needing Sempron overlocking help

Hi guys! I'm new to these forums. As such, I'll try to be as polite, (occasionally) useful, and inoffensive as possible. I've learned a lot from reading several of the threads here, and am wondering if I could get some feedback on my current setup. Any advice? I can't seem to get the cpu higher without losing stability. Changing the vcore doesn't help.



My specs:

Sempron 140 (unlocked, obviously) Stock cooler
Gskill Sniper 1333 Mhz 4GB x2 (8 GB total)
Evga gt 430
Vertex 2 60 GB
Asrock 970 Extreme4

Case: Antec Three Hundred Illusion
PSU: Kingwin Laser Platinum 550 watts.

Your HT Link speed at 2500 is too high and will likely cause instability under stress. Lower the HT Link multiplier in bios to 8x so that the HT Link speed is brought back down to the stock 2000 mhz. It's productive to allow the CPUNB ("NB" in CPU-z) to climb some but not so with HT Link on this series of processor.

Also, please show the "SPD" tab in CPU-z. That is more helpful than the motherboard tab.

Right, sorry. Here's the SPD.

I'll go lower the HT multiplier. Thanks for the response!

EDIT: Btw, the current settings are indeed stable. I followed your advice in some of the other threads, and downloaded prime95. I let it run its course, and everything worked fine.

You've got your memory frequency set pretty low. Any particular reason? You should start it in bios at 1066 instead of 800 and put the timings on Auto.

I lowered the NB frequency multiplier, and now the HT Link is at 2000.

Oops, sorry. I must have posted just after you did.

For some reason, my computer refuses to POST with anything higher than the current ram frequency. Hence the low timings to compensate.

Do you not have the ability to separate your NB frequency adjustment from your HT Link frequency adjustment? Some of the lower end boards don't I know. You want to have your NB up around 24-2600 but keep your HT Link between 1800-2000.

Arbiter Odie said:

For some reason, my computer refuses to POST with anything higher than the current ram frequency. Hence the low timings to compensate.

Click to expand...

What is your ram voltage set to in bios? You should be able to run that ram at 667/1333.

trents said:

Do you not have the ability to separate your NB frequency adjustment from your HT Link frequency adjustment? Some of the lower end boards don't I know. You want to have your NB up around 24-2600 but keep your HT Link between 1800-2000.

Click to expand...

I didn't see a separate option... but my motherboard isn't really low end. Is it?

Let me go check again.

As for the ram... yes, you are correct. It should. I don't know why it doesn't like the current setup. My voltage it set at 1.55 volts to compensate for instability (my system would BSOD after about 20 minutes of usage). It didn't like 1.5 volts.

The board I'm using has UEFI bios, and it clearly shows that whenever I try to set the ram to 1334 Mhz, it actually sets it to 1666 Mhz. Which is not right. So I leave it at 1000 Mhz (actually five hundred something Mhz).

Sounds like a buggy bios. Is there an update?

The board is by Asrock. There is a firmware update available, but I'm afraid to change anything like that.


And, yeah. About the HT multiplier? It was right under my nose... listed as HT bus speed. I'm fixing it now. Sorry about that!

It didn't like that! When I changed the HT frequency to the correct settings, it disabled my second core. I raised the voltage by another .0125 to compensate, and that solved the problem. I'm dual core, 2000 Mhz HT link. Yay!

As I've messed with the settings, it seems that my second core likes high voltages, and is actually faster than the first core. It always finishes its prime95 tests faster.

Trents, I went ahead and updated the bios... and WOW! The HT bus speed actually makes sense now! I had to guess the frequency previously.

Let me try the ram again.

So, you've unlocked the core on that Sempron, huh? You'll lose the ability to monitor core temps then. You must be waiting on Bulldozer since you now have that expensive motherboard paired with a cheap CPU.

You didn't reply to my inquiry and suggestion about raising the CPUNB. It may be called NB in your bios but don't confuse it with the NB chipset.

What is "UEFI" bios anyway?

Hello again! Sorry I didn't respond earlier, Real Life is interfering with my hobbies.

Responding in order to your posts:

Yes, I am waiting for bulldozer. Eagerly. I can't wait! I chose this board because it is officially able to run bulldozer (according to AMD).
I unintentionally smashed my last processor, so I decided on a sempron while I wait for bulldozer. It works.
Believe it or not, I can still monitor the temps. The asrock board came with a drives cd which had some additional stuff on it. Some of it was bloatware, but the rest of it was useful (XFast USB, asrock's overclocking program, etc...) and the overclocking program is able to read the temps even with both cores enabled. It's awesome! This board might be able to read the temps with other programs also. Which would you advise?

I didn't read the NB frequency post closely enough. I'll try that when I get home. It does have a separate option, but I think the multiplier is already at the maximum (going from memory here).

UEFI bios is the same as regular bios, only prettier with mouse control.

I'll post again as soon as I've messed with the NB frequency.

I should point out that the bios update did not fix the ram frequency issue. It still treats it very strangely. If I bump the Fsb (I think that's the right one) up 10 more points, it shows my ram as running at 1700 Mhz (Post failure, btw)!!! Which doesn't make sense at all! Something is obviously not right there.

@"trents" >> Unified Extensible Firmware Interface comes as the thing after Intel's EFI to replace the original Bios firmware interface. UEFI is newest interface between firmware and operating system.

@"Arbiter Odie" >> overclocking program is able to read the temps even with both cores enabled. Which is to say that with a core unlocker working you can read a cpu temp? BUT my guess after knowing Asus does the same with Asus Probe, but actually reads out a cpu temp but not 'core temp'.

Okay I always wonder when a chipset comes first and then the cpu is very long in coming. So I did a little scratching around. There are some interesting points floating around. This especially comes to mind when there is so much hype about the 9xx chipset being for the Zambezi (bulldozer) cpu but has some workability with previous processors.

You have to remember that CPU-z is freeware and has to be updated very regularly by someone working for nothing with CPU-z and making money elsewhere.

So what about the older chipset naming as we have "known" it? To say what is the difference between 990FX and 990X as we once understood FX and X.


So looks like it may possibly be a 990X chipset being marketed as a 970 and sold for cheaper.


Yet when I loaded CPU-Z, under Chipset it shows "ATI | ID5A14 | REV 02
and Southbridge as "AMD | SB850 | REV 40", Obviously the displays are incorrect

Man that Asrock website almost ticked me off since it seems not fully knowing where to go for the Asrock 970 Extreme4 motherboard. But finally got to the supported cpu list for that motherboard.

When I look at what Asrock says about supported Sempron and what your images above say about your Sempron...well there are differences for sure.


Key in visibility are the Sargas series in C3 revision with bios P1.20.

Well, I'm not back to my computer yet, but I wanted to respond to this while I'm out and about.

First, thank you for correcting my description of the UEFI bios.
Second, I went and checked. The program is Asrock's Extreme Tuning Utility. Very handy, and yes. It does show me the cpu temp. I don't recall it showing me specific core temperatures.

Third, thank you for the info you dug up on my motherboard. It doesn't have any direct affect on me, but it was still interesting.

Finally, I don't quite understand what you are saying about my processor. I got the revision C2 sempron 140 sargas 2.7 Ghz from newegg. I'd post a link, but newegg deleted it about three days ago.