Poor overclocking result!

[sanitarium16]

System specs in sig. Trying to overclock to only 3Ghz (150mhz). Leaving voltages at stock for memory and cpu, rest is on auto. Whenever i try to run prime 95 i get a BSOD. I turned turbo mode off, speed step is on and HT is on. I want to leave HT on. I have the latest BIOS for my motherboard and latest system drivers. Not sure what im doing wrong? I read some tutorials on overclocking and i seem to be doing everything right. Any input is appreciated.

 

[epicjas0n]

Have you run memtest to make sure your ram is ok?

 

[PC_User]

System specs in sig. Trying to overclock to only 3Ghz (150mhz). Leaving voltages at stock for memory and cpu, rest is on auto. Whenever i try to run prime 95 i get a BSOD. I turned turbo mode off, speed step is on and HT is on. I want to leave HT on. I have the latest BIOS for my motherboard and latest system drivers. Not sure what im doing wrong? I read some tutorials on overclocking and i seem to be doing everything right. Any input is appreciated.

What do you mean 'stock' voltages for CPU and Memory? Are 'stock' and 'auto' the same?
You have to post your other settings so we can better help you.

I'd suggest turning HT off (small real-world difference) and trying again. Also, what's the voltage that your CPU is getting at 'stock' in both BIOS and CPU-Z? Try manually setting the timings and correct voltage for your RAM.

Too much missing information.

 

[Dan_D]

System specs in sig. Trying to overclock to only 3Ghz (150mhz). Leaving voltages at stock for memory and cpu, rest is on auto. Whenever i try to run prime 95 i get a BSOD. I turned turbo mode off, speed step is on and HT is on. I want to leave HT on. I have the latest BIOS for my motherboard and latest system drivers. Not sure what im doing wrong? I read some tutorials on overclocking and i seem to be doing everything right. Any input is appreciated.

This is what usually works for me:

Disable Speedstep, C1E, Virtualization (unless needed), Execute Disable, etc. You can leave Hyperthreading on. There is no reason to disable it. Yes you might get a higher overclock with HT disabled, but that sort of kills one of the most important and helpful features of the Core i7's design. Set your memory voltage to 1.66v. Corsair memory, especially the memory listed in your sig seems to prefer about 1.66v. 1.7v should be safe. Remember you have to account for some vdroop as well. The main thing is you need to have that memory's actual voltage just over 1.60v actual voltage. For me QPI voltage almost if not always needs to be increased to 1.3v or higher. I don't remember ever seeing a need to go beyond 1.40v on that. At least its never done me any good. Then set CPU voltage to 1.3v or so. I've rarely if ever needed voltages beyond 1.36v for the Core i7 920 CPUs on any of the X58 boards I've worked with thus far. If you have an 10H voltage setting, set that to 1.3. or 1.4v. This isn't always helpful, but on many boards that have this setting, you may find as I have that it can be quite helpful and even essential in reaching speeds approaching 200MHz BCLK. You need to make sure that your RAM speed does NOT exceed 1600MHz DDR3. That RAM isn't normally good for more than about 1650MHz while overclocking. 1600MHz DDR3 is really the upper limit of what those IC's can do.

Basically only a handful of settings really do much in the way of Core i7 overclocking. From the verbage of your post it looks like you are just adjusting CPU and memory voltage, and that won't get you much. You need to adjust QPI voltage, CPU voltage, Memory voltage, I0H voltage, BCLK and of course memory dividers to keep your RAM speeds in check. Most of the time you can leave everything else on auto. This has gotten me to nearly 200MHz or 200MHz BCLK on just about every X58 board I have worked with thus far with few exceptions.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[sanitarium16]

Ram voltage 1.65V, Core voltage 1.2V. I set the ram to 1333mhz so it ran it up to 749mhz which is less than the 1600mhz its rated for (800mhz). Set the timings to the recommended also. All the other voltages i left to auto. What are the voltages i would need to make this run at 3ghz? does a small overclock with this chip really require that much more power? I read people getting to 3.0ghz-3.2ghz without adjusting any voltages.

 

[Dan_D]

Ram voltage 1.65V, Core voltage 1.2V. I set the ram to 1333mhz so it ran it up to 749mhz which is less than the 1600mhz its rated for (800mhz). Set the timings to the recommended also. All the other voltages i left to auto. What are the voltages i would need to make this run at 3ghz? does a small overclock with this chip really require that much more power? I read people getting to 3.0ghz-3.2ghz without adjusting any voltages.

The same voltages need to be adjusted on some systems that I mentioned above. Just maybe not as far. For all the people stating that they adjusted no voltages, there will be several that do.

 

[Ebisan]

Got mine to 160mhz x21 with everything set to auto. I have the same EVGA board and cooler. And followed this guide. http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=716108&mpage=1&key=

Are you using Eleet? I just increased the QPI 5-10mhz at a time in Eleet and left everything else in auto. Just watched the voltages and temps. When I knew it was stable, I set the QPI to 160 in BIOS. Vcore didn't rise much 1.30 idle and 1.28 load. Vcore is in auto. Pretty happy with the cpu and motherboard. I think it can hit 4Ghz if I tried but waiting until I watercool this thing.