8350 mildclocking on GNU/Linux

Hi there,

I've had my current desktop for over two years now, and it's been a trip Initially this topic of overclocking was scary because the computer was expensive and as a college student I wanted to make sure I didn't break my investment. I didn't even know where to begin without having the Windows-only monitoring/stress/benchmark tools handy.

Now I'm more comfortable with the machine, the tools available for Linux, and the opportunity to dig into some bios settings. My plan is to take a few weekends during this semester to explore and tune the settings, with a goal of modest, stable overclocking on just air (AIO water loops are scary things, and building the loop manually appears to leave very few places to purchase parts from). Fair warning this likely will be a slow process.

First up, if this thing's going to run on air, it had best have all the right things going for it. I sleep a few feet away from this box, so noise is definitely a consideration. I'm also a fan of Noctua products, so in goes a NH-D14!







Is this the right amount of thermal paste? I haven't exactly taken a class on the stuff, so my technique has progressed from a thick coat levelled by credit card to this bead that I just smush with the heatsink and bolt down.


Next up is some new fans to help with air flow. This is going to take some thought (obviously), as I want to make use of the stock air filter screens on the front and bottom of my C70 case. To that end I plan to migrate the two SSDs up to one of the 5.25" drive bays, and the three rotary drives further up along the front of the case. Should create enough room to get two fans pulling air in through the screens. I'm also interested in fans at the top of the case to push air up and out, but the strong magnets on the Noctua NF-S12B Redux fans doesn't work well in pushing configurations. In fact, the magnet grabs the case metal and threatens to rip the sticker holding it in place when I remove the fan





Heatsink? Check.
Next up, playing hard drive musical chairs.

{Typical disclaimer that I didn't know where to post this thread, since I plan to have stuff on AMD processors, software, and general hardware going on. I'm open to it being moved to a more appropriate sub-forum.}

The D14 got my FX 6300 up and around ~4.2Ghz IIRC. So that's not bad. Mind you my CPU needed a lot more Vcore than your might need so that was a limiting factor as well.

70c socket temps and 62x package temps are the max for FX.

As for the thermal paste, no that's not really enough. I usually do two, 3/8" lines in the shape of an X. A bit usually spills over the sides though.
What I would do is try a larger "pea" size amount, install the cooler then take the cooler off to check how it covers.
Once you find the size that works best size (and shape for that matter try just a line, the X etc.), clean off the paste and cooler with isopropyl alcohol (q-tips are great for the nooks and crannies!) and then re-apply the paste in the shape that worked best. Paste is cheap so you'd be best to check to ensure the IHS is covered well since you are going air

This forum is fine for this thread, no worries there. I'm with Silver on the TIM. You need a bigger gob than that. I use the "pea" method and works fine for me. There's a link in my sig that will take you to some reading about overclocking the FX processor. It's based on bulldozer but they are the same beast. Being an "older" 8350 13/29 from what I can see you'll likely make it to the 4.5 ish range as long as you have decent airflow through your tower.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

The D14 got my FX 6300 up and around ~4.2Ghz IIRC. So that's not bad. Mind you my CPU needed a lot more Vcore than your might need so that was a limiting factor as well.

70c socket temps and 62x package temps are the max for FX.

As for the thermal paste, no that's not really enough. I usually do two, 3/8" lines in the shape of an X. A bit usually spills over the sides though.
What I would do is try a larger "pea" size amount, install the cooler then take the cooler off to check how it covers.
Once you find the size that works best size (and shape for that matter try just a line, the X etc.), clean off the paste and cooler with isopropyl alcohol (q-tips are great for the nooks and crannies!) and then re-apply the paste in the shape that worked best. Paste is cheap so you'd be best to check to ensure the IHS is covered well since you are going air

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'll tear the heatsink off and take a look later this weekend.

Johan45 said:

This forum is fine for this thread, no worries there. I'm with Silver on the TIM. You need a bigger gob than that. I use the "pea" method and works fine for me. There's a link in my sig that will take you to some reading about overclocking the FX processor. It's based on bulldozer but they are the same beast. Being an "older" 8350 13/29 from what I can see you'll likely make it to the 4.5 ish range as long as you have decent airflow through your tower.

Click to expand...

I've been over that link, but the images are expired At any rate, it's been my basis for the little bit of messing around with overclocking that I've already done. I had the system running pretty well around 4.4Ghz, but it wasn't really stable and I wanted to make this thread, backup my system, and try again. I wasn't aware the 8350 line had revisions, are the newer ones much better for overclocking?

Around 2014 week 29 or 1429 they had a slight die revision that yielded slightly better chips. Not likely worth it to try and get a new one.
If you post up some pics for us we can have a decent look at what's going on with your machine. What we like to see is HWMonitor free version open while P95 is running to see max voltages and temps. Then a shot of CPUz main, memory and SPD tabs. Looks like you have 4 sticks of memory so include the SPD for both please. That could be part of the problem depending on how much ram you have and rated speed you are running.