OC: FX6300 on M5A99FX PRO R2.0

Note: I know I am supposed to post with embedded pics not links, however this post is already lengthy enough, so I posted the info that you need to know, you can follow links for detailed Prime95, HW monitor, CPUz and UEFI info. Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone more knowledgeable about overclocking than me and my apologies if my process is a little unorthodox. I am aiming for a 4.5ghz from stock 3.5. I have ran stable 4.0 before. Now I have better cooling. Ready for a fun OC adventure.

Specs (not in title):
GPU: GTX 950 (EVGA) 2GB
HDD: 2TB Seagate
RAM: G.Skill 16GB @ 800MHz
After spending a few weeks reading countless forums, videos and guides, I am going to start pushing this chip. Recently purchased a Hyper 212, reapplied thermal paste and my CPU is idling at about 20C.

After selecting optimized defaults I made the following changes UEFI SETTINGS: here is a .bmp if you want to look for yourself
Disabled:
CoolQuiet
C1E
C6 State
HPC
CPU and PCIE Spread
Turbo Tech

Enabled:
SVM
APM (AUTO)
CPU and NB Loadline Cal (set to high)

Some forums say that APM should be disabled and HPC should be enabled for OC, however I trust one particular thread that told me that doing so only gains marginal benefit and is not worth the risk.

BTW my default DRAM Mhz is 1600 but my monitor readouts say 800? Is that just saying 800 per stick? ALSO I do not mess with NB or HT settings right now because that is beyond my experience, so any tips there would be great.

After setting the UEFI up that way I left voltage at auto and tested baseline, then 4.0, then 4.5. I know these are big clock jumps, but I was just doing quick tests for results and I disable Windows Write Cache to be safe. Here they are. All results are 20 mins into Prime95 blend test.

3.5 (stock)
png: VCORE: 1.236-1.248
CPU temp: 36C

4.0
png: VCORE: 1.284-1.296
CPU temp: 42C

4.5 - BSOD after windows log in
bumped it down to 4.4 after reboot

4.4 - two cores failed Prime95 in a few seconds
png: VCORE: 1.296-1.308
CPU temp: test failed so idle 21C

Now as far as I am concerned these temps are more than OK and I am guessing that the auto voltage did not raise it enough, so I am going to start manually raising it at 1.3125 V.
Any tips would be appreciated, am I missing anything? Can anyone tell me if the benefits of NB and HT settings are worth learning? Any quick tips? Am I doing something wrong?

M3T1CULOUS welcome to the forum. You are taking the correct steps but one, take the voltage off auto. Set it manually, start at 4.0 set the voltage to 1.30, run prime 20 minutes if you pass raise the multiplier .5 rinse repeat. Once you cannot pass 20 minutes of prime raise the voltage, keep the Cpu temps below 65c. If you can get to 4.5 and have temps under 65c try and pass 2 hours of prime blend, for 2 hours you may have to raise the volts a bit.

Dolk's FX guide is a very good guide, check out the sticky post, and let us know if you have more questions!

thanks! I do have another question btw, I manually set CPU V to 1.3, but my resource monitors are reading 1.272, is this normal? My bios is disobeying me.

also, I can't find the fx guide in the sticky thread.

also, sometimes my pc skips the UEFI when I restart, even though I think I have the correct boot settings. can't enter it by hitting f2, just skips to windows. I don't have the UEFI restart in the advanced startup options on windows 10. Any way to guarantee a boot to UEFI since I'm going to be restarting quite a bit

Bulldozer Overclocking Guide - Everything you need to overclock bulldozer properly.

Sorry, not dolks guide, he did the phenom one [emoji14]

I usually just mash the key(repeatedly) as soon as windows stops shutting down. I don't recall missing it on my old M5A97, and the gigabyte board in my signature had raid enabled on the additional raid controller.

M3T1CULOUS said:

thanks! I do have another question btw, I manually set CPU V to 1.3, but my resource monitors are reading 1.272, is this normal? My bios is disobeying me.

also, I can't find the fx guide in the sticky thread.

also, sometimes my pc skips the UEFI when I restart, even though I think I have the correct boot settings. can't enter it by hitting f2, just skips to windows. I don't have the UEFI restart in the advanced startup options on windows 10. Any way to guarantee a boot to UEFI since I'm going to be restarting quite a bit

Click to expand...

Is it giving you that reading under load? If so raise the Cpu LLc to very High. I have a similar motherboard as you and iirc that was the setting I used that kept the voltage closest to where it was set. As far as not seeing the UEFI do you have fast boot enabled?

M3T1CULOUS said:

thanks! I do have another question btw, I manually set CPU V to 1.3, but my resource monitors are reading 1.272, is this normal? My bios is disobeying me.

also, I can't find the fx guide in the sticky thread.

also, sometimes my pc skips the UEFI when I restart, even though I think I have the correct boot settings. can't enter it by hitting f2, just skips to windows. I don't have the UEFI restart in the advanced startup options on windows 10. Any way to guarantee a boot to UEFI since I'm going to be restarting quite a bit

Click to expand...

Maybe your bios uses a different key other than F2 to enter setup. Try the Del and the F10 keys or even Escape.

It does use f2 or del but it just seems to be stubborn sometimes, oh well

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It is underload, I think I will set LLC to very high. currently testing 4.3, working my way to 4.5, then I'll do a two hour test then an 8, then a 24.

no need to do more then 2 hours of Prime, it is in most cases sufficient to confirm stability.

Mandrake4565 said:

no need to do more then 2 hours of Prime, it is in most cases sufficient to confirm stability.

Click to expand...

This. If you do encounter instability, later while playing a game or something you can always bump it a notch up. I ended up having to because I kept hardlocking in games. P95 isn't perfect on testing stability, but it gets pretty close

No need to do 8 hrs... Unless you are setting it before bed or something.

Got up to 4.4 @ 1.38 V. Socket temp: 72, CPU temp: 64. Ran well for two hours but froze up shortly after. I think I can safely bump it up just a bit and get that 4.5. Will have to run another test tonight

You'd better make sure it's stable at 4.4 before trying to move up to 4.5. When you get up to the overclock level you are now at each additional increment of overclock generally takes proportionally more voltage to get stable than the one before it did.

M3T1CULOUS said:

Got up to 4.4 @ 1.38 V. Socket temp: 72, CPU temp: 64. Ran well for two hours but froze up shortly after. I think I can safely bump it up just a bit and get that 4.5. Will have to run another test tonight

Click to expand...

You are pretty much at the limits temp wise. May want to hold and get a better cooler. Generally 72 socket and 62 core are the limits I hear.

Ok I'll hold off. Thought it was 80 socket, 70 core. Don't wanna risk it tho

I agree with BF you're about as hot as you want to be. Additionally, you can put some small fans on the VRM heatsink and on the backside of the motherboard to get the socket temp down.

Alright thanks for the input

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2 is ok? I've heard many ppl make it sound like 12 or even 24 is necessary, always thought it sounded excessive to put under full load for that long

M3T1CULOUS said:

Alright thanks for the input

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2 is ok? I've heard many ppl make it sound like 12 or even 24 is necessary, always thought it sounded excessive to put under full load for that long

Click to expand...

2 is a good test. I run for 2. I did have to bump voltages a smidge after cause I kept crashing in some games, and that resolved it.

Food for thought: after the above, winter hit. I'd get home and fire up P95 to warm up my office cause it's in the basement w/ single pane windows. Sometimes I'd forget it was running till the next day or just forget to shut off P95 if I was doing homework. Room was warm enough, but never failed. Even as long as 12 hrs.

I agree with BF 2 is usually enough. You can also try using Aida 64 or Realbench but they will usually require about 4 hours to confirm stability. The reality is, if you find that you're having issues after passing any one of those stress tests then it's likely not stable enough for what you're using it for. This is a rare occasion and is usually the case when one is using their pc for "real work" such as rendering or numbers crunching. For most users, ie gaming and browsing 2 hours prime is enough.

I have had my Fx 8350 oced to 4.7 since day 1 back sometime in 2012, it hasn't given me a single issue since after passing 2 hours prime blend.

FYI the point of embedding pictures through the forum is so you don't have pictures disappear down the road.
It also makes it easier for us to see said pictures, avoids issues with people who post from work and can't see 3rd party links, and a few other reasons.

I overclocked at 4.4 and 1.39V and ran prime for 4 hours with no errors. I will post a gif tonight. However there is a problem, more of a minor annoyance actually. Every time I power on, I get a black screen and when I force it off and power back on it works. I can reproduce this every single time, did I accidentally change something in the bios? Has anyone has this issue after OC?