AMD Overdrive is crazy

[Gin]

Hi all, I was just playing around with my O.C, to enjoy my new PSU lots of fun.
The thing is I was reading this stuff about AMD Overdrive being accurate when you stress your CPU either your temps gets hot. This makes sense since when I'm at idle it will show a fake 51-65ºC. So I went prime95 to see a more realistic numers under load so in HWmonitor my core temps peak at 48ºC "I'm running soft O.C @4,475 @1.365. The thing is the numbers in AMD Overdrive became even more no sense showing 29ºC when running prime95 while in HWmonitor it shows 48ºC. Any ideas why I can't get proper temps on AMD Overdrive?
Thank you all in advance.

 

[kyfire]

AOD shows your temperature margin....aka temperature left till max......not actual CPU/core temperatures

 

[Mandrake4565]

The newer versions of AMD overdrive do not shot temperature, it shows distance to Max recommended temps. So 51-65c means you're 51-65c away from the Max recommended, that's why it went to 29c when running prime. When under load just use HWmonitor to measure the temps, at idle the AMD temperature sensors aren't accurate, so you may see 8-15c idle temps even though you may have 22c ambient temps, which would be impossible with ambient cooling.

 

[Gin]

So literally I have 29ºC more to go fun overclocking till it reach 0 ºC? or it does not work like that.
My CPU socket temp hits 65ºC but I'm going to fix that soon with a backplate fan cuting my case as mandrake explained to me in the past I think.

 

[RGone]

Socket temp is suggested to be <72c ish and Core/Package temp is suggested at <62c ish. So if you see 65c on the socket/CPU temp in HWMonitor...yes you have about 7c left until you reach the suggested max for cpu/socket temp.
RGone...ster.

 

[Mandrake4565]

My CPU socket temp hits 65ºC but I'm going to fix that soon with a backplate fan cuting my case as mandrake explained to me in the past I think.

This is the temp you should be concerned about. Overdrive is reading the core temp which corresponds to the package temp in Hwmonitor. As the Gonester said you have about 7c headroom on the socket.

 

[Zakarro]

Use OCCT for stress testing it has its own built in HW monitor based off the actual code of the latter proggy itself.

Adjustments do through bios old school way

 

[DarkApollo]

Dont use AOD to overclock. Software based overclocks are a crap shoot of knife edge walking, one wrong click from borking the box. Most BIOS that are designed for OCing have back ups or autoresets in case you get too greedy and bork the machine to where it cant boot.
What would you rather do: potentially lock up the OS and corrupt it? or not have the pc boot and automatically reset the bios to your last working config?

 

[Zakarro]

Dont use AOD to overclock. Software based overclocks are a crap shoot of knife edge walking, one wrong click from borking the box. Most BIOS that are designed for OCing have back ups or autoresets in case you get too greedy and bork the machine to where it cant boot.
What would you rather do: potentially lock up the OS and corrupt it? or not have the pc boot and automatically reset the bios to your last working config?

Exactly plus BIOS will always give a better OC.

 

[EarthDog]

Exactly plus BIOS will always give a better OC.

Not "always". Not at the end of the road it wont. For most people, you are correct. But when you are talking extreme cooling, you want to push from within windows at the end.

What would you rather do: potentially lock up the OS and corrupt it? or not have the pc boot and automatically reset the bios to your last working config?

You can also just corrupt windows pretty easy from the bios too...

 

[Mandrake4565]

Not "always". Not at the end of the road it wont. For most people, you are correct. But when you are talking extreme cooling, you want to push from within windows at the end.

Overdrive is a useful tool if used properly. BIOS overclocking is the best method, but as ED pointed out when your are pushing those last few Mhz out of a chip it helps because it's easier to get into windows when at a lower clock speed. Additionally, I haven't come across a monitoring program that can read the temp sensors correctly on the AMD Apu's which overdrive can. Finally, it is also helpful because you can change the memory timings within Windows, which corresponds to my 1st reasoning.



Good to see a plane didn't land on your house ED.

 

[Gin]

I have never said I'm Overclocking by AOD, I have always done this by BIOS since my unlocked phenom b40. I have mine stable at 4,475mhz @1.365 I have my FSB @241 HT link I think is running 2650mhz NB is 2400mhz, the mems 16xxmhz. The CPU/NB voltage is 1.175 I think. I wanted to use AOD as a second opinion on my temps, since I had read it had improved or AMD itself did tweak it for latest FX, was just playing around. I have set ALC to high / 130% for CPU. For NB is set to auto / auto. It runs prime95 stable but after 1 hour socket temp will hit 69ºC. Any ideas if I could achieve a higher O.C with my mobo if I manage to low socket temps?. I used to get 57ºC on cores with my old PSU, with my new one it peaks at 48ºC magic stuff.

 

[Johan45]

For the most part that's true Apollo but memory tuning in particular will let you get into windows and still crash at some point with blue screens. This will mess up your OS and possibly your BIOS as well. No system is fool proof and I've been stuck in loops before where the system passes post but won't load windows. In those situations you usually have to shut down and hope it recovers to bios or clear the CMOS. I've also gotten to BIOS and the system will freeze making it impossible to change anything. But for the most part it will reset itself and let you make changes.

@ Gin , most likely with some spot fans on the VRM and a fan on the back of the board it will lower those temps for you and possibly let you go a bit further.

 

[Mandrake4565]

Gin if you can get the socket temp down then you will have more headroom to push further. That said, with that M5A99X Evo/990Fx Pro we have seen them generally top out around 4.5-4.7 Ghz. If your cooling can keep up then just do as you did before, raise the FSB or Multi and test, if you fail add voltage accordingly. Keep temps within parameters and you're good to go.

 

[Gin]

Thank you all for the help, I got the thing about a fan on the back side of the motherboard right to the backside of the cpu fan. But what are the VRM position on my mobo? I understand it's not the same thing as the cpu socket position in the backside. I'm quite ignorant here.

 

[Johan45]

That's what the little fans are attached to in this pic. It's actually the heatsink for the VRM but you'll get the picture.

 

[trents]

I have never said I'm Overclocking by AOD, I have always done this by BIOS since my unlocked phenom b40. I have mine stable at 4,475mhz @1.365 I have my FSB @241 HT link I think is running 2650mhz NB is 2400mhz, the mems 16xxmhz. The CPU/NB voltage is 1.175 I think. I wanted to use AOD as a second opinion on my temps, since I had read it had improved or AMD itself did tweak it for latest FX, was just playing around. I have set ALC to high / 130% for CPU. For NB is set to auto / auto. It runs prime95 stable but after 1 hour socket temp will hit 69ºC. Any ideas if I could achieve a higher O.C with my mobo if I manage to low socket temps?. I used to get 57ºC on cores with my old PSU, with my new one it peaks at 48ºC magic stuff.

In post #1 you said "I'm running soft O.C @4,475 @1.365" I took that to mean you were overclocking with software.

"I have set ALC to high / 130% for CPU" This is not what we mean by using the bios to overclock. We mean using the individual frequency and voltages settings for CPU, RAM, CPU/NB, HT Link and manipulating a number of other parameters manually. It doesn't mean using the Auto Overclock genie.

And the AMDOD stress test is quite wimpy. We use the Prime95 blend test to establish the stability of an overclock around here. What's more, to monitor temps and voltages we generally use HWMonitor (non pro version) except with APUs. With APUs AMDOD tends to give more accurate temp readings than HWMonitor.

 

[caddi daddi]

aod is still causing some rigs to go unstable, my apu rig get a little unstable with aod installed after a week or two so I just uninstall it and reinstall it and all is good again for a bit.
so if you fire it up one day and it's a little upset, try removing aod early.

 

[Gin]

In post #1 you said "I'm running soft O.C @4,475 @1.365" I took that to mean you were overclocking with software.

"I have set ALC to high / 130% for CPU" This is not what we mean by using the bios to overclock. We mean using the individual frequency and voltages settings for CPU, RAM, CPU/NB, HT Link and manipulating a number of other parameters manually. It doesn't mean using the Auto Overclock genie.

And the AMDOD stress test is quite wimpy. We use the Prime95 blend test to establish the stability of an overclock around here. What's more, to monitor temps and voltages we generally use HWMonitor (non pro version) except with APUs. With APUs AMDOD tends to give more accurate temp readings than HWMonitor.

I think we are a bit out of the deal here. "This is not what we mean by using the bios to overclock". Well, first thing yes, I'm using the bios to O.C, little O.C doesn't say it is software based O.C.
In order to get things to work I had to set basic stuff in the bios, I had to disable turbo core feature, I had to downgrade my mems frecuency, htlink, NB, etc. Set pciE speed to 100, use offset voltage and adequate ALC to high since I tested other values and I got it stable with the "High" getting the lowest voltage possible, such voltage was incremental by Offset value, so yes I'm quite using the bios to get a soft O.C. If I let the CPU/NB ALC to auto, it's because it worked best for me that way. I also spent time in the bios testing what was the best stable O.C I could get, and It was as I already said by using a bit of both CPU multiplier and FSB ratio. My little O.C worked better this way, I tried using only the unlocked CPU multiplier but I needed more voltage for the same O.C. I may not be an expert at O.C but I think you are wrong to say I'm not overclocking by BIOS way.
And yes I also use prime95 that's how I check peak temps on both socket and cores, plus stability.

 

[Johan45]

I think there was just a slight misunderstanding Gin, that's all. Now we're all on the same page we can move forward. I would like to point out that AMD OD gives a higher thermal margin than we typically use here. If I'm correct then AMD OD will let you get the cores up to 70c.