Ideas wanted: reducing my OC temps, 955BE

Hey guys, I managed to find a spot at 330x13 where my 955BE is 20hrs Prime stable with 3.91GHz.

I'm still working on exploring other combinations but I need ideas on how to drop these temps.

Throwaways:
Water - don't want to do this yet. I'm sure I can get more out of this on air.
Bigger/faster/louder fans on the D14 - don't want ugly/loud fans.







Going to push for more after I tidy the voltages up a little and try to drop this temp !! 65 is the ABSOLUTE LIMIT of where I am comfortable to push it, although I've heard of people going closer to 70 with these without failing... if anyone has any ideas how i might drop this that'd be awesome.

BIOS settings for this:

• 300MHz x 13
• Vcore offset +0.065625V (=1.462V)
• DRAM 1600MHz 1.65V
• CPU/NB 2700MHz, voltage offset +0.16875V (=1.277V)
• HT Link 2100MHz, 1.30V
• NB 1.15V
• CPU and CPU/NB LLCs both FULL

(voltages read from BIOS)

Thermal paste used is Noctua's own stuff.


edit: damn, needs time/date showing to prove it's been running for 20 hours now .. next screenshot will have that. I cut this one down to half screen to prevent auto resizing by photobucket - any way to get a clear 1920x1080 show uploaded??





Also, are there any databases I should/could add this to with my settings that'll maybe help some people get an idea of what can work on these CPUs?


Please tell me if the screenshot should have anything else in it as well.


I need to drop these temps though, I'm currently staring down the barrel of 66degC on all cores with 4.06GHz, 301x13.5 @ 1.468V... and it doesn't like less Vcore very much (BSODs with 0x124). Have been running at 4.06 since last night though with no issues in gaming etc. Borderlands 2 doesn't even crack 60degrees on the CPU. GPU is another matter.

Thanks, I've seen the 62deg limit posted everywhere before but I didn't realise it could do damage.... Maybe I'll tone it down a bit. Although heavy gaming doesn't even see close to 60deg, only Prime.
Thermal paste is Noctua's stuff that came with the NH-D14; apparently it's pretty good. It may still be curing (?) because I only applied fresh stuff last weekend. There's definitely not too much on there.
This is just something I have never tried before. I believe sometimes a higher bus speed has a positive impact on the overall performance of the system when compared to a multi-only overclock... (correct me if I'm wrong). I also want to keep the multiplier below x19 to keep CnQ functional. I'll have a play at lower bus speeds and higher multi, plenty of room for exploration and testing!! I'll keep track of results in 3dmark11 at each stage and see if I find any interesting trends.

Oh wow, good to know. Maybe I should watch temps in Speccy instead, that reads lower (probably same as TMPIN0 actually). Or I'll just watch TMPIN0 max in Hardware Monitor

Some good information there, I feel I could learn a lot from you. I can't actually remember what my HTT was stock, will have to check that. Advice I have been given tells me to keep CPU/NB 2600-2800 with 1.4V max, HT link around 2000 (with no performance drop up to 2350 but that may require more voltage)

Everything else has just been trial and error really

Thanks for the info, looks like I don't have to turn it down from my 4.06 after all

Positive comments, good to hear I'm at least in the right ballpark

Resetting everything to stock I checked the voltages in BIOS..
CPU 1.349V
CPU/NB 1.105V
CPU VDDA (whatever that is ) 2.500V
HT 1.210V
NB 1.111V
SB 1.111V

I got excited about the CPU/NB performance:MHz comment, until you mentioned temps. Maybe I shouldn't try to push that further after all.

I've just turned it up another half multi to 4.2GHz and it's booted to Windows fine (typing this from it), don't think it'll be stable without more Vcore, but we'll soon find out

Good to know - I just kept pushing Vcore to get it stable. I got almost 15min of Prime95 without error at 4.215GHz but that TMPIN0 hit 63 so I shut it off and turned it back to 4.05GHz for now. Really I'm tempted to leave it with that 4.2 and just stability test through normal use and gaming, in the knowledge that it will never get Prime hot doing anything else.... not right now though.

If increasing Vcore stabilised 4.2, is there a chance I may be able to drop that Vcore a little and substitute in that 1.85-1.9V on the NB? To attempt to move some heat from the CPU to the NB (CH IV F NBs are pretty well covered with heatspreaders anyway...) or is my logic massively flawed?

I really really want 4.2 stable on air for 24/7 use I'm so close!!! (At 1.52V and 63degrees TMPIN0 though.)


I have no idea what you just said about the RAM

Would that maybe let me get it to run at its rated 2000MHz?? It doesn't even make it to Windows at 2000 now.. "Overclocking failed" message in the "DOS" prompt..