• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

seemingly impossible to overclock cpu. help plz

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

stainer711

Registered
Joined
Aug 21, 2006
Here are my system specs:

Antec NEOPOWER 480 ATX12V v2.0 480W Power Supply
ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
amd athlon San Diego 3700+ processor
2x 512mb dual channel Corsair Select Ram
x1900xt graphics card stock
----------------------------------------------------------

I have tried many overclocking configurations with the following results:

A) 2.6 ghz, 1:1 FSB:RAM, 1.40 voltage --- Failure in one second in prime95
B) 2.6 ghz, 333mhz Ram, 1.40 voltage --- " "
C) 2.6 ghz, 333mhz Ram 1.4125 voltage --- " "
D) 2.6 ghz, 333mhz Ram 1.425 voltage --- " "
E) 2.5 ghz, 1:1 FSB:RAM, 1.40 voltage --- Freezing of computer during games, graphical errors before that
D) 2.5 ghz, 1:1 FSB:RAM, 1.4125 voltage --- Blue screen of hardware failure on the starting of a program.
E) 2.5 ghz 1:1 FSB:RAM, 1.425 voltage --- " "
F) stock, 1:1 FSB:RAM, 1.4125 voltage --- " "
----------------------------------------------------------

WTF!!!
 
Overclock each part individually. Start with the CPU with the RAM running at the lowest speed possible. Then once you find the max of the cpu, find the max of ram by lowering the cpu multi. The stickies are your friend here.
 
That's not going to help because most of the problems don't occur immediately.

The only thing i haven't tried is:

G) 2.5ghz, 333mhz ram, 1.40 voltage ---

But i can pretty much predict the outcome..
 
okay, increasing the vcore by a bit made the system more stable but not perfectly so. I'm at 1.435 right now. I'll continue to increase.

Edit: 1.45 and stable so far. Prime95'ing it.

Edit 2: oops, just failed prime95 test on test 2, which is one test higher than what i passed before. I bumped it to 1.475.

Edit3: Just got a freeze. Bumping to 1.485. geeze...

Thanks for the awesome advice, man!! The blue screens of hardware failures were due to the memory, proven by an article i just stumbled accross.

Also, what are your load temps? Mine seems to be 48C overclocked. :#[
 
Last edited:
Have you tried Memtest86 to see if the RAM is stable? I'm running my 3700 SD very stable at 2.7. Also what are you memory timing/voltage? What model # is your RAM? Also at lower setting and see what fails first. RAM (Memtest86) or CPU (PRIME95)
 
At heavy load I wander up to 50 on a hot day, but high 40's is normally where it maxes out.

You can raise the Vcore to 1.55 without too much worry. Just don't go over 1.6.

Also, find out what the max Vdimm is for your memory and raise that too. (usually 2.6-2.8 volts.)
 
My memory is at 333mhz right now so i shouldn't have to worry. It is corsair value select, so i can't really overclock it.
 
I don't know what kind of bios options Asus boards have but if you see anything like "performance mode", "auto overclock", or "cpu spread spectrum" disable it and try again. My MSI board has all kinds of oc killing options activated by default that have to be turned off. Maybe yours does, or doesn't. Just a thought:shrug:
 
blue screens arent always mem but it is possible how far can you take you ram ? when you have the multi low ? did you drop your ldt? to 3 ?
value slelect doesnt = ocing ram you will need to run a divider more than likely are you on stock cooling when you were priming what was your temps
 
Did you say that its blue screening at stock? You may be having some sort of memory incompatibility.
 
Blue screen can also be a bad hardware. I was getting them from my dvd-rom drive.
 
Well, i can't seem to get CS:S stable with my overclocks. I was at this setting when my computer froze:

2.6 ghz, 333mhz ram, 1.50vcore --- froze during counter strike.

This doesn't make much sense because the overclock passed a few hours of prime95 but not even thirty minutes of counter strike. I think that maybe my gpu is having negative effects from the overclock.
 
try running your computer at a stock setting for a couple days and see if you have any crashes. I'm thinking it's a hardware problem like the DVD-ROM problem I had. Also do you know what stepping version 3700 SD you have? E4 or E6?
 
stainer711 said:
My memory is at 333mhz right now so i shouldn't have to worry. It is corsair value select, so i can't really overclock it.


I have coarsar, valuse select, and the same board. ANd my memory will go to 224Mhz before crapping out on test 5 at 225Mhz. At default timings. (its currently running at 208Mhz.) 30 hours prime stable. you might be suprised at how high it can go. :p
 
I've had this computer for six months and never had it crash on all stock settings.
 
stainer711 said:
Well, i can't seem to get CS:S stable with my overclocks. I was at this setting when my computer froze:

2.6 ghz, 333mhz ram, 1.50vcore --- froze during counter strike.

This doesn't make much sense because the overclock passed a few hours of prime95 but not even thirty minutes of counter strike. I think that maybe my gpu is having negative effects from the overclock.

My theory is if it can't pass Prime95 for 24 hours, the OC isn't stable. By freezing in game, it proves that you have some instability in the OC. Back it down and start over.

What VDIMM do you have the memory running at? Even on a divider, you "might" need to bump a little more voltage into the memory. My OCZ Plats run great at 2.7 volts, not sure what your Corsair VS will like.
 
I don't really want to pump random volts into my ram.

One setting that I haven't been touching is the pci clock synchronization, which has been on auto. I have had the sneaking suspicion that the overclocks are being foiled somehow by my gpu. I did some research and found out that on auto the bios may overclock the gpu to the fsb, which would probably nerf my overclock. I'm going to do some more testing with this setting on 33.33 mhz.

Another setting that i haven't touched is the ddram voltage, which is also on auto. If I knew my ram's stock voltage I would just set it to it.

What is strange is that I have the FSB:RAM at 1:1 without losening timings on my corsair value select at a FSB of 237.
 
Last edited:
Back