Phenom II X4 920BE OCing help

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djBon2112

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My main question is, how much do these chips overclock?

I got the system about a week ago, and today I started messing around with the clocks. Since it's a BE all I've been changing are the CPU multi, CPU vcore and the HT voltages.

The CPU is stock 3.0 (15x), 1.35v

I immediately put it up to 3.4 (17x), and noticed it wasn't stable. OK, I bumped up the vcore. At 1.375v I was able to boot into Windows 7, but it still wasn't stable. Again to ~1.386v. Now it's stable, 10 minutes under AMD OverDrive (that's just my baseline since I'm still in the process). Now, I rebooted and tried to go a bit higher. 3.6 (18x). Booted, but BSOD right when logging in. OK, bump up to 1.4v, same thing. So I went back down to 3.4, and the originally stable 1.386, but it wasn't stable, everything was crashing and the stress test failed. I'm now at 3.4, 1.4v running the test fine, but I'm wondering: is this a good overclock? High/low? Last thing I really tried OCing was an Opteron 165, so I'm not that sure how the Phenom IIs work or what to expect. Temps are a bit high from what I've heard (I hit 52 at 100% load), but I really want to get it above 3.5.

Thanks guys.
 
this is a phenom II x4 940 BE not a 920.. there is no black edition 920..

the cpu overclocks nicely depending on the cooling you are using.. if you are still using the stock cooler you will be limited to about 3.4ghz due to heat..

basic rule of thumb.. 3ghz 1.35v 3.2ghz 1.38v 3.4ghz 1.42v 3.6ghz 1.46v 3.8ghz 1.5v.. thats the rough avg for how that processor overclocks.. those are not exact voltages but those are the minimum voltages those overclocks will run at..

the max voltage recommended by AMD is 1.55v..

just to give you an idea.. my phenom II 940 is running 3.5ghz @ 1.475v it will do 3.4ghz at 1.44v.. my voltages are higher then avg because of my motherboard having piss poor voltage regulation..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
this is a phenom II x4 940 BE not a 920.. there is no black edition 920..

the cpu overclocks nicely depending on the cooling you are using.. if you are still using the stock cooler you will be limited to about 3.4ghz due to heat..

basic rule of thumb.. 3ghz 1.35v 3.2ghz 1.38v 3.4ghz 1.42v 3.6ghz 1.46v 3.8ghz 1.5v.. thats the rough avg for how that processor overclocks.. those are not exact voltages but those are the minimum voltages those overclocks will run at..

the max voltage recommended by AMD is 1.55v..

just to give you an idea.. my phenom II 940 is running 3.5ghz @ 1.475v it will do 3.4ghz at 1.44v.. my voltages are higher then avg because of my motherboard having piss poor voltage regulation..
Click to expand...

Whoops, you're right, I keep calling it a 920 for some reason... but yea it's a 940, the AM2+ one >.<

I've got an aftermarket air cooler so I don't think heat is an issue, at least not yet. I'm going to try now, I was just afraid because I didn't know what my voltage limit was ;)
 
Well you do have good mobo gd70 and 3.6 seems about right for this chip some can go higher 3.8, but that about it unless you change your form of cooling that is other than that thats about it.
 
I just wanted to add my experiences with voltage scaling on this chip as they're pretty different from those of sirmonkey. Not to disparage his results mind you, just to give more data. My chip scales something like this if the NB is at stock speeds:

3.0GHz - 1.150v
3.2GHz - 1.200v
3.4GHz - 1.300v
3.6GHz - 1.375v
3.7GHz - 1.425v
3.8GHz - 1.475v
3.9GHz - 1.500v
4.0GHz - 1.525v

When OCing the NB as well I add a bit of extra volts to the CPU to insure stability.
 
The Pharaoh said:
I just wanted to add my experiences with voltage scaling on this chip as they're pretty different from those of sirmonkey. Not to disparage his results mind you, just to give more data. My chip scales something like this if the NB is at stock speeds:

3.0GHz - 1.150v
3.2GHz - 1.200v
3.4GHz - 1.300v
3.6GHz - 1.375v
3.7GHz - 1.425v
3.8GHz - 1.475v
3.9GHz - 1.500v
4.0GHz - 1.525v

When OCing the NB as well I add a bit of extra volts to the CPU to insure stability.
Click to expand...

thats about what i saw under water, though i could do 4.2 at 1.55 and i thought that was epic, but then dad wanted his crosshair II formula back and i had to dial it down the 3.8ghz on a m3n78-vm at 1.45v
 
lilfiend said:
thats about what i saw under water, though i could do 4.2 at 1.55 and i thought that was epic, but then dad wanted his crosshair II formula back and i had to dial it down the 3.8ghz on a m3n78-vm at 1.45v
Click to expand...


yeah the phenom II's are beasts if you can get them running cool.. the lower the temp the lower the voltage you need to run the same speeds.. but 4.2ghz on a 940 is friggin bad ass!
 
ITaoI said:
Well you do have good mobo gd70 and 3.6 seems about right for this chip some can go higher 3.8, but that about it unless you change your form of cooling that is other than that thats about it.
Click to expand...

Whoops, I forgot to change that. I DON'T have the MSI, I have an Asus M4A78-E. But, what should my motherboard have to do with it if all I'm changing is the CPU multiplier? Shouldn't that take the mobo out of the equation? I'm aiming for 3.8 as my standard speed, is that an unrealistic expectation?

Anyways, I'm running into some more problems. I got to 3.6 @ 1.465, but I tried to go to 3.8 and it failed. I tried 1.5, even up to 1.525 volts, but I was getting BSOD's. The weird thing, though, and why I'm asking, is that the BSODs in question were 0x00000050 PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON-PAGED_AREA errors. I thought that indicated a memory error though? I'm running Windows 7 64-bit.
 
try 1.55v thats the absolute max.. are you using the bios to overclock or are you using AMD overdrive?

if you are using AMD overdrive.. try increasing the northbridge voltage 1 notch higher and see if that helps..

in the bios the northbridge voltage is automatically overclocked using the cpu voltage so if you are using the bios ignore the above part..
 
Well, I am using BIOS overclocking so it should be changing automatically, I do have NB voltage set to "auto".

I tried 1.525 but I'll go to 1.55 tonight, just to see if it boots. However, that BSOD is still irking me... why would I be having memory corruption problems from just overclocking the CPU? Unless there's something else at work here (either on the NB or in Windows 7) that I don't know about...
 
are you using windows 7 64bit?

it may just mean that 3.8ghz is the limit of that processor.. since the 955 has trouble doing 4ghz under 64bit windows but has no problem doing it under 32bit windows.. might be the same case with your 940 not being able to do 3.8ghz..

but you could also try increasing the memory voltage a tad.. you could also try raising the chipset voltage +.1 and see if it makes a difference but i doubt it will..
 
3.8Ghz is around the limit of the 940's. Most of the AM2+ cpus(920/940) were among the first Deneb cores made by AMD, so they're not as good at scaling to higher speeds as the later AM3 cpus. As fas as NB voltage goes, when you put the CPU at 1.55, try the NB-VID at 1.35-1.40. That should stabilize it while keeping it from adding to much heat. Also, if you're raising the CPU speed past 3.6, it's a good idea to raise the NB frequency to 2.4+ in order to feed data from RAM faster to keep up. With my 940, I got better performance with my clocks in my sig than I did with 3.88GHz CPU / 2.0GHz NB.
 
Yea, it's 64-bit. Stupid Windows :(

I'll give these suggestions a try tonight, hopefully I can get it stable!
 
djBon2112 said:
Yea, it's 64-bit. Stupid Windows :(

I'll give these suggestions a try tonight, hopefully I can get it stable!
Click to expand...

its not windows thats the problem.. 64bit alone just makes the cpu work harder then it would in 32bit mode since you are now using the entire cpu instead of just the 32bit portion of it.. so even if the overclock was a bit lower you would still see better performance out of it in 64bit then you would in 32bit mode..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
this is a phenom II x4 940 BE not a 920.. there is no black edition 920..

the cpu overclocks nicely depending on the cooling you are using.. if you are still using the stock cooler you will be limited to about 3.4ghz due to heat..

basic rule of thumb.. 3ghz 1.35v 3.2ghz 1.38v 3.4ghz 1.42v 3.6ghz 1.46v 3.8ghz 1.5v.. thats the rough avg for how that processor overclocks.. those are not exact voltages but those are the minimum voltages those overclocks will run at..

the max voltage recommended by AMD is 1.55v..

just to give you an idea.. my phenom II 940 is running 3.5ghz @ 1.475v it will do 3.4ghz at 1.44v.. my voltages are higher then avg because of my motherboard having piss poor voltage regulation..
Click to expand...

I'm just starting to try harder at getting an OC with my 940BE. With my M3A78-T, 3.0GHz would run stable at 1.325v. Now jumping straight to 3.4GHz with 1.425, can't get it stable any lower and notice it running right what you are speculating at.

I could only hope 3.6 would run at 1.46v. I have increased my Northbridge Voltage to 1.34. also running max HTlink 2.2GHz. This is also using a $30 Gigabyte G-Power Lite HSF which was meant more for dual-core so load at 3.4GHz is 56.5c, is this too high for the speed?

The Pharaoh said:
I just wanted to add my experiences with voltage scaling on this chip as they're pretty different from those of sirmonkey. Not to disparage his results mind you, just to give more data. My chip scales something like this if the NB is at stock speeds:

3.0GHz - 1.150v
3.2GHz - 1.200v
3.4GHz - 1.300v
3.6GHz - 1.375v
3.7GHz - 1.425v
3.8GHz - 1.475v
3.9GHz - 1.500v
4.0GHz - 1.525v

When OCing the NB as well I add a bit of extra volts to the CPU to insure stability.
Click to expand...


I'm wondering if thats a 8+2 power MB you have?

Thinking Watercooling might be in my 940BE's future, or maybe a 965BE or Mobo? choices choices.

EDIT: I see your M3A32-MVP Deluxe is 8+2 Phase Power Design, just makes me wonder how much this plays in effect of an OC.
 
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