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Overclocking causes problems with video cards =(

K

killerc4

n00b
Joined
Jan 31, 2008
Messages
63
I had my i7 920 clocked to 3.2ghz at stock voltage. I decided I wanted to take it higher today. I got it to 3.8ghz with a 1.3 vtt and a 1.265 vcore setting. Booted into windows and stress tested it and everything was stable.

When I booted bad company 2 however, I heard the "removing hardware" sound in windows. Once in the game it was extremely choppy despite reporting 40-50fps. Before I was getting mid 80s.

My only guess is that my power supply can't handle it and is throttling a card.

i7 920@ 3.8, 1.26 vcore 1.3vtt
corsair dominator 1600 12gigs 1.65v 2:8
evga x58 sli le
2x 5870
2 mechanical drives and 2ssd
dvd burner
ultra x3 800 psu
1 pci-e expansion card
4-5 usb devices
using eyefinity if it matters
x-clio windtunnel (2x 240mm fans) and a thermaltake 120mm fan

is bumping the vtt to 1.3 and vcore to 1.26 enough to cause this? I'm pretty lost :confused:

Thanks in advance
 
Bad Company 2 is EXTREMELY hard on processors. It's not causing an issues with your videocards, the issues is with your processor, downclock it a bit, or tweak it some more.
 
it (if it is a power issue) is not the minor voltage increase needed to get the chip to run at 3.8 but the increase in current (amperage) the CPU now consumes at 3.8, compared to 3.2, that is possibly putting a strain on the power suppy. A bad analogy is it is like replacing the chip in your cars computer for increased performance. Its only a small chip but the horsepower just jumped up significantly and your gas mileage gets worse but the car now gets up and goes when you mash the gas.

Using reviews around the net you should be able to calculate the aprox wattage of your system or post in the power supply section and see if someone will run the numbers for you. There are calculators on the web but I dont trust them. The cpu @3.8 (watts) and the video cards x 2 (watts) are obviously going to be the big power eaters. If you can find good numbers on them and estimate the rest of the system at 100W and see how close that is to the 720Watts of +12 your supply is rated for you will have a good idea if it might be the power supply. First thing I would do is drop down to 3.6 and see if the problem goes away. Not quite sure what that would prove but if that ran well, I would then bump it back to 3.8 and pull a video card. Then if all worked well I would want to suspect the power supply if I knew there where no software issues with the game on your setup.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give them a shot tomorrow when i get some free time :)
 
The Ultra X3 800W only has 60A on the +12V rail. That's 720W.

130W - Core i7 920 at stock speeds
470W - 2 x HD 5870
---
600W for just the GPUs and CPU. That leaves 120W for the HDD, mobo, DVD burner, and SSD. Basing my figures off the TDP rating for the Core i7 920 and this relatively accurate GPU power consumption test done by Xbitlabs.

So in other words, yeah, you're definitely gonna kill that PSU rather quickly if you keep overclocking the Core i7 920.

Unfortunately, Ultra PSU quality varies, even within the same model line and same manufacturer. The X3 600W was shown to be barely capable of 480W whereas the X3 1000W performed very well. Both were made by Andyson. Can't find any info where the X3 800W falls.

So even if the PSU isn't the issue, I would still recommend replacing the PSU for the longterm.
 
Thanks Danny. I was too tired last night to look anything but the basics.

OP, I trust Dannys numbers and agree with him, if it is not yet your power supply causing the issue now it likely will be soon as I am postive that 130W for the cpu at stock speeds is more on the high side of 170+ Watts at 3.8GHz cpu speed with a good load on it.

Go ahead and do what I suggested just to see what happens but be thinking of replacing that supply not too far down the road. (Wow, never ever thought I would be recommending an 800W supply as insufficient.)

If you go for a 1000W supply you start to get into the area where the house circuit feeding the computer might become overloaded, depending on what else is on those outlets. Something to keep in mind.

An unsolicited comment: If I could get it stable at 3.6GHz I would be inclined to stop there. The big $$$ for a new power supply when you already invested in a pretty hefty one for a measly 200MHz more cpu speed does not seem worth it to me. But you are hardcore into gaming from your system specs and I get it.

You might see if you can OC your video cards just a tad, there is where I think you will get more bang for the MHz. Just be aware a lot of video card "stress" tests will show a "good" clock speed that works well with the stress test but is too much when you actually play the game. The guys in the video card section might have some good comments (or not ! LOL).
 
wow thanks a ton for the info, that's very helpful. I clocked back down to my original stock voltage at 3.2 and the problem did go away. I made a stop at 3.6 and I still would get the remove hardware sound but the performance would be fine. I have an extra pc laying around that could use a power supply so I'm thinking of grabbing a 1000w for safety.

For the outlet, are you saying I should leave one plug to just my computer? Like no power strip or anything? I'm not very knowledgeable on power draw.

I tried to OC my cards awhile back but I get crazy flickering because of the multiple screens even if i just go a few mhz above stock.

Again thanks for the help! I'll let you know how the power supply works out.
 
lets see ( lol thinking while I type, never a good thing) normal usa house wall recpticales per electrical code run off a 15A breaker so somewhere around 15 x 110 = 1650 watts the breaker will instantly trip. What most dont realize is that also the breaker will trip if a very high load is present over a long ( 30min to an hour) peroid of time as a safety measure. Thats why most online stuff talks about 1500W maximum total load on a recptacle circuit.

Now also keep in mind if you PSU is rated for 1000W it pulls more than that from the wall. If the PSU was putting out 1000W and it was 80% efficient it would be pulling 1000/.8 = 1250 from the wall. You likely will not be pulling that much but you can see if you add a couple of 60W lamp lights, computer monitor, printer and not to mention many times 2 rooms will be on one circuit. It is pretty easy to get up around to where that 15A braker will want to trip.

So its all about what other stuff is plugged into that same circuit. One thing you might could do is plug a lamp into the wall outlet you computer uses, go to your electical panel, hopefully the breakers are labeled on the inside of the panel cover but if not start flipping off and then back on the 15A ones until the lamp blinks. Once you find the breaker turn it off and now take the lamp and see what other wall outlets are dead. That will let you know where you need to be aware of what is plugged in. Let other people know you intend to kill the power for a minute and if you can get someone to watch the lamp and yell when it goes off its a lot easier and faster. the 15A ones are the only ones you need to mess with and hopefuly the panel will be labled well and you can find it first try.
 
I checked the 15a breakers and there are 2 that control the 4 rooms upstairs. So it was just like you said, 2 rooms to a breaker. I guess I'll just try to split my pc and monitors etc into separate outlets. Worst case the breaker shuts off right? I'll be heading out to my local pc store to pickup a corsair 1000 tomorrow. Thanks again
 
Well I ended up getting a toughpower 1200 psu. Everything is working great now. I got to 3.8ghz on slightly above stock voltage, the graphics cards still cause flicker when OCed due to the low power saving 2d clocks (editing the CC profile doesn't seem to work). But other than that, all is well and I am happy =).

Thanks for the help!
 
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