1 slow core on prime 95 q9550

[Domain_Man]

boonet, this is progress!

Lower the vcore to 1.375

Drop the FSB all the way to 400

Then prime it..

your ram could be your bottleneck as you thought but need we to prove it first...

 

[boonet]

i did the fsb drop, but i forgot lowering vcore... what i noticed during the quick 10 min run of prime was stability... i think this implements that it can get stable at this speed....

boonet

 

[boonet]

i think this also implements thar the fsb is the problem( maybe the ram indeed) because: small ffts show there is a good stability just for the core...( did this for 6 hours at 4 ghz vcore: 1.3625 and ws stable), and it shows the ability of getting stable with

 

[boonet]

large ffts with an fsb of 400...but how can the ram be the problem? its 1066mhz dominator!

srry for the splitting of posts, im on my phone and i cant the more then 260 characters

boonet

 

[Domain_Man]

2 things to try...

1. Increase ram voltage to 2.2

2. Try taking 2 ram chips off at a time and prime it

 

[boonet]

1st doesnt work, second doesent work.. tried someone elses settings, this has the longest stabiltity on large ffts :
fsb 471
pcie frec 100
fsb strap to nb 333
dram freq 943 mhz
dram timing: 5-5-5-15
dram static read: dis
dram read trainging: dis
mem oc charger: enabled
ai clock twister: light
ai trans. booster: auto

cpu volt; 1.3825
cpu gtl: 0.65X
cpu pll; 1.52
fsb termination: 1.40
dram: 2.10-2.20 (doesnt matter )
nb volt: 1.40
sb volt: 1.30
pcie sata volt: 1.50

llc: enabled
cpu spread: dis
pcie spread: dis
cpu clock skew: 300ps
nb clock skew: 200ps
cpu margin enhancement: optimized

this all gives a minute without errors, instead of 2 secs...

i dont really think its the ram, but right now my instinct say it doesnt know, maybe fsb so ram ( but i dont know ectually)...

what should i do from now, i tried tweaking those settings, but this is the closest i can get to stabilty

boonet

 

[Domain_Man]

If it's not your ram then its possible that your northbridge is HOT with the FSB overclock. Unfortunately there's no temp sensor on the P5Q Pro northbridge, but if you google this you'll find how other P5Q Pro owners were able to tell if its overheating. If this is the case you will need a northbridge fan, similar to the OC guide you have read.

Here's one last setting to try, otherwise you'll have to settle for a lower oc for now. (NOTE USE THIS SETTING ONLY WITH THE LATEST P5Q BIOS)

cpu volt; 1.4
cpu gtl: AUTO
cpu pll; AUTO
fsb termination: AUTO
dram: 2.1
nb volt: AUTO
sb volt: AUTO
pcie sata volt: AUTO

 

[boonet]

ok ill try that, tomorrow ill search for the nb overheating thing. the northbridge is almost against my cpu cooler=mugen 2 because the cooler is that big, maybe this is the problem? maybe indeed it overheats.

Can't it be a problem of temps from the cores? its always core 0and 1 erroring, and those 2 get the hottest, sometimes even 8 degrees hotter...
could this be the problem? maybe ill reseat my cooler, but i dont know if i will be able to do that with my dominator memory, but ill try in the weekend to get the temps even, maybe ill need to lap my cpu... I have the 1613 bios now i think

boonet

 

[Domain_Man]

Hi Boonet - remember you were having the same problem when you lowered the cpu multiplier but kept the FSB Overclocked. - This is your bottleneck

With regards to your northbridge chip, having a Northbridge fan on a P5Q Pro is always a good idea!

But - There is no doubt you have 2 cores overheating on a high overclock and that needs fixing, rather than lapping your cpu at this point (you can do this later if you wish, but it's easier to sell an unlapped cpu later on when you get bored with it) make sure you applied the correct amount of thermal grease and on the correct location of the cpu for a quad core as demonstrated below:

QUAD CORE GREASE

Bonus points if you can do a neater job!

And reseat your HS firmly.

I hope this helps!

 

[boonet]

what i understood form other forums ( http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=310787 ) is that asus used the worst thermal grease ever... im going to reapply it , like on the faq included in the forum. afterwards im going to try to mount my second dominator fans on the nb hs... im just going to try that. i dont think im going to take the southbridge of... im going to remount my mugen 2 because right now it is on top of the the nb, im goint to make it point to another direction. maybe im going to lap it afterwards, but i dont know realy.. first going to remount it with the paste like on ur photo...
ill keep you in touch

thx

 

[boonet]

if anybody is still listening: I found somthing on internet about the cpu margin enhancement, apperantly someone had hit 4ghz with minimum volts.
But hes cpu margin enhancement was on compatible, i did this with mine, and guess what, all problems were solved !!! im now running prime for 6 hours blend testing....

btw i remounted my hs, couldnt reapply the thermal paste to the nb cooler because of the stupid push in pins i couldn't get back out.... do you know how i can get them out???

temps are still 5 -10 degrees higher on load speeds at core 0,1 but i think its just because the weight or something like that...

i did attach a 40 mm dominator fan to my nb, but i don't think that was the great problem, but now it runs cooler i suppose

I dont know if u knew about the cpu margin enhancement in the bios, but maybe iff u would set it to compatible, u could get even higher oc's or lower volts...

boonet

 

[Domain_Man]

Boonet, congratulations! This was all credit to you for persevering, a job well done. I'm going to the pub to celebrate!

 

[boonet]

nice, thanks, i still dont really know what the cpu margin enhancement means, do i have less performance when i put it on compatible, then when i would put it on performance.? i don't get what it does....

but now i can finally go tweaking for real, to get the best stable settings !!! im so happy

boonet

 

[boonet]

i have still a lot higher temps on first 2 cores then on last two, i noticed a diagonally touch with the ihs...

when i take it of next time ill post a pic, but the problem is it takes 3 hours or more to get evrything out, put it back in ....

boonet