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I7 860 over clock Stability issues

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wicked_sticky

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Oct 1, 2016
I inherited an i7 860 and Gigabyte P55A-UD3 board 8gb 1033 corsair ram. PSU 600 watt antec modular. Read all the guides I could find. Im far more familiar with over clocking AMD's and K ed. Intel chips, this is new to me

System runs IBT 20 passes, prime 95 6 hours no problem, when the computer is idle or doing something intensiveness it randomly restarts. (behavior happens twice a day at most). Goes to sleep, wakes up fine

I keep lowering the bcklk raising voltage(s) to no avail. it may be some other issue. I though i was fairly stable with a lower Vcore and a bcklk of 172 when this 1st happened

Multiplier=22
Bclk 160 (stock 133)
QPI Multiplier 32 (from 36)
Ram Multiplier 6 (from 8- ram runs slower now but I dont want to mess with that til the system is stable)

Vcore= 1.285V
QPI/Vtt/IMC= 1.18V
PCH= 1.10V
PLL= 1.80V
RAM= 1.5 (raising did nothing left back at defualt)

I put in a Hyper 212, temps hit 64 running IBT, otherwise 57 gaming.

I disabled C1 (tired disabling c4/c6 EIST too but no change). Based on other posts my voltages are way way more than enough I dont know what going on.

ANY suggestions would be great.
 
Stable, even at auto voltages and oc to 140 with the lower qpi and ram multiplier it's fine.
 
the qpi scales with the the bcklk it should hand 6000+ stock is 4.8k, with the multiplier down as low as it goes (32x) and the bcklk up its at 5.1k (from all the guides this is a really mild qpi OC, shouldnt need more voltage (or very little more).
like I said I really dont know how these voltages interact my haswell is easy peasy 2 voltages. (one for the vcore, and one for the uncore)

Could too much voltage cause instability (keeping in mind Im way bellow the safe max)? My voltages are closer to a 180+bclk
 
Usually high voltage does not interfere with the oveoclock. It's been a long time for me however if I remember correctly the QPI is tied with the PCI-E buss and that will make your system crash running out of specification. So make sure the PCI-E buss is running at the correct speed.
 
System runs IBT 20 passes, prime 95 6 hours no problem, when the computer is idle or doing something intensiveness it randomly restarts. (behavior happens twice a day at most). Goes to sleep, wakes up fine
Do you have any form of LLC enabled? The symptoms you describe of instability at idle, but not load, sounds like LLC is on and rising too much.

Yes, too much voltage can bork an overclock....though not at these volage levels. :)
 
Yes, your CPU voltage does seem a bit too high for that overclock level.

On my Core i7 870 (2.93GHz stock) I was at 4.1GHz with 1.296v to the CPU, and at 3.9GHz with 1.25v to the CPU. At 3.5GHz I was only at 1.105v to the CPU.

Don't recall off-hand what the stock voltage for the QPI/VTT is, 1.1v maybe? But I was at 6731.84MHz on the QPI/DMI link (at 4.1GHz CPU frequency), with I think 1.3v on the QPI/VTT.

Although my system wasn't fully stable at 4.1GHz, temperatures were too high and made it unstable. I can't really recommend 4.1GHz on your CPU (or mine), the temperatures really shoot up when you go much above 1.25v, and I had a higher end air cooler on mine.
 
SO new development, OS not found issue arose yesterday, after bread boarding, pinned the problem on the Sata cable. I think it was also the cause of my reboots (only been a day but no reboot issue yet)


Since everyone is helping me anyway

1)What should I set my PCI-E Frequency to? I left it on auto it goes from 90 -150, I dont want to OC/underclock it assumed it was independent?

2)my Default mobo settings are
VCore 1.2 Bumped to 1.28125
QPI/VTT 1.1 Bumped to 1.17
PCH Core 1.05 returned to stock
CPU PLL 1.8 returned to stock

This is a gigabyte board (never used one before), the voltages are drop downs only so aside from the VCore, I bumped QPI/VTT up one level above default. 1.27500 Vcore does blue screen in IBT.

3)Id prefer to leave the power management stuff on (c1e, C4/C6, EIST ), I know they affect stability and hinder maximum OC BUT do they do anything to damage the chip?

4)Safe to leave tubo boost in Auto in a moderate overclock?

5) Mem multiplier turned from 8 down to 6, voltage timings unchanged so 1033 ram is running at 1014. That should be fine, right?

I now have 169bcklk x 22mulitplier 72°C in IBT. Prime is running
 
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SO new development, OS not found issue arose yesterday, after bread boarding, pinned the problem on the Sata cable. I think it was also the cause of my reboots (only been a day but no reboot issue yet)


Since everyone is helping me anyway

1)What should I set my PCI-E Frequency to? I left it on auto it goes from 90 -150, I dont want to OC/underclock it assumed it was independent?

2)my Default mobo settings are
VCore 1.2 Bumped to 1.28125
QPI/VTT 1.1 Bumped to 1.17
PCH Core 1.05 returned to stock
CPU PLL 1.8 returned to stock

This is a gigabyte board (never used one before), the voltages are drop downs only so aside from the VCore, I bumped QPI/VTT up one level above default. 1.27500 Vcore does blue screen in IBT.

3)Id prefer to leave the power management stuff on (c1e, C4/C6, EIST ), I know they affect stability and hinder maximum OC BUT do they do anything to damage the chip?

4)Safe to leave tubo boost in Auto in a moderate overclock?

5) Mem multiplier turned from 8 down to 6, voltage timings unchanged so 1033 ram is running at 1014. That should be fine, right?

I now have 169bcklk x 22mulitplier 72°C in IBT. Prime is running

1. Stock PCI-E frequency is 100MHz. Though when set to auto, motherboards have a tendency to set it to anywhere between 99MHz to 103MHz (at least the ones from around the LGA775 to LGA1156 time period).

2. Settings seem fine, though the vCore still seems a bit high for a moderate overclock such as that.

3. Damage? No, not really. You just may encounter some instability if the voltage goes too low when going from idle up to full or moderate load, or if it doesn't increase the voltage from the idle voltage to the load voltage fast enough. This is more of an issue for higher overclocks though where one would be near the edge of stability (or instability depending up on how you look at it). I've personally never found much issue when leaving EIST and C1E enabled though. I left them on with my LGA775 PC with my Q6600 overclocked to 3.4GHz (and my E8400, E4700, and E6550 prior to that) and never really had much problem (at least no problem that was caused by having power saving features turned on anyway) and I had that PC for around 4 years. I turned them back on after I got my overclock settings stable, mainly to keep idle temps a bit lower, but also to lower the power usage when at idle since I wasn't doing much with the PC when it's sitting idle.

4. You'd want to make sure it's stable at the turbo boost speed first. With my i7 870 I just ran it at the Turbo multiplier all the time to make sure it was stable while I was doing stability testing, just to be sure it could handle the turbo boost speed.

5. I believe that would be 1066MHz at stock speed, not 1033MHz. If it's below its rated speed, that shouldn't really be any problem.
 
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You're right rame is rated CAS 7 1066mhz. as of tonight my bclk is 171mhz so ram is running at 1026 CAS 6 (Im going to leave it alone, right? Getting the ram to CAS 6 wont be worth the effort?

I manually set everything to stock voltage, and started over by just raising Vcore at 1.27500 >145ish mhz crashes IBT.
If I go one level up 1.28125 V, so far, everything Ive thrown at it passes 15 runs of IBT, 60min of prime95.
Im going 1mhz at a time. I exceeded my goal of 3.7ghz but Im thinking if I have to give it so much voltage, I might as well use it.

What should my upper threshold temp be for stress testing? 75C on prime95 too much? too cautious?
(I let my Haswell go to 90 in IBT, gaming I stay bellow 75. Not sure if Lynnfield will be as forgiving)
 
Lynnfield will throttle at 100c to prevent any damage. Running up to 90c is safe, it will give some wiggle room.
 
Oh this brings back fond memories of my i7 920.

I know when I played around with mine I had an extensive thread that had lots of settings from the bios shown. Check this out hopefully it can help a little.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/609336-i7-920-The-Sweet-Spot-(Optimal-OC)

Though this was some of the last tweaks I did with it on voltage, mind you with no HT turned on. This was for 3.66Ghz and yes I was undervolting. Actually was getting better performance and a much lower voltage than when I was at 3.8Ghz.

I believe my settings where 20x multi with a bclock at 183mhz.

Voltage Control
EVGA Vdroop Control W/O Vdroop
CPU Vcore 1.14375v
CPU VTT Voltage +100mV (Upped from 0mV)
CPU PLL Vcore 1.8v
Dimm Voltage 1.60v
DimmDQ Vref +0mV
QPI PLL Vcore 1.15v (Upped from 1.1V)
IOH Vcore 1.15v (Upped from 1.1V)
IOH/ICH I/O Voltage 1.55v (Upped from 1.5V)
ICH Vcore 1.1v (Not sure if I upped it)
PWM Frequency 800KHz


Great link on the guide EarthDog!
 
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Oh this brings back fond memories of my i7 920.


Voltage Control
EVGA Vdroop Control W/O Vdroop
CPU Vcore 1.14375v
CPU VTT Voltage +100mV (Upped from 0mV)
CPU PLL Vcore 1.8v
Dimm Voltage 1.60v
DimmDQ Vref +0mV
QPI PLL Vcore 1.15v (Upped from 1.1V)
IOH Vcore 1.15v (Upped from 1.1V)
IOH/ICH I/O Voltage 1.55v (Upped from 1.5V)
ICH Vcore 1.1v (Not sure if I upped it)
PWM Frequency 800KHz



Great link on the guide EarthDog!


Ive got the 5 voltage settings commonly listed in most guides (the ones we share are checked) Any clue which other ones correlate?
√ Vcore
QPI/Vtt/IMC
PCH
√ PLL
√ Dram Voltage


Im stable in windows with a 174bclk, prime 95 28 hours passing (but hits 80C so Im stopping there). Maybe I have to raise something else to lower my vcore.

But no linux (tried multiple debian/ubuntu derivatives) will freeze on boot with a bclk over 150. Anyone have any clue what that's about before I make it its own thread?
 
See notes in red.

Ive got the 5 voltage settings commonly listed in most guides (the ones we share are checked) Any clue which other ones correlate?
√ Vcore
QPI/Vtt/IMC = QPI PLL Vcore 1.15v (Upped from 1.1V) but verify... little rusty with this been a few years hehe
PCH Sadly not 100% sure but I believe its part of these values... IOH Vcore / IOH/ICH I/O Voltage / ICH Vcore
√ PLL
√ Dram Voltage

Im stable in windows with a 174bclk, prime 95 28 hours passing (but hits 80C so Im stopping there). Maybe I have to raise something else to lower my vcore.

But no linux (tried multiple debian/ubuntu derivatives) will freeze on boot with a bclk over 150. Anyone have any clue what that's about before I make it its own thread?

That is where the controller voltage might take into play to stabilize the higher bclk which is where it might be the issue. I know I had to play with the northbridge voltages to stabilize things overall. Actually if I remember correctly it helped lower my Vcore down to stabilize temperatures.
 
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