I5 760 won't overclock: Stubborn CPU or stupid me?

Hi everyone

I am really struggling with overclocking my system. Here is a quick spec list:

Intel I5-760 CPU

Mushkin996768 - 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666 9-9-9-24 Silverline Ram

Coolermaster eXtreme Power Plus 550W PSU

MSI P55A-G55 Motherboard

ATI 6870 GPU

Coolermaster CM690II Plus case, with good airflow

A hard drive

And lastly a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus CPU cooler.

I have been following this guide step by step but I am running into a few problems. I am aiming for a minimum of a 3800 overclock.

Under the heading "Testing for highest stable bclock frequency" where you test for your highest stable frequency's I encounter a problem. My PC boots up fine at 170 and completes more than 5 minutes of HeavyLoad testing. When I bump it up to 180, it will not even post at all. It simply restarts four times and then the MSI "Your overclock has failed and you suck at life" screen comes up before any posting happens, so that I can restore everything to default. Using "fine tuning" I can get the bclock up to just over 170, but bearing in mind that this is with a multiplier of only x12.

The weird thing is that even at 170 (which is supposedly stable at 12x multiplier) as soon as I bump the multiplier back up to x20 or x21, it will not post again at all

I'm really lost, as I cannot progress any further in the guide because of this problem

Just for interest, My Motherboard has two little toggles that you can flip up to automatically up the bclock by 20% (ie 159.6). Doing this, and leaving everything on Auto and Turboboost enabled sees my PC overclocking itself all the way to 4000 at times (with a 25x multiplier) but with scarily high voltage (1.43-1.44) At any multiples below x25 the voltage is below 1.4.

I'm thinking that it might be a memory issue, as they are not great modules, especially for overclocking? I am not interested at all in overclocking the memory, I just want it stable. The 212 plus is keeping things nice and cool, the highest temps I've seen are 62 deg Celsius.

PLEASE help me, I am stuck, lost, lonely and desperate.

I will drink a toast to anybody who can help me!

Thanks in advance

PS, sorry for the essay

Lol, guys...

The answer to my question is "STUPID ME"

What was happening was that the DRam timings and voltages were set to "Auto" and was putting crazy-low timings in there: 6-6-6-15 if I remember correctly, and I don't know what memory voltages.

So I manually put in the standard timings and voltages, with a multiplier of 3 on the memory and VIOLA, posts first time

As I type this i have a Bclock of 180

So I shall carry on with the overclocking, and keep you all informed of my progress

Haha, I'm still learning, but am loving the process

Sorry for starting a thread so quickly, I should've thought about it more first

Cheers appleg33k85

Little update:

Using the same guide I mentioned in my OP, I can quite easily get my bclock all the way up to the magical 200

I'm on the step in the guide where one tries to find a stable memory speed, and this is where I am getting into difficulties.

Using the guide, going back down to a bclock of 181 (I'm initially aiming for a stable 3800 overclock) and with 1.648v Dram voltage, with a memory multiplier of 4 (8 actually, but bios has x3; x4 and x5 options) which results in a memory speed of 1448, I get an error on the second loop of Intelburntest.

As per the guide, I have been bumping up the vtt by 0.0125v after each error and trying again. As at 2am , I was on a vtt of 1.32ish, but still getting errors thrown up by Intelburntest.

When I get home, I'm going to keep trying to bump up the vtt in small increments to see if I can get stability. This Ram is definitely the weak part of my system

The ram is rated at 1.5v with a 9-9-9-24 timing by the way.

Does anybody have any suggestions for me?

Sweet

Thank you for replying.

You are correct, I can get the bclock up to 200 perfectly stable at x3 multiplier. I have been following the guide to set my own Vtt numbers, In terms of the guide, after each unsuccessful intelburntest run, I have been increasing the Vtt in increments of 0.0125v. I am on 1.35, and still no stability

I think that I may have to go for the x3 multiplier, as I am nervous to keep pushing up the Vtt like this. The Ram will only be running at 1086 though, which is quite poor. But I will try tighten the timings to Cas 8 and see what happens.

My Ram is rated at 1.5v, the guide says that I should set it at 1.65. But for a x3 multi, what Dram voltage should I be on?

Cheers

Thank you.

I'm going to see if I can get a full stable overclock with a x3 multiplier and I will report back

Thank you, I don't feel so bad now

Another 'lil update!

I've got it completely stable at 3810

What I had to do was lower the mem multiplier to x6.

In order to compensate for this, I opted for a 191bclk with x20. The Dram voltage is set at stock (1.5) and stock timings for now as well. I will fiddle with timings tomorrow to see if I can tighten them up a bit.

Vcore is at 1.248v, which droops rather alarmingly to 1.192v

Unfortunately, my bios has no options for LLC or whatever its called.

But its stable, and the highest temps I saw were 64 deg C.

Thanks all for the help