I need a crash course on Sandy Bridge.....

I miss my AMD BIO'es....LOL

Theres not much of a guide for Sandy Bridge like Dolks PII awesome guide...

Ive looked around and I *think* I have the general idea, however my main concern is....I dont know the exact limits for various voltages. Sure the BIOs info gives me some tid bit but, I would like to know what you guys consider reasonable limits.

System specs for the moment:
2600k (Durrr...heh)
MSI P67A-G65 (with latest BIOS)
2x 8800GTXs (man I feel sorry for my 600watt PSU)
G.Skill 1333 @ 1600 9-9-9 (Waiting for my 2200 to come in)

Cooling is a Corsair H50 w/ a push and pull fan setup.
CompUSA didnt have much of anything else, this will tide me over for now and let me get familiar with the cpu. Least thats the idea...heh.

After just throwing a 45x multi at the cpu and Auto everything else and low Vdroop, I did this just to see what I would get:
http://hwbot.org/community/submission/2157023_
...I like!

These are the bios settings:


Im not entirely sure what exactly these are and what they do:
Internal PLL Overvoltage
CPU I/O Voltage
CPU PLL Voltage

What do they do and what are the recommend limits without hurting the cpu?

Whats the max Vcore for, say watercooling (like real watercooling), Ive seen 1.45-1.625 and such. What about on dice?

Anyway, Ive left it at the 45x multi as it seems happy at that.
Thanks in advance for any advice, Im a COMPLETE intel Newb...
Gots lots of benching to do with 2x8800GTXs and 2x4850s...

Basically, the four cpu-related voltages I change on my board are:

Vcore
Vccsa
Vccio
Cpu-Pll

I've found that my chip likes <1.8v pll, and I was talking to Kyle about this yesterday, but on SB, it seems that one bump, +/- on some voltages can mean the difference between a successful boot, and not even seeing the Windows splash screen.

Vcore I'd stay under 1.5 unless you have some serious cooling, under 1.37 or so for 24/7.
Vtt/vccio (same thing) I'd stay under 1.2, and you chip may prefer quite a bit less. This is core stability to an extent and bclk OCing.
VCCSA is the memory controller (among other things), over 1.15 may not be the greatest plan, mine doesn't get any happier over 1.05 anyway.

Thanks again guys!

Any idea what the default CPU PLL voltage is, my bios lists all the others but not that one.

Set 1.475-1.5 VCore
Turn on Internal PLL overvoltage
1 tick on the LLC
Set the Ram up to it's specs
See how far the multi will go by booting and reseting until it will not enter windows.
You should be getting into windows @5 - 5.1 ghz at those voltages.

During the multi testing, if it posts and takes you to the windows loading screen, it means that multi is good, even if it fails to make it into windows. See how high the multilier will POST and get to OS load. OS booting failures can be taken care of with voltage and a bit of temperature control (chilled water,dice, etc...) You're primarily worried about finding what multi your chip is capable of. You'll know when you find the limit, because it will not even post or after post the screen sits blank.

Hope you've got a good one

Gotcha, makes sense.

So far, it will almost make to the desktop,@ x50, but crashes at the windows Welcome.

But thats Vcore Set @ 1.425...Although the board says 1.456... Just like my other MSI boards, it feeds a bit extra Vcore in there.

Am I right that it trys to set the Multi after the point in post that has the BIOS splash screen? (where yo hit "Delet" to get into the BIOS...heh)

So far it makes it to the Windows splash screen @ 53x...and locks LOL...
@ x54 it gets past loading the SATA controllers, then the BIOS splash, and then sits with a blinking cursor in the top left corner..

Angry said:

Am I right that it trys to set the Multi after the point in post that has the BIOS splash screen? (where yo hit "Delet" to get into the BIOS...heh)

So far it makes it to the Windows splash screen @ 53x...and locks LOL...
@ x54 it gets past loading the SATA controllers, then the BIOS splash, and then sits with a blinking cursor in the top left corner..

Click to expand...

That's what you were looking for. The little flashing cursor usually means, NEVER! lol. That doesn't mean that you can't start working the baseclock to work past it though. 53 on my chip needs about 1.525V or so. I run 1.575 for 55 and 1.625 for 56. 56 is only possible with COLD water. more than that needs dice usually.

Sweet, Thanks man. I think she got a little warm playing around, Started locking at the windows splash screen @ 50x. Was trying to make it into windows but this corsair H50 cant cut it lol... 64c.

Payday Im getting a 4x 120 Rad and some dice.
..And a better PSU.

That sounds about right... I've been using a TRUE 120 + dual Deltas and temps have gotten a bit hairy around 5300mhz with 4c/4t. However, I can run 2c/2t Wprime all day at the same settings.

Also, it seems no one answered, default Cpu Pll voltage is 1.8. Some chips like it higher, some like it lower. The one I currently have prefers <1.8v.

Awesome, Im working on 24/7 4.8ghz with reasonable temps so I can get some 3d benching in today. I dont know the limits of my 8800GTXs...Ill be finding out soon enough heh.

Sub'd.

This was extremely helpful for me and my new SB setup. Thanks!

Well, after playing with the system off and all day Ive kinda found some interesting quirks.

One in particular is, even if I load a saved OC Profile, that was stable all day. (like my 4.7ghz clocks with good temps) After Ive been playing with alot of stuff... it will absolutely refuse to boot at anything above defaults....Until I let it boot into windows, shut down and then start tweaking again. After that I can play with it until it decides to start locking the higher multis again. I was in WinXP at 5.3gz or so...

...Strange.

It's definitely a finnicky socket. I'm not to pleased with the way that it operates... it scores well... it's just a pain in the @$$!

Yep...I got a little frustrated with it the first few times it wouldnt boot past 45x... Even resetting the BIOs didnt fix it. If I let it boot, it was back to normal. Funky...

And Im pretty sure my PSU is on edge, or my XFX 8800GTX is... while running 3dmark, I heard what was like low pitched singing or squealing coming from the back of the video cards near the PCI-e power connection. It varied with what was going on in 3dmark. I dont hear it in games...so far. Just 3dmark...?

I gota figur that one out...Ive never had my hardware singing...haha.

Is that a baked card? Most of the time, that's capacitor squeal.

As for the quirks, SB is just funky. Sometimes it needs to boot at stock just to get Windows to work again.

ChanceCoats123 said:

Is that a baked card? Most of the time, that's capacitor squeal.

As for the quirks, SB is just funky. Sometimes it needs to boot at stock just to get Windows to work again.

Click to expand...

As far as I know neither of my cards have been baked. The XFX itself is minty compared to EVGA, its clocked higher by default and even runs cooler...

Hmm, maybe that was my issue earlier when I was trying to bench it by itself in XP...

Which Psu are you using? (Size, brand, series?)

ChanceCoats123 said:

Is that a baked card? Most of the time, that's capacitor squeal.

As for the quirks, SB is just funky. Sometimes it needs to boot at stock just to get Windows to work again.

Click to expand...

Uh...caps don't squeal, inductors (and transforms) will hum (think of power stations), and with smaller cores the hum will change pitches (namely, it will get higher with a smaller core)...but I'm unaware of any cap that's made a squeal other than right before it blew up (they do do it then, but that's like milliseconds before they explode...ask me how I know )

That's what the was for... not my specialty. Lol, Maybe it was chokes that squeal...