PhenomII 965 be over 4.2 GHz?

Hi all,
it seems the time has come for me to ask a Question... I have never intended to OC or tweak or whatever of the kind before I made my current rig. But you know - if you can why not. It is contagious... And so I ended up here, read a ton of helpful threads, etc, OC'ed everything overclockable inside my chassis. Cool...
Now.
The highest CPU clock I achieved was 4200 MHz and couldn't go any higher no matter what. But l noticed that the failing core in Prime 95 is C2 (the third one). Almost every time it was the third core. So two days ago I tried to try to OC C0 and C1 to 4500 MHz and left C2 and C3 at 4000 MHz(stable). Using MsrPhenomTweaker - very useful custom cool'n'quiet app. Ran the prime, everything was fine for an hour+. I had no time to do a longer test, but if it was to fail, it wouldn't take that long - usually it takes around 30min. Anyway...
And because of the time insufficiency I OC by multi, I must confess.
So what I want to know is there a way to stabilize that third core excluding overvolting - it is already at its max.
And... well... a second question all of a sudden - could it be a ram related issue. I was a way worse noob than I am now and bought cheap ram - after all, it is all size that matters, right? The said cheap ram is a 4gb A-data 1333 c9 and a 4gb Geil 1600 c11 I know, I know - don't mix 'em you fool etc. But they are working fine over a year or more as long as I don't push too hard. Now they are set at 1333 8-8-8-22-30.
So, please, suggestions?

Not that I know of. It is always the case where some cores are weaker than the others but they bin them so that all the cores are stable at stock frequencies and voltages.

I expected such an answer but I had to ask...
Thanks, trents

MB: DFI Lanparty 790fxb M3H5 > that later board may still have the ability to use ACC and plus or minus a percentage boost to each core. You might see if that is in bios and fiddle the + around on core #3.
RGone...ster.

RGone, yes it is.

I never had any great success using the plus or minus but the few times I did either the -2% or the +4% seemed to "help" me some. No idea what might help you if any of the settings since it was a last ditch effort those years ago by AMD to tweak the last little bit from a cpu.
RGone...

RGone said:

I never had any great success using the plus or minus

Click to expand...

Me neither.

I tried it once just to see what happens... No changes observed so I never poked there again. But back then the PC was brand new and we had respect to each other - no OCing, no nothing, just a peaceful coexisting.

What are the temps like when running prime at 4.2 either on all 4 or mix and match 4.2 and 4.0? Sometimes the Phenoms will get a little wonky above 55c on the package.

Right now the core temps can't go above 45*C regardless of the core speed. My room temp is like 1-3*C so...

This is the only pic I have right now - left that test for 15 mins before running prime95 to check if the cpu is going to crash right away

My first suggestion would be to drop the HT speed back to 2000 and my second would be to up the CPU_NB speed to 2800 and add some volts to it, 1.25v +.

up the CPU_NB speed to 2800

Click to expand...

<That a typo Johan, 2800 is a bit high for a Phenom II no?

Mandrake4565 said:

<That a typo Johan, 2800 is a bit high for a Phenom II no?

Click to expand...

Not really, If that CPU runs at 4.2+ it's going to need a bit more NB IMO. I could bench with mine at almost 3000 so I figured he might get 2800 and it should help. It's worth a shot, no? Sbirstein is already well beyond your "typical" OC for a 965.

Johan45 said:

Sbirstein is already well beyond your "typical" OC for a 965.

Click to expand...

Since 3.8 to 4.0Ghz was probably where 90% seemed to stop...well you get the pitcher.
RGone...ster.

Johan45 said:

Not really, If that CPU runs at 4.2+ it's going to need a bit more NB IMO. I could bench with mine at almost 3000 so I figured he might get 2800 and it should help. It's worth a shot, no? Sbirstein is already well beyond your "typical" OC for a 965.

Click to expand...

Agreed and going on the assumption that it's the similar to the 955, I was never able to get my 955 stable with the NB over 2700, the Cpu I had stable at 4.4 but never with the Nb Freq over 2800. I've benched it over 2800 but never had it stable. I also agree that it's rare to see a 965 above 4.0 at least from what I've seen come through this forum.

I was assuming his NB was at 2600 already judging by the HT speed and since the OP is doing a Multi only OC then there would only be one option to go higher. Just thought it might be worth a shot. Odds are that the CPU is near it's "stable" max clock anyway.

I'll have to provide some more info as it seems
for the north bridge I have tried 2000, 2200, 2400, 2600 and 2800MHz. 2600 seems to be the best performance wise at 1.30V. As for the hypertransport - tried 2000, 2400, 2600MHz. Until today it was set to 2600.
My 24/7 set is cpu at 4 or 4.1GHz/cpu vid 1.53V (can't decide where to stay yet), NB speed 2.6GHz/nb vid 1.3, HT speed 2.6/ 1.29v (not sure if I remember it correctly).
I tried what RGone suggested, 4.3GHz, reduced the HT back at 2GHz, BSOD after ~40 mins in prime95.

40 minutes is a good run. It could be that things are getting warm inside and a bit more core or NB voltage would get you over that hump. This will take a lot of tinkering now that you're in the upper regions of your OC. I might suggest instead of hitting the multi , possibly upping the the reference clock by 5 will help. That'll give you a touch more on the CPU_NB as well. Just remember this will also raise your ram speed but it should be OK.

You could also remove one of the odd sticks of ram, until you find stability. Then stick it back in, if it's then unstable you know it's likely the ram causing instability.