Hello,
I'll try to be as concise as possible and this is an overclocking issue
that I haven't found a reasonable answer too. I am hoping the problem is a
general one that applies to many systems rather than a hardware/brand
specific one.
System is homebuilt, nforce2 motherboard(GA-7NNXP) with AMD mobile 2600 cpu
overclocked to 2476 MHz by a combination of multiplyer (12) and front side
bus set at 206.33. All is pretty stable at this point except RAM. Main boot
drive is twin, 37 GB, Western Digital Raptors (10,000rpm) in RAID 0 using
Silicon Image 3112R, onboard controller. (the latest sil3112r driver hinders
performance (as per tests Hard drive Tach v.3.0.1) and does not correct the
problem so I use an older driver) MB BIOS is most recent. RAM is Geil, 1.5
GB, 400MHz with lots of errors (Memtest86#5 test) at any FSB setting above
200 MHz. PCI and AGP stay locked at 33 and 66 MHz respectively, reguardless
to FSB frequency.
Hard drive corruption occurs at FSB settings over 207 MHz. Why is this? Is
it the RAM? Reviewers of this Motherboard said they got 235 MHz FSB but they
were not using SATA RAID. So where is the problem? What does the SATA RAID
3112r chip run at (frequency)?
LittleMoo - 28 Sep 2006 20:31 GMT
Hard drive corruption can be caused by errors produced from overclocked ram
or busses. Your busses are probably fine, but you stated that you had a lot
of errors in your ram. This can cause the hard drive corruption.
Information on it here:
http://www.xoxideforums.com/cpus/72104-can-overclocking-cause-hard.html.
You'll probably have to get better ram that can handle the overclocking
without causing errors in Memtest. You can go to some overclocking sites for
this and see what they or their users suggest or recommend.
-Dan
needlove - 29 Sep 2006 03:00 GMT
> Hard drive corruption can be caused by errors produced from overclocked
> ram
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>
> -Dan
Thanks for the links/info. Still don't have a concrete answer to what is the
exact source of the corruption but since my pci bus is definitely locked at
33.33MHz then, the ram/fsb would be the next most likely culprit. I have
tried many different frequency/timing scenerios (underclocking) with this
ram and still get hard drive corruption @ around 207-8MHz fsb speed.
LittleMoo - 29 Sep 2006 16:49 GMT
From http://webpages.csus.edu/~sac23713/overclocking.htm:
"OCing the Front Side Bus (FSB) will speed up the PCI clocks which your
peripherals connect to, and could result in system instability and corruption
of the hard drive."
I guess you'll just have to keep playing around with ratios and timings
until you find one that allows you to go past 207-8MHz.
-Dan