Need help Overclocking AMD FX-4100 Quad-Core

[HeavyMetal1021]

I need some advice overclocking my AMD FX-4100 Quad-Core. I have already done a simple overclock to 4ghz in the BIOS for my ASRock 970 Extreme4 motherboard. But, when I try to go any higher I get a BSOD. I'm new to overclocking and these forums. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

System Information :
Processor : AMD FX-4100 Zambezi Quad-Core 64-bit 3.6ghz(Overclocked to 4ghz).
Motherboard : ASRock 970 Extreme4 AM3+ with SATA 6gb/s and USB 3.0 and UEFI BIOS.
Memory : 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM.
Case : Rosewill Challenger U3 Black Gaming case with e-sata, USB 3.0, three 120mm front and side blue LED fans and one 140mm top fan.
Video Card : SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR3.
Sound Card : SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum.
PSU : Apevia Iceberg 680watt with adjustable fan speed, color mode switcher and see through siding.
Optical Drive : HP CD-RW/DVD-RW Lightscribe Multi-Recorder R-DL.
Hard Drives :
-One 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with Windows 7 – Ultimate – 64-bit installed on 200GB Partition(sda1) with the other 300GB Partition(sda2) for Media Storage.
-One 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with Windows XP SP3 for storing Game Install Files.
-One 250GB Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM SATA for extra storage and backups.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

Sorry had to throw my solved Rubik's Cube in there =]

 

[RGone]

#1 Welcome to the forums.

#2 Full screen captures of un-needed information make the actual informative window too small to read well.

#3 Your Vcore is too too low to run much faster.

#4 This is how best to get everyone on the same page with the type information we use to help tune-up just about every user that walks thru the door wanting to overclock.

These are the types of information that most users supply in order to be able to help them very much.

CPU Tab in CPUz from CPUID com

Memory Tab in CPUz from CPUID com

SPD Tab in CPUz from CPUID com

And this is screen capture of HWMonitor (free version) from CPUID com
HWMonitor has been scrolled enough and large enough to show Min/Max of Voltages and includes the CPU CORE TEMPS fully visible.

This capture is made of HWMonitor after it has been open on the desktop logging Min/Max temps and voltages while Prime 95 was running Blend Mode test on all cores for at least 20 mins and then the capture of HWMonitor was made and it shows the Min/Max temps and voltages before P95 Blend was started and while running P95 Blend mode and gives much greater insight into how the system is performing without guessing.

In order to attach screenshots of images as suggested, first crop and capture the images with Snipping Tool found in Windows Accessories or equivalent. Then click on Go Advanced, a button at the bottom of every new post window. Then click on the little paperclip tool at the top of the Advanced post window when it opens. Clicking on the paperclip tool brings up the file browser/upload tool and the rest is fairly obvious.

 

[trents]

HeavyMetal1021, you left out a very important piece of info in your Sig, namely, what are you cooling the CPU with?

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

@RGone - Thank you for the quick replies. Sorry about the "useless" picture. I was just excited about my new setup. These are what you need.
@trents - I have three 120mm (front and side) and one 140mm (top). The heatsink I am using is the one that came with the FX-4100.

I mainly just want to know the best way to go about doing this. Do I need to raise my voltages?

 

[RGone]

1. As far as I can tell from looking at HWMonitor; it seems HWMonitor was n0t running in the background while Prime 95 Blend mode was running. That is how it looks.

2. Looking at the CPUz Memory Tab it seems your ram is only running at DDR880 and not DDR1333 or DDR1600.

 

[trents]

Heavymetal, since it is reporting ram bus frequency instead of DDR3 transfer rate, CPU-z reports ram frequency at half of what you might expect. So double what you see as the frequency in the Memory tab in order to figure the DDR3 frequency your ram is set to in bios. You appear to be running it far under it's frequency capacity. If you have the ram frequency on Auto in bios you will want to change that to the XMP-1600 setting if you have one or just manually set it to 1600 mhz and manually set the timings to what you see in the XMP-1600 column of the CPU-z "SPD" tab.

Also, with the stock CPU cooler, don't expect to get much of an overclock.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

Thanks a lot guys. Don't know how I forgot to change it to 1600 in BIOS. When I run Prime95 on blend mode I don't get any errors, and even though I have a stock CPU heatsink, I'm still running pretty cool because of the 4 others big fans. One last question. After I change the RAM to 1600, should I raise the voltages for my CPU? If so what should I put it on? Thanks again.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

I feel like even with the stock CPU heatsink and fan, I should be able to get just a little bit more out of it. Like maybe 4.2 or so. Cause its running pretty cool at 4ghz. I play Battlefield 3 and MW3 on high settings and it runs awesome.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

Overclock Successful!

OK, I upped the voltages and changed DDR3 to 1760. But I'm stuck at 10% overclock. For some reason I cannot go any higher than that. Windows will load for about an hour when I go up to 15% OC, which is about 4.2ghz. This time I took some BIOS screenshots(a lot of people might be wondering how I did that) so a brief explanation is to have a UEFI BIOS and a USB flash drive formatted to FAT32, boot up the computer with the usb stick in and hold F12 while in BIOS (Credit goes to Sean Webster at http://www.overclock.net/t/1196903/how-do-i-take-screenshots-of-my-bios). OK, anyways I have heard of people with my same setup going to 4.4 or 4.6 ghz. So obviously that's what I want to do and be able to still run my machine. I'm supplying these screenshots of BIOS that way you can better see what settings I have and what I can do to overclock.

This one is of my current CPU OC TWEAKER settings :

This one is of my current DRAM OC TWEAKER settings :

This is my CPUID HW Monitor with CPU Usage to the side showing Prime95 testing :

This is my CPU-Z CPU Tab :

This is my CPU-Z SPD Tab :

And finally this is my CPU-Z Memory Tab :

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
-------------------------------------------------------------SYSTEM INFORMATION------------------------------------------------------------------------
Processor : AMD FX-4100 Zambezi Quad-Core 64-bit 3.6ghz(Overclocked to 4ghz). Heatsink and Fan are stock but decent.
Motherboard : ASRock 970 Extreme4 AM3+ with SATA 6gb/s and USB 3.0 and UEFI BIOS.
Memory : 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM (DRAM frequency overclocked to 1760).
Case : Rosewill Challenger U3 Black Gaming case with e-sata, USB 3.0, three 120mm front and side blue LED fans and one 140mm top fan.
Video Card : SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR3.
Sound Card : SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum.
PSU : Apevia Iceberg 680watt with adjustable fan speed, color mode switcher and see through siding.
Optical Drive : HP CD-RW/DVD-RW Lightscribe Multi-Recorder R-DL.
Hard Drives :
-One 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with Windows 7 – Ultimate – 64-bit installed on 200GB Partition (sda1) with the other 300GB Partition(sda2) for Media Storage.
-One 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with Windows XP SP3 for storing Games Install Files.
-One 250GB Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM SATA for extra storage and backups.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

By the way, I realized my 140mm top fan was backwards making 2 exhaust fans which is completely unnecessary. So I turned it around so it was blowing directly onto my CPU heat-sink, AND my side fan (there are two spots for 120mm side fans on my case) was on the lower part of the side, so I moved it to the upper spot, so it is blowing on my CPU heat-sink as well. That was the easiest fix I've ever done to knock 12° off my CPU temperature while stress testing with Prime95 for an hour. It maxes out at 45° instead of 57°

 

[trents]

I lived in Savannah for several months when I was 12-13 years old. Back then I loved all the swamps, marshes and reptiles.

Just wondering whey you are using the OC wizard in bios instead of manually overclocking with the individual controls, which is much better and gives higher, more stable overclocks.

One likely cause of your instability is that you are running your ram at 1760 mhz when it's only rated for 1600 mhz. Look at the CPU-z memory tab. 880x2=1760.

 

[caddi daddi]

heavymetal, satudaynight, dinner at the charthouse?
temps are looking good for a stock heatsink.
I think trents is on the right track.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

It's not the memory because not only is this memory made to be overclocked but I wasnt able to OC past 10% even with my memory at 800. I also have plenty of cooling. I'm doing something wrong in BIOS. My main question is if you were me...looking at my BIOS SS's....what controls would you change? I have cool n quiet disabled. Do I need to disable Turbo core? Also, what is Boost Frequency Multiplier? Do I need to change it?
@trents - Yeah I love it here in Savannah.
@caddi daddi - You buyin? haha. That place is expensive isn't it?

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

Any ideas guys?

System Information :
Processor : AMD FX-4100 Zambezi Quad-Core 64-bit 3.6ghz(Overclocked to 4ghz) with stock heat-sink and fan.
Motherboard : ASRock 970 Extreme4 AM3+ with SATA 6gb/s and USB 3.0 and UEFI BIOS.
Memory : 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM 1600 (Overclocked to 1760).
Case : Rosewill Challenger U3 Black Gaming case with e-sata, USB 3.0, three 120mm front and side blue LED fans and one 140mm top fan.
Video Card : SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR3 (Overclocked core to 900 Mhz and memory to 967 Mhz).
Sound Card : SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum.
PSU : Apevia Iceberg 680watt with adjustable fan speed, color mode switcher and see through siding.
Optical Drive : HP CD-RW/DVD-RW Lightscribe Multi-Recorder R-DL.
Hard Drives :
-One 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with Windows 7 – Ultimate – 64-bit installed on 200GB Partition(sda1) with the other 300GB Partition(sda2) for Media Storage.
-One 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA with Windows XP SP3 for storing Game Install Files.
-One 250GB Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM SATA for extra storage and backups.

 

[RGone]

Your XMP-1600 settings according to CPUz SPD tab shows DDR1600 with 2T command rate. Not DDR1760.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

All i know is it says DDR3 1760 in BIOS cause thats what I set it on. Regardless, all I want to do is get some help overclocking my CPU some more cause I'm new to overclocking. My memory is fine and not affecting my overclock. I just want to know how to manually overclock in BIOS correctly.

 

[RGone]

Written in this Forum.

Bulldozer OC Guide!
Everything you need to overclock bulldozer properly.

 

[trents]

Well, it looks like your CPU vcore at 1.328 is low for overclocking and I wonder why you are using the FSB to overclock when you have a black edition CPU with an unlocked multiplier. Much simpler to put the FSB back to 200 mhz stock and use the multiplier to overclock. Looks like you must be using some overclocking wizard in bios. Turn that off and use the manual controls. Don't combine both. It's impossible to control things if you do that and we won't be able to help you.

 

[HeavyMetal1021]

By multiplier you mean the boost frequency multiplier right? why does it say x19.0 4180mhz? I dont really understand how that works. OK, so I'll disable the OC CPU mode and put it on manual, then Ill up my voltages some more, disable AMD Turbo core and put FSB back at 200. Then just up it with the Boost frequency multiplier? Thanks for your info