Am I Ready to Overclock? [Pics n' Specs]

[narcotis]

i had the same problem with my 1:1 ratio crashing, i thoiught it was the same as well untill i watched the memory speed when switching from 1:1 to sync mode.

 

[Jeuk]

1:1 is the divider I dont think your board would put it in the bios 2 times, bsod is usually memory, check and see what clock its at. if its higher than stock due to oc up dram volts. leave the multi at stock and then oc with fsb, if you hit a fsb end ad multi.

Okay.
I tried going the FSB way again, at 9 and between 1450-1555, but was still getting freezeups. even when I raised the ram voltage to about 2.2.

However, I was able to get a 10 x1383 going.

The pic is during the stress test at about 100% CPU usage, so the temps should be affected by that.
Idle temps averaging about ~52.

The ram voltage is at about 2.2
I believe vcore voltage is at 1.4**

so far so good with prime95 + nvidia stressing.
It's not as fast as the cpu multiplier at 11, but perhaps it will be stabler.

However, I would like to figure out why the higher FSB caused freezeups during the boot?
Is it the RAM voltage that's too low? Should I take it even higher than 2.2 when I go up to about 1555 FSB?
Is there anything else that needs changing when I am going up the scale with the FSB?


I really feel like I am getting the hang of things now, thanks to you guys. Been very helpful.
I'll take as much advice as I can get.

Thanks.

 

[Stratus_ss]

have you locked your pci bus at 100 mhz?
if the pci bus is not locked this could cause the system to freeze when doing FSB OCs
I would definately advise against going higher voltage on your memory unless it is rated for 2.2v
doing this will cause the ram to get quite hot and you will probably need to add active cooling to the ram

and IIRC 52C idle for this cpu is quite a bit above where people like them

Finally your stress test does not appear to be affecting all your cores. Usually if you are stressing all of your cores, the temps are within a few degrees of each other. Yours however have as much as 6-9C difference. This would seem to indicate that you are only stressing 1 core

good luck with your oc

 

[cabose1227]

I think I know the problem, you have 4 1 gig sticks thus puting more stress on the memory controller. I am prety shure you need to up the north brige volts, and active cool your ram. that might fix the problem. also you dont have to yous a 9 multi, you can yous 11 if this dosent get fixed. by increasing fsb your ram was increasing speed, it might have over heated or the the ram controller was over loaded and needed more volts(I am prety shure the nb controls the ram stuff) making you only be able to oc with multi. you should also feel the ram and nb/sb to see if they are over heating.

 

[Jeuk]

Firstly, I think my PC restarted overnight. I am not sure that it was an overheating, a crash (even though I don't think freezeups will cause restarts, rather just sit there frozen), or a program that restarted my computer like windows update or something.

So not sure yet, like you guys said, every OCing has to be tested thoroughly for stability and tweaked till it's right.

have you locked your pci bus at 100 mhz?
if the pci bus is not locked this could cause the system to freeze when doing FSB OCs
I would definately advise against going higher voltage on your memory unless it is rated for 2.2v
doing this will cause the ram to get quite hot and you will probably need to add active cooling to the ram

and IIRC 52C idle for this cpu is quite a bit above where people like them

Finally your stress test does not appear to be affecting all your cores. Usually if you are stressing all of your cores, the temps are within a few degrees of each other. Yours however have as much as 6-9C difference. This would seem to indicate that you are only stressing 1 core

good luck with your oc

MY PCI's are all locked at 100.
However, in that same menu there is an item called SPP<->MCP Ref Clock, which is set to auto, the lowest number in its custom values is 200 and I believe it goes up to 300 or 400 or so.
Not sure what that is.

My ram is rated between 1.9 and 2.4
I am currently only using two sticks of it, because 4 sticks caused crashing and blue screens of death.

As for my new temps

I managed to get the northbridge voltage up by .1 volts, and used the cpu multiplier of 11 x 14000 FSB.
I got a problem at first because I think I may have set the northbridge voltage too high.

Right now, I am in 3.85, almost hitting the 4ghz mark.
The vcore voltage is 1.4.
The memory voltage I believe is at 2.2
the Northbridge voltage I believe is at 1.35

All other voltages set to auto.
Memory ratio still set to sync mode, as 1:1 causes boot failure.

I think I know the problem, you have 4 1 gig sticks thus puting more stress on the memory controller. I am prety shure you need to up the north brige volts, and active cool your ram. that might fix the problem. also you dont have to yous a 9 multi, you can yous 11 if this dosent get fixed. by increasing fsb your ram was increasing speed, it might have over heated or the the ram controller was over loaded and needed more volts(I am prety shure the nb controls the ram stuff) making you only be able to oc with multi. you should also feel the ram and nb/sb to see if they are over heating.

Hey, first of all, thanks for your continuous help.
I am only using two sticks of RAM.
The package came from newegg with 4x1GB sticks.
I am now using 2x1GB sticks, so only 2 gigs of RAM.
4 gigs have caused me severe problems in the past, I never knew why, though I suspected that they were being overheated by the CPU heatsink. It might sound crazy or foolish, but I guess I don't know much about the complexities of the RAM so I just assume based on what I can see, which is this:

Notice the two RAM sticks, though marked purple, are in the farthest slots from the CPU heatsink. The copper metal gets much hotter than the cpu heatsink, and it's right next to the ram.

Then again, it may be that while using 4 sticks, I need to increase the voltage? I tried that before, but perhaps before I knew what kind of voltage to be setting.

I've taken your advice, and brought the cpu multi up to 11, while keeping the FSB at 1400, and upping the north bridge voltage.
I am stable as of now in vista, but haven't done any stress testing yet.
I am guessing I should focus on trying to raise the FSB little by little, and seeing when it crashes to provide the northbridge and the memory with some more voltages?

Thanks again for everyones help.
I am already seeing notable performance boosts in Team Fortress two with the CPU OCing and my 8800Ultra upped about 20 mhz in both clock and memory.

Keep the advice coming, I am really getting things done here

 

[cabose1227]

you should be able to yous all of your ram just acive cool it by puting a fan on it, the other 2 sticks might be bad though. and the pic of the ram or what ever is not showing.

 

[Jeuk]

you should be able to yous all of your ram just acive cool it by puting a fan on it, the other 2 sticks might be bad though. and the pic of the ram or what ever is not showing.

Well, my friend, I am afraid I reached that dark end of the road.

I think my motherboard has gone kaput...

I don't even think it has to do anything with overclocking. Basically, I was settings different FSB clocks and voltages, and booted. It got stuck on the first screen (the screen where you have to press Delete to enter BIOS).
It did this before, when the voltages were too high or too low, it just froze up, so usually I would just reset the cmos, and everything was fine.

I reset the cmos, it booted again, and froze again on the first screen.
That was weird.

Booted a few more times, and still froze on the main screen.
Eventually, it stopped booting.

The asus striker extreme has a LCD to show debugs, mine is showing "PCI init".
I tried everything. Resetting cmos for two hours.
Taking out all PCI cards.
Exchanging ram slots.
Putting the video card in the other PCI slot.

Nothing worked, I am assuming my motherboard somehow got ****ed up. But it does explain a lot. I believe my motherboard was ****ed the day it came here, I have been getting unexplainable blue screens of death, freezeups, etc when using 4 sticks of 1 gb ram on this 300$ ****ing dollar GAMING motherboard.

I am probably going to get a replacement from asus as I have an extended warranty, but I would like to get another brand or another motherboard.

Thanks for all you guys' help. I don't think it was OCing that caused the problem, but I guess it's possible. I didn't even mess with the PCI busses and I am geting a PCI init error.

Thanks again.

 

[jason4207]

Do yourself a favor and get an Intel chipset this time. P35/X38.

They OC quads much better!

I recommend the Foxconn P35 MARS.

You won't be able to run SLI w/ the P35/X38's, but SLI can be frustrating anyway.

You'll be happy w/ a single-card solution like you already have, and the Intel chipset boards OC much better, & run much cooler.

 

[Jeuk]

Do yourself a favor and get an Intel chipset this time. P35/X38.

They OC quads much better!

I recommend the Foxconn P35 MARS.

You won't be able to run SLI w/ the P35/X38's, but SLI can be frustrating anyway.

You'll be happy w/ a single-card solution like you already have, and the Intel chipset boards OC much better, & run much cooler.

Thing is, I am not sure if Asus will refund, or even allow choosing another Mobo. even if they are cheaper than the striker.

I was looking at several mobos, like:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186133
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136037

These two, which are P35s, but lack good support, as I saw in the comments.
Another thing is the lack of SLI, which was important to me, as I wanted to buy another 8800ultra when the time came that one was just not enough. But I don't know yet.

I was also looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188024

But since it's another company, it is very likely that asus won't refund my money.

let's just wait and see. I'll probably just end up with another striker, sadly.

 

[cabose1227]

sorry you are having trouble he is right, get a new board(780i stryker), I love my ip35-e, it is my favorate board even though I had a gigabyte x38 this one worked better for me. on your buget get a ip35-pro or a asus maximus formula if you dont want the stryker extreme anymore. Just remember ip35-e/pro is your frend
if you want sli all the new 780i boards are way better than the 680i, the asus one looks nice but you probobly dont want that any more. go for the xfx 780i if you need sli.
asus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131255
xfx
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813141005