Issues overclocking my TA890GXB

[sonnyD]

1367 mhz ram speed?: Yes, good

Increase CPU-NB voltage?: Not unless you increase the frequency over stock and as I indicated in an earlier post I'd hold off on that until you get your max CPU overclock dialed in. Increasing the CPU-NB frequency improves memory performance but tackle one thing at a time.

125W TDP?: Motherboards generally come in three TDP (Total Design Power) groupings: 95W, 125W and 140W which refers to their ability to dissipate heat. Another important factor is the Power Phase or the ability to regulate voltage and electrical power. Your board probably has 3+1 power phase whereas the good overclocking boards have 8+2. Overclocking a CPU drives up it's power consumption (sometimes dramatically) and the heat it produces but since all that juice must also be handled by the mobo it get's hotter too.

Ok, got it on the cpu-nb items. The 125W TDP and other motherboard points you make are real posers. I can keep an eye on the temperatures and if anything goes over some threshold - say 50c - I'll back off or recalibrate. I have read about people overclocking this board as high as 4GHz so I suspect my going to from where I am now - 3.343 to say, 3.6GHz - is not outlandish.

I've included some snapshots of my bios settings. They show the cpu voltage as 1.368 using the auto setting. The options start at .050 and go up.

Core VID is set to the default - 1.35 - and can be moved up or down. When you suggest changing my core voltage, which one do you have in mind for changing?

Sorry for the odd looking images - I'm not sure how to edit them. I chose the paper click button and selected three files. Is there some way to insert text in that portion of the post?

Thanks for your help.

 

[RGone]

See Image.

Use the CPU Vcore to raise voltage to the cpu by adding the amount you choose TO the default cpu voltage.

Use CPU-NB Voltage to up the CPU/NB voltage and it to is probably by adding the voltage in dropdown menu TO the default CPU/NB voltage.

 

[sonnyD]

See Image.

Use the CPU Vcore to raise voltage to the cpu by adding the amount you choose TO the default cpu voltage.

Use CPU-NB Voltage to up the CPU/NB voltage and it to is probably by adding the voltage in dropdown menu TO the default CPU/NB voltage.

So the default shows as 1.368; I add .050 and get 1.418. I'll give it a shot - thanks for the suggestion.

I was wondering if the CORE VID, like the FID, wasn't a mechanism for letting you perform a finer granularity change but that was only a guess. Can you tell me how you would use the Core VID?

Thanks again.

----

"My husband's not lazy - he's just resting." - Anna van der Waals​

 

[trents]

Sonny, some of your questions about bios settings we cannot necessarily answer definitively because bioses from one motherboard to another can be set up very differently and use very different terminology. You need to be willing to experiment some on your own. It is foolish to be reckless with your system but there is such a thing as being too cautious as well.

CPU-z is a great program for tracking changes in bios settings to the main frequencies and voltages, though it won't display some of them. It won't dispaly CPU-NB voltage for instance or memory voltage but it will display CPU core voltage. So make a small tentative change in what you think is the control for CPU voltage and check it out in CPU-z "CPU" tab under core voltage. Earlier, I had asked for attached pics of the three CPU-z tabs: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD" and I haven't seen them yet. A picture is still worth a 1000 words. We have established ways of helping folks on the forum that serve us well.

Oh, yes, you asked about mosfets. They are small flat blac rectangular chips that are part of the power regulating system. Usually there are a couple rows of them betwee the CPU socket and the I/O port houses at the back edge of the motherboard. The mosfets are perhaps the most sensitive electronic component on the motherboard. If they get too hot they can blow with a loud pop sometimes. As you get into the 140w TDP motherboards in the $100 range with 4+1 power phase you find heat sinks on this component. As you get into 140W TDP motherboards in the $130 and up range you also get heavier power phase like 6+1 and 8+2.

 

[RGone]

I was wondering if the CORE VID, like the FID, wasn't a mechanism for letting you perform a finer granularity change but that was only a guess. = Since the Core VID and the CPU Vcore have exactly the same degree of increase through-out the scale, I doubt the actual granularity will change.

Can you tell me how you would use the Core VID? = Core VID changes the initial voltage that the board senses to apply the Vcore. I always have Cool N Quiet enabled and If I had a board like yours ( I DO NOT ) when Cool N Quiet came on the cpu would only throttle back to the setting of Core VID and not the lower original Core VID actually programmed into the cpu for its' default voltage. That is generally the 'why' of me saying not to change the Core VID. Of course it is your parts and pieces and you can and should try making the settings on your own so YOU know what actually happens.

 

[sonnyD]

Sonny, some of your questions about bios settings we cannot necessarily answer definitively because bioses from one motherboard to another can be set up very differently and use very different terminology. You need to be willing to experiment some on your own. It is foolish to be reckless with your system but there is such a thing as being too cautious as well.

CPU-z is a great program for tracking changes in bios settings to the main frequencies and voltages, though it won't display some of them. It won't dispaly CPU-NB voltage for instance or memory voltage but it will display CPU core voltage. So make a small tentative change in what you think is the control for CPU voltage and check it out in CPU-z "CPU" tab under core voltage. Earlier, I had asked for attached pics of the three CPU-z tabs: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD" and I haven't seen them yet. A picture is still worth a 1000 words. We have established ways of helping folks on the forum that serve us well.

Oh, yes, you asked about mosfets. They are small flat blac rectangular chips that are part of the power regulating system. Usually there are a couple rows of them betwee the CPU socket and the I/O port houses at the back edge of the motherboard. The mosfets are perhaps the most sensitive electronic component on the motherboard. If they get too hot they can blow with a loud pop sometimes. As you get into the 140w TDP motherboards in the $100 range with 4+1 power phase you find heat sinks on this component. As you get into 140W TDP motherboards in the $130 and up range you also get heavier power phase like 6+1 and 8+2.

Sorry it took so long to get these images up. Regarding the SPD images: I'm using sets from two manufacturers so I included a shot of the first slot and one for the third.

And thanks for the thorough discussion on mosfets. Good stuff. I'll have to find out what watt TDP my motherboard is and which power phase it uses. I suspect if they make a 2+1 version, that's what I have.

And I take your point about being too cautious. I'm not really afraid of hurting the equipment; I'm just curious about how things work so that I can extrapolate on my own. I do appreciate the suggestion.

 

[sonnyD]

Sonny, some of your questions about bios settings we cannot necessarily answer definitively because bioses from one motherboard to another can be set up very differently and use very different terminology. You need to be willing to experiment some on your own. It is foolish to be reckless with your system but there is such a thing as being too cautious as well.

CPU-z is a great program for tracking changes in bios settings to the main frequencies and voltages, though it won't display some of them. It won't dispaly CPU-NB voltage for instance or memory voltage but it will display CPU core voltage. So make a small tentative change in what you think is the control for CPU voltage and check it out in CPU-z "CPU" tab under core voltage. Earlier, I had asked for attached pics of the three CPU-z tabs: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD" and I haven't seen them yet. A picture is still worth a 1000 words. We have established ways of helping folks on the forum that serve us well.

Oh, yes, you asked about mosfets. They are small flat blac rectangular chips that are part of the power regulating system. Usually there are a couple rows of them betwee the CPU socket and the I/O port houses at the back edge of the motherboard. The mosfets are perhaps the most sensitive electronic component on the motherboard. If they get too hot they can blow with a loud pop sometimes. As you get into the 140w TDP motherboards in the $100 range with 4+1 power phase you find heat sinks on this component. As you get into 140W TDP motherboards in the $130 and up range you also get heavier power phase like 6+1 and 8+2.

Yeah, I figured Core VID was like the other multipliers that AMD (and Intel, for all I know) use. I was mucking around with it late last night and farked something up because the machine wouldn't post and I had to do the jumper thing. Anyway I probably shouldn't have been trying something like that so late at night - I have enough trouble during the day.

The CPU Vcore settings is fine I guess, but it's more of a battle axe and I was looking for a stiletto. Just adding the .05 jacks the final voltage up as high as a kite - 70% more than the .05 I was expecting. Fuggitaboutit.

I figured this multiplier pattern would work well here. And, sink me, it did. I wanted to boost voltage by a teensie tiny amount - say a net .025 v. I went ahead and set CPU Vcore to +0.050 but then I changed Core VID to 1.2875. And voila! I went from default 1.368v to 1.392v; and man, after that it felt so good I needed a cigarette. I compared it to just adding .050 and the temps dropped by about 5c - from 55c or so down to 49c.

So first I went from 2800MHz to 3343MHz just using the multipliers. I tried to nudge it up higher but that was a deal breaker. Adding a pinch of voltage took me to my next goal - 3600. It's only been running a couple of hours so I won't spend it yet. I may find I have to give it a little more juice. But I figure I'm close and, more importantly, I understand a little more about how this works. Fun stuff.

Thanks for all your help.

---

"Leave these alone!" - Overheard at the drive-in.​

 

[sonnyD]

One last question (uh-huh) about the reference clock (aka bus speed). My memory is only running at about 685 MHz, lazing around in the DDR3 1066 crowd. I figure if I jack up my clock to 300, use the x12 cpu multiplier, the x7 NB FID and Link Speed multipliers, I could pick up my memory speed to 1596:
300 x 12 = 3600
300 x 7 = 2100 (well, it's a little over 2000 ish range)
300 x 2.66 = 798 x 2 = 1596

I'd keep my 3600 gain from the previous voltage addition but gain some memory speed.

But I'm not sure what else is affected by the reference clock. Anybody have any thoughts on the matter?

 

[trents]

Yeah, in the end you want to have your ram frequency as close to 1600 mhz as possible and you can use a combo of the FSB (or HT Reference if you like that term better) and the CPU multiplier to approximate that. You don't have a black edition CPU so the multiplier is upwardly locked. But it's not downwardly locked. Be careful with counting on high FSB speeds to do what you want with the ram speed and CPU frequency. Even though your bios may allow you to set 300 mhz as a FSB value that is not the same as saying the motherboard will be stable at that frequency. A really expensive high end motherboard will do 300 mhz FSB but cheaper ones usually will not, more like 250-275 mhz. It's not just a number. It's an electronic capability. My Ford pickup may have 140 mph on the speedometer but it won't come close to going that fast.

Computer equipment is not as fragile as you might think. Usually, it will fail to boot or be unstable if some bios setting is out of wack. CPU voltage is perfectly safe all the way up to 1.5-1.55 volts. You aren't nearly there. The bigger issue than voltage is temps. You want to keep core temps from exceeding about 65c and CPU socket temps from exceeding about about 70c. Those are plenty safe temps but not necessarily stable temps. Typically, instability sets in before temps reach the damaging point. When you run a Prime95 stress test to check for temps, run it for a full 20 minutes.



Also, concerning your earlier question about being able to highlight your cropped images, Windows Accessories has a neat utility called Snipping Tool that will do this. After you frame the image, hold the left mouse button down and you can draw with it. You can choose a red pen or a blue pen.

 

[trents]

By the way, having mixed brands and speeds of memory is usually not a good thing. It can cause instability. Being as how your slower memory is 1333 mhz I would limit your ram speed to that. By the way, CPU-z reports the ram speed at half of what you would expect since it is reporting DDR bus speed not DDR3 transfer rate.

 

[BeepBeep2]

sonnyD, you list Corsair 2x4GB in your signature, but run one Patriot stick and one Corsair stick?

You might not run into trouble, but sometimes when you run a non-matched pair, one stick is capable of something the other isn't. At 1600 CL9 (stock for both) you should be fine, but you may have trouble overclocking to higher frequencies, like 1800-2000 MHz if you would choose to do so.

 

[sonnyD]

Yeah, in the end you want to have your ram frequency as close to 1600 mhz as possible and you can use a combo of the FSB (or HT Reference if you like that term better) and the CPU multiplier to approximate that. You don't have a black edition CPU so the multiplier is upwardly locked. But it's not downwardly locked. Be careful with counting on high FSB speeds to do what you want with the ram speed and CPU frequency. Even though your bios may allow you to set 300 mhz as a FSB value that is not the same as saying the motherboard will be stable at that frequency. A really expensive high end motherboard will do 300 mhz FSB but cheaper ones usually will not, more like 250-275 mhz. It's not just a number. It's an electronic capability. My Ford pickup may have 140 mph on the speedometer but it won't come close to going that fast.

Computer equipment is not as fragile as you might think. Usually, it will fail to boot or be unstable if some bios setting is out of wack. CPU voltage is perfectly safe all the way up to 1.5-1.55 volts. You aren't nearly there. The bigger issue than voltage is temps. You want to keep core temps from exceeding about 65c and CPU socket temps from exceeding about about 70c. Those are plenty safe temps but not necessarily stable temps. Typically, instability sets in before temps reach the damaging point. When you run a Prime95 stress test to check for temps, run it for a full 20 minutes.



Also, concerning your earlier question about being able to highlight your cropped images, Windows Accessories has a neat utility called Snipping Tool that will do this. After you frame the image, hold the left mouse button down and you can draw with it. You can choose a red pen or a blue pen.

Well, I'm the new guy here so I've may have some of the terminology wrong regarding the HT reference/link speed/whatever. My understanding is that there is a reference clock and that each of the 4 horseman use it: cpu, nb, ht link, & dram. I have a simple spreadsheet I use where I plug in the ref clock and then see what the possible combinations of multipliers might be.

I seem to set a CPU frequency and then pick the best available multipliers for the other three objects; but I think the cpu multiplier is independent of the other three multipliers. So far I have always set the NB and HT Link multipliers to the same value and haven't had any reason to use their dividers - I leave it at one.

So when you say Be careful with counting on high FSB speeds to do what you want with the ram speed and CPU frequency. I'm feeling like I missed something; I don't think I'm doing that. I just pick the dram multiplier that will let my memory run as close to 1600 as possible; my spreadsheet helps with that. Again, I'm thinking of the 300 as a reference clock speed; I noticed that CPU-Z calls it the bus speed so I added that in but I tend to think of it as the clock speed. Maybe its both and I don't know it. School me.

You've definitely impressed me to watch the temps. I'm going get rid of my plebe cooler tomorrow and use something that should be slightly more efficient. In fact, I start to twitch if the temp goes over 54c. And I've been running Prime95/Overdrive stress test for 6 or 8 hrs before I'm convinced it's stable. Like my old demo guy used to tell me: "when in doubt multiply by P for Plenty".

I gotta check into this snipping tool. I'm not even going to tell you how I got those funky looking images I uploaded. Sorry if they take up too much space. I'll figure it out.

Oh, and sorry to everyone for the incorrect signature where the memory was concerned: I have 4x4GB mongrel especial: corsair and patriot. It's up to date now. I haven't figured out what the concern is about this kind of thing. You mentioned it in the next post so I'll respond there.

 

[sonnyD]

By the way, having mixed brands and speeds of memory is usually not a good thing. It can cause instability. Being as how your slower memory is 1333 mhz I would limit your ram speed to that. By the way, CPU-z reports the ram speed at half of what you would expect since it is reporting DDR bus speed not DDR3 transfer rate.

These utilities don't always report things the same way. Both sets are PC3-12800 but programs seem to read SPD differently. And I didn't bother to take a snapshot of all four slots since the 2 and 4 are the same as 1 and three. I should've mentioned that.

They do have slightly different timings but not were it seems to count: they're both 9-9-9-24 2T at the XMP multiplier. I did make separate entries for them in bios (DCT0 and DCT1); they share the same 1.5V rating. I'd love to hear an explanation of why this should matter because I can't get there from here; so far the most sophisticated explanation I heard from a Corsair tech support person had something to do with small house pets dying whenever someone did it. Sheesh.

I guess when your system is crashing you burn incense to all the gods.

CPU-Z DRAM Frequency: 685.3 MHz is correct. I'm using the second multiplier (aka DDR3 1064). So 257 * 2.66 = 685.3 * 2 = 1367. I'd use the third one _but_ 257 * 3.33 = 856 * 2 = 1713 = 1600 + 113 = too fast for my PC12800 DDR3 1600 memory.

And that's why I want to move the ref clock to 300. I can still use the second multiplier but I end up with 1596 - real close to 1600.

I think.

Funny you should mention transfer rate: CPU-z reports the ram speed at half of what you would expect since it is reporting DDR bus speed not DDR3 transfer rate. Overdrive indicates the Patriot memory has a max bandwidth of 12.8 GB/s but the Corsair a pokey 10.7 GB/s. I'll have to get back to you on that one. (Is this the same as the transfer rate you mentioned?)

 

[trents]

Reference Clock Speed and CPU's "bus speed" are one and the same. It's what a lot of us still call (technically incorrect but a hold over from a bygone micro architecture era). In bios parlance, you will often see it expressed as "CPU Frequency" and at stock it is 200 mhz. It is not an infinitely elastic variable. You are correct in your understanding of the relationship betwee FSB (Front Side Bus) when you say that each of the "four horsemen use it."

Bandwidth speaks to the same issue as frequency and I am using the term transfer rate to mean the same as DDR3 frequency. It can be in terms of gb per second or expressed as a frequency. Higher frequency means greater bandwidth. Two ways of measuring the same thing. But CPU-z expresses memory speed in terms of bus frequency which is half of DDRx transfer frequency. Multiply by two in your head. If CPU-z says the memory speed is 800 mhz, in DDR3 terms it is 1600 mhz. (DDR means "Double Data Rate).

 

[sonnyD]

sonnyD, you list Corsair 2x4GB in your signature, but run one Patriot stick and one Corsair stick?

You might not run into trouble, but sometimes when you run a non-matched pair, one stick is capable of something the other isn't. At 1600 CL9 (stock for both) you should be fine, but you may have trouble overclocking to higher frequencies, like 1800-2000 MHz if you would choose to do so.

Sorry about that. My signature (now updated) was wrong. I have 4 sticks. Slots 1 and 2 are the same; same with 3 and 4. I've been referencing my memory in my posts but neglected to update my signature.

And I wasn't planning on going much above 1600; I get the impression you think 1800-2000 would be OK if they matched. Is that true?

 

[sonnyD]

Reference Clock Speed and CPU's "bus speed" are one and the same. It's what a lot of us still call (technically incorrect but a hold over from a bygone micro architecture era). In bios parlance, you will often see it expressed as "CPU Frequency" and at stock it is 200 mhz. It is not an infinitely elastic variable. You are correct in your understanding of the relationship betwee FSB (Front Side Bus) when you say that each of the "four horsemen use it."

Got it - thanks; I'll add it to my notes. I've got to come up to speed on this FSB thing.

 

[trents]

When you run mixed memory (different speeds and timings), theoretically, the bios will negotiate a mutually acceptable frequency and timing scheme - theoretically - when left on "Auto".

 

[trents]

By the way, any particular reason you feel a need to run 16 gb of ram? Windows runs quite efficiently on 4 gb. The only reason to run 16 gb of ram is if you are using memory intensive apps like Photoshop and CAD. More memory puts extra strain on the IMC and can hamper overclocking.

 

[sonnyD]

When you run mixed memory (different speeds and timings), theoretically, the bios will negotiate a mutually acceptable frequency and timing scheme - theoretically - when left on "Auto".

I've had mixed luck with that. When my bios was set to default (no oc, etc) then it picked ddr1333 instead of ddr1600; I've read this isn't unusual. I've also gotten the idea that it's best practice to set as many memory settings explicitly as possible - voltage, multiplier, and timings. Again, since it didn't pick the DDR1600 setting for me I don't question this idea too much.

I've also noticed that the information about things like SPD will vary among utility programs. Some have found the XMP settings in my ddr; others didn't.

I stress-tested the system overnight using prime95 and the Overdrive stability test and received no errors. Prime95's Torture Test (I love it) allows you to tell it how much memory to use; I gave it 12GB and ran both tests with task manager showing 95% memory usage. I wanted to make sure I was using both the Corsair and Patriot modules. Everything worked just fine.

By the way, I did eventually increase my Core VID from 1.2875 to 1.3000 to 1.3125 where it was finally stable. My Prime95/Overdrive stress tests would run for an hour or so under the first two settings but then it would do this annoying reset thing. But Mikey likes 1.3125.

 

[sonnyD]

By the way, any particular reason you feel a need to run 16 gb of ram? Windows runs quite efficiently on 4 gb. The only reason to run 16 gb of ram is if you are using memory intensive apps like Photoshop and CAD. More memory puts extra strain on the IMC and can hamper overclocking.

More power to the overthrusters, John Bigboote! Seriously, I need to keep several different operating systems going in their own virtual machines and they each can use several GB. IMC - I'm going to have to look that one up; something memory controller? Should I apply more voltage somewhere?