Jump to content

Mainter Digerati

Member
  • Posts

    152
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

0 Neutral
  1. sweet keyboard http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
  2. So, it's time to tweak your memory to get maximum performance out of it eh? After playing around with a LOT of memory, I've sorta settled on what I think is a good way to overclock memory. It might not be the fastest, as there is a lot of testing and tweaking involved, but you'll be sure to learn a lot about what the memory can do, and see if there's any hitches along the way. Introduction of Basics Before we really get started however, we should go over a few things about memory first. Most notably voltage and timings, as they have a large impact on the clock speeds, performance, stability and lifespan of your memory. First, the timings. I'm only gonna go over the 4 main ones in this article, the rest can be covered another time. Typically, memory comes with a rating that looks like "2.5-3-3-7" or something along that line. those 4 timings are: Cas latency (Tcl or cas) - with ddr1 you have the option of 2.0, 2.5 or 3.0, ddr2 give 3, 4, 5 and 6.. we may see higher, but I certainly hope not. Some boards allow the use of cas1.5 for ddr1, but in most cases (except the DFI Expert and Venus, and maybe another board or two I don't know of), cas1.5 is actually just a wee smidge slower than cas2.0, because it's not really setting 1.5. Moderate effect on performance, in most cases, Trcd and Trp have a bigger effect Ras to Cas Delay (Trcd) - This timing tends to have the largest effect on performance. Options range from 0 to 7, with 0 and 1 being basically unobtainable except for in the rarest of BH-5 sticks. Anything over 4 is usually overkill, and incurs a pretty hefty performance hit. Ras Precharge (Trp) - Slightly less of an effect on performance than Trcd, but more than Tcl. Same options as Trcd though, and same for the <2 is hard to get and >4 is overkill for getting clocks and hurts performance needlessly. Minimum RAS Active Time (Tras) - A very small effect on performance and clocks, enough so that I typically disregard it and set it to cas + trcd + 2. Options range from 0 to 15. For the voltage, keep two things in mind: 1. More voltage isn't always better. Know which memory IC your sticks have, and keep voltages within known ranges. If you don't know what chips you have, staying below 2.9v is a safe bet. 2. More voltage increases temps and decreases lifespan. Some IC's can take it, some can't. A good example would be Samsung TCCD vs Winbond BH-5. The former usually dies pretty rapidly if left at 2.9-3.0v for 24/7 use, while the latter can take 3.6v in a stride, and most likely the components on the PCB would fail before the IC's themselves. OC'ing Procedure Ok, for the testing, I like to do something like this: Find lowest timings possible at whatever the stock speed of your motherboard is. Say that I have some pc4400 (275mhz) and put it into a Athlon64 rig, the memory will automatically run at 200mhz. Find the tightest timings at these speeds. Next, raise the timings one at a time until you find the one that makes the largest mhz increase over your previous timings, and find the max. repeat until you get to 3-4-4 timings. For a more explicit breakdown, I'll explain what to do more explicitly, and at the same time, give examples with a pair of memory I have sitting around. Get memtest and install it on a floppy or cd if you don't have a motherboard that has it on the bios (DFI). Boot with the memtest floppy/cd in to make sure it boots into that instead of your normal OS. Once you have confirmed this, hit escape to reboot and then go into the bios. What we're gonna do first is find the tightest timings the ram can run at stock speeds. First, set all the timings to the rated speed of the ram, no auto's should be seen for Tcl, Trcd, Trp or Tras :D From here, we will work on one timing at a time. start with cas latency (Tcl) 1. lower it one step, save bios and restart, boot into memtest 2. In memtest, change to test #5, loop it two or three times 3. if you get no errors, go back to step 1, if you do get errors, continue to 4 4. raise timing one step, and go back into memtest and let it run through a few full passes. If you do not have the patience for this, loop test 5, 6 and 8 at least 3-4 times each. you should not get errors. Repeat the above for Trcd, and Trp. Adjust Tras when needed to keep it equal to Tcl + Trcd + 2 When completed all 3 timings, write down what they are somewhere safe. We have just completed the first step! Now, the where the real fun begins. We're gonna find the maximum speed at each set of timings, however, it's gonna take a long time :) 1. Bump up the fsb/htt 2-3 mhz 2. Boot into memtest, do 2-3 loops of test #5 3. If no errors, go to 1, if errors, continue to 4 4. Lower fsb/htt 1mhz 5. Go into memtest, and let memtest run. If you get any errors, go back to 4. Once you can loop memtest for ~3 hours per gigabyte in your system, write down the mhz obtained along with the timings and voltage it took to get there. I recommend making a chart for this, tabulating the maximum mhz at each set of timings and voltage. Now we have two options: bump up memory voltage, or raise the timings. Either way you go, follow the above steps. You should always test things systematically. If you decide to increase voltage, be sure to only change voltage, leave all the timings alone. One rule I try to follow at all times when overclocking is only change one variable at a time. If more than one is changed at once, you don't know how much each is effecting things. Start out at stock voltage (2.6v for ddr1 and 1.8v for ddr2) and test .1v higher, find max, .1v higher, find max, etc.. until you decide that the voltage is high enough. This will vary for all IC's, refer to the quick guide for IC's at the end of this guide. Be very careful with voltage, as some can fail prematurely if you give it too much. Also, always be aware of the temps your sticks are running at when overclocking. For the timings, you should change one timing at a time until you find which ones make a significant effect on max mhz. This is something that will take a bit of playing around and guesswork until you find something that works out well. Again, be sure to only change on timing at once, and do not touch the voltage at this time. Example of Procedure Here's an example to give an idea of what exactly all that means: Let's say I want to overclock my crucial Ballistix PC3200 2x512mb kit. I have found it's tightest timings at 200mhz to be 2-2-2-6. I find the max mhz with these timings to be 217mhz with 2.6v. I try the following combinations and find the max speed at each: 2.5-2-2-6 = 250mhz 2.0-3-2-6 = 219mhz 2.0-2-3-6 = 217mhz So from this, it's obvious that the timings I should work on next would be 2.5-2-2-6, as it had the highest mhz increase over the previous set of timings. I now write down 2.5-2-2-6 in my chart, and that it does 250mhz at 2.6v Then from 2.5-2-2, I would find the next set of timings that give me the highest bump, I test: 3.0-2-2-7 = 250mhz 2.5-3-2-7 = 259mhz 2.5-2-3-7 = 250mhz This time, I find that the difference is less noticable, but raising Trp raises the speed to 259mhz while Tcl and Trcd don't get a single mhz. This means the next set of timings I would write down in my chart would be 2.5-3-2-7, 259mhz at 2.6v Just keep working along the lines of the above examples until you reach 3-4-4. Higher than this is not worthwhile testing for ddr1, for ddr2, I think I would stop at 6-6-6-15 When you're all done with your testing with both timings and voltage, you should have a chart that looks somewhat like this: Now, it's important to note that even though there are no errors in memtest, the above settings may still be a bit unstable in windows. I would reccommend dropping the fsb/htt down ~10-15mhz, go into windows, and use clockgen to slowly approach the number you wrote down while running prime95 in blend mode. Most likely, the number of mhz that one setting is off from being stable, the rest will be pretty close to being the same, which should be something handy to keep in mind when finalizing the above numbers. Luckily, you don't need to test them all, only the ones that seem like they'll match up with your desired settings well. If you get exceptionally bored one day, you know what to do to keep occupied! Helpful Hints If at any point along the way you find that you can't get higher mhz, try to figure out what is holding you back. It can be your cpu running at too high mhz, your memory controller maxing out, your motherboard hitting a limit, or your memory simply not scaling well past the timings you're at. Just use some common sense and see if you can get around the limitation by fiddling around with stuff :D Also, this is just the tip of the iceberg for some boards. With boards that are oriented towards overclockers like DFI, you get the aforementioned 4 timings, Trc, Trfc, Trrd, Twr, Twtr, Trwt, Tref, bank interleaving, the drive strength from the memory controller, the max async latency and read preamble, idle cycle limit, and ability to toggle the counter that limit controls, along with read/write queue bypass, and the bypass max. Once you start messing with all those to fine tune an ram oc to get the last couple mhz, or get better performance at a given mhz and primary 4 timings, things get pretty intense. Fortunately, there's a few rules of thumb you can follow, and tweaking those aren't too different than the primary 4, but looser isn't always better ;) Small IC Guide Now, the quick guide on some common performance ram chips.. Winbond BH: (old + new school) basically the ram that has turned into a myth of sorts. normally does around 240-270mhz.. not great in itself, but the thing to remember is that it can do it at 2-2-2 timings. the downside is that it typically needs 3.2-3.5v to do that. Also, higher latencies do not help much.. forget about cas3, it shouldn't boot. cas2.5 often isn't as stable, or simply does not get many more mhz. Try not to go higher than 3.5-3.6v unless benching, and be sure that your system is up to taking that much voltage for long term use. UTT-CH: (new ch) known to be in OCZ VX, twinmosSP and some Mushkin Redline modules. It's similar to bh-5, in the fact that it likes lots of voltage and generally likes 2-2-2 timings. CH seems to scale with voltage better than BH, but it needs around 3.1v to to get down to 2-2-2 to begin with. Being a smaller process size, it's not as safe to pump CH dies as much voltage as BH. I wouldn't go over 3.4v for 24/7 Samsung TCCD/TCC5: Been around for a little while. It had.. a cult like following for a while, which I find amusing, though it's for a good reason.. anywho, the premise of this stuff is that you can do really high speeds (often 300mhz+ with good sticks) and doesn't need much voltage. The downside is that it needs higher timings to get there. Expect to have to raise timings to 2.5-4-4 or 2.5-4-3 to get the most out TCCD/TCC5. Also be prepared to do a little bit of testing to find which voltage works best, some sticks actually start decreasing performance if you give them more than 2.7-2.8v, while some can take up to 3v. with newer tccd/tcc5, it seems that more than 2.8v will hurt then after prolonged periods of time, while the older chips can take a bit more, and actually scale really well at cas2 with lots of voltage, but die really fast if you do that. Samsung UCCC: Though it is kinda "value-oriented" as far as 64mb IC's go, proper binning can get you 250MHz 3-4-4-8 or 3-4-3-8. Typically top out around 270-280MHz, though sticks have been recorded at 300MHz. OCZ and G.Skill have a wide variety of sticks with these chips. Other manufacturers known to use them are Corsair, Mushkin, Teamgroup, and Crucial. Micron 5b G: this is sorta a mix between BH-5 and TCCD. With properly binned sticks, it can do 2-2-2 timings up to a moderate speed (typically 220-225mhz without going nuts with voltage). The sweet spot is usually with 2.5-2-2; 250mhz at 2.7-2.9v and 2.5-2-2 seems typical with 5b G, with more possible with additional voltage. It also scales well with timings too, though not as well as TCCD does, with 3-3-3 being best for hitting highest mhz (around 275-310 usually). 5b G can take 3.0-3.2v pretty reliably when properly cooled, though it will cut into it's lifespan a bit. if you get it in value ram, simply subtract ~10-40mhz from the above numbers, depending on your luck :) Micron 5b D & 5b F: Similar to 5b G, but is typically a 64mb IC instead of 32mb. Being a smaller process, 110nm for D and 95nm for F, don't give these as much voltage, around 2.9v and 2.7-2.8v seems to be best, and at 3-3-3. Be exceptionally careful with 5b D, as it seems to have a very high failure rate. Infineon CE-5/CE-6: These can be considered the BH series of 1GB sticks (though not to me), minus the high voltage. Though they are usually limited to around 260-270MHz, they make up for that with lower timings than the other 64mb IC's. Infineon chips are usually binned to 250MHz 3-3-2, which is not half-bad at all. Usually they will go up to 260-270MHz 3-3-2.
  3. iPod Diagnostics iPod, Technology, Howto Here are the steps to enter the diagnostic mode of your ipod. They come from http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/ipodsupport/...ode/index.shtml 1. You need to restart your iPod before putting it into Diagnostic Mode. Check that your hold switch is off by sliding the switch away from the headphone jack. Toggle it on and off to be safe. 2. Press and hold the following combination of buttons buttons simultaneously for approximately 10 seconds to reset the iPod. * iPod 1G to 3G: “Menu� and “Play/Pause� * iPod 4G+ (includes Photo, Nano, Video, and Mini): “Menu� and “Select� 3. The Apple logo will appear and you should feel the hard drive spinning up. Press and hold the following sequence of buttons: o iPod 1G to 3G: “REW�, “FFW� and “Select� o iPod 4G+ (includes Photo, Nano, Video, and Mini): “Back� and “Select� You will hear an audible chirp sound (3G models and higher) and the Apple logo should appear backwards. You are now in Diagnostic Mode. 4. Navigate the list of tests using “REW� and “FFW�. The scroll wheel will not function while in diagnostic mode. Here’s a breakdown of the tests. To cancel a test, just press the MENU button: Memory: The Memory tests include diagnostic procedures for your iPod’s SDRAM, IRAM and FLASH memory.SDRAM: The RAM memory test. The SDRAM Fulltest will take several minutes. A successful pass result is “SDRAM OK.�IRAM: Not sure exactly what this test does. It takes several moments to load before running a quick test and rebooting your iPod.FLASH: This test will do a checksum test of your iPod’s flash memory. IO: Comms: This tests the communication ports of your iPod including USB, FireWire and Remote. If the Remote is not connected to your iPod at the time of the test, you can expect a NG (no good) for the HP (headphone-port). Wheel: This option has two tests, Keytest and Wheeltest. Push each button once to pass the Keytest. The Wheeltest just gives you a coordinate of where your finger is on the Click-Wheel. LCD: This option has two tests, Backlight (0 to 255; 128 is the default) and Color. Much like a VRAM test, the Color test will run through a series of colors, patterns and gradients.HeadphoneDetect: This test checks the Hold Switch and Headphone port. HardDrive: This option has four tests. * HDSpecs will tell you everything from hard drive temperature to serial number. * HDScan scans your iPod’s hard drive. This is a great way to see if you have a healthy iPod and if your hard drive is fragmented. This test will take a few minutes so be patient. * HDSMARTData returns SMART data for professional repair applications and personnel. * HDRW tests the ability of your hard drive to RW (read and write data). Audio: This option has two tests. Playback plays an audio sample to make sure your iPod can produce sound. MIC tests your iPods ability to record audio. Power: A2DTests: This test has multiple sub tests. * PhilipsID checks the power system of your iPod * A2D lists a series of A2D (analog to digital) tests. Status: Status displays the status of several of your iPod’s key systems. * Sharp: LCD screen * HP: headphones. Are they connected? [0 = no, 1 = yes] * FWPWR: FireWire power. Is your FireWire cable charging your iPod? * USBPWR: USB power. Is your USB cable charging your iPod? SysCfg: SysCfg: System Configuration. This lists your iPod’s hardware version, serial numbers, and part number. For older ipods (1st gen to 4th gen) Here’s a breakdown of the tests: A. 5 IN 1: This runs the following 5 tests at once: LCM, SDRAM, RTC, FLASH/CHECKSUM, and FIREWIRE/FW ID. If you have a 3G iPod, at the end of the test, your buttons will now play a series of sound effects. B. RESET: Can your iPod reset? Run this test and find out. C. KEY: After you start this test, you need to press all the buttons on your iPod. If you don’t do it fast enough it will fail. D. AUDIO: Plug in headphones. This test checks the audio subsystem. E. REMOTE: This will test your remote if you have one. Plug it in or the test result will be “RMT FAIL�. F.FIREWARE: Checks your iPod’s FireWire port. A successful completion of the test will return�FW PASS�. G. SLEEP: Will put your iPod to sleep. You will need to reset your iPod to wake it back up. H. A 2 D: Tests the iPod’s power. The results will be different depending if your iPod is plugged into your computer, a wall outlet or is just running off battery power. I. OTPO CNT: Tests your scroll wheel. Results are returned in hexadecimal. J. LCM: The LCM is your iPod’s screen. Keep pressing the “Select� button to toggle through several pattern tests. K. RTC: Tests the iPod’s built-in “Real Time Clock�. L. SDRAM: The RAM test. Hopefully it will tell you “PASS� M. FLASH: This gives you your firmware. N. OTPO or Wheel A2D: Tests the A2D (analog to digital) input of your iPod’s scroll, touch or click-wheel. You need to reset your iPod to exit this test. O. HDD SCAN: Scans your iPod’s hard drive. This is a great way to see if you have a healthy iPod. This test will take a few minutes so be patient. P. RUN IN: Tests your iPod’s chip sets continuously. To get your iPod out of Diagnostic Mode, you will have to restart it again. Again, this all comes from http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/ipodsupport/...ode/index.shtml and I take no credit for the creation of this article.
  4. here is a program for you called crack password administrator http://www.sendover.com/4UW8-2J-N3TE and here is the other one ERD Commander Quoted post how do i use the cp administrator? Quoted post [/b] i will send you the link if you still need it i cannot do it now because i am in school kinda looks illegal if i do it here ;)
  5. i opened all my bookmarks 372 opened before my computer crashed
  6. man i would love to have that teacher bang me (what the hell is the problem)
  7. hey how come in the big lockdown this thread did not get the knife?
  8. i like family guy dont get me wrong its a funny ass show its been on 7 years but i am a loyal fan of the simpsons i have been watching it sense the tracey ullman show in 1987 and they keep it fresh....
  9. so tell the ghost to go away burn some sage on each corner of tyhe building and demand them to go away( learned that from that show with jennifer love hewitt ummm ghost wisper or something like that
  10. make this damn thread a sticky so them rookies dont waste thread space and we get to have another major lock down by the moderators
  11. and you made this thread why???????? go to http://www.12ozprophet.com/forum/index.php...ic=69679&st=760 that is why it was made for questions like these
×
×
  • Create New...