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Overclocking a Phenom, II 965 BE, How far can I go?

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trents - I have changed the bus freq. I also did lower the ram speed when I did that. I have it stable at 4.2ghz with a bus freq of 215, 19.5 multi, and ram freq of 1432. The timings for the ram are the stock settings. I have not messed with them. Need to do some more reading on that before I dive into it.

RGone - I am not looking for a stable 24-7 overclock above 4.2 ghz. It is stable at that speed. I just do it for fun and actually run it at stock speeds most of the time. I am just doing this to learn and see what I can get out of it. My goal is 4.4ghz stable for 2 hours of prime95. I have it stable at 4.2 with a cooler master 212 with reasonable temps, so I am hoping the new cooler will be enough to push it a little more.

I have very little money (relatively) in this system so this is the system I want to learn on before trying it with a more expensive setup.
 
Oh with enough cool OR enough Cpu Voltage they will go on up some more. The problem is how much Vcore one is willing to slap the cpu with. There is a thread in the AMD Cpu Forum section where a buddy of mine wanted to get to 4.5Ghz on his Deneb. He got there on some big water, but he was pushing over 1.6Volts thru the cpu. Way more volts than is sane on just big water...but he was go or bust. It did not bust since he sold it to a bencher here in the forums somewhere.
RGone...
 
Oh with enough cool OR enough Cpu Voltage they will go on up some more. The problem is how much Vcore one is willing to slap the cpu with. There is a thread in the AMD Cpu Forum section where a buddy of mine wanted to get to 4.5Ghz on his Deneb. He got there on some big water, but he was pushing over 1.6Volts thru the cpu. Way more volts than is sane on just big water...but he was go or bust. It did not bust since he sold it to a bencher here in the forums somewhere.
RGone...
poco seems to have a pretty good chip so far gonester, the real question is will the mobo police show up or the fire department to put out the smoking Vrm's. Poco I was able to do a Superpi 32m run with my 955 on really good water, with 2 cores enabled at 4659 with 1.59+ Cpu V. Just remember when pushing this hard the magic smoke may leak out without notice.
 
poco, as far as the memory timings go, the "SPD" tab in CPU-z will give you guidance as to what the timings should be for given frequencies.

The other things you need to monitor and possible adjust as you increase the bus freq. is the HT Link frequency and the CPUNB freq. The CPUNB frequency will permit overclocking when supported by voltage increase but it's best to not allow the HT Link frequency to exceed stock.

As far as memory frequency goes you might find that the sweet spot for both frequency and timing is somewhere between 1333 and 1600.
 
I am going to install the new cooler tomorrow and do some more playing. I have no plans of going over 1.55v on the CPU so hopefully I will not see the smoke ;)
 
I have been running for 30 min at my 4.2ghz preset. (see page 2 of this thread for the numbers) and my max temp is 43C. It only hit that for a second or 2 on the short length fft's on prime95. Mostly it sits at 40C. The short length fft's seem to always bring the temps the highest. I ran these settings before for 8 hours on prime95 so I know it is stable, but my temps got up to 60C. This Thermaltake water 3.0 sure seems to do a great job cooling this CPU. I am very happy with it. There was no room for the fans and the radiator inside the case so I had to mount the fans on the outside pushing the air in. I am betting with a larger full tower and the fans on the inside it would cool even better.

4.3ghz here I come :)
 
All the numbers are on page 2. I saved it to a profile and loaded it to test the temps now. The ram freq is 1432.

Bus speed - 215
CPU NB - 2580
HT Link - 1935
CPU V - 1.44v
NB V - 1.05v
Multi - 19.5
 
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Well I tried for 4.3Ghz. I kept my 4.2Ghz settings and just boosted the bus speed to 220, raised the corev to 1.46, and the CPUNB to 1.1, The ram was still under 1500 so I did not touch it. BIOS loaded but it would not go to windows. It reset and would not do anything. I shut it off and then I got a screen BIOS saying the overclock failed I went back in bios and raised the corev to 1.48 and CPUNB to 1 12. Now BIOS would not even load. I was gettng a little worried. I tried multiple times to get it to the BIOS screen. It did once but the ASUS logo was just a multi colored rectangle and it hung on that screen. I then reset the CMOS and all is well.

That one scared me. I may just stick with 4.2 and be done with it unless anyone has any suggestions. I am thinking my CPUNB was too low since the increase in bus speed pushed my CPUNB freq to over 2600 ?? But to not even go to BIOS ?? Could the board be limiting me?
 
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I am thinking my CPUNB was too low since the increase in bus speed pushed my CPUNB freq to over 2600 ??
Could be, I usually need 1.25 Cpu Nb V with my Nb Freq @ 2600 on my 955

Could the board be limiting me?
It may be as well, but only trial and error will really be the determining factor.
 
I looked back in this thread and saw you already mentioned the NB voltage. I am trying to move too fast. I went from 3.4 to 4.2 in 200mhz increments. It worked until now, but I need to proceed much slower I think. Also I need to remember what I am being told :) I just boosted my NB voltage to 1.2v on my 4.2Ghz profile. I will run prime now and see how it goes with just that one change. At 1.2 I was kind of low anyway being close to 2600. It was stable, but still. I am going to make one change at a time and test.

I will say I usually run it at stock speeds, but when I boost it to 4.2 it sure is snappy. I also love this Thermaltake cooler. One click and my fans are maxed out for testing.
 
I looked back in this thread and saw you already mentioned the NB voltage. I am trying to move too fast. I went from 3.4 to 4.2 in 200mhz increments. It worked until now, but I need to proceed much slower I think. Also I need to remember what I am being told :) I just boosted my NV voltage to 1.2v on my 4.2Ghz profile. I will run prime now and see how it goes with just that one change. At 1.2 I was kind of low anyway being close to 2600. It was stable, but still.

I will say I usually run it at stock speeds, but when I boost it to 4.2 it sure is snappy.
When really trying to push to extremes taking notes will help also. You are getting to the point where small changes are a must if you want to try and find stability. The harder you push the more difficult it is to find the sweet spot.
 
How long should I test on prime before moving on? 2 hours, or the 8 hours I have been doing up until now? I don't think 30 minutes is enough. I have run into issues at 40 min or so that were unseen before that.

For notes I use sceenshots of all of the changes I make. Except for the last catastrophe. I was in a hurry. Stupid.
 
For notes I use sceenshots of all of the changes I make.
That's good unless you bork the OS with crashes, which usually occurs when really putting your foot on the Cpu's neck, then you're SOL. I also use different hard drives if I'm benching and it helps having the notes right next to me, just food for thought. Anyhow, I find with my rigs, if I can pass 2 hours prime blend I do not have any issues with crashing.
 
I save the sceen shots to a thumb drive, but I see what you mean about having them in front of you.

I use Acrinos and have a mirror of my C drive I do once a week. If I do get a crash I will boot to the other drive and restore. I also have a 3rd backup I do once a month to an external drive that is only hooked to my computer during backups.
 
Images like that are a must. I suffer 3 BSODs while clocking and dorking around and the fresh image goes on the drive and back to full boogie without all that HDD corruption of winders that it suffers "anyway".

U have arrived at a cpu speed that 85% of users with that cpu never can get stable to begin with. Anything else will be pure gravy and will take minor, minor changes in speed and stability testing to see if you are getting close. I run 20mins usually and bump upward a 'tiny' bit. I never feel any assurance of stability until it will do 2 hours of P95 Blend and I often go longer when I am getting to a point of a real sweet spot and am not going to take the hammer to it anymore.
RGone...ster.

I save the sceen shots to a thumb drive, but I see what you mean about having them in front of you.

I use Acrinos and have a mirror of my C drive I do once a week. If I do get a crash I will boot to the other drive and restore. I also have a 3rd backup I do once a month to an external drive that is only hooked to my computer during backups.
 
Thanks RGone. This must be a great chip because it was pretty easy to get to 4.0. 4.2 took a little more time. Have prime running at 4.25 right now. I am going to do just as is suggested. Little changes now and test, test, test.

Not sure if it is OK, but I also do this and watch Netflix while prime is running. I figure it will just stress it a little more.
 
Thanks RGone. This must be a great chip because it was pretty easy to get to 4.0. 4.2 took a little more time. Have prime running at 4.25 right now. I am going to do just as is suggested. Little changes now and test, test, test.

Not sure if it is OK, but I also do this and watch Netflix while prime is running. I figure it will just stress it a little more.
You do have a really good chip, period. Not many 965be will do 4.2 at the temps you have 24/7. Running prime and netflix and being able to pass 2 hours sure is a bonus.
 
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