Overclocking Phen on Biostar board and hit a wall

[givmedew]

I am sorta new to overclocking as in this is the first overclocked rig since 10 years. I had a gateway DX4200 the computer stopped turning on and it wasn't the powersupply (PC Power+Cooling 550 SLI). So I bought a BIOSTAR A770E cheap $40 and a Cooler Master V8 for $45 and then transplanted everything into what I had laying around so now my setup is as follows.

Case: Antec 900 all fans set to medium except top set to high
PSU: PC Power+Cooling 1000 SLI
Board: Biostar A770E
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9550 65NM 2.2GHz
Memory: 2x1GB and 2x2GB 6GB total came with Gateway DX4200 333MHz
Video: ATI HD 5850 OC'd (oc'ing off for tests)
HD1: Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB
HD2: WDC WD6400 (640GB) Short stroked and formatted to 298GB
HD3: Mybook 1TB
CD/DVD: Optiarc Sata

So here is the wall that I hit: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1379457

24hrs on prime95 with a maximum temp of 41 but was actually at 40 which is the highest I have ever seen the room was very very warm with the windows closed probably well above 75 in the room. Idle at this room temp is 20 degrees.

If I take the HT a single MHz higher it wont make it in prime95 if I up the multiplier it wont make it in prime95. I can not increase the core voltage any further in that bios and I didn't up the other voltages very much at all because I don't know what NB voltage really relates to and the motherboard lacks heatsinks or any active cooling and the ram is 6GB of who knows what quality ram from gateway.

The following settings are inside the bios
CPU Over Voltage +0.15V (MAX)
CPU NB Over Voltage +0.05
Memory Over Voltage 1.95
Chip Over Voltage 1.14V (are they talking about the processor or the motherboard?)
HT Over Voltage STOCK

CPU Frequency 257

Core VID 1.25 V
Core FID x10.5
Core DID Divided by 1
NB VID 1.25v
NB FID 1800MHz

Memory Clock
DDR2-533
Dram Timing Mode is Auto

HT Link Speed 1.4 GHz

Core Leveling Auto

-----------------------------------


SO!

What next I cant increase the core voltage anymore in that bios is there an application I can use?

If not should I just start lowering the voltages to the lowest stable amount.

What can I really do with that ram? It is overclocked and slightly overvaulted as a resualt of the frequency not being an even amount that I could underclock the ram to 333.

Should I mess with the timing? I refuse to buy new ram do to the fact that this rig is out dated and the price of DDR2 is gross.

So whats next?

My goal is to learn so that my next rig I am prepared to rock as I lost my balls last time when I bought planned on OCing a Athalon 64 with a A8N SLI Deluxe and 2 7800GTX and everything stayed stock.

Here is a link to pictures of the bios and a few of the computer

http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b48/givmedew/PC-Gaming/


Thanks

also could someone briefly explain to me the effect that the CPU NB voltage has on this whole situation!

 

[CgS Drone]

Hold on backing up and removing my post. OK you have 1.25 volts to it now (VCore) plus the .15 (over volt) giving it 1.40 volts? max calls for 1.25 volts on that cpu.

 

[trents]

Yeah, your temps leave you a lot of headroom for increasing vcore.

So, I'm confused about your memory spec: "Memory: 2x2GB and 2x4GB came with Gateway DX4200 333MHz". You have 12 gb of memory installed? If that is the case then you need to realize there is no app that will actually use anywhere close to that amount of memory. That much ram, especially mixing brands and module weights can only have a detrimental effect on overclocking. T he 2x2 GB sticks is plenty for anything you want to do, even with a 64-bit OS. Not only that but you say it is "DX4200 333 mhz" and below that you have the ram speed set to "DDR2 533". Is the "DX4200 333 mhz" a DDR rating so that it is actually DDR2 666? If it was me, I would remove the the 2x4 gb. That has to put a strain on the ICM.

 

[trents]

Now that I reread your post it states in another place you only have 6 Gb of ram. The way you expressed it initially was 2x2 (which equals 4) plus 2x4 (which equals 8) which would be a total of 12 GB. I think you meant to say 1x2 and 2x2. Any way, I would keep one pair or the other but not both. Could you also upload a screenshot of the "Memory" and the "SPD" tabs in CPU-z?

 

[givmedew]

Yeah, your temps leave you a lot of headroom for increasing vcore.

So, I'm confused about your memory spec.

I fixed my typo and as for the 4200 I mean that it is the ram that came with my gateway dx4200 all 6gbs of it. If you are telling me to take 2gb out then that 6gb thing was great old marketing the other version of this desktop had 4gb of faster memory. Not that I chose this one over the other it was a matter of fact of picking it up for around 250 used when it was still a current model.

 

[CgS Drone]

Under the Hardware Health section of your Bios or either under the CPU tab in CPU-Z what voltage is it showing you have going to the CPU?

 

[givmedew]

I jumped the gun and did the recommended 1.5 then the computer didnt boot then realized you retracted your statement lol

right now under load the voltage is fluctuating between 1.29 and 1.312

 

[CgS Drone]

Your temps are taking it but you are pushing a lot of volts for it having a max of 1.25. I don't push mine over their limit but others do so I will let them tell you if its safe to be pushing that hard on it.

I know the Biostar bios doesn't add up when figuring the voltage (adding them that is) thats why I always tweak then hit the bios under health section to check. They are stable but just don't add up but I'm sure you have seen that by now lol. I had a MSI that did the same thing also.

 

[givmedew]

here is the cpuid tabs for memory

 

[givmedew]

Won't increasing the voltage for the most part just increase heat? I know there is technicaly a point where it will jump circuits and arc but this is the 65nm.

The temp is so low I really think I want to try to get what I paid out of the mobo and spu cooler otherwise the cooler needs to go back LOL

Also what do I need to do with the memory?

Should I really go down to one set of 2 sticks?

 

[CgS Drone]

You wont use 6gig, unless you are running Adobe CS2 or 5 or whatever. I have 4 gig in my system and run Adobe almost daily since photography is one of my hobbies but I never open enough files to fill up the RAM that I have, I just don't need to work on that many files at one time.

The extra memory in there is doing nothing more than putting a drag on the CPU-NB and will show no performance gain for it.

I say stick with the (2x2) 4gig and pull the rest.

I guess one other thing I should have asked, are you running a 64bit OS or 32bit?

 

[givmedew]

I am running vista 7 64bit

 

[CgS Drone]

Your OS will see it and say its available no doubt there. I have only used 64bit in Linux and haven't tried a Windows version of it to see how it allocates the RAM.

 

[trents]

Please show the "CPU" tab in CPU-z. Want to see what your HT Link speed is.

 

[givmedew]

Please show the "CPU" tab in CPU-z. Want to see what your HT Link speed is.

from 1st post
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1379457

 

[theflyingrat]

One thing you may want to be wary of : the X4 9550 is a 95W CPU at its base speeds and voltages. With its smaller 4-phase power circuitry, you'll be stressing the A770E pretty hard when you start to close in and pass the 2.5GHz stage and boosting the voltages, as it only officially supports up to 95W CPUs.. I've got the A770E myself, and while an excellent board for the pittance that I paid for it, it's not nearly as capable as boards that are rated for 125W and 140W CPUs. A bit over 3.1GHz is all I'm able to get out of my X3 710 at this point; it did well over 3.3GHz easily on my older Jetway HA04 and DFI 790FXB-M2RSH boards, mostly due to the surfeit of thick, rich, chunky voltage that I could pump into the CPU with them.

Removing two memory modules will help you attain higher clock speeds in general, but I've run my CPU with four 2GB modules for quite some time now. The difference in CPU speeds had only been about 100MHz, at best. So, I've just left all four in. It comes down to whether or not you actually will use more than 4GB of memory... most folks don't. While testing certain software packages, I'd come to value 8GB, but I don't use it on a day-to-day basis. But I don't think that's your issue - read on.

As for core voltage, one will usually hit the CPU's ceiling clock speed with somewhere from 1.4v-1.45v. But in our cases, there's a very good reason that Biostar limits the vCore increase by only 150mv. It's because the PWM circuitry simply couldn't handle supplying our not-so-power-conscious triple and quad-cores with more than that. It's likely a safeguard on their end to keep users from nuking their motherboards while trying to feed a CPU more power than it's capable of maintaining.

Temps look great, though! You're wayyyy under the recommended 60C "wall" that Phenoms seem to hate so much. Heat obviously won't be your issue. All of your clocks around the board (HTT, Northbridge, memory) are well within normal overclocked-Phenom operating parameters.

I'm betting your wall is voltage/PWM related here. Not a whole lot one can do about that, other than sub-zero cooling... even if you found a software that would let you boost the voltages higher, your motherboard is more likely to give way.

The A770E is a fine board for overclocking low-power CPUs, and for modest overclocks, and outmatches the similar ECS and ASRock offerings at the same price. But it's just not a heavy-duty overclocking board, and its vCore cap is a testament to that.

And kudos to you for picking a good power supply to do this with. That's an all-too-oft-overlooked factor here.

 

[CgS Drone]

Theflyingrat, he can actually take the voltage a lot higher now. There was just some confusion on where all the setting where for the cpu. I just didn't want to tell him to push to high on that cpu as it is already at its max voltage according to AMD and I am not familiar with how much that cpu can be over volted.

How ever there aren't any heatsinks on the Mosfet so he may not want to push to hard there unless he gets some for it.

 

[trents]

By the way, your original post has errors. Your ram is not "DDR2-533". It is DDR2 666 which is equal to PC2-5300. I think you may have been getting DDR_ and PC_ terminology mixed up. At least this is the case for Slot 1 as your CPU-z tab shows. Are all the modules rated at the same speed?

So it looks like at your present bus speed you already have your ram a little overclocked. Its rated at 333 (=DDR2 666) and you have it at 342.7 (=DDR2 685). It might be helpful to back off the CPU multiplier and see how far you can take your ram, i.e., where the ram speed wall is so that you would know if that is the current limiting factor.