SOLVED Overclocking Phenom II x6 1090T

I am attempting to overclock my AMD Phenom II x6 1090T and I just wanted to make sure that my temperatures are alright. The clock is currently at 3.8ghz. I'm not really sure how long I should run a stability test for, but I figured if I ran it for 5 minutes and looked at how high it got, that would be fine. This image was taken during the 4th minute of the stability test. At that time, the temp was about 47C; I saw it get up to 48C earlier but no higher. It runs at about 30C idle. From my limited experience with overclocking and cpu temperatures, I deduced that these temperatures were fine if not pretty good. Would it be alright to try for 4ghz? Should I run the test for longer? All that I am doing currently to cause the overclock is change the multiplier in the bios to 19. Is there something else that I should do? Also, I left the cool n' quiet function on but it doesn't appear to be functioning. I assume that this is not a big deal but I am not sure. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
-Matt

Here is some information about my computer:
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor
XFX HD-587X-ZNFV Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready
GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
2 x G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model
2 x SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive -RAID 0
A-DATA 500 Series AS592S-32GM-C 2.5" 32GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm Ceramic CPU -Just recently put this in; used to have stock
Antec Nine Hundred + EA650 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 650W Power Supply

Those temps are fine. Mid 50's seems to be as high as you want to go.

Crank it up a little more!

Those are some very low temps for such a crappy cooler!

mxthunder said:

Those are some very low temps for such a crappy cooler!

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Is it that crappy? I wouldn't know. I read the reviews and they were generous so I figured I'd go for it. Not to mention it was only 30 dollars.
During normal gaming, the CPU doesn't reach 40C usually staying around 36-37.

The temps look a little low to me for the Vcore based on my experience. Are the temps core or mobo? The Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 64 is rated at 125W thermal capacity. My experience confirms this to be about right. As you OC it may have a tougher time controlling temps than with your current voltage and frequency. When you find your max OC then you should run IntelBurn, OCCT or Prime 95 for awhile to see what the true max core temp is. You will be surprised how quickly it can rise with a 4-6 core CPU.

Yeah, the freezer 64 is pretty old school, the Hyper212+ I think is better for similiar price, still good temps, i think you could get close to 4 with some mroe tweaking.

Thubans run way colder than their Deneb brethren...keep pushing till you max out at 55c, then go get a better cooler.

ActivatedLemon said:

Is it that crappy? I wouldn't know. I read the reviews and they were generous so I figured I'd go for it. Not to mention it was only 30 dollars.
During normal gaming, the CPU doesn't reach 40C usually staying around 36-37.

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Well, it was a great cooler about 4 years ago, so maybe they were old reviews. Still worthy, but works best on single and dual core CPU's

I have another question. I have been tinkering a little bit trying to get 4ghz, but things get weird before I even get to the windows log in screen; it basically alters between blue screening and just straight up crashing. My question is am I doing any physical damage to my computer by doing this? At what point do things get sketchy? I have tried changing the multiplier as well as the fsb but I just cant seem to get it to boot at 4ghz. I am afraid to boost the voltage because I feel like that has potential to actually do damage and I don't know exactly which voltage to change. Any recommendations? Thanks

A screen shot of the CPU-Z CPU, Memory, and SPD tabs would help a lot if you want specific advise about BIOS settings ...

ActivatedLemon said:

I have another question. I have been tinkering a little bit trying to get 4ghz, but things get weird before I even get to the windows log in screen; it basically alters between blue screening and just straight up crashing. My question is am I doing any physical damage to my computer by doing this? At what point do things get sketchy? I have tried changing the multiplier as well as the fsb but I just cant seem to get it to boot at 4ghz. I am afraid to boost the voltage because I feel like that has potential to actually do damage and I don't know exactly which voltage to change. Any recommendations? Thanks

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You could corrupt the O/S but the hardware should be fine as long as it's not over-volted/over-heated.

Here are those screens.

A screen shot of the CPU-Z CPU, Memory, and SPD tabs would help a lot if you want specific advise about BIOS settings ...

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Am I reading that right? You're running three sticks of RAM??? That can cause a lot of instability. RAM should only be used in matched pairs for OC'ing ...

Not sure if he's running 3 or 4 sticks but the memory speed rating and brand is different in slot #2 compared to slots #3 & #4, which isn't good.

So I thought it was obvious, but I have limited experience with overclocking. However, I would consider myself a computer guy. I was unaware that 3 sticks/ different brands was a bad idea; I apologize. But if we could skip the oh-so-subtle-but-still-there condescension and get straight to a solution, I would be grateful.
So
buy 2 sticks of the EXACT same ram as slots 3 and 4?

Not sure who you are talking too but my comment was sincere and not meant to be condescending in any manner.

In a dual channel memory system you typically run one DIMM only or even numbers of DIMMS to use dual-channel mode. If you have a need for more than 4 GB. of RAM then I'd purchase the exact same memory for the other two slots. You could also just use the 2 x2 that you already have making sure the DIMMS are in the correct slots for dual channel and remove the odd DIMM.

ActivatedLemon said:

So I thought it was obvious, but I have limited experience with overclocking. However, I would consider myself a computer guy. I was unaware that 3 sticks/ different brands was a bad idea; I apologize. But if we could skip the oh-so-subtle-but-still-there condescension and get straight to a solution, I would be grateful.
So
buy 2 sticks of the EXACT same ram as slots 3 and 4?

Click to expand...

If I'm reading your board manual correctly you need to move the stick from slot #3 to slot #2 and leave the stick in slot #2 out.


I'm surprised the system would run dual-channel with the odd numbered sticks so, when you're done with your CPU/cpuNB overclock you can run some benches, then add the extra stick back in (if it doesn't de-stabilize the overclock) and run the benches again. For now, while you're finding the top end of the CPU/cpuNB, it's best to keep everything else as simple as possible so there's no chance of interference. CPU speed is, after all, the King of Performance.


BTW: I wasn't trying to be condescending in any way. I often make mistakes and since it's unusual to see three sticks I thought maybe I was missing something. My confusion was caused by CPU-Z showing dual channel, which I didn't think was possible with three sticks. I guess we should put a little more stress in checking for the RAM configuration when we write our OC Guides. I apologize for any mis-communication I may have caused ...

Thank you very much for taking the time to help me. I will try removing the extra stick to see if that is what's causing the instability when I try to go above 3.8ghz because at this current time, it's crashing no matter what I do to get above 3.8.

I know it's late but I have simular ram and are you undervolted on the G-Skill? should it be 1.6 to 1.66 volts? I'm not sure, you have one letter different in the model number, NEVERMIND, just saw that the specs say 1.5v.

You are running the ram slow though, 12800 = 1600 Mhz or 800 x 2, I am amazed that you can get 3 sticks to run in dual channel, didn't know that was possible.

Seems to me that if it won't boot at a given speed and voltage, it won't matter to get better cooling being that the CPU takes a few seconds to overheat. I'm guessing 30-60 seconds. If it WILL boot but get's unstable that's a hopeful sign that it can be tweaked with the aid of the people here and perhaps a better cooler.
Maximum PC rates the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus as a great cooler for $30. Tests show it as good as my $80 Zalman! It cooled a Intel core 2 duo Q6700 to 43C at full load.