Re-overclocking?

D

Deadgye

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Messages
118
So, I was overclocking my friends computer by stress testing with Prime95 and to show him that his temperatures weren't high at all I ran Prime95 on my computer. Which of course, resulted in my computer blue screening.

Now, I put my computer together about 9 months ago and overclocked it back then and prime ran for a good while at the settings I had, and I never experienced any problems while using my computer. I did recently add another two hard drives to my system though. Should I attempt to overclock my computer again by changing the vcore and/or qpi slightly and running prime95 or should I just leave it be since it hasn't caused me any problems in the past?
 
why are you OCing? any reason?

What is the computers spex? Are you OCing now? if so what?

Your post is a mess, lack of details.
 
Specs are: Asus P6X58D, I7-920, 6gb OCZ1600 gold, Antec EA750W, Radeon HD5850, Antec 1200, 2x WD 1.5tb green, 1tb Hitachi, CPU cooler is a Cogage True Spirit.

OC is just general OC; just brought the cpu up to 3.6Ghz, and the ram to 1724. Haven't touched the finer details of the ram nor the video card.

Main point was it was incredibly stable when I ran Prime95 in the past, and I experienced zero problems during normal use. But upon running Prime95 now I got a bluescreen within just a few minutes. I upped the vcore 2 steps and got a 124 bluescreen after a bit so I upped the qpi 2 steps. Prime95 has been running for about an hour now with no problems.

I was just trying to get some second opinions on if I should just leave the settings at what they had been for the past 9ish months since it has been working flawlessly, or if I should adjust it slightly so that it still passes Prime95.
 
First possibility: Is your heatsink completely clean?

Second possibilty: What was your ambient temperature when testing 9mo ago? What is it today? If you are near your CPUs limit, a slightly warmer ambient can push it over. To avoid this problem I do my OC testing about 10F warmer than where I try to keep my apartment. Doing this will cost year a 100 or 200 mhz off your max stable (and will cause consternation among many people here who're unable to wrap their brain around the fact and insist that you're doing it wrong when you mention where you're topping out); but it gives you a computer that's much less sensitive to ambient changes.

Third possibility: OCing causes your CPU to age faster than normal, and as the chip gets older its maximum speed drops. I don't think you were pushing your CPU that hard that it should've ran into trouble after only 9mo unless you were also pushing the voltage hard. My 920 lasted about 18mo at 3.85ghz, 1.35v, on water before I had to back it down.
 
The voltage setting I was running was Vcore of 1.2v, QPI/DRAM of 1.26875v, DRAM 1.66v, so I doubt I've pushed it too hard.

Ambient temperature is possibly different. Going off memory, I'm getting about ~5-8c higher in Real Temp than I was when I checked the stability ~9-10 months ago. (Might have been closer to 11 months ago actually..)

By "Is my heatsink completely clean" do you mean is there no dust on it? Chances are there's probably some dust on it. I've been meaning to buy some cans of air so I can dust off my computer more thoroughly.
 
a few things... stop OCing the RAM @ 3.6Ghz there is no reason to have the RAM @ 1724

No reason to push the RAM past 1.65v either.

Vcore should be around 1.28v-1.35, personally 1.35v @ 3.6Ghz is just crazy

I am currently running my 920 @ 4.2 and have it @ 1.325 volts and I should be able to lower it.

QPI = 1.1v
DRAM = 1.5v
PLL Vcore of 1.825
 
Ram speeds above 1000mhz have been shown to show almost no performance boost besides memory benchmarks, and the same goes with timing (cas latency). Voltage can easily go to 1.40v without harming anything, as long as the temps aren't too crazy. I've heard that you should try to keep it under 80c on a full load, but I'm not completely sure on this. But 1.2v is extremely low and probably wont get you very good clock speeds
 
a few things... stop OCing the RAM @ 3.6Ghz there is no reason to have the RAM @ 1724
Click to expand...
It's the lowest ram speed above the rated speed. I didn't buy PC12800 so that I could run it at 1379 or 1034. :(

No reason to push the RAM past 1.65v either.
Click to expand...
When I was OCing the system the first time, going from 1.64 to 1.66 made the difference between stable and unstable.

Vcore should be around 1.28v-1.35, personally 1.35v @ 3.6Ghz is just crazy

I am currently running my 920 @ 4.2 and have it @ 1.325 volts and I should be able to lower it.

QPI = 1.1v
DRAM = 1.5v
PLL Vcore of 1.825
Click to expand...

Eh? If it runs stable on lower voltages.. why should I raise it?

None of that really has anything to do with why what used to be stable during a prime95 stress test is apparently no longer bullet proof.
 
When I was OCing the system the first time, going from 1.64 to 1.66 made the difference between stable and unstable.
Click to expand...

For this reason alone I would lower the ram frequency.
 
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