Who's ready for overclock fail?

[dirtbikeryzz]

Ok guys, me=no nothing about ocing+you guys+ (insert nuclear explosion picture).

I wanna overclock my i7 960 to around 3.6ghz, and I have some patriot viper RAM 1066mhz that I want faster also. I've looked at some screens of cpuz then looked at mine and saw my shit was slower. NB frequency 2130.8, DRAM 532.7mhz, and all my clocks where different, clueless as to what these clocks are. please help.

Gigabyte EX58-UD3R mobo

 

[mx344]

Kool, good luck with the overclock:good:


Not sure about you north bridge problem.

but i do know about you ram question, DDR= double data rate, 1066 is the effective speed.

So its just doubled

 

[linkin]

okay, lets get you overclocked. Going into your BIOS, you're looking the CPU FSB (might be listed as QDR or QPI) vcore (cpu voltage) RAM speed, and a little option called unlinked mode (you can overclock the RAM and FSB seperately)

First off, raise the CPU FSB/QDR/QPI by 50mhz. Hit F10 to save and exit, boot up windows and do some stress testing, like Prime95 (at this point run it for 10 minutes at a time). If it's stable, you get no errors, no bluescreens etc, then reboot, go into the BIOS again and raise the FSB by 50mhz again. rinse and repeat until you get instability, either when booting or stress testing.

That means it's time for voltage increases. First, find the stock voltage for your chip, then set it to one notch above that. F10 to save and exit. if it doesn't boot or you get signs of instability, go and raise it another notch. keep raising it one notch at a time, until it is stable. When it's stable (boots windows okay) run Prime95 again. if it fails, more voltage.

If Prime95 lasts 2 hours without any hours on overclocked settings with increased voltage, you can deem it stable for now. Keep an eye on temperatures with HWMonitor.

You should then let Prime95 run overnight, to confirm stability. If it isnt stable, more voltage!

 

[dirtbikeryzz]

Alright bare with me If i take awhile to reply, I have school and work to go to so I'll start trying when i get home around 7. My temps should be ok, normally without gaming the hottest core is 35c, others 30ish, i only checked once while playing STALKER and my temp was about 51c after and hour of playing. idk whats to hot or not. Also how about overclocking the RAM?

 

[dirtbikeryzz]

Ok so i went into bio's and from what I see the only thing I can change is something called the BCLK frequency which is at 133. I saw a QPI voltage also. So Do I change that BCLK by 5 and test it each time? also what is the x24 after it? (133x24) by my cpu.

update- so after reading up on it the fsb is gone for the i7 and was replaced with the bclk, and from what i gathered you use that to overclock but its not just the cpu, it also raises the RAMS clock, and some other stuff I kid of got lost, can anyone confirm this info?

 

[mx344]

^ Correct, unless you have an unlocked cpu, which means you only overclock the cpu, your overclocking will overclock the whole system.

 

[dirtbikeryzz]

^ Correct, unless you have an unlocked cpu, which means you only overclock the cpu, your overclocking will overclock the whole system.

Put it from 133 to 135 just to see what it did and it changed the cpu from 3.2ghz to 3.24ghz and ram from 1066 to 1080mhz. Sound about right? if this is all I do then this really is retard proof. Also why does cpuz show my cpu running over 3.33ghz, its always said that, go's from just under 3.2 to over 3.33 randomly. Should I just keep track of what bios tells me? And if it become unstable (im sing prime95 to test, what will the program do when it detects unstability.

 

[mx344]

Yah, haha its alot easier than people make it out to be.

But yes, that sounds about right.

about the 3.33 thing, i honestly don't know, my first thought was a power saver, but if it was that itd be a lot lower...

Does you i7 have that overdrive thing? where it overclocks it self when needed?

 

[dirtbikeryzz]

Yah, haha its alot easier than people make it out to be.

But yes, that sounds about right.

about the 3.33 thing, i honestly don't know, my first thought was a power saver, but if it was that itd be a lot lower...

Does you i7 have that overdrive thing? where it overclocks it self when needed?

Yeah its called turbo.


update- this oc thing is on hold for now my temps are WAYYYY to high, a few min of prime95 and i got to 90c and it would of kept rising if i didn't close it, the copper part of whatever it is on the cpu fan isnt even hot.... Some other stability test bring temps to aronund 70c max, and 3dmark06 only gets to 64c, while gaming i normally see 60c as the highest. I think im just gonna ignor prime95, i want a more realistic temp test, then a theoretical one.

 

[mx344]

WOW, well im thinking thats a misread, if its a difference of 20c...


What temp program are you using?

 

[linkin]

HWMonitor is most reliable, but try others. not speedfan though.

 

[mx344]

^yep, i second that, ive used it for 2 years now, always accurate.

 

[G25r8cer]

Hardware Monitor and CPU-Z to check core voltage

 

[linkin]

CPU-Z can read voltaged wrong sometimes... it rounds them up or something. mine is set to 1.40265v and it reads as 1.42v or 1.44v

 

[jevery]

3DMark really only stresses the CPU for a few seconds in the two Red Desert segments. When I chart core temps while running it you can see the two spikes when those segments run.




Notice that cores 1 & 2 are idle until those segments - Cores 0 & 3 are all that's needed for the graphics segments.

Compare that with Prime 95,




which loads all cores to 100%. It's very seldom that a CPU is fully loaded in everyday use, maybe only during benchmarking, but it is desirable to have sufficient cooling to prevent runaway CPU temps in the event that your processor is subject to such a load.

I doubt that the temps you're seeing are incorrect. I suspect that your cooler is insufficient for the factory OC or there's a problem with the thermal interface between the cooler and the CPU. It could be a push pin has popped loose and the cooler is not seated well against the CPU, or not enough paste was used. I don't know, but I'd try to find out. Adequate CPU cooling is important for the longevity of your processor.

 

[dirtbikeryzz]

WOW, well im thinking thats a misread, if its a difference of 20c...


What temp program are you using?

No you didn't misread at all... And I've used cpuid HW monitor and some other one i just got rid of but they both showed the same temps. The fan seems to be sturdy, it was just put in around 2 weeks ago.

 

[dirtbikeryzz]

I'm starting to think something might be messing with the programs monitoring my cpu temp, because if the damn things at 90c that coppers going to be hot and its not. Also what is qpi link speed?

 

[Vampiric Rouge]

I'm starting to think something might be messing with the programs monitoring my cpu temp, because if the damn things at 90c that coppers going to be hot and its not. Also what is qpi link speed? Whatever it is its really high at almost 5ghz just from a small overclock, i was thinking maybe that was something causing super high temps and i could manually set that at stock while i overclock everything else.

Yeah that's either really hot or throwing errors. The max most processors can handle is 100c.


qpi link is this. It's a fast direct lane from the CPU to the I/O hub.

Here is a basic explanation about QPI if you can't understand the Wikipedia version

 

[dirtbikeryzz]

Yeah that's either really hot or throwing errors. The max most processors can handle is 100c.


qpi link is this. It's a fast direct lane from the CPU to the I/O hub.

I don't know what would cause it to give a false reading though, I've tried more then 1 program, and these temps are reached without any overclock at all. Once it hits 70c the temp rises way faster then it did to get to 70c. I'm so confused.

 

[Vampiric Rouge]

Did you build the PC your self or did a company build it?