AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE + Gigabyte GA970A-D3 Overclocking

[moccor]

Looks good! but keep in mind increasing the HT will not result in any performance gains (try to keep between 2000 and 2200mhz). Also your memory is running at less than stock speeds. See if you can tweak that.

Well the FSB increased it itself so I left it like that (didn't know it did nothing until now haha) and yeah I had to increase the timings for this 80 Mhz bump. I'm sure it's probably not worth just 80Mhz, but I'm just messing around and learning a bit cuz my setup seems to be a little weird. In a sense that, 3600Mhz isn't stable alone with just increasing the multiplier, but 3570Mhz is stable when increasing the FSB by 10 and increasing the RAM timings.

Edit: I feel like all of a sudden there is now something wrong with a temperature sensor or this old videocard I put in my pc temporarily is causing it. I also decided to move cables around in my pc and try negative pressure (opposed to the positive pressure it came with), but for better airflow and looks. Even my motherboard temp and CPU temp benefit from this, my Motherboard temp (found using HWiNFO64 while running prime95) is 26C lol. It use to be like, 33-35C load and 30-31C idle. Sounds a little good to be true. Now my CPU temp is 49C, which is around what it was with a positive airflow, 50-51C. Now the problem is... it jumps from like 48-43, then 43-38 when I stopped prime95. And the CPU temp jumped from 39-45C seconds after starting prime95. This doesn't sound normal.. I will have to put the fans back and turn on some temp logging without the videocard as well, to rule things out

Also, what is Temp3 in HWiNFO? I think it has to do with the CPU or something, it reads 58@ 100% load.

 

[storm-chaser]

Not sure what temp 3 is, but if you changed the case dynamics it really could have improved airflow, especially going from positive to negative pressures. I doubt it would throw off a motherboard temp reading, if you just swapped in another videocard. I've used AIDA64 for years for monitoring temps, its rock solid. I'd recommend downloading it as it also has a torture test and host of other information about the overclock and system.

 

[moccor]

Not sure what temp 3 is, but if you changed the case dynamics it really could have improved airflow, especially going from positive to negative pressures. I doubt it would throw off a motherboard temp reading, if you just swapped in another videocard. I've used AIDA64 for years for monitoring temps, its rock solid. I'd recommend downloading it as it also has a torture test and host of other information about the overclock and system.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'm using it now and checking things out. I found something interesting. I upped the voltage in the BIOS either by .05 or .10 (making it 1.55 or 1.6v) but AIDA64 says my DIMM voltage is 1.456-1.472. The CPU core is reporting voltages the same as HWiNFO and CPU-Z, and it's what I set in the BIOS so i believe that. I am starting to think there is somethig weird about this motherboard... because in the BIOS, my vcore is actually set to 1.350. But in Windows its 1.424-1.440. I really need to find out if this board is a little faulty. I am under the impression it could be, but I haven't owned many motherboards or even overclocked much to know if this is normal. I have read about overclocking multiple times, but do to past mistakes with buying a bad MOBO, I couldn't overclock. And in 5 days it will be the 30day mark of owning it.

Another thing I don't like, is that the same exact link I ordered mine from, now says its the Ultradurable4, as opposed to my Ultradurable2.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128521

And I actually considered my old cabling setup to be good. I just thought of a better idea to run the case/HDD LEDs around the back and the same with the front USB + audio ports around the back too (this case doesn't have good cable management by default). Though I did unplug everything and re installed the cables, but I think even a 1C decrease wouldn't be due to it tbh . I just did it for looks.

Edit: So I think I figured out why my MOBO has been a little weird and 'stingy'. The CPU and RAM voltage in the BIOS are not the same as they are reported in Windows. And I know how the BIOS is more trustworthy, but when 2 well-known programs report wrong voltages, I think it's safe to say the BIOS is wrong. I have my RAM set @1.505, HWiNFO and AIDA64 says it is 1.456v >_>

 

[benanderson89]

I was getting memory errors with my 965 BE as well when just playing a few video games. I upped the voltage on both the CPU (1.52v) and the memory (1.57v). I'm easily sporting 4.1GHz stable at 1600MHz RAM.

The thing that caused my 965 BE to freak out the most, though, was the HT Ref clock. I had to set it back to the default of 200MHz before any of the stress tests worked for more than a few seconds.

Also, Windows almost always reports wrong voltages in my experience. Its better to stick with the BIOS readings. And, if available, set Q-FAN in the BIOS to Turbo. It'll spin faster at any given time and cool down just that little bit better.

 

[moccor]

I was getting memory errors with my 965 BE as well when just playing a few video games. I upped the voltage on both the CPU (1.52v) and the memory (1.57v). I'm easily sporting 4.1GHz stable at 1600MHz RAM.

The thing that caused my 965 BE to freak out the most, though, was the HT Ref clock. I had to set it back to the default of 200MHz before any of the stress tests worked for more than a few seconds.

Also, Windows almost always reports wrong voltages in my experience. Its better to stick with the BIOS readings. And, if available, set Q-FAN in the BIOS to Turbo. It'll spin faster at any given time and cool down just that little bit better.

1.52 is a lot for this processor. Mine motherboard tries to set mine to default at 1.5X (X being a number i forget ). After messing around with it a lot tho, I got it to overclock nicely And keep it much lower than that. Your processor sounds like it is giving you trouble like I had. I could take it to 3600Mhz np by upping the multiplier and leaving the voltage around 1.42-1.44 but it would be unstable in the prime95 tests. Increasing the FSB to 210 and increasing the multiplier by .5 (or maybe its 1.0) resulted in a higher frequency and complete stability. I forget what made my FSB not work tho... I tried so many things, I wish I kept a notepad around to write what caused what to not work. But I think the "less is more idea" worked for me. The increase NB voltage was only necessary for the increased NB frequency. Btw, I seen many overclockers changed their CR RAM timing from 2-to-1 and testing the change in AIDA64 benchmarks resulted in about a 10-15% RAM performance increase. Stable as well, you might wanna give it a try if you haven't already. Edit: forgot this.. My BIOS reports a RAM voltage of like.. 1.45X or 1.47X, despite what I set it to in the BIOS lol. It's at 1.505, manually set by me. So Windows is reporting the correct voltages.

Also, I got this response from XFX earlier:

Hi, the card came in here with the fan area caked in dust. We cleaned the fan out and then proceeded to test the card and there were no issues. The card is fully functional at this point and we would like to ship the card back to you. Let us know if there are any other tests that you would like us to perform on the card or if you would like us to ship the card back to you.

Is it just me that thinks the words I underlined, show signs of uncertainty? I mean, I knew I sent them the card in working order. And I know dust wasn't caked in the fan area, the fan pretty much had no dust at all in it lol (wish I took a pic). Ohwell, the card is awesome and hasn't let me down with playing games with high/max settings on my 42in LCD, maybe it will last me long enough to where they have no more in stock .

 

[benanderson89]

1.52 is a lot for this processor. Mine motherboard tries to set mine to default at 1.5X (X being a number i forget ). After messing around with it a lot tho, I got it to overclock nicely And keep it much lower than that. Your processor sounds like it is giving you trouble like I had. I could take it to 3600Mhz np by upping the multiplier and leaving the voltage around 1.42-1.44 but it would be unstable in the prime95 tests. Increasing the FSB to 210 and increasing the multiplier by .5 (or maybe its 1.0) resulted in a higher frequency and complete stability. I forget what made my FSB not work tho... I tried so many things, I wish I kept a notepad around to write what caused what to not work. But I think the "less is more idea" worked for me. The increase NB voltage was only necessary for the increased NB frequency. Also, I got this response from XFX earlier:

Hi, the card came in here with the fan area caked in dust. We cleaned the fan out and then proceeded to test the card and there were no issues. The card is fully functional at this point and we would like to ship the card back to you. Let us know if there are any other tests that you would like us to perform on the card or if you would like us to ship the card back to you.

Is it just me that thinks the words I underlined, show signs of uncertainty? I mean, I knew I sent them the card in working order. And I know dust wasn't caked in the fan area, the fan pretty much had no dust at all in it lol (wish I took a pic). Ohwell, the card is awesome and hasn't let me down with playing games with high/max settings on my 42in LCD, maybe it will last me long enough to where they have no more in stock .

I got my CPU up to 3.9GHz with nothing but the Multiplier. The voltage was the extra kick to get it to 4.1GHz without having to reduce the memory clock speed. I've seen people send 965s as high as 1.55v, so 1.52 is okay as long as its kept cool (and during gaming my 965 gets to a max total of 49C - 54C under stress testing). Though, when under stress, it never actually reaches 1.52v - 1.48v at most. The extra overhead just gives it that little bit extra room to move (plus I think the LLC uses a teeny-tiny bit of the extra voltage as well).

 

[moccor]

Yeah you're right. I'd just rather have the lifespan rather than performance. Also, I think I know why my computer all of a sudden allows more than 200FSB... I added this little 60 or 70mm fan to the 2.5'' bay to see if it would do anything for my temps. Well, my computer kept getting boot failures after doing this. I thought, "that's weird, I didn't think switching the RAM slots would do anything since it passed memtest"... then it hit me. My PSU is 680w. I have the following in my case:
- 2x 230mm Thermaltake fans
- 2x 120mm fans (1Thermaltake, 1 Rosewill)
- LG DVD Burner
- 5 fan fan-controller (isn't really used yet but its using power ofc)
- Internal HDD bay thing (idk hat its called, my brother gave me it - no HDD in it, but has power going to it)
- ASUS Xonar DS 7.1 PCI sound card
- Netgear PCI Wireless card (not really used but again its plugged in)
- 1x 60GB Samsung SSD, 1x 640GB WD Blue HDD, 1TB WD Green HDD
- And after a few days, the GTX 260 should be back and might cause boot failures with the OC...

Do yous thing I reached the maximum for my PSU?

 

[benanderson89]

Yeah you're right. I'd just rather have the lifespan rather than performance. Also, I think I know why my computer all of a sudden allows more than 200FSB... I added this little 60 or 70mm fan to the 2.5'' bay to see if it would do anything for my temps. Well, my computer kept getting boot failures after doing this. I thought, "that's weird, I didn't think switching the RAM slots would do anything since it passed memtest"... then it hit me. My PSU is 680w. I have the following in my case:
- 2x 230mm Thermaltake fans
- 2x 120mm fans (1Thermaltake, 1 Rosewill)
- LG DVD Burner
- 5 fan fan-controller (isn't really used yet but its using power ofc)
- Internal HDD bay thing (idk hat its called, my brother gave me it - no HDD in it, but has power going to it)
- ASUS Xonar DS 7.1 PCI sound card
- Netgear PCI Wireless card (not really used but again its plugged in)
- And after a few days, the GTX 260 should be back and might cause boot failures with the OC...

Do yous thing I reached the maximum for my PSU?

Forget the wattage. The CPU and GPU alone only reach 307W when under the most extreme of loads and the rest shouldn't tip it over 680W by any stretch.

What Amperage does it output on the rails? Its fine meeting the wattage requirements of all the parts, but it all means jack s**t if the PSU doesn't pump out the amps.

Do you know if its a high quality PSU as well? Cheap ones aren't very stable and can fluctuate the voltage output - enough to cause some hiccups.

 

[moccor]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148022

This is what it is. I made sure before buying it that it had everything needed, including good rails and reviews. But, its 4 years old. I know it's not the best quality, I probably only paid 70-80$ at the time, opposed to 120$. The fan I plugged into the motherboard came off of a old AMD AM2 HSF, its a 4pin and I plugged it into the 4pin sys fan slot on the motherboard. I tried so much yesterday though to get my board to go from 210FSB to 215FSB or more, it wasn't allowing it. No matter if I increased the voltage on both the CPU and RAM by +.50 (NB was already @ 1.250 and using this guide http://www.overclockers.com/step-guide-overclock-amd-phenom/ the multiplier of the NB determined about how much voltage it needed) it still wouldn't boot. It gave me the same boot failure as I did when plugging in that little fan, that went away upon unplugging it.

Edit: andddd its working fine now with the fan... changed nothing. I was gonna unplug some things to see if unplugging would open room for the fan. But it worked fine without it.

 

[moccor]

So I left a review of the motherboard on Neweggs site about 2 weeks ago, maybe 3. Just being honest, nothing mean. I wrote how their support is really bad and slow but also that I got rev1.4 and some got 3.0 . They said they'd talk to the Gigabyte support ( tho I already never want to deal with them again via ticket ) and even tho they said they would try to provide quick help and asap, the Newegg-Gigabyte support took 11 days to respond after their first email lol. But ok, I'm not a impatient person, they said they were gonna talk to Gigabyte about the exchanging of my rev1.4 for 3.0 . They said they'd do it ( after talking to them for 11 days apparently) but I would have to pay for 1-way shipping. That's reasonable, except my MX-2 thermal paste from my cooler would be wasted AND by default - this motherboard runs my CPU at a 1.5Vcore even tho AMD's site says 1.40 is the max. So pretty much I think I got a crap motherboard and they potentially reduced the life of my CPU a bit (my cooling is fine tho).

Any tips to help use that to my advantage? I know many people pay to resend things back for RMA, but I am not doing it, they should send working and updated hardware the first time. Should I contact AMD about this? I have like 4-5 years of warranty on the CPU, but that's besides the point. If I wanted to spend 20$ more I would have bought a better board lol.

 

[storm-chaser]

That's reasonable, except my MX-2 thermal paste from my cooler would be wasted AND by default - this motherboard runs my CPU at a 1.5Vcore even tho AMD's site says 1.40 is the max. So pretty much I think I got a crap motherboard and they potentially reduced the life of my CPU a bit (my cooling is fine tho).

On a new board like that Im almost certain you should be able to go into the BIOS and change the core voltage to proper levels.

 

[moccor]

I can, but this board is weird. Many people can overclock np simply increasing the multiplier @ 1.4vcore. Most get 3.8Ghz. I however can't increase the multiplier by .5 without it being unstable @ 1.422. I thought I just had a lame CPU for a while, but then I looked at the Phenom II 965 BE specs on AMDs site, which they say the max it should have is 1.400. I don't think they would sell me a CPU requiring or running stock @1.5, it has to be the motherboard.