Overclock not working so well :( any suggestions?

W

WCES Ryan

Gawd
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Mar 28, 2005
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I have a nice new setup that I recently picked up, consisting of an Opteron 170, Asus A8N-SLI Premium, OCZ EL 2x512 2-3-2-6, eVGA 7800GTX, OCZ Modstream 520w, Thermalright SI-120 + Antec Tri-cool, etc.

Anyway, I started working on overclocking my system this weekend and got some interesting results. First of all, it seemed that my RAM did not respond well to being overclocked, so I ended up setting the FSB at 306mhz, 8.5x, HT link multi at 2x, memory at 2:3 putting it right at 200mhz.

Following eclipse's AMD OC guide, I learned that my CPU would be fine up til about 320mhz HTT when core 0 would crap out. With a stock multi, it would get up to just over 2.8ghz when again, core 0 would crap out.

When I went out friday night, I set my system up with the settings above, and let memtest86 run for a while. When I got home, it had completed 12 full passes with zero errors, so I thought that was great.

I hadn't tested for stability in prime95 yet, but figured with RAM at stock speeds and the system running at 2.6ghz (200mhz under its limit), I wouldn't have any problems. I went and played a bit of Quake 4 before going to sleep and the came kept quitting after a few minutes. Temperatures weren't too bad, I had gone higher during testing for stability so I don't *think* that was the problem.

I went to start up prime95 large fft tests on both cores before hitting the sack, and I watched for about a minute when both cores crapped out. I can't figure out why, when it seems like I was at an okay overclock.

I put it back to stock, and of course I'm fine now, but my question is, what do you think my problem was? I'd be quick to say it's my memory, but of course I'm not sure. Heat certainly didn't seem to be the problem either. The main reason that I'm lead to believe the memory is the problem is because it isn't listed in the compatibility list in the manual, but if it's fine with everything at stock, could it still become a problem when the memory is at stock speeds but the CPU is overclocked?

Sorry for the long read, but I'm just stuck trying to figure it out. Any insight is GREATLY appreciated :) Thanks [H]!
 
Try an even multi (8x,9x,10x) because they usually get better results. Also, just because a bunch of people got their chips to 2.6 or 2.8, that does not mean you will
 
Well, just a couple ideas... first, no reason to set the HTT that low. 3x is fine up to 330 FSB, and no-one I know uses a FSB that high. Probably doesn't really matter for your situation though. What voltage did you set the CPU at?
 
The CPU was at 1.400, I hit 2.8ghz at that speed and I didn't get any higher no matter how high I raised the voltage.

I will try an even multi later :)
 
Hmm... Most of the people I've read about have their voltage at 1.45 or 1.50 to get 2.7GHz +, so it's probably a voltage starvation issue. Try upping the voltage.
 
Here's another problem then.. no matter what I set the voltage to between 1.400 and 1.4500, I get 1.392 when I come into Windows. If I go any higher than 1.4500 then it jumps the voltage way up.... any thoughts on that?
 
Hmm... I get the same thing. I have to use an extra program (Core Center for MSI) to up the voltage once I get into windows for prime95 stability.
 
What do you do otherwise for stability? Like I said in the original post, it wasn't stable even playing Quake 4, it would quit after a bit of playing. I don't want to have to set my voltage every time I boot up :p
 
Meh I don't get it.. the mem is error free at the settings I was using, I could get up to 2.8ghz before the first core failed in prime, but it won't act stable at all at 2.6... :confused:
 
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