How to figure out what your MB's NB straps are (like on the evga 680i MB)

[TX-ScubaSteve]

I've recently put Windows 7 on my 3 year old rig, and have noticed that my system isn't as stable as it used to be... so, I've dropped my FSB down a little, and have been doing some more research on over-clocking techniques since I've gotten rather rusty with not messing with that in 3 years.

I read the article that Eco linked to in his sticky post to this forum section, but am confused as to how to determine where one's MB changes NB latencies.  I've found a couple other articles about the subject thanks to Google--but they all seem kind of ambigous (and confusing) to me.  There's much talk about 1066Mhz, 1033Mhz, etc as being typical "strap" thresholds where the NB changes latencies in most mother boards at these descrete frequencies.  However, the examples given make little sense to me, as the frequenices for the FSB don't seem to have any correllation to the NB frequency straps.  (Yes, I know the FSB is "quad pumped" for Intel chips), but all examples I've seen so far, the FSB x 4 doesn't seem to fall in the range they say the NB is at for a given latency.

One article said you have to experiment to find out where the straps are--run some kind of benchmarking software over a wide range of FSB settings?

Also, does it matter if your memory clock is unlinked from the FSB, or is it always better to run memory in some kind of ratio like 5:4, 3:2, 1:1?

Thanks for any help anyone could provide in this matter.

[GOZR]

4 Memory chips linked .. 2 chips unliked with the 680i

What are you settings ? and hardware ?

[TX-ScubaSteve]

Ah, maybe that could be part of my problem.  I've got the memory unlinked with 4 1Gb sticks.

Hardware:
MB: evga 680i
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (Conroe) 65nm Overclocked at 3.300Ghz (formerly 3.333Ghz for the last three years.  Stock is 2.4Ghz).
GPU: evga GeForce GTX 260 with 896 Mb (stock settings)
RAM: 4x 1GB 1066Mhz sticks of OCZ2N1068SR1G 5-5-5-15 2.1V(stock settings).
Bus: 366.7Mhz (stock 266Mhz)

[GOZR]

Yes the 680i are not too good on 4x sticks overclocking always better 2 stick so leave it linked i guess around 800 something they will run 1:1 witch will run much better and look at the timing those chips can run at 1:1.. do not augment voltage !

[TX-ScubaSteve]

When you speak of overclocking with 4 sticks, are you talking about overclocking the memory or the cpu or both?  I haven't overclocked the memory--actually I did have it slightly overclocked (at 1077Mhz) prior to my problems with Windows 7, but currently had it set right at stock speed.  However, when I link it now, I can't do 1:1 without getting a speed of 1375Mhz, which I know will fail.  I've selected 3:2 to run further tests with Prime95, which gives me 977.8Mhz.  "Sync Mode" (whatever that is) gives me 733.3Mhz. 5:4 gives me 1173Mhz, which might be possible, but I remember in the past my OCZ sticks didn't seem to like being Overclocked much.  Are the ratios (other than 1:1) ok to use with four sticks, so long as they're "linked"?  Or do I need to buy bigger sticks so I can stick with just two, if I want to have anything (like just the CPU) overclocked?

[GOZR]

No no need to overclock the ram just linked it, play with your CPU/bus  will be more stable and run fast as well.

Look at the ratio in CPUZ .