970 Overclocking issues.

[pdot]

Hello all. Was hoping maybe someone could throw me a little help? Perhaps? Anyway, I've got a little issue with my PC. I can't seem to overclock it for the life of me. I've tried a couple settings and nothing seems to stick. My computer just reboots into Bios and I just don't know what to do at this point. I spent a couple bucks on a Hyper 212 EVO Fan and a nice new motherboard.




CASE: Rosewill Challenger
MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+
CPU: AMD Phenom 970
GPU: Sapphire 7870 Ghz Edition
PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W Modular
RAM: G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1866
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 250 gb

I've tried changing the settings, upping the voltage to around 1.45, disabling CIe and nothing.. I just can't hit any mark but stock. I don't know what to do.

 

[RGone]

How many sticks of ram in your system? If you have two sticks you have them in the wrong slots for dual
channel mode.

tRP ram timing is at 8 and not 9 or larger. In the memory timings.

You have the ram running at DDR1606 and some of the Deneb cpus will not utilize DDR1600 easily. You might need to drop the ram speed to DDR1333 and try and see if you can at least overclock to 18 x 200. Since you say you cannot overclock AT all.
RGone...

 

[pdot]

2 sticks. Manual told me to put them in slots 2+4.. I tried 1+3 and now 1+2. Nothing seems to bring them into dual channel.

And I can't seem to change the timings on this thing. It's being a pain in the arse. It reverts to that old one every time. I'm manually putting them in and nothing.

Auto mode just puts them to 9 9 9 24 @ 1333.

 

[RGone]

If that board is a REV 3.0 you need to flash to bios FB at least and not the FA bios you have now since FB fixed memory compatibility. Part of your problems could be the bios version you are using.
RGone...

 

[trents]

Are the two sticks of ram identical? Are they a matched dual channel kit?

Also, you need to realize that although your memory may be capable of 1866 mhz the integrated memory controller of the CPU (ICM) is not. That CPU has an integrated memory controller that is designed to run ram at 1333 mhz. Sometimes we can get the Deneb core CPUs to run ram at 1600 mhz but they are most comfortable at 1333. So what you need to do is configure the ram in bios to 1066 mhz because you will be overclocking the FSB in order to get the CPU to go faster. When you overclock the FSB the ram will also speed up. So you want to start it slower than your target speed of 1333 mhz. Same thing with the HT Link speed. Start it lower than the stock 2000 mhz so that has room to grow and not become a source of instability.

Also, I note that your core voltage (CPU-z tab "CPU") is only at 1.332. Have you tried increasing that. That seems low for a stock X4 970, much less an overclocked one.

This is probably all very confusing to you so the smart thing to do to facilitate our helping you would be to take digital pictures of the overclocking sections of your bios and attach them to your posts. That way we can see what you see in bios.

Also, disable Cool N Quiet and C1E. Then go into bios and configure Control Panel Power Options to High Performance if it is not already.

 

[Mandrake4565]

I looked at you manual are the slots on your board are confusing are you sure you put the sticks in the correct slots? If you look the slots are numbered starting from the one closest to the CPU 4,2,3,1 As you said the manual says 2 and 4 but those are the 2 closest to the cpu or 3 and 1 the two furthest from the cpu.

 

[pdot]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460 Are the ones I've got. I got them on special last year.

I think I've run at that voltage for months now with no crashes but I can up it no problem. I had it at 1.450 when trying to overclock. When I failed I just set it back to normal.

 

[pdot]

I looked at you manual are the slots on your board are confusing are you sure you put the sticks in the correct slots? If you look the slots are numbered starting from the one closest to the CPU 4,2,3,1 As you said the manual says 2 and 4 but those are the 2 closest to the cpu or 3 and 1 the two furthest from the cpu.

They were confusing to me as well. I just imagined they were the furthest from the CPU.

Edit* I have them on 2 and 4 now btw.

 

[Mandrake4565]

Ok well then you had them in 3 and 1 which should have them at Dual mode. Anyhow I would start with the suggestions above and try lowering your ram to 1333 or even 1066 so you can at least attempt to eliminate the possibility of the ram causing the instability issue.

 

[pdot]

If that board is a REV 3.0 you need to flash to bios FB at least and not the FA bios you have now since FB fixed memory compatibility. Part of your problems could be the bios version you are using.
RGone...

Just saw this, I do have REV 3.0 and I haven't flashed my bios at all.
Gonna look it up.

 

[trents]

Okay, the memory modules are identical but you haven't commented on the other issue I raised about IMC limitations of the CPU. Have you tried starting the ram at a slower speed and the HT Link as well?

 

[pdot]

Okay, the memory modules are identical but you haven't commented on the other issue I raised about IMC limitations of the CPU. Have you tried starting the ram at a slower speed and the HT Link as well?

Sorry, was making some changes. I put the Ram back on 1+3 and its now on Dual. I guess I needed to update the BIOS.

I lowered the ram to 1333 and upped the Bus to 233. Here's a SS so far.

 

[trents]

Progress.

You still need to lower the HT Link frequency (no performance penalty for doing so) and your CPUNB frequency is getting high enough that you need to supplement that voltage. Try 1.225.

Your ram is now running at about 1500 mhz according to the Memory tab of CPU-z. CPU-z reports memory speed at half of what you would expect because it's reporting the non-DDR bus frequency, not the DDR3 rate.

Now what you need to do is stress test with the Prime95 blend test for at least two hours. Blue screens, cores dropping out of the test, restarts or lockups mean the system is not yet stable. Have HWMonitor open on the desktop anytime you stress test and watch core and CPU socket temps (TMPIN2). You don't want the former to exceed 55-60c and the latter to exceed 65-70c.

 

[pdot]

Progress.

You still need to lower the HT Link frequency (no performance penalty for doing so) and your CPUNB frequency is getting high enough that you need to supplement that voltage. Try 1.225.

Your ram is now running at about 1500 mhz according to the Memory tab of CPU-z. CPU-z reports memory speed at half of what you would expect because it's reporting the non-DDR bus frequency, not the DDR3 rate.

Now what you need to do is stress test with the Prime95 blend test for at least two hours. Blue screens, cores dropping out of the test, restarts or lockups mean the system is not yet stable. Have HWMonitor open on the desktop anytime you stress test and watch core and CPU socket temps (TMPIN2). You don't want the former to exceed 55-60c and the latter to exceed 65-70c.

On it. Thank you.

HTLINK is at around 2097 and upped the voltage like you said. Going to run prime95 now.

 

[Mandrake4565]

pdot if you run into problems you may want to set the Dram timings to the Jedec profile #5 and the commad rate to 2t for now just to eliminate the possibility that the ram timings are too tight.

 

[pdot]

I ran prime95 for a good 2 hours and no errors, but I'm going to leave it running later on tonight. My temps were sitting at around 56-59c.

I'm open for suggestions, whatever you think would be best I'm all for it. I just wanted to try overclocking a little to see how it goes. I mainly game on this PC so I don't think I need it bad but it's nice having a bit better response from my PC.

 

[Mandrake4565]

Well if you ran prime for 2 hours at 4.0 you are stable in my book. If you are using it for gaming then you probably don't need to push the cpu any further. You may want to OC the GPU a bit. Also your temps are about as high as you want them.

 

[trents]

I ran prime95 for a good 2 hours and no errors, but I'm going to leave it running later on tonight. My temps were sitting at around 56-59c.

I'm open for suggestions, whatever you think would be best I'm all for it. I just wanted to try overclocking a little to see how it goes. I mainly game on this PC so I don't think I need it bad but it's nice having a bit better response from my PC.

Were those core temps or socket temps?

 

[pdot]

Were those core temps or socket temps?

Core

 

[tikithorsen]

Leave the Bus at 200, get the CPU-NB at 2400MHz 1.250v and set your ram at 1600MHz 9-9-9-24 1.5. Also set the LLC to High or Ultra High, in my personal experience they are the same.

IMHO, you should do that first before actually OC'ing the CPU itself. Once that is stable you can do the later.
If you CPU is a B.E. don't OC using the BUS.