Clarckdale oddness?

[Darkje]

Recently I got an i5 655K I put on my GA-P55 UD4, it's working alright but there is some odd stuff too. I'm on bios F8 (did try F9d too)

In bios the qpi multi is doubled, ie. MIT displaying 48x ratio, and setting a ratio results in:
set - result
48x - 24x
44x - 22x
40x - 20x
etc.
24x - 12x
anything below 24x - no boot

turbo boost it should do 1C-26x, 2C-25x, but 1C-26x is not working, always at 25x.

the mem controller on clark's is different from 45nm's, it has different timings and registers, tools like cpu-tweaker do show this and yet bios memory settings page remains the same. some timings from bios don't seem to do anything, like commandrate always at 1, no matter what I set in bios?

is this normal behaviour? is it the unlocked cpu? is it the different mem controller?

seems to be a bit odd to me...

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

This is normal, Gigabyte users double QPI multi's compared to other boards

Or did you know this, and are trying to say this is a new bug with a board you have been using and know about already? Sorry not sure if you are seeing a new issue, or just coming to these boards.

And yes, some bugs may be due to the new CPU as it may not be fully compatible yet with the current BIOSes.

[Darkje]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

Thanks for the answer, I did not know, it's my first gigabyte board for a long time, and my first clark too...

The 655 did behave odd on an other board too, that's why I tried this one. Just wait for bioses to mature I guess.

Other than that it seems to be running fine, at least I can up the multi. haha not that I really need to after putting it on 200bclk I'm kind of bound to lower the multi on air, but it does work...

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

Ahh, so how did you know the QPI multi's looked odd, just due to the other board you used?

Ya, it's normal for Gigabyte, other boards use 18/22/24 and Gigabyte uses 36/44/48 for the same thing. Why I don't know?

You can for sure overclock with that board, so if you are getting a better cooler or water you will be able to go higher if you want.

[Darkje]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

I got mugen2 rev.b on it and this is what I'm at oc-wise:


*clickable*

21x 200bclk, 1.328vCore/1.23vTT, ram 800mhz c9, 1.6v, not too shabby for a start.


edit:
On the QPI , the other board only allowed 2 settings, 4.2 and 4.8GT and the multi would not go over 24... well in bios it would but irl it did not work...
turbo on the other hand did work slightly more like expected.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

That's a decent overclock for air, not much to complain about there :)

I have not used 1156 socket, so not sure, but I think you should have 3 QPI multi's now on your Gigabyte right? 36/44/48 (may not be correct multi's for 1156, but that is what X58 uses anyway)

[Darkje]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

I have qpi multi's all the way from 12-24 on the even numbers, 24-48 in bios. Leaving it on auto it sets 48x all the way up to 190bclk, only ay 200bclk it would drop to 44x, I did try some at 36x, hoping running uncore and qpi at the same freq would boost mem read... ;) but it's still low nevermind what I try... must be the way the chip and icm work together...

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

Ahh, well that is nice to see!

Your memory issues could be timings, are you setting them yourself? How about any of the advanced ones? The real issue is you can raise your uncore, if you could that would be great for memory speeds

[Darkje]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

At first I left everything at auto, giving me 10-9-9-20-100, but then I set the main 3 to 9-9-9 by hand and using mit and cputweaker/everest to try to determine what auto actually did.

it gave me the 9-9-9-24-98 from the screen. solidified those and tried to find the other settings, that's when I noticed some of the odd stuff. like when I change certain settings in bios nothing seems to have happened when I'm looking at cpu-tweaker or everest's chipset page.

The uncore is locked at 18x Bclk so its running at 3600Mhz, it should be enough for a descent score, but latency is killing it... roughly 12k read/14k write and lat. 65ns guess the offdie imc is the cause of this...

But I'm still playing with it, so maybe I can tighten it a bit more.

Today bios F9 was released, so I'm checking that out first. It seems to have fixed the turbo issue I mentioned in the op, so I'm quite happy there...

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

Well glad to hear the new BIOS is helping!

What settings are you talking about that you set, but do not see a change with in windows? Some have to be set together, so if set wrong they may fail to boot or be ignored.

[Darkje]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

Okay yeah it must be that, and that I was thrown off by MIT telling me it was running 2t command rate and everest/memtweaker both showing 1t when left at auto. Took me a while to realize that MIT screen is displaying not only an incorrect qpi-rate, but also wrong cmd-rate.

I'm still kind of struggling why I can run these 1333 dimms up to 1600 with the main timings at 9-9-9-22 and subtimings at 1066 level from the spd without seeing much change in bandwidth over way looser auto setting.

I'm guessing the IMC is not able to fill the bandwidth of the mem fully, and because it's not hammering the mem I'm getting away with too tight settings... (and not seeing any improvement going from(in bios order): cas-trcd-trp-tras-trc-trrd-twtr-twr-twtp-twl-trfc-trtp-tfaw-cmd-trd

10-9-9-20-34-5-6-12-25-10-100-7-24-2-14
to
9-9-9-22-27-4-4- 8-19- 7- 78- 4-16-1- 12

anyhow, I've decided to get an other cpu (i860) for the board and see what happens then...

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

You can ignore any settings you see on the left side of the BIOS, those are not what Auto/current is using.

If you need help or suggestions with your settings please fill out a template from my signature with your current full settings and I will advise back

[Darkje]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

Okay here's my template, have a look maybe you can see something I missed from it,
my main questions are:
- how to get lower latency on the mem, I'm struggling the get sub 60ns(everest)
- how to get to 22x bclock, I've tried upping vcore and vtt several steps, but it did not make much difference, windows will boot, but prime fails in a bsod (ususally 101 or 124),.

Since I took several steps onn vcore and vtt I think maybe I should tweak some other voltage, so I tried the PLL one step up and on step down from default, but that's not it... maybe it still needs more vcore, but since I'm on air I don't want to go beyond 1.45v witch seems quite a step up for 200mhz already.

BIOS TEMPLATE (GA P55-UD4-F9)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Frequency Settings
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU Clock Ratio .......................................    [21 x]
CPU Frequency .........................................    4.20GHz( 200x21)
|> Advanced CPU Core Features .........................    [Press Enter]
QPI Clock Ratio .......................................    [Auto]
QPI Link Speed ........................................    8.8GHz

>>>>> Standard Clock Control <<<<<
Base Clock (BCLK) Control .............................    [Enabled]
BCLK Frequency ........................................    [200]
System Memory Multiplier ......................    (SPD) . [8.0]
Memory Frequency (MHz) ........................    1066 .. 1600
PCI Express Frequency (MHz) ...........................    [101]
C.I.A.2 ...............................................    [Disabled]

>>>>> Advanced Clock Control <<<<<
CPU Clock Drive .......................................    [ 800mV]
PCI Express Clock Drive ...............................    [ 900mV]
CPU Clock Skew ........................................    [ 0ps]


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced CPU Core Features
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech. ............................    [Disabled]
CPU Cores Enabled .....................................    [All]
CPU Multi-Threading ...................................    [Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) ...............................    [Disabled]
C3/C6/C7 State Support ................................    [Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor ...................................    [Enabled]
CPU EIST Function .....................................    [Disabled]
Bi-Directional PROCHOT ................................    [Enabled]


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Memory Settings
--------------------------------------------------------------------
System Memory Multiplier ......................    (SPD) . [ 8.0]
Memory Frequency (MHz) ........................    1066 .. 1600 
Performance Enhance ...................................    [Turbo]
DRAM Timing Selectable ........................    (SPD) . [Quick]
Profile DDR Voltage ...................................    1.5v
Profile QPI Voltage ...................................    1.1v

>>>>> Channel A 
|> Channel A Timing Settings ..........................    [Press Enter]

>>>>> Channel B 
|> Channel B Timing Settings ..........................    [Press Enter]


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Channel A Timing Settings
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Channel A Standard Timing Control
Cas Latency Time ..............................    7 ..... [9]
tRCD ..........................................    7 ..... [9]
tRP ...........................................    7 ..... [9]
tRAS ..........................................    16 .... [22]

>>>>> Channel A Advanced Timing Control
tRC ...........................................    27 .... [27]
tRRD ..........................................    4 ..... [4]
tWTR ..........................................    4 ..... [4]
tWR ...........................................    8 ..... [10]
tWTP ..........................................    19 .... [24]
tWL ...........................................    7 ..... [7]
tRFC ..........................................    60 .... [88]
tRTP ..........................................    4 ..... [4]
tFAW ..........................................    16 .... [16]
Command Rate(CMD) .............................    1 ..... [1]

>>>>> Channel A Misc Timing Control
Static tRD ....................................   14 ..... [12]

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Voltage Settings
--------------------------------------------------------------------
****** Mother Board Voltage Control ******
Voltage Types .........................    Normal ........ Current
---------------------------------------------------------------
>>> CPU
Load Line Calibration .................................... [Enabled]
CPU Vcore .............................    1.11875V ...... [1.33125V]
Dynamic Vcore(DVID) ...................    0.00000V ...... [Auto]
QPI/VTT Voltage .......................    1.100V ........ [1.230V]
>>> MCH/ICH
PCH Core ..............................    1.050V ........ [Auto]
CPU PLL ...............................    1.800V ........ [Auto]
>>> DRAM
DRAM Voltage ..........................    1.500V ........ [1.600]
DRAM Termination ......................    0.750V ........ [Auto]
Ch-A Data VRef ........................    0.750V ........ [Auto]
Ch-A Data VRef ........................    0.750V ........ [Auto]
Ch-B Data VRef ........................    0.750V ........ [Auto]
Ch-B Data VRef ........................    0.750V ........ [Auto]


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Settings:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Isochronous Support ...................................    [Enabled]
Virtualisation technology .............................    [Enabled]

image showing cpu-tweaker and cpu-tweaker spd readout on the right, and on the left everest/chipset and everest/membench:


*clickable*

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

Maybe this will help...

BSOD Error codes and what they mean:
0X00000050 << Incorrect Memory Timing/Freq or Uncore Multi
0X00000124 << Incorrect QPI/Vtt Voltage (To Much/Not Enough)
0X00000101 << Not enough Vcore Voltage

As for your CPU multi, what is the max multi you can set anyway?

Your QPI looks too high, set that manually to x36 or whatever your lower multi is

Can you give me a link to your memory before I advise

For now, you may just be needing more QPI/Vtt, Intel has updated the max for this to 1.4 so you have a bit of room to go anyway. I't try 1.25-1.34 and see if that helps, if not do pay attention to your BSOD's and see the above notes on them

[Darkje]

Re: Clarckdale oddness?

thank you, yeah I knew error codes, but after like going 5 points up on each vcore and vtt, you start thinking maybe it's something else.

Max cpu multi is 48x and in theory should go even higher. I've left QPI at auto, resulting in 24x (bios will show 48x) or 22x as soon as I go over 190bclk, can set 12,14,16,18,20,22 and 24x.

I don't think it's too high because it's working ;) and changing the cpu multi won't change the QPI frequency, but will try at lowest multi just to be sure.

The memories are OCZ3G1333LV2G/4GK nothing special...

I've tried upping vcore and vtt up to 1.45/1.40 in steps, but it did not help... maybe it needs more V still, but somehow I think 0.18v up on both should have been enough for an other multi... I don't care much for intel limits ;) where would we be if we all obeyed them... but maybe I've reached the max of my own limits on air, just can't cool it down enough to give it more V...


As for the timings, you seem to agree that what I've set now and seems to be working is insanely tight for these mem's ... but hey it's working... so...? it's giving me the feeling some of the settings make no difference at all, or maybe something else is going on. Can't imagine the sticks will run with these timings if I pop in a lynfield...