Need help overclocking Amd atlhon ii x4 640

[Thyrax]

hi, im new to the forum and ocing, Been trying to overclock my cpu for a while now but can't seem to find stable setting past 3.5ghz (3ghz stock )

I need help figuring all that voltage stuff since im not sure what it all does actualy, im not too concerned about heat right now but im wondering what is the maximum,
cpu voltage
cpu/nb voltage
Dram voltage
ht voltage
nb voltage that my hardware can handle, is heat my only concern playing with this ??

my current spec are:

Amd atlhon ii x4 640
MB ASUS| M4A87TD EVO AMD870
Cooler Master GX 650W 80PLUS Certified Active PFC/PWM Power Supply (RS650-ACAAE3-US)
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 1.5V DIMMs (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B)

thx for helping out

 

[mbentley]

Moved to AMD CPUs since this isn't directly related to benchmarking. You should get much better traffic out here

 

[trents]

Heat is not the only consideration but it is the primary one in the short run. Even if your cooling keeps temps down into a safe and stable range, however, for the sake of longevity of the CPU and the motherboard you need to stay below a CPU voltage of 1.55 IMO.

But maximum safe voltages may not give you a stable configuration, particularly with regard to the CPUNB and the ram. Those two can be "overdriven" with voltage in such a way as not to damage them but to create instability.

You left out a some of pieces of important system information. What kind of CPU cooler do you have? If it's stock, we need to know that. If it's an after market cooler, which one? Also, what make and model case do you have? How many intake and how many exhaust fans does it have an where are they in the case? Good ventilation is essential to successful overclocking? Then what about you video card? Finally, add in your OS

Please put all your system information in your "Sig" so that it travels with every post you make. This is a common courtesy on the forum and really helps those helping you, especially as the thread may get very long.

To create a Sig, click on Quick Links at the top of the page and click on Edit Signature. Supposedly, you have access to this feature within one hour after your second post but if you don't have it right away, please try again later. This delay feature helps cut down on spammers.

 

[trents]

Also, please download and install these three helper programs that we constantly use around here: HWMonitor (reports lots of temps and system voltages), CPU-z (reports lots of system and bios info) and Prime95 (stress tester to check for stability of the overclock settings).

 

[RGone]

to the forums. What we need as information.

This is what the captures of the three tabs of CPUz and HWMonitor would look like and how to make a signature for your forum posts so that your computer information is shown in each post for those trying to help.

 

[Thyrax]

ok, thx for the reply, I added all the info in my sig.

 

[trents]

Thanks for the Sig and the update. We'll get back to you.

 

[trents]

The thing you want to do now is to go into bios and disable Cool N Quiet and C1E. Then go into Windows Control Panel Power Options and configure it to High Performance. That should disable all the "green" down-throttling stuff that makes it difficult to get a stable read on CPU frequencies and core voltages and that creates instability in the higher overclock ranges.

After that, have HWMonitor open on the desktop while you run 20 minutes of Prime95 blend to check for core and CPU socket temps at stock voltages and frequencies. This is a good idea to make sure you have your water block seated well and that that in general the cooling and case ventilation is functioning properly. Make sure you have the HWMonitor interface adjusted so that you can see the range of values from the CPU vcore towards the top to the core temp section lower down. Then post back and attach a pic of HWMonitor after this 20 minute Prime95 run.

To attach a pic, first crop the image and save it to disc with Windows Snipping Tool found in Accessories. Then click on the Go Advanced button found t the bottom of every new post window. When the Advanced post window appears, click on the little paperclip tool at the top which will load the file browser and upload tool. The rest will be adequate. We want to see the info HWMonitor will give us.

 

[Thyrax]

will do, gonna post this tomorow

 

[Thyrax]

alright done. Didnt realy understood how you wanted me to crop the image and all that so I just hosted it there: http://imageshack.us/f/705/stressteststock.jpg/ Hope its fine.

 

[trents]

Snipping tool in Windows Accessories is good for cropping the images. Cropping means eliminating the stuff you don't want around the part you do want. To do this in Snipping Tool just open the little program, locate the mouse cursor in the top left part of the area you want to frame, then click and hold the left mouse button and drag down and to the right. Release the button when you are done. The click on the disc icon tool at the top of the Snipping Tool interface to save the image to disc. It's really easy. Please give it a try. Attached pics are preferable to links IMO and its why we have this built in tool on the forum. When people are trying to help you owe it to them to make it as easy as possible to do so. Part of learning overclocking is learning the tools we use to facilitate that.

 

[trents]

Your temps look good at stock frequencies and voltages. Conventional wisdom says instability typically sets in when core temps exceed about 55c. And for safety reasons we want to prevent either the core temps or the CPU temps from exceeding 65c. So you can see that instability typically sets in before components reach temps that might harm them as long as voltages are kept within reason. Overclocking involves increasing the voltages and frequencies of certain components. Increasing the frequencies alone drives up temps only a little while adding voltage to support the frequency increase drives them up faster.

Please attach pics of CPU-z tabs: CPU, Memory and SPD. I see from your link that you attached a pic of the CPU tab but that's not enough to tell us what we need to know.

Here's a tutorial of how to do attachments with the built-in forum tool:

 

[trents]

Here's a quick tutorial on how to attach images using the builti-in forum tool:

 

[Thyrax]

Here all the other tab. And thx again for taking the time.

 

[trents]

Thanks for the pic. I have done a screen capture of your pic and marked the things that we will be concerned with in the overclocking process. Some of them I will ask you to change and some of them will change in response to the changes you make because they are things that link together in the architecture of the CPU and memory. And some of the things that change in response to the changes you make we will need to adjust to keep them from making the system unstable.

Because your CPU is not a "black edition" CPU it does not have an clock multiplier that can be increased, i.e. it is "locked" as we say. Having a black edition CPU makes overclocking a much simpler task because the links between the CPU frequency and other frequencies is bypassed. This means that you have fewer variables to contend with when overclocking a black edition CPU.

Since you don't have a black edition CPU, you will need to overclock with the master system bus which we usually call the FSB (Front Side Bus). In the CPU-z "CPU" tab it is called "Bus Speed" and is at 200 mhz when in stock condition. As you will see, when you start to increase the FSB, these other frequencies also increase: DRAM, HT Link and NB. I have highlighted them in red for you. They will need need adjustment at different points.

 

[trents]

So right now I'd like you to go into bios and change the FSB from 200 to 210. It may be called "CPU frequency" in your bios terminology. You may have to first change your overclocking mode from Auto to Manual to be able to enter your own values. Then rerun CPU-z and attach those same three CPU-z tab images and let's look at what changed.

If you can't find where to start in bios, take a digital camera pic of the bios sections having to do with overclocking and attach them. I'll try to spot what you need to interact with.

 

[Thyrax]

210

 

[trents]

Do you notice that when you change the FSB (aka, "CPU frequency") that the CPU Speed, the HT Link, the NB frequency and the DRAM frequency all got faster as well? They are all tuned to the FSB. The FSB is like a metronome and all the other subsystem frequencies are tuned to it. Unless you make manual changes to all these subsystem frequencies they will change in lockstep with the FSB. At a certain point of elevation any of them can create instability in the system. The NB (also called "CPUNB") can tolerate quite a bit of increase and sometimes the DRAM can as well but the HT Link in the Athlon II CPU line cannot.

You will want to keep the HT Link frequency somewhere between 1800 and 2000 mhz. The adjustment for the HT Link may be expressed as a multiplier or a multiple of the stock 200 mhz FSB. If you're FSB is at 200 mhz then you know the stock multiplier for the HT Link is 10x (200x10=2000). So when you increased the FSB from 200 to 210 the HT Link becomes 2100 mhz (210x10=2100). So to get the HT Link frequency below the stock 2000 mhz you need to lower the multiplier. Lower it to 9x now, please. That should give you 1890 mhz (9x210). Then repost with attachments of just the CPU-z tab "CPU".

 

[Thyrax]

ok so there was no multiplier config in bios, only voltage and manuel setting of ht frequency value ( default auto ) so I manualy selected 1890 mhz.

 

[trents]

Yep, you're getting it!

Now, go into the memory (or DRAM) section of the bios and change the "divider" (as we call it) to that which gives a memory frequency of 1333 mhz to that which gives a memory frequency of 1066 (if the FSB were still at 200 mhz). Again, you may have to take something off of Auto in order to change that divider. Oh, you probably won't see that term "divider" in bios but that's what we often call it around here.

The Athlon II CPU integrated memory controller is only rated for 1333 mhz and is kind of weak such that it will not give a stable system if the memory frequency gets much above that. So, we start the memory slow so that as we increase the FSB the memory frequency stays withing a stable range.

Go ahead and do that now and post back with a pic of the CPU-z Memory tab.