the limits of the board.

JLK- mentioned dropping the fsb/ram ratio which might help, however since you are using OC profiles (and I haven't checked the manual) I'm not sure you'll have that option.

Thanks for this idea. I did recently drop the ratio. It was over 800 mhz, so I dropped it to 720 mhz or something in that neighborhood. The system has not blue screened since I've done that, but I haven't really been doing anything demanding other than the stress test I did for three hours. That went well. See above. Thanks for your help.

[JLK03F150]

If you really want to start overclocking, it is best to stop using the OC profiles. Setting things from Auto to a manual settings in BIOS is usually much more stable. I understand your mobo has some limited options though. At least it has the CPU:RAM Ratio.

I'm browsing through you mobo manual this morning...

Edit: It's good to have a BIOS template to use for recording your settings. Here's a start for your board. Sorry, I didn't feel like typing all the manual RAM setting, but that is probably something you will want to add.

AI Tweaker
AI Overclock Tweaker [Manual]
FSB Frequency []
PCIE Frequency [100]
DRAM Frequency []
NB OverVoltage []
CPU VTT []
SB 1.5V Voltage []
CPU VCore Offset []
Phase Operating Control []

Advanced
CPU Config
CPU Ratio Setting [9.5]
C1E Support [Disabled]
Intel SpeedStep Tech [Disabled]
Chipset
DRAM Timing Control [Manual]

[KevinsHope]

If you really want to start overclocking, it is best to stop using the OC profiles. Setting things from Auto to a manual settings in BIOS is usually much more stable. I understand your mobo has some limited options though. At least it has the CPU:RAM Ratio.

I'm browsing through you mobo manual this morning...

Edit: It's good to have a BIOS template to use for recording your settings. Here's a start for your board. Sorry, I didn't feel like typing all the manual RAM setting, but that is probably something you will want to add.

AI Tweaker
AI Overclock Tweaker [Manual]
FSB Frequency []
PCIE Frequency [100]
DRAM Frequency []
NB OverVoltage []
CPU VTT []
SB 1.5V Voltage []
CPU VCore Offset []
Phase Operating Control []
 
Advanced
CPU Config
CPU Ratio Setting [9.5]
C1E Support [Disabled]
Intel SpeedStep Tech [Disabled]
Chipset
DRAM Timing Control [Manual]

You know something, my motherboard does not have the advanced settings you have listed here. So I can't adjust my ratio after all.

[JLK03F150]

That's odd. I copied those options from the manual.
http://usa.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_I...specifications

[Aaron_8015]

What chipset is this board? As only Nvidia chipsets can change the FSB/memory Ratio....

[KevinsHope]

Well, heres a pic of my bios settings:

The AI tweaker options:



The Advanced options under CPU configuration:



Please note that the CPU ratio under advanced CPU configuration is LOCKED in auto. It cannot be changed.

So...yeah...maybe I'll just get a new mobo. I know your thinking...just so that he can overclock? No....this is just the icing on the cake. I haven't been happy with this mobo at all since I got it. LOL I didn't know the pictures would be that big. Sorry for that.

[JLK03F150]

You don't need to change the CPU ratio. 9.5 is the max for your CPU and, even if unlocked, the only other options are 6 thru 9.

Disable C1E Support. It is a part of SpeedStep and needs to be off.