[Silentness]

ahh I had a long post, but I wasn't logged in so I lost my message >,<

Short and sweet.

I built a computer for the first time. Only trouble I had was the damn Noctua NH-D14 fan. I knew it was big, but got damn that fan is a pain to work with. I had trouble mounting the damn fan on the risers, because there's not much extra space to screw it on to and the fan is pretty got damn heavy imo. My computer wouldn't boot at first, but I found out it was because I had bad cable maintenance. POST kept saying "CPU fan failure" so I found there was a wire tangled in the Noctua fan.

Anyways got into BIOS and quickly put in the 1600 DDR3 ram because it was at 1333. Then I wasted no time slowly increasing the clock speed and instantly put it at 200x19 v.core at 1.5v and got 3.8 GHz. I ran it for a while and got temperatures of only 30c. So the fan is obviously set right.

The question is what's the average voltage needed for 4 GHz? Is it below 1.5v? How much voltage is required to crank it up to 200x21 and get 4.2 GHz. I just left it at 3.8 GHz because I didn't want to break anything or mess around with resetting the CMOS. I would like to get 4 GHz+ though even it involves me playing around with multiple BSODs/CMOS battery resetting.

Oh yeah and what's the usual Northbridge Clock ratio you guys set when your CPU clock is 4 GHz +? Right now I have my NB clock ratio at 2400 and I didn't touch the voltage. Should I bump that higher and raise the voltage?

 

[AndAllThingsWillEnd]

I think you've pretty much maxed it out. I'm pretty sure 1.5 is the top safe voltage.

 

[dixson01974]

Average CPU Voltage is 1.475-1.55v for 4.0ghz from what I seen.

 

[moonmanas]

you will need at least the vcore on 1.462500 in bios 1.5v under load to hit 4g and stable maybe a bit more, and aim for 2600-2700 as a start for cpu/nb

 

[Silentness]

Ok so I went ahead and quickly punched in 20x200 giving me a 4 GHz overclock. I also went ahead and bumped up the NB voltage to 1.4 and bumped up the NB/CPU clock to 2800. No problems and I'm still getting just 30c for temperatures.

Any suggestions on what I should crank up? Should I start increasing the base frequency past 200? Should I go for 3000 NB frequency? I feel like with my CPU fan and chip I could go a lot further.

I don't want to stress test the chip. Mainly it's just for general internet usage, videos, streaming, SC2 (cpu intensive), etc.

 

[moonmanas]

So how do you propose error testing without stress testing?

 

[fools79]

Just use prime95 it's free and there is almost no chance of doing anything bad to your computer with it. In addition most of the time if your not unlocking any cores you pretty much know your oc is stable after around 2 hours, and rock solid if you can go past 24.

 

[Silentness]

Ok I went ahead and used Prime 95. It got an error like instantly *face palm* Minute later... BSOD.

So do I just read the stress test.txt and it tells me what the failure was? What does that usually mean? I need to increase the voltage?
________________________

Update: I tried Prime 95 again. This time I decided to put the BIOS back to default. I decided to change only one variable at a time. So I typed in 20x200 and Vcore at 1.5 voltage. Ran Prime 95 and I ran it for about 25 minutes successfully at 4 GHz. I probably could lower the voltage a tad bit, but I'll work on that.

 

[StealthRuler]

hey mate, you have almost same motherboard as me. Take a look at my OC profile
Ref clock 200 MHz
CPU x20 (1.42V)
CPU/NB x13 (1.3V)
HT link x10
DDR 800 MHz (1.65v)

Prime 9h stable 0 errors

 

[Silentness]

Yeah I think I'm pushing too much voltage for 20x200. (1.5v) I'm a slowly lower my Vcore.

 

[moonmanas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silentness;12981551
Ok I went ahead and used Prime 95. It got an error like instantly *face palm* Minute later... BSOD.

So do I just read the stress test.txt and it tells me what the failure was? What does that usually mean? I need to increase the voltage?
________________________

Update: I tried Prime 95 again. This time I decided to put the BIOS back to default. I decided to change only one variable at a time. So I typed in 20x200 and Vcore at 1.5 voltage. Ran Prime 95 and I ran it for about 25 minutes successfully at 4 GHz. I probably could lower the voltage a tad bit, but I'll work on that.

It would be an impossiblilty for anyone to advise on what you need to adjust, youve just blindly stuck a load of settings in bios overclocking to over 4ghz and wonder why you get errors in prime95 and bsod lol

 

[moonmanas]

If you want to test faster try OCCT 1 hour test. But there really are no shortcuts to getting a decent stable OC it takes time. Every system is different but my cpu is stable at 4030 mhz with 1.462500v in bios, that goes to 1.5v with stress test.

 

[Silentness]

Well right now I'm at 20x200 1.45v in BIOs (CPU-Z says 1.488) NB/CPU at 2600 1.3v

I ran Prime 95 for 30 minutes with no errors. max core temps of 53c
I think I'm a bump the NB/CPU up to 2800 and try that next.

 

[moonmanas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silentness;12993858
Well right now I'm at 20x200 1.45v in BIOs (CPU-Z says 1.488) NB/CPU at 2600 1.3v

I ran Prime 95 for 30 minutes with no errors. max core temps of 53c
I think I'm a bump the NB/CPU up to 2800 and try that next.

LOL. and when it fails how are you going to know why it has? This is interesting

 

[moonmanas]

you will probably then need more volts to the cpu/nb to get it stable (if the cpu is even stable) that will take you to overheat mode....you couldtry OCCT as I said it'll show your fails up quicker than Prime. Try 1.325v for cpu/nb, if that fails go to 1.350 if thats stable keep knocking bits of volts off till its unstable and then go back up a notch. Just parroting what someone advised me for a 2800 cpu/nb clock....

 

[Silentness]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moonmanas you will probably then need more volts to the cpu/nb to get it stable (if the cpu is even stable) that will take you to overheat mode....you couldtry OCCT as I said it'll show your fails up quicker than Prime. Try 1.325v for cpu/nb, if that fails go to 1.350 if thats stable keep knocking bits of volts off till its unstable and then go back up a notch. Just parroting what someone advised me for a 2800 cpu/nb clock....

I did another prime95 run again today. Successfully ran with no errors for over a hour. I ran my ram at DDR 1600 with the default timings, NB/CPU at 2800 1.32v, my CPU at 20x200 (4 GHz) and Vcore at 1.452 according to CPU-Z, for over a hour and it didn't crash or anything... highest temperature was again 53c.

I think I'm a stick with these settings for a while. I can probably try lowering the voltage down some more.

 

[tersagun]

Not really an exact CPU question, but is there any difference between upping the FSB to 240 (as an example) and put the CPU-Memory ratio to 1:3.3 to reach 1600 MHz or use the standart FSB of 200 and CPU-Memory ratio to 1:4?

Or it is more or less the same, overclocking via multi or FSB?

My 965 C3 is on its way from Australia to sit on my new MSI 870-G54 coupled with 1600 MHz memory (too bad that I realized the Mobo doesn't support anything over 1600 Mhz, officialy, at least).

 

[Alex132]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silentness Ok so I went ahead and quickly punched in 20x200 giving me a 4 GHz overclock. I also went ahead and bumped up the NB voltage to 1.4 and bumped up the NB/CPU clock to 2800. No problems and I'm still getting just 30c for temperatures. Any suggestions on what I should crank up? Should I start increasing the base frequency past 200? Should I go for 3000 NB frequency? I feel like with my CPU fan and chip I could go a lot further. I don't want to stress test the chip. Mainly it's just for general internet usage, videos, streaming, SC2 (cpu intensive), etc.

1.35v is the max for the NB. I would recommend lowering it

Quote:

Originally Posted by tersagun Not really an exact CPU question, but is there any difference between upping the FSB to 240 (as an example) and put the CPU-Memory ratio to 1:3.3 to reach 1600 MHz or use the standart FSB of 200 and CPU-Memory ratio to 1:4? Or it is more or less the same, overclocking via multi or FSB? My 965 C3 is on its way from Australia to sit on my new MSI 870-G54 coupled with 1600 MHz memory (too bad that I realized the Mobo doesn't support anything over 1600 Mhz, officialy, at least).

Yes imagine like your CPU gets 20x200 for 4Ghz, sometimes there is a multi-limit a CPU can go before it is unstable. And a bclk limit for the board. Its basically the same for the RAM. for example I can get 1600Mhz with the 1:333 ratio and a bclk overclock. But I can't get it with the stock bclk and 1:4 ratio. Also AMD LOVES lower timings to higher Mhz. I would suggest you try to get your timings down to something like mine. 1600Mhz 9clk rated RAM running at 1333Mhz 7clk, AMD just prefers it

It says it doesn't support it, what it means is that the max ratio is 1:4 on the board. That mobo has very weak VRM's I would not suggest using it at all.

 

[The_Punisher]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tersagun Not really an exact CPU question, but is there any difference between upping the FSB to 240 (as an example) and put the CPU-Memory ratio to 1:3.3 to reach 1600 MHz or use the standart FSB of 200 and CPU-Memory ratio to 1:4? Or it is more or less the same, overclocking via multi or FSB? My 965 C3 is on its way from Australia to sit on my new MSI 870-G54 coupled with 1600 MHz memory (too bad that I realized the Mobo doesn't support anything over 1600 Mhz, officialy, at least).

I've heard that overclocking using fsb is easier and generally more stable than just using the multi.

For everyone's info I was running 4.0 stable @ 1.475v. Now running 4.2 @ 1.55v. There's no way I would go any higher, even if the temps are manageable. Not worth the risk imo. But I run 1.55v 24/7. OCCT really is the best I've found for CPU stability testing. But only that - use prime95 blend as well because you can have an unstable NB clock/ ram timings and still pass OCCT.

 

[moonmanas]

FSB puts everything up so its harder to tell what might be failing in the OC, you want to squeeze the most you can from the ram 1st and stable, then up the cpu multi and cpu/nb leave the fsb as near as poss to 200 and the HT link 2000. The cpu/nb is the main key to speed