X48C posting issue

Question

OK tried some different ram (samsung 1600 DDR3) and manage to boot at 1600mhz 9-9-9-24 CR1.  Still had stability issues so I put the OCZ1600 platinum ram back in to play with voltages and timing. 
Testing set-up was to see the lowest DDR3 timing at stock speed 1333 and then increase speed until stability falls over - my reckoning here is that with the quad core the biggest bottleneck is latency and bandwidth so the speed of the CPU is really secondary to the speed of the RAM.
One issue I ran into was occasionally tripping up and putting in the wrong setting - motherboard wouldn't boot then.  Clearing CMOS lets you boot once but then when you save your settings and reboot you get failed boot (same as RamS explained). 
Key to get it going again is to:
* leave turned off (at the PSU power switch) for over a half hour;
* Clear CMOS;
* boot, load optimized defaults;
* save and reboot;
* go into BIOS and start making your settings!
* if you leave the memory switcher/turbo cards out the 'board wont know half the time whether it is in DDR2 or DDR3 mode so leave them in(I used to leave them out but not anymore) 
* DDR3 seemed to work better in the 2nd "paired" slots
Here is my setup:
MSI x48c motherboard running BIOS v7.3B1T
Q9550 quad core @ 1.300v
OCZ DDR3 12800 Platinum edition 1600 ram 2GB x 2 (OCZ3 P16004GK) - in DDR3 slots 2 & 4 (DDR slots 3 & 6) @ 1.92v
Turbo/memory switcher cards in DDR2 slots, RAM linked 1:2 FSB
RAM timing expressed as tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRFC-tWR-tWTR-tRRD-tRTP-tRD-CR
Windows XP Pro 64-bit
1333
Timing 7-6-6-16-48-8-4-3-4-6-CR2 @ 1333 (2.83GHz CPU), 1.83v
Memtest stable, burntest (10/10) stable
1440
Timing 7-6-6-18-60-10-5-4-5-6-CR2 @ 1440 (3.06GHz CPU), 1.92v
Memtest stable, burntest (10/10) stable, Primed 10 hours
Everest reports read/write/copy of 8457/7637/7960MBs with latency of 63.6ns.  Sandra reports 7.48GBs on 66.48% bandwidth efficiency
Now, here's where it gets interesting.  I could push 7-6-6-16-60-10-5-4-5-6-CR2 all the way to 1600 @ 1.92v using FSB (VTT) voltage of 1.27v, DDR CHA & CHB reference voltage 0.95v, MCH DDR reference voltage 0.96v.  With FSB @ 1560, Everest yielded read/write/copy values of 9170/8276/8677MBs with latency of 58.6ns (Sandra says 8.08GBs on 66.10% bandwidth efficiency).  After 2:30hrs Memtest (5 passes) I had one error in test 4 (on 2nd pass).  Memtest would consistently give up 1 or 2 errors over a long run and always at same memory address.  Attempts to Burntest either locked up or failed the run though. BUT PC was stable enough to do video encoding.  Perhaps some tweaking of GTL voltages are required - I can run the CPU all the way up to 1800FSB (3.83GHz) but what's the point if the cores have to sit around waiting for the RAM? (1:1.6).  I get the same memory bandwidth @ 1600FSB (3.4GHz) as 1720FSB (3.67GHz) - coz the RAM is only running at 1376!  As another example, Sandra reports 7.85GB/s @ 7-7-7-24 on 1600FSB (required timing for stability @ 1600FSB) but I get the same bandwidth @ 7-6-6-16 on 1500FSB  Less heat and stress at the lower speed, lasts longer, more stable, just as fast: why go faster with higher latency?  My video encoder is quad core enabled but I never see more than 90% CPU usage and there are frequent swings as it is moving data between RAM, CPU and hard drive.  I've actually noticed more CPU swings and less CPU usage as memory bandwidth goes down (even with CPU speed going faster) due to less bandwidth being available and the higher latency.
I've never had a board quite like this before.  It is a true hobbyist 'board and by that I mean you need a lot of spare time to tune and tweak.  Seems the key to getting your stable performance is using the reference and GTL voltages.  The quad cores have more than enough processing power at standard speeds - key to system performance is RAM speed and latency.  RAM runs quite hot @ 1.92v and reference voltages as stated above so perhaps with better cooling maybe could sustain 1600 FSB with no errors.
hope this info is of use to somebody.  When I first started out I found a lot of people on the net with same set-up as me but no solutions to the boot up and speed problems.

Answer 1

uber chopper, open your own thread instead of hijacking. In fact, I'm splitting it off the other user's topic and creating one for you.
The RAM you are using is DDR3 1066 RAM with permission, "certified," to run at 1333 or 1600 by OCZ.  True DDR3 1333 RAM runs at 1.5V, not 1.83.