1366 x58 Xeon Enthusiast overclocks club

tbob22 said:
MGS V: The Phantom Pain has some pretty good multi-threading. This is at 2560x1600 max settings. Not sure what's going on with the clocks...

JQB9tXA.png
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172,155GHz not bad

Amazing the difference 45 -> 32nm makes
 
I was finally able to jump on the x58 xeon bandwagon! Some over on overclock.net pointed me to a beta bios from the german version of the MSI site that added support for xeon procs in my aged MSI eclipse mobo.

Currently running at 23x183 @ 1.33v. Everything seems to be stable so far. I love how cool these chips run!
 
Does anyone know what the 3.3V rail feeds on X58? My bios and HWMonitor intermittently report 2.9V on that rail, but my dmm shows a solid 3.275-3.35V (measured at psu modular connectors and the 24pin).

Prime95 failed today at 180x20, code 124 (QPI voltage). It's always been rock solid before at 200x21 with 1.25V QPI, but maybe things have changed since last summer. I've jammed it up to 1.325 and it failed IBT within 30 seconds and threw code 124 at the bsod. Currently passed 10x runs of 1024mb IBT at 200x21 with 1.35v qpi. Will try again on auto, see if perhaps the coded qpi voltage isn't enough anymore.

edit: Just passed 10x IBT at 4096MB with all speed/voltages on auto.
 
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I don't know what it feeds but I do know that when my PSU dropped to 3V I started to get all sorts of weird issues. Time of a new PSU I think. I've had countless Silverstone PSUs and got the occasional one with out of spec voltage, particularly on the 3.3V rail. I have since switched to Seasonic and never looked back.
 
My computer was rebooting when I was putting my voltmeter leads into the modular connectors on the psu, def shouldn't be doing that. This HX1000 is a Channel Well inside, and it's from 2009/10. I'll be stealing back the Seasonic-built XFX 750W from my parents computer, and see if that helps my cause at all.

I don't think there's any warranty left on the Corsair, so I might as well open it up and see what I find when I get a chance.
 
Deimos said:
I don't know what it feeds but I do know that when my PSU dropped to 3V I started to get all sorts of weird issues. Time of a new PSU I think. I've had countless Silverstone PSUs and got the occasional one with out of spec voltage, particularly on the 3.3V rail. I have since switched to Seasonic and never looked back.
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Deimos knows some shit :D first guess and looks like hes dead on correct.
 
I have the XFX psu now, it's actually a 650W but should be just fine. Seasonic made, board is labelled as a PC Power & Cooling Silencer. Popped it open, no gremlins (shouldn't be, not many hours on it).

While I have the machine torn down, might as well check the mobo heatsink assembly...
tQcvIxf.png

dLDg9ui.png


Northbridge paste is hard as a rock, and turned brown. Might help explain why I've needed more QPI voltage over the last year? Now has some MX-4.
 
RickyJ said:
Northbridge paste is hard as a rock, and turned brown. Might help explain why I've needed more QPI voltage over the last year? Now has some MX-4.
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Well initial results are good? The last few days of testing, I found out I couldn't run 200MHz bclk at my normal 1.25Vtt, or even at 1.325V it would bsod code 124, and 1.35V it was sketch. After swapping my HX1000 for the XFX 650W, and changing the northbridge paste (and re-seating CPU/RAM), it's humming along at 200x19 at a normal 1.25Vtt once again! I couldn't kill it with IBT, and it's been running Prime95 for 5 hours now (would bsod within a minute before this).

My reported voltages in HWMonitor have been rock solid as well, 3.3V and 5V haven't budged a single mV and the 12v has only moved 50mv when the cpu loaded up.

Looking at the ATX connector on the HX1000, I see that a couple of the 3.3V terminals have spread, and a couple more are on their way. I haven't seen anything amiss inside it yet, but I haven't dug very far.

edit: I'll get this HX back in once I go through it enough. I don't like making two changes at once for diag, but I had to shotgun it to try and make any change.

edit2: 16 hours, still Priming. 3.3/5/12V rails haven't budged in HWMonitor.
 
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Thats great to hear and looks like you found and fixed 2 issues at once...Well done!:)
 
RickyJ said:
So I cleared off a working Seagate 7200.11 that I had in storage, and Win10 installed the same way as on my ssd. On first reboot, it does the Windows spinning loading screen, then drops to blank screen like before. Force reboot and it stops at the same place. So I don't think it's my ssd at this point.
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Sounds very familiar...
This always happens to me when I install with SATA set to AHCI mode, clear CMOS at some point in the future, and it reverts to IDE default (eVGA x58 board defaults to IDE for some reason). So I just have to go into the bios and set the SATA back to AHCI.

Windows install doesn't let you switch between IDE--AHCI--RAID after you've already installed it in one of the three modes. If this is somehow the case, switch back to to IDE and boot into windows. There is a regedit you can then use to install windows drivers for all three modes, or there is a Microsoft fix:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/922976
 
primetime said:
Thats great to hear and looks like you found and fixed 2 issues at once...Well done!:)
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It's certainly looking that way! For a few years this box would reboot whenever a cat jumped on top of the case, so the spread terminals in the ATX connector would certainly explain that!

I'm going to see if I can make the HX stable in the system again before attempting a 10 install. I'm sure the 650W would be fine, but I'd rather have the headroom when I have the 980 turned up for games.

ericeod said:
Sounds very familiar...
This always happens to me when I install with SATA set to AHCI mode, clear CMOS at some point in the future, and it reverts to IDE default (eVGA x58 board defaults to IDE for some reason). So I just have to go into the bios and set the SATA back to AHCI.

Windows install doesn't let you switch between IDE--AHCI--RAID after you've already installed it in one of the three modes. If this is somehow the case, switch back to to IDE and boot into windows. There is a regedit you can then use to install windows drivers for all three modes, or there is a Microsoft fix:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/922976
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I've always been religious about that setting. Didn't know about the reggie fix or the MS fix though, that might help in the future, thanks! :)

edit: Well, I hit the top of the case to test out the reboot theory. It rebooted. The top panel only has the USB and reset button hooked up, and it didn't reboot after hitting the top with the reset button disconnected. Also ditched the Asus Q-connector that never felt like it engaged the mobo header properly.
 
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RickyJ said:
edit: Well, I hit the top of the case to test out the reboot theory. It rebooted. The top panel only has the USB and reset button hooked up, and it didn't reboot after hitting the top with the reset button disconnected. Also ditched the Asus Q-connector that never felt like it engaged the mobo header properly.
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I had that issue with an old case of mine. I don't know if it was a grounding issue or what.. I disconnected the reset button and never had an issue after.

Sorry about the delay, here are my bios settings:
http://imgur.com/a/fwABO
 
Who needs a reset button these days anyhow.

I just tried installing 10 on my spare Seagate, it does the same blank screen after reboot as it did before.

edit: I've mirrored your settings tbob22, still no dice. Turned PNP O/S back on, still no go.
 
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RickyJ said:
Who needs a reset button these days anyhow.

I just tried installing 10 on my spare Seagate, it does the same blank screen after reboot as it did before.

edit: I've mirrored your settings tbob22, still no dice. Turned PNP O/S back on, still no go.
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What about the ram, have you tested it with Memtest? If the ram is faulty, you can have issues installing the OS.

Going off past experiences again; I installed Windows 7, but kept getting errors installing the updates. I reinstalled twice before I decided to run memtest. As soon as I started memtest, it started scrolling errors. I figured out which stick was bad and removed it. I did a fresh install and all updates took.

You can download the latest Memest (Memtest86+ V5.01) ISO from: http://www.memtest.org/
 
I've run it and passed with the old psu and shitty northbridge paste, but I'll run it again overnight. I have a dedicated flash drive as a Win98 boot disc for more capable DOS, MT86+ and hard drive testing programs live on it. :)

edit: MT+ would freeze on startup from my USB. Burned a fresh iso to cd on the laptop. Would then refuse to POST a few times, then claimed it had a corrupted bios (checksum failure), so I reflashed it. Now running MT+ 5.01 at a lowly 160MHz bclk to remove potential QPI issues, for DDR3-1600 (rated speed) at 9-9-9-24-1T (spd is 2T, but it's passed perfectly before at 1T). This is just a bit aggravating...

edit2: 9 hours overnight, 3 passes clean. Bumped it up to 200MHz bclk (3.2GHz cpu, 3600MHz uncore, 7200MT/s QPI, same DDR3-1600), memtest kicks out right away at 1.25Vtt. I bumped up to 1.30Vtt and it's running (1 pass clean, 30% into 2nd). IBT or Prime95 had no problems at 1.25Vtt.
 
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So today I've swapped in my old 6GB memory kit, 9400GT gpu, a different DVD drive. The only things common to my normal setup is the Xeon and the mobo. Next up is putting my 920 back in, which had a slowly failing overclock. I'm also curious to put the bios chip into my eeprom reader/burner and compare to the bios rom, see if all the cells are barking. My CMOS battery reads 3.1V, even when mounted to the mobo, so I don't think my problem is there.

At this point I'm not willing to put any more money into this X58 platform, ie: replacement motherboard. This is the point it's getting down to now. :mad:
 
The file I pulled from my actual BIOS chip wasn't the same as the 1202 source from Asus. I cleared the BIOS chip, confirmed it's blank (passed), then wrote the Asus file directly to it, then re-read it to make sure no cells failed (passed). I cleared the CMOS while I did all of this. I put the BIOS chip back in, set it all up again, still wouldn't get past the initial 10 loading screen. Pulled the chip, read it, not the same as source or the file I pulled to start with. I'm starting to think that the board updates sections of the flash data, as well as having a separate CMOS vRAM, though I'm not sure why.

This makes it tough to confirm that there's no legitimate corruption of the BIOS going on.
 
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Ok hears a thought...take it for what its worth. You could try putting your ssd into your laptop and installing 10 there (takes about 5 min), after it installs pull it out and plug the ssd into your board. Now i understand it doesn't fix what ever weird issue is left...but it would at least get you going?
At this point, it seems you have tried just about everything anyone could think up. Really a head scratcher you got going on....Most of us asus board owners have never had a failed install EVER. Early on i fried my bios chip with a failed update like the first year i had it, and had to pay asus 15 bucks for a new rom.....and once or twice i had to do a long clear mos....but all an all its been smooth sailing and most bullet proof pc i have ever, including with the overclock:)
Now with that being said, i wonder how it does with the 920 back in? Pain in the ass just to try it though:(
 
It's not a huge pain in the ass to put the 920 back in, just a bit awkward with such a huge cooler. It would only eliminate the cpu as the source of my problems, which may be worth it. I have a feeling that the problem is in the mobo, but I'm not really willing to spend probably $200cdn and then deal with activation bullcrap because numbers don't match.

This laptop is just a slow C2D. I've actually been considering installing using the E8400/P45 machine that I've been pulling parts from for this endeavour. The 7 install on the ssd is not activated, so my activation should hopefully go ok. The chipset is of similar age so the default driver package shouldn't flip out.

I'd really rather have this instability figured out so it doesn't bite me in the ass later, but it seems like I'm at the end of the road of normal methods.

edit: I swapped the 920 back in. Blank screen after Windows spinny loading page, like before. Reinstalled 10, same thing. On the weekend I changed sata cables around too. The only electronic component (other than fans) that has not been changed out is the motherboard. Win10 must be accessing some fried portion of the board that 7 never touches, but only on clean install.....
 
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So tonight I put the E8400/P45 machine together with the HX1000 psu from my X58 machine, the Seagate, and the rest of it is from the machine before (cpu/mobo/ram/dvd-burner/case/fans/9400GT). It did the blank screen thing after installing from USB, and also from a dvd (in case the flash drive got corrupted).

So, wtf now lol. I could toss the Seagate and try to install on the ssd, overwriting a perfectly fine 7 install (who cares, it installs so easy). I could attempt install on my old i3-540 machine that I gave my parents, it'll all be a different setup including the house. I could burn another dvd at their place and try that (the most recent usb drive is from the MS download I did on their computer, using the MS flash drive tool).

I've done all of this work with my Asus 24" IPS, at first with DP and then DVI. Maybe I should use my TV over HDMI in case the monitor is in disagreement with Win10? Really grasping at straws here.

edit: I've tried installing with 3 different keyboards (2 usb mechanicals, one 80's PS/2 mechanical), but I haven't tried installing using a different mouse (I have a G9 handy). Far fetched, sure, but at this point........
 
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I will say at times windows 10, unlike the older versions will crap out if any other ssd and or hard drives are hooked up...don't think thats your issue exactly but im betting its something stupid like that. When i went to do my kids laptop, i had to remove his drive and plug it into my board to get his install done....plugged it back in his laptop and he was good to go from there. Why was my kids install failing....ill never know, but was just throwing it out there that sometimes its just a windows bug and the only way is to do it is to find a work around
 
I haven't done an install with more than the one drive plugged in for 3 weeks and change. Cleared out all partitions to unallocated space, hit "next" to let it create its own partitions.
 
Tentatively SOLVED. Tentatively as in I have to rebuild my main machine to spec and get on with it.

I just got home 30 mins ago from my motorcycle course, thought I'd try the mouse swap with the E8400/P45 machine. It was freezing as usual, so I booted it up without the Spawn mouse plugged in.....and it went smoothly to the screen where you pick your level of nanny monitoring. I plugged the Spawn back in to hit the sliders, and it froze while loading the next section. I unplugged the mouse....and it unfroze and continued like nothing happened. I plugged my G9 into the usb port and finished the other options, and ended up at a clean desktop.

Dafuq is this?! I love the size and shape of this mouse, fits well with my large hands and fingertip grip, but it just WASTED a solid month of my spare time. I don't have the words....

edit: Doing a search for the mouse and Win10, seems like other people are having install issues as well (which didn't show up on any of my other searches). People have to constantly unplug and reconnect the mouse to install, and it only gets better when they install CM's drivers and maybe a firmware.
 
RickyJ said:
Tentatively SOLVED. Tentatively as in I have to rebuild my main machine to spec and get on with it.

I just got home 30 mins ago from my motorcycle course, thought I'd try the mouse swap with the E8400/P45 machine. It was freezing as usual, so I booted it up without the Spawn mouse plugged in.....and it went smoothly to the screen where you pick your level of nanny monitoring. I plugged the Spawn back in to hit the sliders, and it froze while loading the next section. I unplugged the mouse....and it unfroze and continued like nothing happened. I plugged my G9 into the usb port and finished the other options, and ended up at a clean desktop.

Dafuq is this?! I love the size and shape of this mouse, fits well with my large hands and fingertip grip, but it just WASTED a solid month of my spare time. I don't have the words....

edit: Doing a search for the mouse and Win10, seems like other people are having install issues as well (which didn't show up on any of my other searches). People have to constantly unplug and reconnect the mouse to install, and it only gets better when they install CM's drivers and maybe a firmware.
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That's different, never would have guessed that one. Glad you figured it out though. :)
 
System is back together properly, and 10 installed and activated without a single hitch! :)

What are you guys using for chipset drivers?

Thank you guys so much for helping me through these last few weeks, it's much appreciated. :)
 
Welp... I just took the Xeon plunge... x5670 and some MX-4 is on it's way from amazon.
I hope to hit 4.2 under 1.35v.
I'm running bios v 1502... really any reason to go to the 1601?
I will be redoing the TIM on the NB/SB/VRM cooler as well.
 
RickyJ said:
System is back together properly, and 10 installed and activated without a single hitch! :)

What are you guys using for chipset drivers?

Thank you guys so much for helping me through these last few weeks, it's much appreciated. :)
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Wow... I just caught up on your issue with your mouse. I've had issues with a Killer Nic card causing a Win 7 install freeze, but never guessed a mouse would cause that level of hardware problems during install. Glad you got it sorted out!

As for chipset drivers, Intel has no Windows 10 drivers posted for the X58 chipset. The native Windows 10 chipset drivers were working fine for me, but I still downloaded the latest INF Utility I could find on Intel's site for the X58 chipset and updated via the device manager. here is the link for the drivers I used:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...Intel-6-5-4-3-900-Series-Chipsets-Zip-Format-
 
Well I'm having a "Heck of a Time" getting this x5670 just to post... I've set all voltages and clock manually and PC will not post on restart or shuts down starting windows...
Before I get a replacement I hope you guys have some recommendations for me.
I'm on bios rev 1502...
Mult x22
CPU core 1.26v
BCLK 133
Mem XMP
PLL 1.82v
QPI 1.35v
IOH 1.16v
ICH 1.16v
PCIE 1.5v
Ect...
I'm so bummed... I think the chip they sent is garbage...
 
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@ Altracomp. turn off Memory XMP, set all timings manually. and set the base clock to 133. is your board dose the math for the memory speed, you should now choose 1333 mhz. any divider higher and it will never boot. adjust this divider accordingly as you raise the base clock to match your rated memory speed.
 
So nothing should be left on auto for cpu voltages as well?
Sorry for my n00bness but I have never messed with xeons much...
I did try 1066 not 1333... but did not set timings manually...
 
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Dr. Kreiger's clone said:
@ Altracomp. turn off Memory XMP, set all timings manually. and set the base clock to 133. is your board dose the math for the memory speed, you should now choose 1333 mhz. any divider higher and it will never boot. adjust this divider accordingly as you raise the base clock to match your rated memory speed.
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Welp... Installed the x5670 once more... Well it is hard to setup the bios when the system will not post.
No beeps... no post code... Will try again with a new Chip... TY for the advice.
 
If it all worked great before the cpu swap then it does sound like you got a bad one. If your old cpu still works fine then, get with the seller and get it swapped out or buy from someone else. Take some pics of the cpu and we can see if anything looks wrong is about all we can do for now.
 
Found a good deal on a X5675 just 80 shipped :D.

I just installed and it work jajaj, so far so good.

starting to overclock !!
 
Please see my signature for my current system. Looking at upgrading to a X99 platform but wondering if maybe I should get get a X5670 or better instead.

Thoughts?
 
Hello, guys.

Just finished my watercool loop in Caselabs case with RIIIE mobo and with the purchased 2 years ago Xeon W3680 (980x)
I used my mobo before for about the 2 years with i7-950 @4.4 and 6Gb of Kingston Hyper-X 2000-8-8-8 on Elpida chips. With that CPU I haven't get stable 2000 on mem.

Now my full config consists of:
Xeon W3680 (vid seems to be about 1.17-1.20)
ASUS RIIIE mb with 1601 mod bios
Corsair 12Gb 4Gbx3 2000-9-10-9-27 1.65v mem kit (CMT12GX3M3A2000C9 ver 8.16)
2 x ASUS GTX980 in SLI
Seagate 600 SSD's (240Gb 600 Enterprise & 400Gb 600 Pro) for system/games
2 X WD Red 2Tb in ACHI mode for storage
Creative SB ZxR
Silverstone Strider Gold Evolution 1000w psu

all stuff in Caselabs case and cooled with water.

My build were complete in 1,5 years (I had rarely only 1 day per week to work with my rig), and for now I forgot some X58 overclocking tips & tricks and also I haven't expirience with Gulftown/Westmere cpu's before.
First I did a research and searched through forums with tips & tricks for 32nm Westmere overclocking. Then I planned strategy to overclock & test stability of different CPU parts & memory. I mean bclk testing, then memory/multi and uncore parts and only after that the core clock. For my CPU I find that it perfectly works with my memory on 2000 freq. Useful tip was the Westmere require only 1.5x (min) from mem for uncore and that the CPU VTT (QPI/DRAM in ASUS mb BIOS) need less voltage when multi between 1.5 and 2, but not on 1.5 and 2 exactly. My memory don't like lower timings on 2000 freq even on 1.75v CL8 is impossible. Also all my tests were done with 2000 freq and 9-10-9-27 main timings. I wish to hold this freq. But I were able to lower some 2'nd timings and set 1N rate instead of default 2N. 1.6v is enough for my mem to remain stable... I haven't tested less voltage, but decided to move from 1.65 to 1.6 to see how it will go and this try were succesfull.

I decided to play with 166 bclk. From my bloomfield expirience (920, 940, 950) I remember that i7 1366 cpu's prefer even-multies for core, e.g. 21-23-25-27-29 etc, but not odd-multies like 22-24-26 etc
I always got less vcore and higher freq on even-multi comparing to odd-multies (for example 950 were stable as rock on 21x210 & 23x191 @1.4v, but were unstable on 22x200 1.45v...)

Last week I'm trying to bring my W3680 to "gold" 4.5GHz overclock. And this is why I posted here. I stucked with stability problems.
As I said above I find that mem & uncore feel well on 2000 1:6 multi & 3500-3800 (1.75-1.91x) accordingly with CPU VTT from 1.27 to 1.33 depending on uncore freq. QPI LL is enabled by jumper - this way it holds what I set in BIOS.

My 4.5GHz with 166 bclk x 27 multi fails. I can hold linpack (LinX) for 2-3 hours w/o any problem on 1.35v on Vcore, but I repeatedly fail in Prime95 ver28.5 (last one) after 1 hour in it. Sometime it's a bluescreen (omg I hate this win8-10 stop screens, they don't show error code!!! as XP/vista/7 had), sometime it's hang (infinite) or hang with following bluescreen or hang with following restart. Windows not always able to register stop error code in event journal... sometime there was x124 err code, sometimes just alerts that something work bad - 1-2 min before crash/restard according to events time record. And this making me mad. I tryed to lower mem freq and uncore, while holding their voltages. No go. I tryed to lower CPU VTT (QPI/DRAM) and retested with 25 core multi (4.15GHz) - at lower CPU freq all is rock stable - 8hrs of prime95. I determined that 4.15GHz is ok with 1.25v on vcore (haven't tested less).

I know that I always can push more Vcore - it's the most simple thing ever. But RIIIE have SO MUCH additional settings and tweaks that I thing could help w/o bumping Vcore. Bad thing is that RIIIE is not "popular" now, all threads about X58 are close to dead state, and that additional tweaks haven't explained very well at all. There are things like scews, cpu pwm freq, amplitude and so on.
Could someone explain how they may help and should some of them change from "auto" for 24/7 (not extreme/bench) overclock?

I don't want to kill or let my CPU degrade so I thing 1.35v on vcore is the most reasonable limit? Or it depends on CPU vid also? for example for cpu with 1.1 vid the "limit" is 1.35v and for 1.2 vid 1.4-1.45v ? Intel spec says 1.4 max ("with respect to Vss" what's Vss?) Uncore parts due to my tests feels well in between 1.25-1.35 depending on mem and uncore freq/multi.

Also I got surprised when realised that my Xeon W3680 are 980x brother, not the common 980. So I have a free multi. I already tested just for fun 34x133 etc. But seems that large multies goes harder, because Linx crashed on the same Vcore when 166x27 were stable.

Sorry for large post, I'm trying to explain and describe my system and situation as clear as possible. I'm ready to post my current BIOS settings and some pics from cpu-z and other soft to show timings and multies.
Hope someone still use x58 with westmere cpu or just remember well what/where the trick is on to make it stable on RIIIE mb ;)
 
First thing that comes to mind is 4.2ghz is a million times easier to get bullet proof stable over 4.5. It sucks but its the truth. Also from the way i understand it, running the ram at 2000mhz is hardly worth the extra trouble as well.....with that being said i would tackle one issue at a time if your convinced you need both
 
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