SOLVED Proper motherboard voltages/timings

I was wondering an idea of stable voltages and timings for my new rig as currently everything is set to auto. The info for my pc is below. I hope this isn't asking an awful lot, but it's my first time building my own pc and have never done anything with motherboard settings before, so any help would be great. Thanks

Motherboard: msi 790fx gd 70, Chipsets: NB-AMD 790FX, SB-AMD SB750, FSB currently at 200MHz;
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor, 3000 Mhz, 4 Core(s), stock fan (5 case fans with plenty of ventilation)
BIOS Version/Date: American Megatrends Inc. V1.15, 9/14/2010 SMBIOS Version: 2.5
Graphics: 1 xfx amd 6850 1Gb, currently oc'd to 850/1150 with pci-e frequency at 100MHz;
RAM: 8Gb PNY ddr3 1333 10666, currently at 9,9,9,24,1t;
PSU: Rosewill 630W

It would be more helpful us and to you if you would download and install "CPU-z" then upload pics (cropped screenshots) of these tabs: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD". It will give us a snapshot of many critical hardware settings as well as info about the hardware itself.

Requested Cpu-id info

Here is the requested cpu-id screenshot/info you requested. All the tabs you requested should be on it. I would've cut it into sections/cropped them to individual pics... but for some reason picture viewer wasn't giving me the crop/edit options.

It should be stable with those settings at stock speed. Check the memory voltage in bios ot see if it is at 1.5 as that one doesn't show up on CPU-z. You can check for stability by running Prime95 blend test for 2 hrs. and if you don't get any cores drop out, lockups or BSOD you are stable. If you do that also have HWMOnitor or CoreTemp open to check for max core temp. Are you planning to overclock this?

Thanks for the help. Checked the bios previously and yes the memory voltage is at 1.5v. As far as overclocking goes, idk how far I'd get with a stock cpu fan/heatsink without temperatures rising. Also, I've never tried to overclock anything except the video card on any of my pc's... so unless I find a friend that knows what he's doing to show me how I probably won't chance it. I am currently in school for computers and may be able to find a peer or instructor to help me out with that in the future. Thanks for the help.

bro your running in single channel too. may want to change that.

Good catch, Hank!

Mixin12s, look in he upper right hand corner of the CPU-z memory tab pic. Move one of your memory modules over to another slot that to run in dual channel which gives better performance. Usually, they would be slots of the same color and usually right next to each other . . . usually, but there are exceptions.

mixin12s said:

... Also, I've never tried to overclock anything except the video card on any of my pc's... so unless I find a friend that knows what he's doing to show me how I probably won't chance it.

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Dolk is your friend: http://www.overclockers.com/step-guide-overclock-amd-phenom/

Someone will correct me if the information in his guide is not applicable for your Propus processor. You will probably be limited by lack of extra cooling, but you can probably gain some performance w/out exceeding desired temperature limits.

to OCF!

mixin12s said:

Thanks for the help. Checked the bios previously and yes the memory voltage is at 1.5v. As far as overclocking goes, idk how far I'd get with a stock cpu fan/heatsink without temperatures rising. Also, I've never tried to overclock anything except the video card on any of my pc's... so unless I find a friend that knows what he's doing to show me how I probably won't chance it. I am currently in school for computers and may be able to find a peer or instructor to help me out with that in the future. Thanks for the help.

Click to expand...

Actually, the Athlon II's can usually overclock some with the stock cooler since they don't have that L3 to cool like the Phenom's do. If you'd like to give it a try we can guide you through it.

The Guide HankB linked is a great place to start. Some tweaks are different between your CPU and the Phenom's but the basics are the same. The important thing is to keep the CPU voltage below 1.50v and the load core temp below 55°. If you do that, and don't get crazy with other voltages, you shouldn't have any problems ...

I'll check out that link, thanks. The case I have is an antec 300 w/5 case fans, so it stays around 35-40 atm inside the case. As far as the memory goes, I originally had it in dimm 1+2 and my motherboard(msi) was giving me the stupid FF error code... moved the one from slot 2 to 3 and it worked... however I really would like to have it in dual channel if I can work it out.

You might give slots 3&4 a try, then. Not sure if it'll cause the same problem as slots 1&2 but it's easy enough to try ...

dual channel memory

I got it to work in slots 1+2 now. Upon further examination of the BIOS with all the memory settings to auto, it had it set to unganged mode. Switched it to ganged and moved slot 3 stick to slot 2 and she started right up. Was wondering if I should flash the BIOS or not, there's about 10 newer versions for this board on msi's website... but since the pc is working fine I'm assuming it's not necessary? Still reading through the how-to-oc guide and will post any further questions I have (if any). Thanks all for the wonderful help.

The PC isn't working fine if you have to run in ganged mode to use dual channel. Most people run unganged, since that seems to be slightly better for performance in most situations ...

Memory

Okay, I switched it back to unganged, and changed the tRC from 33 which it was on on auto, to 34 which cpu-id said it should be on the spd tab (which was the only other thing I could think of that may have been the cause), and that worked as well. Cpu-id also says tRAS should be at 25 clocks, however the bios is only letting me choose auto for that timing, even under manual settings, and still set it to 24 clocks.

Overclocking processor

Well, after reading the how to guide I am ready to begin trying to oc my processor if it's possible. I should point out that the processor is not a black edition. There is a core unlock feature in the BIOS but the max multiplier is 15 which it is already on, even when the core unlock feature is enabled(assuming it's cause not black edition?). There is an oc dial on the motherboard though, although I haven't tried using it yet. I don't even have all the utilities on the pc for this motherboard that came on the disc with it, because for some reason every time I'd try to run the disc windows explorer would freeze up and have to restart. Even tried downloading the win7 64 bit versions I could find on msi's website and those did the same thing when I tried to run them. However unless I can find a way to multiply it by the core I think I'll play it safe and not oc using the FSB speed, as I don't want to oc the ram, cpu-nb, etc. If someone still wants to walk me through it, and think's I can get my cpu up a worthy amount to make it worth the trouble being I got a stock cpu fan atm, I'm all ears. Maybe once I buy the second 6850 I have planned for this thing I'll look into a black edition processor and be back. Otherwise, thanks again everyone for all the help... just getting the ram in dual channel and working is a plus.

The "core unlocker" feature is there for X2 and X3 CPUs, which have extra cores (up to four total cores) that have been locked by the factory. It only gets in the way of X4 CPUs so I hope you disabled that once you found out it didn't help.

The only way to overclock your CPU is with the reference clock (aka FSB, but it's not really a front side bus since there is no data going through it). This does raise the RAM, cpuNB, and HT Link speeds but all those have multipliers so you don't have to overclock them. You already have your RAM timings set manually so all you have to do there is turn it down to 533 MHz. Also turn your HT Link down to x8 (that may be labeled "1600 MHz" instead). From there it's just a matter of increasing the clock. As long as you don't increase the vCore (CPU voltage) you should be OK for temps. Try a small change to 210 MHz on the clock to start, then run Prime95 for 10 minutes to see if it's stable. Next, increase the clock another 5 MHz and test again. You keep doing that until a test fails.

If you're having trouble with the ram slots as you indicate, I certainly would flash the bios to see if that problem could be cured with a simple fix like that. I had a Gigabyte board with that same problem and a bios flash fixed it. The other possibility could be a memory compatibility issue with the board. Or, the board cold have a hardware problem and need RMAing.

Memory/OC

As far as the memory goes, no I haven't been having issues with it on the auto settings for my board, just the one timing gets set to 33 instead of 34 like cpu-id says it should be at. I have taken all your advice on the settings now. I put the FSB to 220 for a processor speed of 3.3GHz. I had to lower the dram ratio down from 1:3.33 to the next lower setting which I think was 1:266 to get the pc to start up with the processor oc'd, and again had the one ram timing to 26 instead of 27 like cpu-id said it should be at for 533MHz. I don't know if I should have had to lower the dram ratio or not, but when it wouldn't start the adjusted frequency shown in the bios was 1466MHz. In the end the adjustments are all as follows in the screenshots below. Processor temp is currently still hovering around 40C. Please let me know if that's a good start, if I need to adjust anything further, and if I should try for more.
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OC-stress testing

Okay, I retract previous 40C comment. I need to know what temp I can let the processor get to while torture testing with prime 95. The temperature doesn't go above 40C when I do simple benchmarks... however when I do the torture test it quickly goes upwards of 60C and I stop the test. Do I let it go, should it run that hot during the test?

mixin12s said:

Okay, I retract previous 40C comment. I need to know what temp I can let the processor get to while torture testing with prime 95. The temperature doesn't go above 40C when I do simple benchmarks... however when I do the torture test it quickly goes upwards of 60C and I stop the test. Do I let it go, should it run that hot during the test?

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55-57c max. No, if its reaching 60, shut her down. But are you talking about core temps or CPU (socket) temps? You use the term "processor temps". Not sure whether you are referring to core temps or CPU temps. Core temps are the critical ones. Use "HWMonitor" or "CoreTemp" to measure temps. Core temps and CPU temps usually differ several degrees with the CPU temp typically being higher than core temp with good air cooling.