TwoCables

Yeah! It worked for you too! w00t!!!!
Come to think of it, I think you probably did tell me before! Anyway, this is amazing. It has a +12V rating of 29A, and it's a 450W PSU. The supposed minimum power requirements for the GTX 260 are a 500W PSU with a +12V rating of 36A. This really goes to show me how bloated these requirements really are!
That's not really the stock voltage. The stock voltage is what Kingston has said it is. And according to them, it is 1.8V. So, if it wants 2.0V to do this, then so be it. But do some touch testing to see if the memory is staying cool enough. A good way to know if it's too hot whether or not it could burn you. If it might burn you, then it's too hot. But if it wouldn't burn you, then it's cool enough.

Oh, and never use Auto voltage settings when overclocking. That can either cause instability, or it can cause the voltage to end up being way too high. In some cases, "too high" would mean that it's higher than it needs to be and is creating more heat than it otherwise would if the voltage were as low as possible before instability. But a bit more rarely, it could cause the voltage to go so high that it could shorten the life of the CPU a little. Either way, both definitions of "too high" means "more heat". And excessive heat usually leads to instability. So when the voltage is too high - especially with memory, it can be the cause of the instability.

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ghulam_phantom

Hey mate i edited my post if you can read the lines bellow EDIT:
http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/...ml#post6731551

And yea..let me see if i can do the touch testing haha..but i want to confirm if i can go beyond 2..because many people tell me one should never go beyond 2volts on RAM..

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Phantom.X

TwoCables

I don't know much more about the memory, but it looks like you need to disable the onboard RAID controllers (and probably a few other things too). I mean, you probably have other things on your motherboard in addition to the RAID controllers that are enabled, but aren't being used. Disable them to free up resources and possibly allow the overclock to go higher.

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ghulam_phantom

Okay i got my memory back to stock clock (667) and changed the timing from 2T to 1T @ 1.90 volts..and i got 100 points improvement on winrar benchmark..i'll wait for the new RAM to arrive untill then..can u tell me if there is a manual that has information about the settings in the BIOS? there are options like XD BIT for CPU which has no description in the BIOS i mean whether i should disable that or keep it enabled how its going to effect my overclock..
Or if you can show me some specific things to disable/enable in BIOS for better performance?

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Phantom.X

TwoCables

Whoa, 1T. Nice! But I still don't know what this WinRAR Benchmark is. hehe I could Google it, but I'd prefer to hear it from somebody in their own words.

Anyway, it doesn't surprise me that you got a noticeable increase there. Have you noticed an improvement in how the performance of your system feels? I know I sure did. Everything was just a bit faster - everything from browsing through file folders to using Firefox was just faster. I think even gaming was a little better, but I'm not really a gamer so I don't truly know.

Anyway, XD BIT is Execute Disable Bit. When it's enabled, Data Execution Prevention takes advantage of it depending on your Data Execution Prevention settings.

To configure DEP for the highest security possible that it can offer, do the following:

• Open the System control panel (or rather, the "System Properties"). The fastest way to get there is WinKey+Pause/Break. Or, right-click on My Computer, and choose Properties.
• Use the following screenshots to help you navigate to the correct place and to help you choose the very best setting for the highest security that DEP offers.

In the Advanced tab:




You should never have to add anything to this list, however, if you ever find that you can't open something, then add it to this list by coming here and then clicking "Add...". You'll know that DEP is the culprit when you try to open something and get absolutely nothing; it's like you just double-clicked nothing. That's how effective DEP is. I've been using this setting in DEP for 3-4 years or more, and I haven't had to add anything. Well, ok there was one thing, but the chances of you ever having to add anything to this list are extremely small - almost non-existent.

Now, regarding what else to disable in your BIOS: it depends on what you're not using. For example, I'm not using the onbard Serial header, so I disabled it. I don't have any IDE devices, just SATA, so I disabled everything that has to do with IDE. I'm not using a floppy drive, so I disabled anything that has to do with that, including the FDC, or Floppy Drive Controller.

But, for a little more info, check this out:

NVIDIA nForce 780i/680i SLI Overclocking Guide

(http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/45121/nforce_680i_sli_overclocking.pdf)

In this PDF, go straight to this part:



This is in Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1.3.

Anyway, that may be very helpful.

But just go through every single little place in the BIOS to see if there's anything enabled that you're not using. If you disable all of these things, then it could help you squeeze more out of the overclock since disabling things frees up system resources.

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ghulam_phantom

Oh thats amazing info mate..i cant thank enough for all this help..i'm just feeling more like sharing every little problem in my PC over here hahaha..just another question if you're willing to answer..

When i first installed Windows on this PC..the STANDY BY featured worked like a charm..and basically what i do is that..if i do a major change with my SYSTEM files or any crucial configuration..i take an incremental BACKUP with ACRONIS..

Now the problem is that when i click standby..the monitor goes OFF but the FANS and everything inside the CASING keeps running..even the HARD DISK is running..I assure you it wasn't like that before..but i noticed it a month ago and i dont feel like reinstalling a new OS all over again..

P.S> I surfed the internet for an answer and there was some guy who solved this problem by installing some RAID drivers..but that seems irrelevant for the fact that i never used RAID and never tweaked any features regarding so in the BIOS..

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Phantom.X

TwoCables

It's a real pleasure to know that you're now feeling like always coming here to ask anything and everything computer-related! After all, this is OCN: the pursuit of perfection, err, I mean, the pursuit of performance. hehe

As for the Stand By feature: I don't have a clue because I don't use any of that stuff. I used to use it with my previous computer because it was painfully slow, but this one is so fast that instead of using Stand By, I would just turn it off instead. But now I am in this mode where I never turn my computer off. I learned that turning my computer off and on every single day is more harmful on it than just leaving it on. This is because of the cool down and warm up that it has to do when I turn it off and then on again later. In other words, that's like when you leave something out in a garage vs. in the house: the constant temperature changes is very hard on whatever is in the garage. So ever since I found that out, I've just left my computer on 24/7. But, if I were to ever leave for a week or something, then I would definitely turn it off.

But perhaps this means that it's time for you to upgrade to Windows 7. I thought that I would never be saying the following words, but here they are: I highly and enthusiastically recommend the Release Candidate of Windows 7. And more than that, I recommend the 64-bit version. After all, you have a 64-bit platform. You need a Windows Live™ ID, but it's worth the extra minute or two that it'll take to create one. You don't need to install Windows Live, though.

I mean, perhaps Stand By will work properly in Windows 7. Or, perhaps you should install the RAID driver. After all, it's not like it'll harm anything, take up that much HDD space, or anything else bad. And if it doesn't solve the problem, then at least you tried. And then you should try Windows 7. hehe

I have something else to say now that I thought that I would never be saying: I am using 7 x64 build 7100 as my main OS right now. I still have XP installed on a HDD that's still in my computer and it's still active and ready to go, but 7 is working so well for me that I don't have any reasons to go back to XP.

So yeah, that's my reply and I'm stickin' to it.

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ghulam_phantom

Hahaha..frankly i installed a new 64bit winXP but i just dont feel like installing OFFICE PHOTOSHOP BLA BLA sooo many things all over again..and when i installed that OS the stand by feature was working perfect..

To be honest with you I just Love the classical theme of win98..If you can let me know if i can manage to get such a simple win98 theme on win7 then i might as well install that OS..

andddd btw..i have been busy reading the OVERCLOCKING PDF for 680i..and i found where it says:

Below is a list of the safe, maximum voltages that should be used for overclocking.

q CPU Core: 1.58750v
q CPU FSB: 1.5v
q Memory: 2.3v
q nForce SPP: 1.50v

Now..that 1.58 is for CPU Z or BIOS

I'm Feeling like reaching 4.5 hahaha..if that is true for CPU-Z..and when 680i has no problems with UNLINKED FSB:RAM ratios..im feeling lucky..

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Phantom.X

TwoCables

Yeah, I don't blame you one bit: I hate reformatting for that very same reason. Not only do I have to re-install everything, I also have to spend the time re-customizing the settings, toolbars, etc. Sigh. I hate that. lol But thankfully, a couple of my applications have files that I can put in a safe place during the reformat so that everything feels automatically customized by just putting those files back after the reformat. One of those files is for Microsoft Outlook 2002!

Although I stopped doing that because I seem to get new ideas everytime I re-customize, and so each reformat leaves things better than they were before. But I still dread a reformat because of how time-consuming it is. So I really don't blame you at all.
It's pretty easy in any version of Windows: just open Services.msc, and disable Themes, then reboot. You can click Stop too, but it is usually a little safer to reboot first after setting Themes to Disabled.

Although, how can you not like the look of Windows 7?
Yeah, I know: I wish they would have explained what they meant. But as for the CPU Core voltage: I have a bone to pick with them because of the lack of the explanation. It looks like they forgot to say a few things: 2 of which are these: whether or not that's the actual voltage due to vDrop (not vDroop), and they forgot to tell people to experiment due to vdroop and vdrop.

But for a 65nm CPU, try to avoid using more than 1.55V according to CPU-Z during a full-load for daily use. But for a benchmark, you can go nuts since it's for such a relatively brief period of time.

As for the rest: it looks like the PDF document is really showing its age now. The highest recommended safe FSB voltage I've seen mentioned here on OCN is 1.4V. That's usually accompanied with comments like, "you should never need more than 1.4V!" or other such comments.

But for example: these days, 2.3V is so definitely not the maximum safe voltage anymore. It still is for the memory that was the latest and the greatest back in 2006, but these days, it's more like 2.1V on average even though many people like me are still using memory that has a maximum safe voltage of about 2.3V.

So yeah, I guess that's what I have to say about that.

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