AMD Athlon II x3 450 Rana... Need help to OC

[Ry0uSh1n]

Hello all. New to OC and recently upgraded my mobo and cpu from
AMD Phenom 9500 2.2GHz Quad Core Processor to AMD Athlon II x3 450 Rana
and my mobo from a Asus M3A. Now my porblem is that, after a fresh install of windows 64 ultimate my cpu is being listed as the below. I have not tweaked any bios as of yet, but would like to. I have seen threads where you can unlock the 4th core on rana, but have been unable to come across any details on how to do so.

Now I know there are better cpu's & gpu's out there but I am not much into heavy gaming and dont really require all the beefed up mobo's, cpu, gpu's. I had a friend help me out with ocing my phenom 9500 to get to 2.4ghz, but have no idea where to even begin with my current setup. So if anyone could please guide me in the right direction, I would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Ry

Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
CPU
AMD Athlon II X3 450
Rana 45nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 669MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-78LMT-S2P (Socket M2)
Graphics
Acer X233H (1920x1080@60Hz)
1024MB GeForce 210 (EVGA)
Cooling
Corsair H50 Hydro Series.

EDIT: Found out why was being listed as a different cpu, changed the bios to "UNLOCK" the 4th core, and that changed name of cpu. updated specs to reflect.

 

[trents]

Which revision of this motherboard do you have? If you look on the board itself you will find a model number and revision stamped in white letters, usually beside the PCI-e slot.

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

the rev is printed on the bottm left corner .. it is rev 5.0

 

[trents]

The board looks like it only supports 95W CPUs: http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4125

If you unlock that fourth core you essentially turn that CPU of your into a 125W Phenom II X4. I would not recommend it.

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

ok, ill will take that advice into mind, could i still oc the rana on 3 cores, with my current build?

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

EDIT: double post .. sry

 

[mammut]

I think it will still be closer to a 95W than a 125W model even after unlock of 4th core. There is no L3 cache that will unlock on the Athlon II, afaik. You can try it, run CPU-Z before and after unlock and post us some screens.

The way to unlock it described in the user manual and also available&seen in BIOS.

( BTW I have the same board )

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4125#sp

And yes, you can still run your Athlon II X3 in that board.

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

in the bios it allows me to unlock and changes to the phenom .. the speed doesnt change, only thing thats different in cpuz is that after roughly 20 secs the ghz speed randomly changes to a lower value .. roughly 800 then back again .. this is with either the 4th core unlocked or at stock settings..

 

[mammut]

OK. So CPU-Z reads it as 125W Phenom ? In that case, better to leave the 4th core locked. The frequency flapping is the
Cool'nQuiet feature of the CPU doing its thing.
Can be disabled if BIOS if wanted.

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

the thing is thou the coolnquiet is disabled by default and is not installed software side either ..

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

with that being the case, i am chosing to leave the 4th locked, and just go off the 3. its just a matter of settings in bios that id like to atleast achieve 3.8 if at all 4.0 with this cpu. my first board was an asus, was simple enough for me to tweak with some help from a friend, but this board is different, and thus i feel like a stranger in a new land ..

 

[trents]

You might get 3.8. I'd feel more confident of that if you had a higher end motherboard but you have what you have. One other issue is that you are running DDR3 1333 ram. DDR3 1600 would give you some more flexibility. You will either have to overclock your memory or underclock it to get the CPU at 3.8 since you don't have a black edition CPU, i.e, one with an unlocked core speed multiplier.

The first thing to do is to run some stress tests at stock frequencies and voltages to check temps and stability before you overclock. Don't assume your temps will be fine just because you have water cooling. If the block isn't seated well or the TIM isn't applied properly you could have overheating problems. So here is what we recommend at this stage. Download and install these three free programs:

CPU-z

HWMonitor

Prime95

Open HWMonitor on the desktop and leave it open while you run a 20 minute Prime95 stress test. Watch two sections on HWMonitor: 1. The core temp section. Don't allow the core temps to exceed 65c and if they do stop the test, and 2. The "CPUTIN" line or if it is absent, the section that has the TMPINx lines. If the latter, keep an eye on TIMPIN2. If the temp in that line exceeds 70c, stop the test.

Post back with attached pics of the HWMonitor iterface immediately after this stress test so that we can look at your max temps and also your voltages. Don't close HWMonitor before you crop and capture the image with Snipping Tool in Windows Accessories. To attach the image with your post, click on Go Advanced at the bottom of any new post window and when the advanced post window appears, click on the little paperclip icon at the top. The rest will be obvious.

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

idle & stress pics

here are the requested pics of both my idle time and stress time

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

I cant seem to make them out, but I hope you are able to.

 

[trents]

You have about 10c of temp headroom for overclocking. You don't have to attach images with system idling. If you have HWMonitor open before you begin the stress test it will record the idle temp in the middle "Minimum" temp column.

Okay, the smart thing for you to do now is to take digital camera pictures of the overclocking section of your bios and attach them with a post so we can see what you see and will be using the same terminology your bios uses. But to start with, turn off Cool N Quiet and C1E in bios. Then go into Windows Control Panel Power Options and configure it to High Performance if it isn't. That will turn off all the green stuff that downthrottles frequencies and voltages and messes with overclocking.

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

bios

heres my M.I.T and advanced bios screens.. was unsure if advanced screen would be needed, but contains CPU info.

 

[trents]

Okay, I've put a red line by the controls you will or may need to manipulate.The ones that are also underlined are the main ones. The big idea is that you will be increasing the "CPU Host Clock Control" to speed up the CPU frequency. However, at some point you will need to start increasing the CPU Voltage Control in order to supply the extra electrical energy needed for the CPU to go faster. As you do these two things you will notice that the temps start to go up so there is a limit to how far you can increase these things. You will be testing for stability and monitoring temps at each step along the way. Don't worry about giving the CPU too much voltage as temps will limit that long before you get into the high voltage danger range. At some point you will run up against a temp wall that you cannot climb because you are getting heat related instability. That will be your maximum overclock.

That's the big picture. However, there are other variables you will need to manipulate along the way to maintain stability of the system as the overclock climbs. You see, as you start increasing the CPU Host Clock Control (we usually call this the FSB for "Front Side Bus" so if I use that term it is synonymous) there are three other subsystem frequencies that also climb right along with it because they are tuned to the FSB. Any one of them can cause instability if they get too high so at certain points you need to lower them. Namely, they are the "Memory Clock", the "HT Link Frequency" and the "CPU Northbridge Frequency". They can't necessarily keep up with the CPU overclock.

So here's what I want you to do next. Take the following controls off of "Auto":

CPU Host Clock Control

CPU Northbridge Frequency (aka, CPUNB)

HT Link Frequency

System Voltage Control

Load Line Control (Please let me know what the other choices are on this one besides Auto).

Then, set the Memory Clock to x5.33

Then, post back with attached pics of these three CPU-z tabs: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD".

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

as requested

I changed the values from auto to the next value up if it had a value to change to.
CPU NB x5
HT LINK Freq. x1
Mem x5.33
Under load line control has the following options:
Regular
Extreme

 

[trents]

The values in CPU-z look spot on for stock and what I was expecting to see but you comments about the HT Link frequency adjustment being x1 and the CPUNB frequency being x5 don't make sense. Both those adjustments should show a stock value of 10x when you take them off of Auto. How about attaching a digital pic of that section of the bios again please. Both the HT Link Frequency and the CPUNB frequency are the product of the FSB frequency and the multiplier they are set to. Stock FSB is 200 mhz. Stock HT Link and CPUNB frequencies are 2000 mhz for your CPU. Therefore, the multiplier for both at stock should be 10x since 200x10 equals 2000. If the HT Link frequency is only set to 1x as you say that would give a value of 1x200 or 200 mhz, not 2000 mhz. If the HT Link Frequency is only set to 5x as you say, that would give a value of 5x2000 or 1000. This is why I'm confused and would like to see new pics of your bios.

Yes, and put Load Line to Regular.

Where in the world are you located? I'm trying to figure out the time zone difference between us. It's about 7:30 AM where I am.

Also, please create a "Sig" so that your system component information travels with every post you make. A lot of the stuff you shared in your first post about your OS and your "parts" should be there but please include info about your case make and model. Case ventilation is important. As threads get long the info shared in early posts gets buried. It's a courtesy thing to help those who are helping you so they don't have to go hunting through the thread to get an overview of your system components. To create a Sig, go to the top of the page and click on Quick Links and then click on Edit Signature. You can look at mine if you want for a pattern or some the Sig of some of the other regular contributors if you wish.

One other thing I should point out that might be confusing to you is that CPU-z does not report memory frequency in terms of DDR3 transfer rate. It reports it in DDR "bus frequency" terms which will be half of what you expect. So the 535.7 mhz you see for "DRAM Frequency" in the CPU "Memory" tab is really 1066 mhz. When I had you change your Memory Clock from x6.66 to x5.33 we slowed the memory down from 1333 to 1066 in order to make some headroom for overclocking.

 

[Ry0uSh1n]

those were the values below the "auto" setting. they did not change to the values you listed. As such I will update them to the values you specified. Also, I live in florida, my schedule is a little out of wack due to holiday. Apologies for that. Updated my sig to show what I knew off the top of my head about my current system specs.