Volatge too high?

[Goatz]

Hi Forum,

K so I'm pretty green at OCing this is my first. But I read enough to be dangerous I guess and successfully oc'd this old AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz to 3.4ghz just by pushing the FSB to 227mhz with a 15x multiplier (max for the board?..as I see no more options in the bios). The mobo A880g+ had stock voltage VCORE settings @ 1.39 which I didn't touch. Does this seem high? I've read where other mobos use a lot less. I'm getting no errors with Prime 95 after a few hours and my CPU temp never exceeds 45-48c on full load. Do you think I could get more out of it? And what's the "red-zone" for pushing the VCORE voltage in your option with this hardware? Also I read I need to keep the HT as close to 2000 as possible. It keeps going up as I increase the bus speed. Is it too high? Can you explain why this happens? Sorry for the noob question.



mobo
cpu
psu = HP 370W ATX combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 25 Amps @300w; 370@ +12 18a, +12 15a
gpu

Thanks!

 

[trents]

1.39 volts on the CPU is not high at all. In fact, with good cooling so that the core temps don't exceed about 55 C. you can usually push that voltage to around 1.55. That much voltage would also suggest a motherboard with good chipset cooling and heatsinks on the "mosfets", however. Again the key is cool temps and good cooling. What are you cooling the CPU with?

But we need more data. Pleas attach pics of CPU-z tabs: "Memory" and "SPD" in addition to the "CPU" tab you have already given us.

Have you done any stress testing with Prime95 to test the stability of your current overclock and have you done any temp monitoring while stress testing with say, HWMonitor. If you haven't already, download and install these two programs.

 

[Goatz]

Hi, thank you for the reply. Here are the pics:



(Slot #2 is identical)


Yes, I ran Prime 95 "blended" tests after each bump in increments of 1 mhz while keeping an eye on temps with HWMonitor for 30 minutes a piece. Temps never got above 45c. Then When I got it to 3.4ghz I let Prime 95 run all night and had no errors and the temps again never breaching the 45c point.

I am using the stock cooler but I just ordered another case fan. I'll have 2 case fans and the cpu fan when all is said and done. It will be push/pull set up too.

I want to see about maybe ocing my memory too. The specs say DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) with 7-7-7-21 timings for the G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) I have but it's not running that fast. Why is that? Or is that not possible.."safely" anyway?

 

[trents]

The CPU-z "Memory" tab displays the current frequency and timings of your memory. The CPU-z "SPD" tab displays the manufacturer's recommendations for the voltage and timings appropriate for your memory at various common frequency levels it is capable of. They are seen in the several JEDEC columns plus the XMP column farthest to the right. XMP stands for something like "xtended memory performance" or "xtended memory profile". The XMP frequency typically is attainable only with relaxed timings and/or increased voltage. Note in your case the XMP column shows a CR (Command Rate) of 2T, implying that the slower frequencies are using a CR of 1T, though that isn't actually displayed. 2T is more relaxed than 1T. Timings are like pauses in the flow of data as it passes through memory modules. The bigger the timing numbers, the longer the pauses. Of course, this has a detrimental effect on performance. But the higher bandwidth afforded by the greater frequency (say moving from 1066 mhz to 1333 mhz) usually more than offsets this if your CPU can utilize the greater bandwidth. What's interesting in your case is that the other XMP timings (besides CR) are actually quicker than the ones to the left representing the slower frequencies. Unusual. As a general rule, as frequencies go up, timings must be relaxed in order to maintain stability. An inverse relationship.

All this is a round about way of saying you seem to have some room both with regard to core temps and memory frequency for overclocking but you will have to keep an eye on the memory frequency and timings because the memory frequency will grow as you increase the fsb.

Here's a coupe of recommendations for you:

Look at your first post. Your HT Link frequency at 2273 is getting too high and will cause instability. Change that value in bios so that it stays between 1800-2000 mhz. That adjustment may be expressed as a frequency or a multiplier like 6x, 8x, 9x, 10x. Right now its at 10x. That's stock. Lower it to 8x for now.

 

[Goatz]

Thank you for all the helpful info, it's very interesting.

I have a setting for Hyper Transport Configuration which is set to "AUTO" @ 2000mhz and there are options to decrease the speed to 1800 - 800. But I have no "x's 10, 8, 6" etc. Is that the setting I should change? To 1800mhz? Also I read you should shut off Cool n Quiet and C1E? I don't see the C&Q option but I did disable the other. Is that correct?

edit: Ok I lowered the rate to 1800 and now I get this:



If this helps:


I'm going to bump it up one more to 3.5ghz. If I get that stable, I will be happy and leave it there

But how do you increase the memory speeds? Just change the DRAM frequency? The bios says the DDR voltage is at 1.6 right now. Should I not touch that?

 

[trents]

Yea, looking at CPU-z HT LInk it shows you got the right one because its less than it was. Now take it down one more notch to allow room for it to grow as you increase the bus frequency. They are tied together and so are the memory frequency and the NB. As the system bus is raised they all get bigger and you need to manually adjust them downwardly to keep them from causing instability.

Also, set your memory voltage to 1.55 from 1.50. That gives a little insurance.

 

[Goatz]

3.5ghz But is the HT too low now? HT is @1600 ..should I bump it back to 1800?



The DDR voltage is at 1.6 (no 1.55 option). There's a setting for DRAM frequency and Timings.
Would it be cool to change the timings to match the XMP column (7,7,7,23,31) now or
should I wait until I get the frequency right @667?

 

[trents]

No. As long as you are in the 1800-2000 mhz range there will not be any perfornance hit and you are at 1872 after the fsb increase. And it will grow. You will see.

Now, do you have a CPUNB voltage adjustment? If so, put it to 1.225.

By the way, I find that 20 minute Prime95 blend tests are perfect for roughing out your overclock. They aren't excessively time consuming but if you can pass the test for that length of time you are pretty close to being rock stable. At the end of the overclock process when I'm feeling the "wall" I lengthen the test to two hours.

 

[trents]

Make sure you monitor your core temps with every frequency and voltage increase. You want not to exceed about 55 C. on the core temps and 65 C. on the CPU temps.

 

[trents]

Both the HT Link and the CPUNB (or maybe just "NB") frequency are based on multiples of the system bus speed whose default frequency is 200 mhz. At stock default values the HT Link and the CPUNB will be 2000 (200x10). If put the HT Link, for instance, back to 1800 in bios, in effect what is happening is you have changed the multiplier from 10 to 8 (200x8=1600). But if you also increase the system bus frequency it will be greater than 1800 when you check it in Windows. For example, if you put the system bus to 234 mhz the real value will be 234x8=1872. CPUNB works exactly the same way. Get it? You aren't seeing the multiplier in the way your bios is set up but its behind the scenes.

 

[Goatz]

Yes kinda lol. I will study this more. Sorry if I'm jumping the gun with all this, just excited it's working and my pc isn't smoking

Ok I ran 20 minute test. Temps never over 47c. Stayed around 41-43c the whole time.
Is it Strange that the cores are cooler than the CPU?


I will look for the CPUNB voltage adjustment now and adjust it to your recommendations.

 

[Goatz]

I have a "CPU OVERVOLTAGE" option that is set to 'START UP DEFAULT' but has these options: +0.050, +.100, +.150 and that's all I see for anything "CPUNB".

 

[trents]

It's not strange to have the cores cooler than the CPU when you are using big aftermarket coolers but it is a little unusual to see that with stock OEM coolers. But if you will look at the minimum core temp it is 16 C. Unless your computing room is pretty cool that's not likely to be accurate. When room air is used to cool a radiator it is physically impossible to achieve temps lower than ambient. My guess is those core temp readings are around 8-9 C. off. However, sometimes a temp sensor's calibration is such that it's pretty accurate on the high end but not so accurate on the low end. We will get a better idea of that as you progress your overclock and eventually encounter instability. You can expect that CPU to top out at about 3.7-3.8 ghz.

 

[Goatz]

My house is VERY cold. Low 60's F maybe less late at night like this. So they "might" be accurate?

So what's next boss? You think I should push it to 3.6? I don't want to run it to where I have to clear the cmos. I would be totally content to have it there and stable. But I want the memory @667 with those faster timings too if I can
What do you think about the CPUNB voltage settings I posted above?

 

[trents]

This is the CPUNB voltage adjustment. You might have to press the "+" or "-" keys to change it from "Setup" to some manual value. I'd like you to put it at 1.25.

 

[trents]

When you show pics of CPU-z please show all three tabs every time: "CPU", "Memory" and "SPD". If you show only the CPU tab I can't see what the memory is doing. You can add more pics to any post by going to Edit and Go Advanced.

 

[Goatz]

CPUNB is now at 1.25

Running Prime95 20 minute test again.

 

[trents]

CPUNB is now at 1.25 That's fine.

Running Prime95 20 minute test again.

Your memory frequency is approaching 1333 as you increase the CPU frequency. Did you realize that CPU-z reports the memory speed at half the DDR3 transfer rate? So, really where it shows 644 that should be interpreted as 1288 mhz. CPU-z reports the DDR bus speed rather than the DDRx transfer rate.

 

[Goatz]

Prime95 test passed with min 44c max 49c temps.

Yes I noticed that

If I go to 3.7ghz it will probably get close enough to 1333 and then could i adjust the timings?

 

[Goatz]

3.7 and 660 memory speed





Running stress test again..