Struggling with x5650 OC...

[Helgaiden]

So im putting together a low cost system to give as a gift like a starter PC to my fiance's little brother is very much into tech and videogames but never had a gaming PC. Gonna have him build it too, i think it'll be cool. Anyways, i had an EVGA X58 SLI LE board i came across and thats what i decided to go with for this build, and everything i've read about the x5650 was very promising. I only had 4 sticks of ram to spare for a total of 8gb (Super Talent DDR3 1600 1.65v) and its configured to run in dual channel. Spent maybe 3-4 hours last night trying to get an overclock and i couldn't get anything stable worth the life of me, though admittedly im a bit new to BCLK overclocking, especially on x58. Figured out part of my issue was clocking the ram way too high and eventually got it to boot again, but even with vcore at 1.4v, any bclk over 190 wouldn't boot even if the ram was way low at 2:6 (final mhz of 1112 on the ram at that setting). Got it to boot at 185 bclk though but prime fails after a little while, though temps are in check even with a short 10 minute blast of p95 Small FFT. CPU has a 240mm AIO on it. Trying to up the memory frequency closer to 1600mhz ends up causing boot issues of course, so im just not sure what im doing wrong or how to proceed. Or if i lost the silicon lottery big time. Also running into an issue where if the memory is too low, it only recognizes as single channel and windows tells me it has 8gb but only 3.99gb usable (the appears to be hardware reserved). Getting it to boot one setting higher does bring dual channel back, but still says 8gb total but only 3.99gb usable. Its win10 64bit still.

Here is a link to the album of my BIOS progression sorta. The pics from top to bottom go from basically stock default bios settings to what i got to get it to boot.

https://imgur.com/a/PZouR

Any help would be much appreciated. Originally wanted something crazy like 4.4ghz but at this point i'd settle for something modest like 3.8-4.0. I read the guide and plan on attacking this again soon but currently not near my test bench to work on anything and wont be for a while, so i figured i'd put my feelers out there to gather as much info as possible so when i try it again later, i'll be better informed. Crossing fingers.


update: So decided to load defaults and try stress testing (p95 blend) to see if there was any instability i didnt catch at first, and the only change in BIOS i did was set the memory to 2:8, which BIOS said the target frequency would be 1600mhz. CPUID in windows says its ~667 which is 1333, which i guess is fine for the purpose of this testing at the moment but i notice that the CPU VTT is pretty high in just stock, according to HWmonitor...also manually set the DRAM voltage to 1.650 (the rating of the RAM) and its also reading a tad higher. CPU isnt really breaking 50c in this state, so thats nice.

https://imgur.com/a/ReXbJ

edit/update 2: Currently working on isolating the max BCLK and getting WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR bsods like crazy at 190 bclk or higher. These are the voltages i was using. HWmonitor reported the CPU VTT at 1.34 with that setting i have it at, and lowering the dimm voltage to 1.5 or even Auto made no difference as well. Eventually it wouldnt post and i had to reset the CMOS, set the voltages, and start at 185 again and am currently inching it back up.

https://imgur.com/a/nLu2r

blah, 187 bclk still got the error. Gonna retest 185 and possibly settle there.

edit/update 2:
Noticed the BIOS wasn't the most up to date (initially figured since the BIOS recognized the CPU just fine, i didnt need to update), so i decided why not and updated it to the newest. Gave it basically the same settings which was CPU vcore to 1.365 with vdroop, VTT at ~1.35, Dimm voltage at 1.62 with 2:8 divider, IOH vcore at 1.3v, and ICH vcore at 1.2v. Multiplier in BIOS at 20 with Turbo on, and bclk at 183.

CPU-Z says the CPU is at about 4015ghz, RAM is at 1466mhz, but the timings are kinda loose at CL11-tRCD11-tRP11-tRAS29. Yeah, i may need to go in manually since its supposed to be 9-9-9-28 and i think i'll do just that. Yep went in and set it to 9-9-9-28 and 1T.

Im running thru p95 blend now way longer than i previously was though, so definitely happy about that. Time for bed and to leave this running all night.

 

[DeadSmiley]

Interesting project. I really like the X58 platform. It's a good runner if you can get the motherboard cheap enough.

 

[Helgaiden]

Interesting project. I really like the X58 platform. It's a good runner if you can get the motherboard cheap enough.

Totally agree. Still has plenty of grunt given its age. I had picked up two EVGA x58 boards for $80 each used on a parts hunt a while back, so i did indeed get them for a good price









So i didnt get that much sleep for letting p95 run "all night" lol. 5 hours of blend, got up and had a look and noticed some workers had stopped, so i stopped the entire thing but p95 didn't report any failures or errors so im not sure about that. I feel like the CPU (and VTT and DRAM) is getting plenty of voltage for the OC its at, so im gonna keep going and start downloading games and testing all that stuff. p95 smallFFT seems to pass without issue, at least with the 30 mins of that i ran.

 

[DeadSmiley]

Totally agree. Still has plenty of grunt given its age. I had picked up two EVGA x58 boards for $80 each used on a parts hunt a while back, so i did indeed get them for a good price









So i didnt get that much sleep for letting p95 run "all night" lol. 5 hours of blend, got up and had a look and noticed some workers had stopped, so i stopped the entire thing but p95 didn't report any failures or errors so im not sure about that. I feel like the CPU (and VTT and DRAM) is getting plenty of voltage for the OC its at, so im gonna keep going and start downloading games and testing all that stuff. p95 smallFFT seems to pass without issue, at least with the 30 mins of that i ran.

$80 per board is a good price. I do think that an X5600 series with a little higher multiplier is worth the few bucks difference. It gets you up to around 4.2ish pretty easy which is what I like to see on these. Although my last X58 board with an X5675 went to 4.42GHz rock solid on air. That one was given to my son in law along with a GTX 980 which was a good upgrade from his FX 6300 and GTX 970.

 

[Helgaiden]

$80 per board is a good price. I do think that an X5600 series with a little higher multiplier is worth the few bucks difference. It gets you up to around 4.2ish pretty easy which is what I like to see on these. Although my last X58 board with an X5675 went to 4.42GHz rock solid on air. That one was given to my son in law along with a GTX 980 which was a good upgrade from his FX 6300 and GTX 970.

one of the boards had 3x 2gb sticks of ram on it and an i7-920 on it too lol. Nice OC on that x5675! i put a w3680 in one of the boards and did a quick and dirty mutliplier OC to 4.2 on air, ran awesome.

 

[MuHcOw]

I can recommend THIS guide (although I failed to follow it myself)

 

[UltraTaco]

Typically if it's coming off to a rough start as here, perhaps following the guide and isolating bclk overclockability is a good idea.

Mine tops out at around 193bclk (i7 920) and then I get instant prime freezes and 197bclk won't even boot.

Have you tried lowering QPI link rate to lowest available setting?

Donkey can go over 210bclk with his xeon btw

 

[EarthDog]

Donkey can go over 210bclk with his xeon btw

For all intents and purposes, the BCLK ability is tied to the board, Taco.

 

[UltraTaco]

Thank you, so maybe it's his board that doesn't cooperate at higher bulk?

 

[EarthDog]

That is what I just said, yes.

 

[UltraTaco]

Yes thank you.
Taco gets confused easily.

 

[Helgaiden]

Thanks. Yeah, i updated the OP with info from what i was trying to isolate the max BCLK. Updating the BIOS made the WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR bsods go away during prime at 183 BCLK, which gave me 4ghz which i was happy with, and so i didnt try to keep going. Prior to the BIOS update, anything over 190 was BSOD city. I didnt spend as much time on the RAM since i didnt plan to run it above its rated speed (i would have been fine letting it run at 1333 honestly) so when i flipped the divider to 2:8 and got 1466mhz, i felt comfortable enough with it since its rated for 1600mhz at 1.65v. I put the voltage to about 1.6v anyways just to be on the safe side and make sure it has enough. CPU is at 1.365 and temps are absolutely not an issue there so thats good. BCLK overclocking is hella time consuming lol. I only ever OC'd via multiplier or FSB before this, and the FSB overclocking i did was Core2 days where all i did was flip it to 1333 and adjusted vcore for stability and called it a day lol.

 

[UltraTaco]

Great! My mushkin 1333 runs at 1532 just fine at stock 1.5v and 9-9-9, ram typically takes modest overclock without drama. With bclk overclocking, you typically have to keep an eye on uncore and ram because some numbers will give your ram too much soeed going next nulti higher.

 

[Helgaiden]

Yeah anytime i messed with uncore or qpi link speed, it wouldn't post. Leaving them on auto and i never seem to have a problem POSTing. That was a headache at first when i was trying to manage those as part of the OC i was trying to obtain.

 

[UltraTaco]

Qpi speed would typically auto to lowest multi, and ram probably would go lowest as well. Since it's working fine, I guess no sense in message with it. I typically take it out of auto and set it to where I'd like to be(unless I can't reach it, in that case, working my way down)

Glad to see x58 making a comeback! Watching latest trends, i think, soon everyone will want one!

 

[Helgaiden]

the chinese boards for x58 and even x79 so far don't appear to be half bad, though cant really get high OCs on them because of their BIOS limitations. Russian BIOS modders seemed to have bypassed it a little bit on the x79 boards to get over 4ghz so thats a step in the right direction. I think proliferation of Ryzen is finally making the second-hand market for x58 and x79 boards realize they have lost immense value when you can get b350 boards for less than used x58/x79 boards and a superior CPU (not that well OC'd x58 and x79 i7s and Xeons arent competitive with them). So the "market correction" of sorts had to happen at some point. And with DDR4 prices so high, its probably pushing people who want 6 cores on a budget to look at older hardware that ran 6-cores again, and thus the trend of x58 and x79 on the rise again makes sense.

 

[UltraTaco]

Very true. My Asus p6t D says made in China. I gasped when I read it. I guess a step higher than no named x58 boards, but still..

 

[Helgaiden]

At the moment everything seems stable though i did have to drop the bclk again to 182, but its still at 4ghz. I gave the CPU voltage one more bump and the RAM one more bump (and changed back to 2T) based on a few weird issues i had under normal usage that didnt show up under stress testing (random reboots, display driver bsod when screen goes to sleep and cant wake back up...). Clean reinstalled the display driver but havent had extended time to test, a weird issue i was having was that occasionally after a reboot, the PC would load windows and the resolution would be reset, screen flickers, and resolution corrects itself as the display driver apparently reinstalls itself (yellow exclamation in device manager, screen blinks, then everything is back to normal). Not sure what to make of that. The last time it did that was before i made the above mentioned voltage adjustments and clean display driver reinstall, then i set it to run Valley and went to bed. Got up, valley still running without issues so...thats good i guess.