Overclocking further

Odaise Gaelach

I've got an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor and an Asus AN832-SLI Deluxe motherboard.

The base frequency of the processor is 2.0GHz, but I've got it overclocked to 2.2GHz. The temperature is fairly cool, idling at around 38°C and working hard at around 42°C. The motherboard has a temperature of around 36°-38°C.

My computer runs beautifully, but I want to know should I try and overclock the processor any faster? Perhaps push it up to 2.3GHz, or even 2.4GHz.

The power supply is nice (Seasonic S-12 600W) but it has given me some problems before, such as turning off without any warning. I'm not too happy about having to increase the core voltage any higher than its default.

Can I increase the processor's clock frequency any higher without altering the voltage. And, more importantly, should I?

hopeful

Odaise Gaelach wrote:

I've got an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor and an Asus AN832-SLI Deluxe motherboard.

The base frequency of the processor is 2.0GHz, but I've got it overclocked to 2.2GHz. The temperature is fairly cool, idling at around 38°C and working hard at around 42°C. The motherboard has a temperature of around 36°-38°C.

My computer runs beautifully, but I want to know should I try and overclock the processor any faster? Perhaps push it up to 2.3GHz, or even 2.4GHz.

The power supply is nice (Seasonic S-12 600W) but it has given me some problems before, such as turning off without any warning. I'm not too happy about having to increase the core voltage any higher than its default.

Can I increase the processor's clock frequency any higher without altering the voltage. And, more importantly, should I?

My X2 3800 is running at 2.51. Thats at stock voltage but with HTT down to 600 and a memory divider to ensure my ram stays within spec (have 2gb of pc4000) Never goes above 43c with Arctic Cooling Freezer64.
Reckon you should have a bit more left:D

irlrobins

Moving to Tweaking/Modding

savemejebus

definitely go for it, push it as far as you can go without upping the core volts and you should get a nice push.

On a related note I would however be concerned with the powersupply acting up, especially seeing as it is a Seasonic, which are supposed to be among the best. Have you contacted Seasonic about the problem. Whether you overclock further or not you should follow up on this as a faulty psu can lead to you being the proud owner of a heap of useless components.

L31mr0d

what kindof cooling setup do you have inside that case? I'm not positive but does that seasonic have a 120mm extraction fan? Also do you have any intake fans, getting the hot air out is important, but it is more important to keep replacing it with cool outside air. I'm all for the side intake fan which gets cool air to your mobo, chipset, cpu and the pwmic at the same time.

When OC you also have to consider how good your RAM is. You need to loosen the RAM timings and then up your CPU clock until you fail a prime95 stress test. Then lower your CPU clock and up your RAM speed and tighten the timings to find out its limit, again with stress testing. Now you will know the limits of your hardware.

Once you have all this data, you can calculate what will give you the best overall performance increase. There is now point having an amazing OC on the CPU if you have your RAM running at 100 DDR.

This online calculator for AMD64's is good - Gogars Athlon OC Optimizer

Odaise Gaelach

L31mr0d wrote:

what kindof cooling setup do you have inside that case? I'm not positive but does that seasonic have a 120mm extraction fan? Also do you have any intake fans, getting the hot air out is important, but it is more important to keep replacing it with cool outside air. I'm all for the side intake fan which gets cool air to your mobo, chipset, cpu and the pwmic at the same time.

I've got one input fan and an output fan in the case, and there's a mesh in the side of the case just over the graphics card and processor.

I looked up Seasonic's website, and followed their advice and made sure that all the connections are in tight. I'll double-check the tolerances of the power supply to make sure that it's still stable. If they are, then I think that I'd be good to go (though I won't be raising the voltages this time).

So, for now, I'm going to make some benchmarks and gently overclock the processor, until it fails a stress test. Then I'll see what I can do with the RAM.

Thanks for all your advice, I really appreciate it.

Anti

if you want to overlcock your cpu further i have a thread here in tweaking/modding that might help you, it goes through all the problems i have had, and how i got around them. good reading you will think.

Odaise Gaelach

Right, here's the before and after:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
RAM: Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2 / 2GB (PC3200, DDR400)

The CPU has a multiplier of 10 in all of these settings, the RAM has a speed of 200MHz and I benchmarked them with PCMark05 Basic.

Before:
CPU: 2.2GHz
RAM: 3-3-3-8
PCMarks: 5712

Next:
CPU: 2.3GHz
RAM: 3-3-3-8
PCMarks: 5692

So the system was getting bottlenecked by the RAM. So, after lots of BIOS errors and flashings, and testing...

After:
CPU: 2.1GHz
RAM: 2.5-2-3-7
PCMarks: 5529


The RAM generated errors above 2.1GHz. So I think that I'll restore it to the default values and set the CPU to 2.2GHz.

I know that this RAM is a bad overclocker, but I was hoping for an improvement instead of a decrease. Ah well. That's the way it goes.

Anyway, anti, I think I'll have a look at that thread you mentioned...

EDIT:
Bingo... kinda
CPU: 2.2GHz
RAM: 3-3-3-8, 433MHz
PCMarks: 5706

savemejebus

what divider are you running on the ram?

Odaise Gaelach

savemejebus wrote:

what divider are you running on the ram?

*Does a few calculations*

Err... 244MHz.

BadCharlie

You should think about overclocking your video card also.

I have my ram running at 188mhz and have clocked my 3700+ to 2565mhz ish. I think my cpu is 2200mhz to start with but cant clock it any more due to motherboard.

Odaise Gaelach

BadCharlie wrote:

You should think about overclocking your video card also.

Already got that done.

savemejebus

Odaise Gaelach wrote:

Err... 244MHz.

hmm I meant is your ram running at 1/1, 4/6 etc.. as it should be quite easy to take the ram out of the equation and have it running at it's stock speed but on a divider. You will take a little bit of a performance hit but nothing too noticible unless you are overclocking solely for benchmarking

Odaise Gaelach

savemejebus wrote:

hmm I meant is your ram running at 1/1, 4/6 etc.. as it should be quite easy to take the ram out of the equation and have it running at it's stock speed but on a divider. You will take a little bit of a performance hit but nothing too noticible unless you are overclocking solely for benchmarking

Oh, sorry. Err... at stock it's DDR400, which is 1/1, isn't it?

Currently it's DDR433, which is 13/12.

I think. I didn't know that a RAM divider existed until you mentioned it!

savemejebus

ah right, well the good news is that you'll probably be able to overclock much further. Basically what you're doing with a divider is making the ram run at a fraction of the fsb (htt) speed, thus allowing you to overclock your processor even if your ram ain't the best These links have overclocking guides which might make it clearer:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=49898&highlight=dividers
http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=327
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=151373

awhir

got mine at 2.6 at 1.5v ram is only at 1:1 so can go higher.

L31mr0d

Odaise Gaelach wrote:

Oh, sorry. Err... at stock it's DDR400, which is 1/1, isn't it?

Currently it's DDR433, which is 13/12.

I think. I didn't know that a RAM divider existed until you mentioned it!

Ok what you need to do is drop your ram down to DDR200, then loosen your RAM timings (say 3-4-3-8) then up your CPU clock incrementally. Perform a quick run (30mins) of prime95 or OCCT at each increase to ascertain whether its stable and look at your temperature fluctuations. Once you fail prime95 or OCCT (or hit a temperature that you're uncomfortable with, lets say 59'c as a maximum load temp) you will have reached your CPUs limit at stock voltage

Then drop your cpu multiplier down to 8 and your HTT(fsb) back to 200 and set you ram at 1:1. Tighten the timings individually and run some stress testing, when you fail you will have reached the limit of how tight you can get your RAM timings. Next drop your ram timings to default and leave your CPU multi. at 8 and up your fsb incrementally until the RAM fails prime95.

You now have all the information you need to get the best possible overclock, use the link I gave to the AMD OC Optimizer above. Also keep an eye on your HTT multiplier, it CANT go over 1000Mhz, so change it accordingly as you OC (i.e. HTTxHTT multi. = 200x5, 250x4, 333x3...etc)

*sheesh wheres conzymaher when you need him *

Edit: BTW, a multi of DDR433 is overclocking your RAM and is probably why you are failing your tests. With low quality ram you should always be at DDR400 (1:1) or lower.

Anti

my ram is on 1:1 htt is at standard, just upped all the voltages to everything, loosened the ram timings, and im gone from 2.2ghz to 2.75ghz. Havent pushed it past this yet, and im on air so temps are getting a bit high. so with water i think i can easilly hit 3ghz

Odaise Gaelach

anti wrote:

my ram is on 1:1 htt is at standard, just upped all the voltages to everything, loosened the ram timings, and im gone from 2.2ghz to 2.75ghz. Havent pushed it past this yet, and im on air so temps are getting a bit high. so with water i think i can easilly hit 3ghz

Wow, that's great. Especially with just air cooling.

---

UPDATE: Right, it's 6:20AM, I'm tired, and I've just spent the last four hours overclocking my processor. Speed is 2.25GHz (250HTT * 9x), RAM is running at stock latency and 100MHz. Voltage on the processor has been upped from 1.425V to 1.5V.

I'm not using Prime95, because it generates errors even at a level that I know is stable. So I'm now using HotCPU Lite. I don't think I've ever stressed my computer like this before.

After I upped the core voltage and at full load the processor temperature skyrocketed from 45°C to 51°C. As well as that, Speedfan reports that the actual core voltage goes up to 1.46V, no more.

Is this all normal?

Anti

when you overvolt the cpu the temps will rise as there is more current going through it, and current + resistance = heat..... i think :0

As i can see your overclocking you system with increased htt. To get a higher clockspeed you need to lower it. or leave it at standard, As increased HTT speads will make hardly any difference in any aplication.

What you need to do is that upping the fsb ( front side bus )

your fsb as standard will be 200mhz. What you need to do is start upping it slowly. in 2/3mhz incriments. Do this with stock voltages on everthing, cpu, ram and chipset. When you notice the system becomming unstable up the cpu voltage by one step, If its stable carry on on small incriments. If it is not stable you will need to up the memory and chipset voltages one step.

Now at some point you will reach a point where you need to loosen the ram timings. For example my ram runs standard at 2-2-2-7 1t. For my overclock i needed to go to 3-3-3-8 1t. You will need to do the same.

And also there will be a point where a 2/3mhz fsb increase will make the system unstable no matter how much voltage you throw at everything. This is known as the maximum threshold of the cpu. The limit where it canot run any faster due to heat levels. To get past this you have a few options. You can get better air cooling. Go for watercooling, Water cooling with tec's/pelts. Or go extreme and phase change, This will mean buying expensive equiptment that will cool your cpu into the -c range, usually about -50 to -20c.

At this levels alot of ppl forget to use fans in their case. Even though the cpu is very cold the components around it like ram/nb/vrm ect ect will be getting no cooling from them, as this is supplied by the cpu cooler, as it blows air down onto the heatsike and across a close area around it ( with exception to the chipset ). So remember to have good ventilation. What i have done is cable tie a few fans over hot areas to help cool them a little bit.


hope this helps you in some what mate

Anti

i forgot to add also to update your bios and motherboard drivers. As sometimes they unlock little extras in the bios

Odaise Gaelach

anti wrote:

What i have done is cable tie a few fans over hot areas to help cool them a little bit.

Right, here's the problem...

I've got a Thermaltake Big Typhoon cooler, which is great for cooling the CPU. But it's too big. With it fitted in, there's only 3 or 4cm of room between the fan and the case itself.

There's a small, slightly-rounded honeycomb grating in the side of the case which allows some extra air into the computer. But it's only big enough to give air to one quarter of the cooler.

I've got my stock 80mm fan from the Athlon's cooler, but I can't fit it on to the grating because it's curved outwards slightly - not flat (which would be no problem).

Any suggestions on how to fit this stock fan?

L31mr0d

can you run cpu-z for me and take a screenshot of each of the tabbed windows which show all your computer settings. I'm a bit confused as to actually what you are doing thats messing up your system. BTW, failing prime95 is NOT good. Your system is not stable if you are failing prime95 after only a few seconds/minutes. This could cause problems further down the line such as OS/file system corruption.

Also if possible can you take some photos of the BIOS sections where you are making changes so I can see exactly what everything in your system is running at.

Odaise Gaelach

Okay, here's the situation.

I reported that the computer was shutting down without any warning, and that I thought that the PSU was giving me some trouble.

Well, when I began to overclock the system further it started to do it more and more. Three times today.

I had Speedfan running to log the PSU rails and the temperatures. I took a look over the logs when I restarted the computer. When running a stress test (Prime95, believe it or not :rolleyes:) the CPU temperature peaked at 52°C. The computer must have turned off then.

Well, there you are. As I said, the case is too small and is restricting airflow into the processor fan. So I'm going to leave the overclocking for now, until I can get a few more holes punched into the case side.

Anyway, thank you for all your help. Overclocking this computer has infuriated me to no end, but I'll soon be up and at it again!

Thanks again.

L31mr0d

I seriously think there is something else going on here other than your airflow problem in your case. Try taking the side panel off (thus giving you all the airflow you need) and doing the stress test again. You'll probably get the same result. I'm guessing you are new to this OC'in jazz, which is why i'd like to see some screenies of your BIOS and CPU-Z. Nothing would make me happier then seeing you max out the OC on your system

Anti

The reason his system is unstable is because he is overclocking by upping his HTT bus, Its at 250 with the default multiplier or 5, so that will cause the instability. I did a long post for him yesterday on how o overclock but he is not taking any notice of iit by the looks of it..

Odaise Gaelach

L31mr0d wrote:

I seriously think there is something else going on here other than your airflow problem in your case. Try taking the side panel off (thus giving you all the airflow you need) and doing the stress test again. You'll probably get the same result. I'm guessing you are new to this OC'in jazz, which is why i'd like to see some screenies of your BIOS and CPU-Z. Nothing would make me happier then seeing you max out the OC on your system

Believe me, nothing would make me happier than getting this system OC'd. And yes, I am new to overclocking.

Right, now I've reset the BIOS back to its default settings. Even with the side panel off, and at the default settings, Prime95 pushes the CPU to 48-49°C. The fan's at full speed and I'm stumped.

Attached is the CPU-Z readings of the stock settings. Maybe there's something fundamentally flawed with the motherboard's auto settings. Also there is picture of the inside of the case. Just in case I'm missing something blindingly obvious. The power cables shouldn't hinder airflow too much, should they?

(By the way, those fans are spinning, despite what the pictures show )

And anti, yes I did lower the HTT multiplier down to 3x before I began to overclock.

DemonOfTheFall

I'd say you must have a bad contact between your heatsink and processor if your temps are that high without an overclock.

Get some arctic silver or some arctic ceramique, apply it properly paying ridiculous attention to detail and see how your temps do

PogMoThoin

Must be something borked in boards cos L31rod & me posted here earlier & the posts are gone now.

Your cables are seriously blocking airflow. Tidy up your cables & clear the way for airflow. Leave any cable your not using wrapped up tightly at the top of the case. Maybe invest in round cables. I've got my only ribbon cable stuck with sticky rixers to the back of the case. Get a packet of small cable ties also. It might be worth considering buying a better cooler. This is how mine looks, very little in the way of airflow:

L31mr0d

*dammit* or maybe YOU *points quivering finger of anger* deleted it Pog :mad:

Ok so here is the picture again, try and sort out your cables, they are already sleeved which is a good start, all you need to do now is figure out which ones you don't need, then tidy up the rest (i.e. twist/pull tie them together). Bundle them up out of the way at the top near the PSU, and put an elastic band or twist tie them all together.



Also, I would consider doing what others have stated and reapplying the thermal paste, below is a picture of how much you should need, you can spread it out with a credit card. Any more than that is overkill and will hamper its heat conductivity. The paste I use is silver based

PogMoThoin

L31mr0d wrote:

*dammit* or maybe YOU *points quivering finger of anger* deleted it Pog :mad:

:rolleyes: HOW & WHY????? :eek: