Overclock Help EP45C-UD3R

[frankie97]

any other suggestions??

[wepiii]

Hey, I understand your frustration. I bought this board on saturday and have been struggling to get it to OC. I have a q6600 quadcore oc to 3.0 ghz now and it is running stable. I finally got mine to work by reducing the ram multiplier to where the ram was at 800 vs. 1066 or 1333. I then decreased the timing of the ram to 4 4 4 9. Everything is working smooth and cool which is good. It was my first overclock so i'm not sure if I just got lucky with my settings or what. You should certainly be able to oc with a better cpu than mine. i'm at work now, but if you want me to post the settings i used to get it to work i'll do it when i get home around 630 EST. just reply and let me know if you want me to.

[frankie97]

Originally Posted by wepiii

Hey, I understand your frustration. I bought this board on saturday and have been struggling to get it to OC. I have a q6600 quadcore oc to 3.0 ghz now and it is running stable. I finally got mine to work by reducing the ram multiplier to where the ram was at 800 vs. 1066 or 1333. I then decreased the timing of the ram to 4 4 4 9. Everything is working smooth and cool which is good. It was my first overclock so i'm not sure if I just got lucky with my settings or what. You should certainly be able to oc with a better cpu than mine. i'm at work now, but if you want me to post the settings i used to get it to work i'll do it when i get home around 630 EST. just reply and let me know if you want me to.

Yeah man.....if you can post all the settings you can have, I can run them against mine and see if there is a way to tweek it to work correctly. My whole thing is in all my overclocking, I've NEVER had to mess with my Ram at all...so I'm not sure why everyone says its all about the RAM now, but I guess its been a little over a year since I built my last pc and overclocked it so I guess things have changed. But, if you could post what you have, that would be great! Also please post all ur components....cpu, and Ram

[frankie97]

no help??

[Lsdmeasap]

Sorry for the late reply.

I think F2 BIOS is part of your issues, please update to BIOS F5d
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - BIOS - GA-EP45C-UD3R (rev. 1.0)

Use Qflash to update, here is a Guide
BIOS Flashing - A "How To ~ Qflash Guide"

Be sure you follow the directions on loading optimized and rebooting before making changes, and be sure after that you reboot BACK to the BIOS to set your disk settings all again as well.

Then try these settings

MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)
Robust Graphics Booster ...............: Auto
CPU Clock Ratio ..........................: 7x
Fine CPU Clock Ratio.....................: +0.5
CPU Frequency ...........................: 3.00 GHz (400 x 7.5)


Clock Chip Control
Standard Clock Control
CPU Host Clock Control..................: [Enabled]
CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) ............: 401 or 399 (Try 399 first)
PCI Express Frequency (Mhz) .........: 100

C.I.A.2 .................................:[Disabled]


Advanced Clock Control [Press Enter]
CPU Clock Drive...........................: <<< 800
PCI Express Clock Drive.................: <<< 900
CPU Clock Skew (ps)....................: <<< opS
MCH Clock Skew (ps)...................: <<< opS


DRAM Performance Control
Performance Enhance...................: [STANDARD]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.).....: Disabled
(G)MCH Frequency Latch...............: [Auto]
System Memory Multiplier ..............: 4.00B
Memory Frequency (Mhz) ..............: 1600
DRAM Timing Selectable ................: [Auto]

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time........................ 7
tRCD ......................................... 7
tRP'........................................... 6/7
tRAS.......................................... 18/20/24

^^ You may have to use 777-24 due to BIOS Compatibilities with your memory, not sure but if things keep failing try those looser timings first ^^

Set all Suggested below to highest Values first. Then later you can lower, one at a time, testing as you go

Advanced Timing Control
tRRD........................................... 3-4
tWTR.......................................... 4-6
tWR............................................ 6-10
tRFC........................................... 64-74
tRTP........................................... 4-6
Command Rate (CMD) ....................: 2

Driving Strength Profiles
Driving Strength ............................ Auto or OC1333

Channel A
Static tRead Value.........................:7-10 (Set 9 for now)
tRD Phase0 Adjustment...................:Auto <<< Leave for all below as well
tRD Phase1 Adjustment...................:Auto
tRD Phase2 Adjustment .................:Auto
tRD Phase3 Adjustment..................:Auto
Trd2rd(Different Rank)....................:Auto
Twr2wr(Different Rank)...................:Auto
Twr2rd(Different Rank)...................:Auto
Trd2wr(Same/Diff Rank)..................:Auto
Dimm1 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto ps
Dimm2 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto ps

Channel B
Static tRead Value.........................:7-10 (Set 9 for now)
tRD Phase0 Adjustment...................:Auto <<< Leave for all below as well
tRD Phase1 Adjustment...................:Auto
tRD Phase2 Adjustment .................:Auto
tRD Phase3 Adjustment..................:Auto
Trd2rd(Different Rank)....................:Auto
Twr2wr(Different Rank)...................:Auto
Twr2rd(Different Rank)...................:Auto
Trd2wr(Same/Diff Rank)..................:Auto
Dimm1 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto ps
Dimm2 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto ps

Motherboard Voltage Control

CPU
CPU Vcore….……….........................: 1.325 (More may be needed here, not sure about your CPU are you? If not, bump it up for now so you know this is not an issue, enable LLC as well.

CPU Termination…..... 1.200V*.......: 1.225-1.34 (Set/try 1.25-1.3)

CPU PLL…………………....1.500V*.......: 1.5-1.58 (1.5 should be fine until 450+ FSB, but ya never know)
CPU Referen.…………....0.755V*.......: Auto
CPU Reference2………,,0.800V*.......: Auto

MCH/ICH
MCH Core…………….....1.100V...........: << 1.18-1.24
MCH Reference….…….0.800V...........; <<< Leave
MCH/DRAM Ref.…......0.900V...........: <<< Leave
ICH I/O……………….....1.500V............: <<< 1.5
ICH Core…………...……1.100V............: <<< 1.14

DRAM
DRAM Voltage ……....1.800V............: 1.85-1.92
DRAM Termination .…0.900V............: <<< Leave
Channel A Reference 0.900V............: <<< Leave
Channel B Reference 0.900V............: <<< Leave

Advanced Settings
Limit CPUID Max. to 3.....................: [Disabled]
No-Execute Memory Protect............: [Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)................: [Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) ...........: [Enabled]
CPU EIST Function.........................: [Disabled]
Virtualization Technology................: Enabled

Integrated Peripherals
Legacy USB Storage Detect ..............Didn't see this setting anywhere << This is in the Integrated Peripherals BIOS page, not MIT

[frankie97]

Thank you....I have been out of town for the Holiday weekend. I am going to try doing all of this right now and will post results soon...hopefully good results!! :-) Thanks!!!!!!!

[Lsdmeasap]

Good luck, and let us know if you need further help. Hope you had a happy 4th!

[frankie97]

Well....I have good news and I have bad news.


Good News: I flashed my BIOS and I am now currently running BIOS F5D

Bad News: I am getting very frustrated because I have NEVER had this type of trouble overclocking before. Everywhere I read said that this chip was extremely overclockable and that the board was great for it. Then I buy it and it seems near impossible for it to be overclocked.

I have tried all the most relaxed settings with this overclocking and it still fails, no matter what I change and what I change it to. I have tried everything I know of and I have entered the most relaxed settings possible for every setting in the MIT and it still fails.....no matter how far or how little I attempt to overclock, it simply won't take it and I'm getting frustrated. Please offer me any more suggestions or any possible ways I can go about singling out the problem that I am coming across with this.

Is there a way I can change one setting at a time and try to isolate the problem? How can I troubleshoot this so I can get it working? After I flashed the BIOS, I loaded the optimized defaults and actually changed my RAM to 7-7-6-18 which is what they are rated to do stock and it actually loaded windows.....then when I changed all the other settings to what you told me to do, it still came up with an error...even at the most relaxed settings......I ONLY changed timings and no voltages or anything and that worked....but as soon as I tried to set the CPU to overclock then all went to hell..... :-((

HELP please!!!

[Lsdmeasap]

Well P45 is a whole new beast for users, that is why the sudden issues for you I would imagine. The BIOS and Boards are far more advanced than previous BIOS/Boards as you can see.

Have you tried 777-20? If not try that. You may just need to play with your MCH Ref, which alot of boards do need adjusted because the default can either be to much or too little. See my signature for a link on how to properly adjust this setting, and then try using .68-.84 and see if you find anything better/worse.

You may also want to try stock setup as per above, with more MCH like maybe 1.26-1.32 and see if that matters, if it does then do not adjust MCH Ref just yet.

[frankie97]

Originally Posted by Lsdmeasap

Well P45 is a whole new beast for users, that is why the sudden issues for you I would imagine. The BIOS and Boards are far more advanced than previous BIOS/Boards as you can see.

Have you tried 777-20? If not try that. You may just need to play with your MCH Ref, which alot of boards do need adjusted because the default can either be to much or too little. See my signature for a link on how to properly adjust this setting, and then try using .68-.84 and see if you find anything better/worse.

You may also want to try stock setup as per above, with more MCH like maybe 1.26-1.32 and see if that matters, if it does then do not adjust MCH Ref just yet.

Well that link is thoroughly confusing as I'm not sure I understand MCH Ref and what exactly all that means....I have tried 7-7-7-20 and 7-7-7-24 and as long as I change all those other settings, it still wont load the overclocked speeds....