OCing i7 950 on a Foxconn flamingBlade GTI

[artman74]

System specs:
Case: Thermaltake Element V "3 Intake fans & 2 Exhaust fans"

PSU: XFX 850W Black Edition

MB: Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI

CPU: i7 950 "Stock Speeds till now"

CPU Cooler: DeepCool IceBlade GS http://www.deepcool-us.com/Product/ICE_BLADE_GS/

Rams: CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600

GPU: GTX 470 GIGABYTE Super Overclock Series

SSD: OCZ Vertex-2 90GB

I built this rig a few months ago & now I wanna overclock the CPU up to a stable rock solid clock. Nothing dangerous but just to get a few extra horse power. My good friend DFONDA suggested "since he has the same board" to raise to a 3.4 via the Bclk only.
Which leaves me wondering what about the other options, such as Vdroop, multiplier, CPU Turbo, etc...
PS I decided to give my system specs to make it easier for you to know what you are dealing with "i.e. I have a budget MB" & how to help me. For what it's worth there are also a couple of pictures that I took for my case. Which is also my subtle way to say that I'm a noob when it comes to OCing
Sin yours

 

[jiccman1965]

You can use bclk as long as you memory can handle it. As you push bclk mem speed goes up also. just have to try different combos. Try this link first.

http://www.overclockers.com/3-step-guide-overclock-core-i3-i5-i7/

 

[dfonda]

Glad you posted up Artman!

You should get 3.4 ghz with out breaking a sweat. After that you may have to work for it

Welcome to the Forums!

Ps Your memory is faster then mine so you should have better results.

 

[dfonda]

Bumping up to get an update on Artman's progress...How you making out "A" Man?

 

[artman74]

Man I have been reading Jiccman's link & , Jeez I have to say that its not a simple thing. So far I am reading http://www.overclockers.com/3-step-guide-overclock-core-i3-i5-i7/ & http://www.techreaction.net/2010/09/07/3-step-overclocking-guide-bloomfield-and-gulftown/2/
Wow man I didn't know that you have such a high rank "...These users are the ones with blue user names and blue stars..."
I disabled the EIST, the C state, disabled the XMP of my RAMS. Played a little with the BCLK & my PC wasnt able to boot into windows. Hence, I thought I'd read it again & see what I missed. Frankly speaking after I found out about your high rank I thought I read it again before posting something stupid lol
JS:
I'm a guy who owns a shipping agency, my hobby is building PCs like the one above "although I have to say I screwed it up with the MB". In all honesty this is my first attempt at OCing. So pls bear with me

 

[dfonda]

Hey Art,
To get a real simple OC reset the BIOS to default. Then just set what I have in the pic to get to 3.3GHZ. Save the settings and give it a name using the BIOS save setting. Do that for each group of settings you make, so you can easily revert to one that works.

Save it...and see if you can boot into windows. No need to shoot for 4GHZ on the first try. There are plenty of folks here to help you increase over this(3.3). We just want to move up a small amount at a time. Except for what I have changed in the pic, everything else is default. This setting lets me run all 8 cores of my CPU at 100% 24/7 Folding Proteins. So its very stable.

If you get into Windows check your temps first using Coretemp or something else. Should be in the 30's. Then run something like Prime95 for a couple of hours or until it errors.

 

[artman74]

Gonna give it a try & keep you posted.
I'll enable the EIST & the C states, Everything back to its default state. Except for a few minor things that I've changed in the BIOS which are not related to OCing "floppy controllers, AHCI, First boot device SSD, stuff like that".
btw, When I disabled the C state & the EIST the temps were always under 45; even under load.
I highly doubt the ban thingy Mr. 10 blue stars lool
THX "really appreciate it"

 

[dfonda]

Have your phone camera ready and snap some pics of your build and screen shots of your BIOS, its easier if folks see what your settings are.

Then they can make suggestions as to what to change. They can also recommend a few monitoring tools and stress testers.

 

[artman74]

I think something went wrong

As you can see I set my BIOS exactly as you told me. BCLK to 165, Multiplier was set to 20. However CPU-Z gave me totally different readings.
At first the it booted for around 5 min then BSOD, rebooted with the same OCed Bios setting for 2 more times & it always BSODed on me after around 5 to 10 min "Max"
Other Bios setting that I tweaked:
Spread spectrum Disabled
Bios cachable: Disabled
Plus other setting that are non related to Ocing

What went wrong?
I don't get it, if I set the multiplier to 20 why did it read that it was 24~25!!

If you need anymore details about this BIOS settings PLS let me know
PS Now I have the system running at Stock settings
NB:
Just read Defonda's message & there are a couple of pics about my build on my profile. Anymore screens or details PLS tell me what you want & I'll have it available ASAP

 

[dfonda]

The setting that controls the multiplier is either "System Turbo" or "CPU Turbo"

Try disabling "System Turbo" first.

It may be a difference in BIOS or it may be the difference in our CPU's, I have the 920. My board stays at x20(and the 920 limits the multiplier to x21 on mine)

But in any case we can fix that by disabling either one or both Turbo's and I lean toward the System.about 99.99%

 

[artman74]

I think you & I have the exact same BIOS, cause according to Foxconn that BIOS was particularly written to solve incompatible VGA cards "e.g. fermi cards". I tried a newer non beta BIOS & I wasn't able to boot with the 470GTX "that is when I contacted you first".
System Turbo disables access to all the OCing features in the BIOS. They become grayed out & the system runs at stock speeds. I think what you are referring to is the CPU Turbo "aka Intel Turbo boost Tech"
So you want me to disable the CPU TURBO & try the same settings again???
btw, did you take a look at my build on my profile album?

 

[dfonda]

Yes try CPU turbo disabled and see what happens. No I didn't see that link... I'll look through our PM's.
I have been painting a couple rooms in my house and the vapors may have "disabled" my memory.

Oh and I put some. Faster RAM in my rig from my other rig that matches yours and moved up to 170x20 for a stable 3.4 GhZ with all the other setting at default. So you should be able to as well.

 

[kaneda228]

Hi There.

i'm new here and came accross this tread because i encounter an issue when overclocking my pc.

look like i have a simular setup as posted above..

I use the Foxconn Gamingblade GTI with a i7 920 and 6Gb Kingston HyperX DDR 3 1600Mhz memory. Radeon6870 and 460W powersupply

Tried to OC the pc with settings posted as above by dfonda (simular which i also found on another site) but every time i save settings and pc reboots, there is no video output... harddisks initialize and after 10 seconds the PC reboots and uses default settings again. Bios is the latest version according to the foxconn site.

i can't figure out where the problem could be at...

Doe anybody have an suggestion where to look ??

thanks in advance

Job
The Netherlands

 

[mikeyw]

Hi, I'm not an expert but I have some experience with faulty OC-ing the i7-950

I found the most stability at 200 bclk, then the memory multi is 8 giving you 1600MHz and you can use a low CPU multi (eg. 18 to give you 3.6, though oddly I find odd multis are better). With turbo boost, hyperthreading (to keep temps low) and C1E etc. all switched off I found it runs pretty stable and pretty cool.

Did you follow the guide? The first stage is about testing how high your bclk can go, if it needs to go higher you can add some IOH/VTT to get stability that way. At the moment it looks like turbo boost is bumping your overclock too high, turn all that off and you should get a clearer idea of what is stable and what is not stable.

Unfortunately I don't know much about that motherboard so there may be some limitation there but I doubt it. My own motherboard is pretty poor and I've reached 4.65 with some crazy voltages. My suggestion is copy+paste the guide into word, cut it down and print it out then spend a few hours working through it rigorously. At the very worst it will give you a feel for how your chip reacts to different situations.


@ kaneda228, hello, from your specs I would say your power supply is pretty low wattage for that processor and video card. To get the fastest help, maybe you can ask in the power supplies sub-forum and they will tell you if it's too low or perhaps it's a different issue.

Mike

 

[DmxDex]

Can anybody give me a list of their settings to get a core i7 920 4ghz stable.

 

[Knufire]

If you need help, best to make your own thread. Also, since every chip is different, the settings that work on my chip might not work on yours. There's a guide posted in the 2nd post in this thread that will help you find the best settings and the highest clocks for your chip.

 

[fear4fear2010]

I think you & I have the exact same BIOS, cause according to Foxconn that BIOS was particularly written to solve incompatible VGA cards "e.g. fermi cards". I tried a newer non beta BIOS & I wasn't able to boot with the 470GTX "that is when I contacted you first".
System Turbo disables access to all the OCing features in the BIOS. They become grayed out & the system runs at stock speeds. I think what you are referring to is the CPU Turbo "aka Intel Turbo boost Tech"
So you want me to disable the CPU TURBO & try the same settings again???
btw, did you take a look at my build on my profile album?

I am have the same problem as you .if u have found the way to solve it plz let me know .
Specs
Cpu i7 920
Motherboard flaccon flaming blade gti
Gpu .gtx 470 fermi

 

[Mohammed_Gerwas]

hey
ihave problem with my memory
it says 6gb (1.99gb) installed ??
and my mothermoard is FlamingBlade GTI 1366 intel x58
core i7 3.07hz
memory pc3 12800 ddr3 1600 (2gx3)
windows 8.1 pro 64bit
and i reset my bois and cmos and no change
and update my bois to p10 and and chiptes and checked maxumim memory in msconfig but no change


please any body can help my and can you give me best settings in my bois please?

iam sorry for my english