voltage questions on an E8500

[cannondale06]

okay I am still new to overclocking so be nice. I have had no trouble going to 3.8 with 1:1 FSB DRM. now I was leaving the voltages at auto but they were showing 1.312 to 1.296 at desktop and 1.280 to 1.296 for prime95. ram is at stock 5 4 4 12 timings and auto voltage.

I went back to 3.6 for now and then set the vcore to the stock 1.25 setting. now it shows 1.216 at desktop and 1.200 to 1.184 during Prime95.

1. is that perfectly normal?
2. should I raise the vcore just a bit to be safe
3. should I change my ram voltage or leave it at auto?
4. are there any other settings that should not be left at auto?

 

[Zero82z]

1. is that perfectly normal?
2. should I raise the vcore just a bit to be safe
3. should I change my ram voltage or leave it at auto?
4. are there any other settings that should not be left at auto?

1. Yes, it's called Vdroop. If your motherboard has an option for load-line calibration, enable it, and it will help reduce Vdroop.

2. Only if you're unstable.

3. Don't leave it on Auto. Set your RAM voltage according to its specs. You can find its SPD settings through CPU-Z.

4. You should avoid leaving any of the major voltage settings on Auto, like the northbridge/MCH, FSB termination/VTT, and CPU PLL voltages.

 

[cannondale06]

ok thanks. I will look into some of that stuff in more depth and I am sure I will have even more questions after that.

 

[cannondale06]

I am running the E8500 at 3.8(9.5x400) 1:1. idle 33C and 48C max temp for 8 hours of Prime.

so what do I need to change here since these settings are at auto except for vcore and dram voltage?

 

[BillParrish]

I do not think (my board is older and I cant use the newer easytune ) you can change there. Since you have all the bios settings to auto the next time you boot the machine will again reset and determine what works with the possibility of setting some things too high. In other words that program allows to to change stuff "on the fly" for testing etc but the next time you boot the board, since stuff in the bios is on auto, will establish new values. If I am wrong and you can lock voltages with that software, the values shown are all stock or very close to it, lock em and forget about the rest of this post.

The good news is that at looking at that none of your secondary voltages appear to have been changed and at first glance appear to be stock.

However what Zero82z is recommending and I agree totally, is that you go into the bios at boot-up and set everything to its default voltage and do not let the board automatically determine voltages during startup. It so happens your machine, in that particular startup, apparently did not set any voltages high enough to be a concern. The trouble is we have no idea what would happen on the next boot or if you changed something/anything. Some boards will sometimes set alarmingly high voltages and we wish to eliminate that possiblity by getting stuff off of auto to default values and then if you need to raise them you can do it in the bios yourself and know what exactly is going on.

Long story short, we dont trust the board to safely automatically set voltages in high OCing situations based on experiences with boards going way "over the top" in some settings. The boards/bios are getting better at automatically setting voltages but most people who OC like to know exactly what is happening and have it consistant on every boot and not worry some bios engineer decided he would let the MCH voltage increase to a point there might be a heat issue.

So grab your manual, get into the bios, get voltages set to default except the ones you know you need to change. Usually the default is shown in grey next to the area where you can change them.

Voltage selections/choices in the bios on Gigabytes are normally show as "increases" to stock settings. For example stock DDR2 memory voltage is 1.80 volts and you are normally shown choices like +.1 , +.2 etc. +.1 would be 1.80 volts stock + .1 = total memory voltage of 1.9V , +.2 would give a memory voltage of 2.00 volts. Most of the voltage setting work like that.

or not.

 

[cannondale06]

I am not trying to change the voltages from there. I just simply used Easytune so I could take a screenshot of the settings from the bios. I am asking what some of those voltages should be set to and then i will go in the bios and change them.

 

[cannondale06]

I now have set everything to normal except for the vcore which is at 1.275 and the dram which I put at 1.82. after I did that the PLL is now 1.5 instead of 1.65 and the MCH core is now 1.1 instead of 1.2.

while searching I found that 1.65 was pretty high for the PLL so I hope I didnt do any harm.

 

[BillParrish]

ahh, I see.

Dont think that PPL will hurt anything, if you run into stablity issues dont hesitate to up the MCH back to 1.2 as thats not what is regarded as high, if I recall the Intel max is 1.28 and people frequently go a bit higher.

 

[cannondale06]

ahh, I see.

Dont think that PPL will hurt anything, if you run into stablity issues dont hesitate to up the MCH back to 1.2 as thats not what is regarded as high, if I recall the Intel max is 1.28 and people frequently go a bit higher.

yeah I will probably put the MCH back on 1.2 since 1.1 does seem a bit low while overclocking.

so what is the actual vcore I am running? I have it set to 1.275 in the bios but the bios hardware monitor says 1.252. on the desktop it shows 1.232 and then 1.216 under load. I know that is vdroop but if somebody asks do I say it does 3.8 at 1.275, 1252, 1.232 or 1.216?

 

[Zero82z]

so what is the actual vcore I am running? I have it set to 1.275 in the bios but the bios hardware monitor says 1.252. on the desktop it shows 1.232 and then 1.216 under load. I know that is vdroop but if somebody asks do I say it does 3.8 at 1.275, 1252, 1.232 or 1.216?

The actual voltage is what CPU-Z or whatever other program is reporting. It's not 100% accurate, but it's certainly closer than what you set it to in the BIOS. If somebody asks your voltage, you can tell them both what you set in the BIOS and what CPU-Z reports after Vdroop.

 

[Aznboy1993]

PLL improves stability at higher overclocks. try raising it a notch if you become unstable. gtlvref also helps great in achieving stability.

 

[cannondale06]

well the pc would not come out of sleep the other day. I clicked on the keyboard as usual but the pc came on and then immediately went right back off. then it started coming off and on and the fans were racing very loud. after about 5 or 6 times it finally stayed on but there was no video. I had to hold down the power button to get it to shut off.

I then rebooted and it turned right back off while it was starting up. it then booted itself and seemed to be starting up fine but it when the windows came up it said resuming windows and I had to click on that screen you get if you log out.

I just realized today that the issue was certainly related to my oc because my comp reset itself back to stock settings and let me know when I checked the bios. I had no issues in Prime95 or coming out of standby for weeks so I dont know what the issue is.

any advice???

 

[blivit4]

Judging by what I've seen on the Gigabyte forum at Tweaktown, and what i've experienced with a P35 Gigabyte MB, your experience is not too unusual. BIOS settings that work just fine suddenly cause the PC to puke up on itself one day. Here's a few things to try out:
- As you make BIOS settings changes keep copies of your settings by hitting F11 and save settings to CMOS. This way if you go too far and the BIOS resets itself to default settings you can reload your last good set of settings.

- My experience with OC's is that the most common cause for crashes and the lowest bang for the buck tweaking, is memory problems. Aside from memory bandwidth specific benchmarks, you'll see no real performance advantage to running memory above its speed or using tighter timings. For your 3.8 gig OC I would also set the FSB to 400 and makes sure that a strap that set the memory to 800 was being used. Leave the timings set to Auto.

- Vcc: The P45 Gigabyte BIOSs have 3 basic setting for Vcc: Auto [Default], Normal and manual settings for specific voltages. I have an HTPC with a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L and set the voltage to Normal. This setting reads the VID of the CPU and that's what it sets the Vcc to. That setting let me run a E5200@3.2 GHz, Q9550@3.4 GHz and E8400@3.6 Ghz. by only adjusting the FSB and multiplier. (I also turn off all Spread Spectrum settings!) You can also leave the memory set to Normal, but it better run right at 1.82v. Otherwise set to Auto or the voltage call for by Mushkin.

- After years of using Othos or Prime95 to check stability, I now use the Linpack test in OCCT. The 1 hour test has uncovered problems that hours of running other programs didn't. If your 8500 isn't stable set to Normal, then set it to 1.25v and if needed kick it up by a step at a time until it runs stable.

 

[cannondale06]

well I am running the memory at stock 400mhz speed and the timings its supposed to be at which are 5-4-4-12. the memory also calls for 1.8 voltage but I am running 1.82 because while running blend I notice it was at 1.79 to 1.8 while having it set to 1.8. in other words I set it to 1.82 I just to make sure it didnt drop below 1.8. I am running 1:1 with my cpu at 400x9.5

the voltages when left to auto were way too high so I lowered them a bit. after lowering them it was prime stable at 1.26 vcore but I went ahead and went with 1.275 just to be safe. again everything was very stable in all tests including intel burn. thats why it freaked me out that the pc all of sudden had this issue with coming out of standby.

today when I woke the pc up all the fans were racing really loud and I had to restart it.

EDIT: the ONLY thing that changed was the night before my first standby issue I had installed 2 windows updates. its probably just a coincidence but the next morning is when the issues started after weeks of being trouble free with the cpu oc.

 

[blivit4]

EDIT: the ONLY thing that changed was the night before my first standby issue I had installed 2 windows updates. its probably just a coincidence but the next morning is when the issues started after weeks of being trouble free with the cpu oc.

I don't believe in coincidences like that. Try uninstalling the updates, or use restore to roll the system back to just before the updates were done. (Windows often creates a restore point before doing updates.)

 

[cannondale06]

I don't believe in coincidences like that. Try uninstalling the updates, or use restore to roll the system back to just before the updates were done. (Windows often creates a restore point before doing updates.)

well one of the updates was for malicious software removal tool and cannot be removed. I hate using system restore because that seems to causes more probs than it fixes. anyway I removed the other windows update that was installed the night before I had trouble coming out of standby and this morning I had no issues resuming. I am going to reinstall that windows update and see what happens tomorrow morning when I come out of standby.

 

[Nenu]

well the pc would not come out of sleep the other day. I clicked on the keyboard as usual but the pc came on and then immediately went right back off. then it started coming off and on and the fans were racing very loud. after about 5 or 6 times it finally stayed on but there was no video. I had to hold down the power button to get it to shut off.

I then rebooted and it turned right back off while it was starting up. it then booted itself and seemed to be starting up fine but it when the windows came up it said resuming windows and I had to click on that screen you get if you log out.

I just realized today that the issue was certainly related to my oc because my comp reset itself back to stock settings and let me know when I checked the bios. I had no issues in Prime95 or coming out of standby for weeks so I dont know what the issue is.

any advice???

This will sound odd, but unplug any USB drives/memory sticks before booting.
I have one that resets my overclock every time it is plugged in and I boot.