getting the most from my 955BE

[nobody_here]

So I installed AMD Overdrive in order to see a larger amount of detail on my system without being in the BIOS. All my tweaks are being done in the bios thus far however, but I was going to use Overdrive to do more fine tuning and tweaking, should be much faster than rebooting over and over....

So what do you make of these screen shots for anyone else out there with a 955BE running 4Ghz+? I am pretty solid but if I load it up good with Prime95 across all cores after a while it BSOD's on me. There are separate voltages and a TON of memory timings available and I am wondering if anyone has insight into what settings I have that may be causing the instability.

Cooling is provided by a Hyper 212+ with two 120mm high speed push pull config fans..temps are around 55*c-60*c loaded up. Of course I am more interested in stability when gaming and other tasks which are less stressful so that's a unrealistic worst case situation, typically it runs much cooler.

Here it is after loading it up just now. What's odd is Overdrive isn't picking up on the 1.4v CPU voltage I set in my BIOS with a 3% Line Correction factor so CPU voltage goes up to 1.44v at times. CPU-Z reflectes that, Overdrive doesn't

 

[sirmonkey1985]

you need more cpu voltage.. some where in the 1.5-1.52v range. start high and work your way down til its unstable then go back up. other then that leave everything else where it should be. i'm amazed you even got it to boot at 1.45v so i'd probably lean more toward 1.5v being the stable voltage.

as far as overdrive not reading your voltage correctly, its reading the VID on the processor instead of the voltage setting + correction. some bios do VID changes some don't so overdrive doesn't see it. ASUS boards seem to have the most issues with monitoring applications and overdrive is one of those apps that don't like the ASUS bios.

 

[nobody_here]

you need more cpu voltage.. some where in the 1.5-1.52v range. start high and work your way down til its unstable then go back up. other then that leave everything else where it should be. i'm amazed you even got it to boot at 1.45v so i'd probably lean more toward 1.5v being the stable voltage.

as far as overdrive not reading your voltage correctly, its reading the VID on the processor instead of the voltage setting + correction. some bios do VID changes some don't so overdrive doesn't see it. ASUS boards seem to have the most issues with monitoring applications and overdrive is one of those apps that don't like the ASUS bios.

interesting is i was just noticing there is a VDDA and a VID both for CPU voltage

1.5v would likely have it running too hot though wouldn't it?

 

[sirmonkey1985]

interesting is i was just noticing there is a VDDA and a VID both for CPU voltage

1.5v would likely have it running too hot though wouldn't it?

stress testing, probably. in the real world usage no. you are good up to 70C on that processor. hell i've run my 940 which an early release C2 stepping processor well over 70C (AMD's recommended max temps are very conservative compared to what they really are).

 

[teletran8]

I second the Vcore is to low to get Pi to pass.

I don't have a 955. I have a Rana 455 X3 since November 2010 that I have been testing. Like my sig says "at the moment" X4 @4.125Ghz with Vcore of 1.625VCore. It runs good for gaming and web browsing, lighter benchmarking, but this last couple weeks I have been stress testing my OC more in depth (with Pi like your doing) and I've noticed a few things.

I think I have found the limits of my motherboards "stable capabilities with my chip" or I'm getting there It's one of those things that takes time+trial and error. I just get around to it more so when I'm bored or feeling adventurous.

Anyway getting more to the point of my post...What I have found myself is that my Motherboard is my limiting factor in how stable/high of OC I can acquire. It's not the CPU or the RAM for my build, but the motherboards limits it can run stable @ b4 it crashes. What I'm trying to say is that my motherboard NB+CPU+Ram can only pass Pi with my NB volt at around 1.3V (much more or to less gives me system stability or Pi crashes, now with gaming CPU usage can vary to 50 percent on all cores which doesn't show game crashes or shows them after awhile and not so soon because Pi stresses more harder, which gaming doesn't represent Pi's 100 percent CPU usage on all Cores, but it does do a good job of simulating video encoding) Anyhow I imagine a more expensive board would allow more variety of stable settings, but whatever I bought this system because it kicks the crap out of my E6600, it was ALOT more affordable, and I honestly don't mind to much if I blow it up. It's fun to learn on.

Anyhow I keep my memory between 1288-1400mhz to keep it Prime stable (to far under and to far over those settings and I will see a crash), and 1.55 Volts or so (It doesn't help to over-volt the memory I have). Then it all comes down to my CPU's Vcore and thermals I'm comfortable with. You are probably different than me (heck if I could, I would have my chip run @ 20 degrees load but I can't if I want a 4Ghz OC or more. Specifically 3.960Ghz, to also get the Pi system stability to pass for hours. (I would really like at least 3+ hours of stability or simply it to pass for 24 hours, because in the end that is how long I might play an online game in a sitting, or do a video encode 3 hours) Now if it passes 24 hours then I know it's solid enough for me, to really never have to worry about again. The way I use my PC currently, in the future that could change.

Prime stability (24 hours) with a nice high OC (for your chip) in my opinion is one of those things where you are going to need or want the best cooling possible, along with a well cooled case and motherboard. If you lack those ingredients your CPU's OC will have to be toned down to make up for their short comings. And I would say 4Ghz on an AMD AM3 chip is going to need 1.5Vcore in the least to get a Pi stable system. Oh yeah I could be wrong Cuz I don't own a BE CPU with unlocked multiplier so maybe you can run lower Vcore with a BE CPU (and be Pi stable) I'm not sure.

Anyhow for my chip to unlock and get 3.960 Ghz I use 1.5250V core and 1.3000Volt. I dunno if it's 24/7 stable, because quite frankly I don't want to monitor it for 24 hours Sometime I will....Good luck with your OC'ing!

 

[nobody_here]

that must be 1.525 vcore and 1.3v on the Northbridge ...noted, seeing a trend here

Thanks for the insight.

 

[teletran8]

that must be 1.525 vcore and 1.3v on the Northbridge ...noted, seeing a trend here

Thanks for the insight.

Yeah. CPU and NB volts, that's what I run.

Oh and I meant Prime 95 not Pi, doh it was late when I posted.

I just did a 1 hour 7 minute stability test and it never crashed, but even with my Noctua Cooler my CPU temps went up to 77 degrees on Core Temp, and my model is rated @ just TJ Max of 70 so maybe that's hard on the chip. The average is really 70-72 for Prime for me. I don't really care though. If I spent 200-300 or more on a different chip I might care but 85 dollars just doesn't worry me.

Pic:

Another pic of my old Core 2 Duo E6600 that everyone raves about OC to 3.075Ghz compared to my Rana 455 unlocked and OC'd X4 in Cinebench Multiprocessing. These cheaper AMD processors kick butt if you know what your doing or just like to be adventurous.

Pic

Prime 95 is still stable 12:47-14:14 even while I posted this in Firefox while having it running no crashes yet, these AMD chips make great PC gaming systems for their price. I'm satisfied with my $85.00 weak American dollar investment haha

 

[nobody_here]

So ok you ha e me convinced to go for 1.525v and 1.3v and try again.....it hit 64*c loaded at 1.5v yesterday and wasn't stable for long but I'm trying to keep it cool. Of course if I popped it I could justify a 2500K system. Lol

 

[FireBean]

Hell, I'm on water, and I'm scared to push mine past 55c!! But then again, mine is C2 and does NOT like to go over 3.8Ghz. I've toasted quite a few pieces of hardware. Even a sound card once, beat that!

 

[nobody_here]

Hell, I'm on water, and I'm scared to push mine past 55c!! But then again, mine is C2 and does NOT like to go over 3.8Ghz. I've toasted quite a few pieces of hardware. Even a sound card once, beat that!

No I burned a sound card once. Lol

 

[teletran8]

I'm glad you made this thread, because I never tried that AMD Overdrive program.

Which let me notice that my HyperTransport Link can be raised higher.

Stock mine was 8x 1920mhz, so I went into the bios and there were 2 more options 9x and 10x the 10x cranks up the HT Link/Bus speed to 2400mhz. My CB 11.5 went up from 4.18pts to 4.28pts now, I think it also dropped about half a second off Hyper Pi Single threaded speeds. I've left it on Auto Volts, whatever that is?

If you guys haven't tried it, might as well. It's like a whopping 2.5 percent overall speed boost lmao (4.18 x .025 = .1045 + 4.18 = 4.2845!!)

Hey get the most out of your 955BE like you said!

That Intel 960 @ stock doesn't do much more for 279.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115224

Than my Rana 455 OC for 82.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103911&Tpk=Rana 455

 

[nobody_here]

Nice! Yeah, my NB speed has always been set to 200x12 = 2400Mhz Some even run 2600Mhz but the jump from 2000 to 2400Mhz seems to provide the largest benefit without stability issues. Never tried the Cinebench app..checking it out!

4.64 seems ok for the 200x20 i settled on for 24/7 running. I do use Cn'Q to keep daily temps down...idles around 29-30 but loads up at 65-66. Yesterday I had it running 4.085Ghz (215x19) and the memory and all was keeping up. That was at 1.5v CPU and 1.3v NB.

 

[MacLeod]

I'm on my 4th AMD proc in 2 years and am getting pretty good at cranking on them. I agree with the post saying your mobo might be limiting you. When I built this rig, I never intended to OC so I bought a solid but midrange board. And while its been rock solid, I've never been able to get the clocks that I see others getting, I'm always about 100 MHz away. I've tried every trick I could find or think about but always come up short.

Also, AMD processors benefit a lot by FSB overclocking. Just one example, at 3.8 with 200x19, I got 40 fps in Crysis at 1680x1050. At 3.81 with 231x16.5, I get 43 and a 7.6 instead of 7.5 on the WEI (whatever that's worth). Ive also found that using both multiplier and FSB usually makes for a more stable OC than multi only. My old P2 555 wouldn't do 4 gig with multi only but would with FSB and multi.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Nice! Yeah, my NB speed has always been set to 200x12 = 2400Mhz Some even run 2600Mhz but the jump from 2000 to 2400Mhz seems to provide the largest benefit without stability issues. Never tried the Cinebench app..checking it out!

4.64 seems ok for the 200x20 i settled on for 24/7 running. I do use Cn'Q to keep daily temps down...idles around 29-30 but loads up at 65-66. Yesterday I had it running 4.085Ghz (215x19) and the memory and all was keeping up. That was at 1.5v CPU and 1.3v NB.

lol 66C.. bah thats nothing.. wait til you are running 75C 24/7 yeah i've accidentally done that a few times due to my laziness when it comes to cleaning my dust magnet of a heatsink and running F@H. AMD's way to friggin conservative with their recommended max temps as well.