Overclocking (Main Thread)

Benjamin King2 said:Look, you need to list every single change made in the BIOS. Did you set the FBI/DRAM ratio to run at the reference clock, or did you push an overclock on the RAM too? What’s the AT&T link frequency? How exactly did you configure the FBI and the multiplier? You should manually set the RAM latencies and voltage—don't just leave it on "Auto."

I adjusted the FBI—say, the starting value was 200x15, and I bumped it to 208. When I set it to 210, 3.15 GHz runs fine; once I hit 213 or 214, it occasionally refuses to boot. Other than that, I haven't touched anything.

The RAM only overclocks if you bump up the voltage—and I'm not looking to gamble with that, since I don't want my sticks frying mid-game.

Honestly, I have no idea how high I can safely push the RAM voltage.

The RAM starts acting up whenever you bump up the FSB—voltage isn't actually the culprit here—which is why you’ve got that FSB/DRAM ratio or Memory multiplier sitting in your BIOS to help fix the frequency. Just dig through the DRAM configuration under the M.I.T. section in your BIOS; that’s where it’ll tell you exactly what clock speed your RAM is running at.

Is it actually a big deal if my CPU isn't perfectly stable at a specific frequency and voltage? I've undervolted it quite a bit. It seems totally fine during everyday Windows tasks, and even while gaming—I've played Metro 2033, World of Tanks, and Diablo 3 without a single hiccup. But the second I fire up a benchmark? Just to see the numbers, mind you, I don't run them constantly... it crashes within about 10 seconds every single time.

So, my main question is: could this cause actual damage down the road? Or should I just bump the voltage up a little bit to steady things out?
I'm running a Phenom II X4 1055T clocked at 3.5GHz with 1.35v on a Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-UD5P motherboard.

It’s not like he’s going to blow the thing up—it’ll just crash every single time there’s a tiny dip in the power supply—so honestly, just bump it up to 1.4V and see what happens. If you’ve been messing with the RAM overclock too, though—which, let's be real, is probably why things are getting dicey—maybe try downclocking that back to the rated frequency first. Might solve the whole stability mess.

My RAM is running at 1333 (rated for 1600), but I’ve tightened the timings to 7-7-7-20-1t.

And as for system crashes? Honestly, I haven't run into any real issues outside of running benchmarks... but I don't sweat it too much. Wouldn't I rather just have lower temps, especially now during this summer heat?

I’d probably just bump up the voltage a bit, just to keep things stable everywhere. You never know when you're gonna hit some random BSOD or whatever.

Alright, so I guess I'll move to the safer 1.4 version first... but then maybe I could try bumping it up to 3.8 later? 😁

Quick question since I'm still pretty new to this—is this pushing my processor too hard?

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2478160

Under load, Motherboard 60 is at 63 degrees, and CPU Cores 1 and 2 are sitting at 53.
I ran Prime for 5 hours straight and didn't hit a single error.

Tyler Castillo14 said:I've got a question since I'm pretty new to this—is this too much for this processor?

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2478160

Under load, Motherboard 60 temps are at 63, while CPU cores 1 and 2 are sitting at 53.
Ran Prime for 5 hours without any errors.

I guess the max for that chip is 63, so maybe they should be running a little cooler. What kind of cooler are you using?

Also, that motherboard looks a bit weak. 😬

The guy who came with it? I'm swapping him out for someone else next week.
It won't even boot if I push the FBI over 305, even though I’ve already dialed back the multipliers for the CPU, Northbridge, AT&T, and the memory. I have no clue why it's being such a pain.
I'll just drop it down to 3 GHz—that should be plenty for now. Thanks.

Recommendation 🙂

It’s possible you’ve just hit a wall, or maybe you need a bit more voltage. Though, I wouldn't mess with that until you have a new cooler installed. If you're planning on sticking with this motherboard and ProCom long-term, you probably ought to dial it back a little; it isn't exactly great for the hardware. I think it only has a 3+1 or maybe a 4+1 phase design and lacks any decent passive cooling. 😉

Are you overclocking just for the fun of it, or do you actually need the extra speed for something specific? 😛

1. It looks like the processor clock speed is probably pushed way too high, which is why Prime95 keeps throwing errors and crashing during the stress test. In the "results.txt" file, it says "FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file." Now, what on earth does this "rounding" thing actually mean? Does it have anything to do with my RAM?

2. According to the specs for my motherboard, it’s supposed to support 1333MHz OC RAM. Right now, my RAM is running at 440MHz—mostly because I’ve got the FSB set to 220, though the stock setting is 200. How do I actually hit that 1333MHz mark on the RAM? I heard someone mention that since my CPU is stuck at an 800 MHz FSB, that might be capping the max RAM speed. Is that true?

1. Maybe try bumping up the CPU voltage just a hair—the RAM shouldn't be giving you grief since you haven't overclocked it, unless you went overboard with some insane latency settings or something.

2. Just head over to Advanced -> Jumperfree configuration -> DRAM Frequency; that's where you can tweak the RAM clock.

I’m going to give the voltage a shot... hopefully I don't end up frying the whole damn thing.😁 I’ll bump it up by just 5mV—that's the smallest increment available, anyway. I haven't touched the latencies yet. Honestly, I don't fully grasp what that actually entails; I know it has something to do with the RAM, some sort of access timing, I suppose, but who knows? And frankly, I doubt I can even adjust it on this motherboard. Regarding the DRAM Frequency, I can set it to 800 if the FSB is at stock (which would be 200), or just leave it on Auto (based on the Democratic Party settings). Now that the FSB is sitting at 220, I've got either 880 or Auto to work with. It looks like it's currently set to 880. I actually went and asked over on the Asus forums about how to configure the FSB:RAM divider—or multiplier, whatever you want to call it—and they told me it isn't manually adjustable; it just scales automatically based on the FSB. Apparently, the RAM stays locked in a 1:2 ratio, or at least that’s what CPU-Z is telling me. 🙂

I bumped the voltage up by "+50mV"—that’s actually the smallest increment possible, I misspoke about that in my previous post—and pushed the FSB to 230. I fired up Prime95 to see if it would hold, but the second test just died after a single second and slapped me with a BSOD (specifically, page_fault_in_nonpaged_area). So, naturally, I went straight back into the BIOS to revert everything to how it was before (FSB back to 220 and CPU voltage set to "Auto"), but I did switch the DRAM Frequency from "Auto" to "880," since I've heard through the grapevine that you shouldn't leave anything on "Auto" when you're messing with overclocks. 😁 The moment I hit "Save changes & Exit", the whole machine just shut itself down. It flickered back to life for maybe a second or two right after that—honestly, I have no clue why it did that or what it signifies, though I suppose I should mention it.

Some motherboards are just built to brick themselves the second you tweak a single setting in the BIOS—it’s honestly ridiculous. If the system boots up fine initially, you should technically be in the clear, but still... questionable. Just set the RAM to auto since you basically have zero actual control over the tuning anyway.

So, the RAM was on "Auto" until now. I finally locked it at "880" today after all those failed overclocking attempts. Since then, the PC has booted up just fine and hasn't missed a beat all day. Honestly, I don't see much difference between "Auto" and "880" since the DRAM Frequency ends up being the exact same thing—880 MHz—but whatever. I'll probably just flip it back to "Auto" once I'm actually sitting in front of the rig.

But man, what is actually holding me back here? What's the real bottleneck killing my overclocking potential? The motherboard isn't exactly top-tier, but even so, it shouldn't have such a low ceiling. The RAM seems solid enough, considering it handles 1333 MHz without breaking a sweat. Could this be a bad CPU? Did I just get stuck with a dud model?

Sure, it could be a dud, but honestly, it shouldn't be acting up at an overclock this low—it just doesn't make sense. You might want to dig up some reviews for that specific board; there’s usually some weird quirk or a hidden setting in the BIOS that messes things up.

I did a little digging, and honestly, there isn't much in the way of actual reviews out there. It seems like a lot of people are running into the same wall with this board—they just can't get a decent overclock to stick. I’ve been reading accounts where the CPU voltage refuses to budge regardless of what you do in the BIOS. People try bumping it by +50mV, +100mV, or even +150mV, and yet it stays stubbornly stuck at stock. Now, thinking back... yeah, I actually ran into that myself. Even after I tried pushing it up by +50mV, it just sat there at 1.28V like nothing happened. Whatever. I think I'll just park the whole overclocking idea for now. To be fair, I'm actually pretty happy that I managed to squeeze a jump from 3.0 to 3.3 GHz out of it anyway. 😉

Thanks for the help! 🙂

I actually posted a question about this here a little while ago, but I’ve finally managed to clear up some things regarding my component specs and how my BIOS is currently laid out, so here we are.
So, my current setup consists of an AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz, a Gigabyte GA-785G-UD3H dual BIOS motherboard, 4GB of DDR3 RAM (two sticks of 2GB at 1600 MHz), a 550W power supply, and a GeForce GTX 280.

Right now, my BIOS is configured with a 15x multiplier on a 200 MHz Front Side Bus, which puts me right at 3000 MHz.
The HT link frequency is sitting at 2000 MHz (set to auto) and the Northbridge frequency is also at 2000 MHz (also on auto).
My memory is running at 1600 MHz, which is its rated speed—though I had to bump it up one notch on the board since the motherboard's default "auto" setting for memory is actually 1333 MHz.

Basically, almost everything is set to auto. When I try to overclock by messing with the Front Side Bus, the most I’ve been able to squeeze out of it is 3.4 GHz, but even then, I had to dial back the multipliers for the memory, the Northbridge, and the HT link just to keep things stable. At 3450 MHz, I had to drop the HT and NB frequencies slightly to around 1950 MHz, and I had to downshift the memory one step too—I think I went from 8.00 down to 6.66, if I recall correctly—so the memory clock ended up around 1500 MHz. Also, I've realized that the auto voltage settings are pretty much useless when you're actually trying to overclock, so I have to switch over to manual and nudge the CPU voltage from 1.3V up to somewhere between 1.375V and 1.400V max to maintain that clock.

Anyway, what I'm really aiming for is to push from 3.0 GHz up to 3.8 GHz, and get that memory up to 1800 MHz. I'm not entirely sure how much the Northbridge and HT link frequencies actually matter in this equation, but I assume keeping them higher is probably better.

So, if anyone out there has a moment, could you maybe help me figure out how to properly calibrate all these settings?