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Overclocking the Striker Extreme. Next Steps.

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Check-Six

New Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
I'm trying to overlock my Striker Extreme.
I have the C2D 6850 Proc (Stock 3.0GHz), Crucial RAM and an aftermarket air cooler (who's name escapes me).

I'm running my proc at 1600FSB to bring the total speed to 3.6GHz. I've adjusted the voltage to be 1.47v. I want to run the proc at 3.6GHz to take full advantage of my RAM running at 800MHz. This would be a 1:1 ratio on the bus.

My memory is running stock. MFG suggested voltage is 2.1v, I'm running mine at 2.15v.

Coretemp reports my cores at about 18C idle and never above 35C under load. I can run Prime95 for hours with no errors, I can run Memtest86 for hours with no errors. CPUZ seems to show my cores at 1.38v most of the time, which I don't really understand but whatever.

But once every two hours or so, when playing a game, my system just locks up. Hard reboot. It does not do this at stock speed. I'm wondering if I should adjust the voltages on the north bridge but I'm lost as to the voltage ranges and I can't seem to find them anywhere.

Anyone have any suggestions? Is there somethig else I should consider?
 
Check-Six, welcome to the forums. :cool:

Just off the top it sounds like you're just a tad low on the voltage it needs to maintain a constant load at that speed. Check your mem timings and make sure you're within specs. You mention that you're running crucial ram, is that ballistix and what is the rated speeds and timings?
I'm running 2 1gb sticks of crucial ballistix pc2-6400 (which is the 800mhz rating you mentioned) and they also run at 2.1v. I've got mine running completely stable at 475 (950mhz) 5,5,5,15,30 timing. That rendered more score on 3dmark06 and pcmark05 than the next step down, 380mhz and 4,4,4,12,25 timings. Those were the speed options for me to maintain 380fsb on the proc.
I'm still working with mine, just got it put together a couple days ago. So I still haven't found my procs limitations, much less the ram. :)
So don't be scared to give either the proc or the ram a little extra voltage. Just keep a close eye on those temps, and find stable settings running some benchmark programs. I like to run folding at home (multiple instances for the multiple cores) and pcmark05 and/or 3dmark06. Memtest86 is also a good utility to find out if your memory is stable. But you have to create a floppy and have a floppy drive in your rig to use, or burn it to a cd, but the proggie is small enough to fit on a floppy.
The other components (northbridge, etc...) could also use a little extra voltage as well. You are pushing the entire rig with raising the fsb. Just watch your temps religiously till you're quite comfortable that they're not getting too out of hand.

Enjoy yourself here and feel free to ask as many questions as you like, we're more than glad to help the best we can. Also consider putting that beast to some good while you're not using it by joining one of the folding or benching teams. It's a good way to meet a lot of good folks :cool:
 
Check-Six, welcome to the forums. :cool:

Just off the top it sounds like you're just a tad low on the voltage it needs to maintain a constant load at that speed. Check your mem timings and make sure you're within specs. You mention that you're running crucial ram, is that ballistix and what is the rated speeds and timings?
I'm running 2 1gb sticks of crucial ballistix pc2-6400 (which is the 800mhz rating you mentioned) and they also run at 2.1v. I've got mine running completely stable at 475 (950mhz) 5,5,5,15,30 timing. That rendered more score on 3dmark06 and pcmark05 than the next step down, 380mhz and 4,4,4,12,25 timings. Those were the speed options for me to maintain 380fsb on the proc.
I'm still working with mine, just got it put together a couple days ago. So I still haven't found my procs limitations, much less the ram. :)
So don't be scared to give either the proc or the ram a little extra voltage. Just keep a close eye on those temps, and find stable settings running some benchmark programs. I like to run folding at home (multiple instances for the multiple cores) and pcmark05 and/or 3dmark06. Memtest86 is also a good utility to find out if your memory is stable. But you have to create a floppy and have a floppy drive in your rig to use, or burn it to a cd, but the proggie is small enough to fit on a floppy.
The other components (northbridge, etc...) could also use a little extra voltage as well. You are pushing the entire rig with raising the fsb. Just watch your temps religiously till you're quite comfortable that they're not getting too out of hand.

Enjoy yourself here and feel free to ask as many questions as you like, we're more than glad to help the best we can. Also consider putting that beast to some good while you're not using it by joining one of the folding or benching teams. It's a good way to meet a lot of good folks :cool:


Crap, I did say Crucial. I ment to say Corsair

I'm running my memory at 5-5-5-12 and it's rated for 4-4-4-12. Not sure if thats a factor. Thanks for your advice on the voltage. I do run PC 95 and Memtest86 for testing.

Whats a good value to start with the north bridge voltage? 1.6v?
 
Last edited:
:welcome: to OCF!!

Just like Tweaked! said, try giving your components a little more juice. I'd raise the vcore on you cpu to around 1.5 - 1.52v. The reason CPU-Z reports it lower than what you set in the BIOS is because of what we call vdroop. The actual voltage you specify in the BIOS will never be what is actually being applied to the cpu because of resistance with the transistors and whatnot along the way from the voltage regulation units to the cpu itself. There is also another vdroop which deals with the cpu's core voltage under load. Say you have it set to 1.5v in the BIOS, but when idling, the vcore is actually say 1.45. This is typically normal as I said, due to electrical resistance. When under load however, the vcore drops to say 1.39-1.4v. This is due to the increased load on the CPU, and subsequently, the increased load on the transistors (switching back and forth faster). Hopefully that answers your questions :D If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! Thats what we're here for!

-Dave
 
Crap, I did say Crucial. I ment to say Corsair

I'm running my memory at 5-5-5-12 and it's rated for 4-4-4-12. Not sure if thats a factor. Thanks for your advice on the voltage. I do run PC 95 and Memtest86 for testing.

Whats a good value to start with the north bridge voltage? 1.6v?

Ok, cpu-z should show you what that corsair is rated to run at. I do believe though that the 4,4,4,12 timings are going to be for 400mhz (800mhz) or lower. Anything higher is going to require either looser timing and/or a voltage bump. 5,5,5,15,30 and 2.3 - 2.35v should cover you up to 500mhz (1000mhz).
As far as voltage to the other components, as long as you've got good airflow across the board, you can max out on them and then try going backwards till you experience another reboot. Just because you grant the northbridge 1.8v, if it's not under completely full load it shouldn't have any heat issues with the stock sinks. My P5B is running right now with all those components maxed out, and I'm using the stock sinks. I do recommend replacing the thermal interface factory manufacturers use between the sinks and the components. They usually use low quality tims and usually use it too liberally. A good almost see through film on both sink and component of arctic silver or equivilent is usually a lot better than the factory globs. :)
 
So just to update you guys. I ran my V-Core to 1.5 which, after droop, put my core at 1.4v. I was able to play a game last night for four hours straight and got one lockup. I'll dink it up just a tad tongiht and see what happens.

In regards to the NB. I tried setting the NB to 1.66v and couldn't post. After I cleared the CMOS I put it back to AUTO. Any ideas on that NB voltage? (Striker Extreme NVidia 680i chipset)
 
UPDATE:
The answer to my problem was the North Bridge Voltage. I was able to bump my NB up to 1.4v and lower my CPU voltage to 1.38v or so after droop (set to 1.4125v in the BIOS) This made my systtem stable at 3.6GHz CPU & 800MHz RAM.

As always your milage will vary.
 
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