Please help me with my setup

SB420

SB420

SB420

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8 Feb 2010
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331
Hi all, am new here so hope you bear with me

Im really hoping to get some advice on my brand new pc that has just turned up. I wont mention where i bought it from but nether-the-less am pretty sure its been overclocked wrong (and even though it has warranty, id prefer to get the setup correct)

Some Specs:

Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Mobo
1000w PSU
i7 920 2.66ghz OC @ 4.1ghz
12gb DDR3 1600mhz Corsair RAM
Coolit Domino liquid cooling kit
ATI 5970 HD 2GB

My concern, is that the voltage is set too high, so would love some advice on what to change so i can actually play some games not fearing my maching is going to melt!

CoreTemp shows me 43-48 Degrees temp at Idle! Hence im not really using the maching atm until things have changed.

Ive uploaded some pics showing my mobo settings, im guessing the voltage wants to be at around 1.275v? However, for the sake of this post have left everything the way it came.

Apologies in advance if i repsond with a noob question, am hoping someone can show me what settings i should change (inc vocre) and then i will do tests in Prime95.

I did do a test in prime95 though hit the stop button pretty quick as it went to 80c rapidly!

My pc does have 3yrs warranty however id prefer to get the setup done correct so would love some guidance from experienced members

28mjzo3.jpg

2mfx5ys.jpg


If someone could assist me id be very grateful, and then obviously i could test with coretemp/prime95
 
Welcome to the forums. I wish I had better news for you.

I'm sorry to tell you that you have a terrible cpu cooler. It does fairly well on dual cores, but on an overclocked i7 there isn't a prayer. You're also right to believe it's been overclocked badly. 4ghz with 12gb of ram is genuinely difficult to achieve, yet I think that's the most amateurish approximation to overclocking I've ever seen. That isn't going to be stable. Even if the cooler was far better, it's not going to be stable.

I'm dreading the answer to this, but which 1000W psu is it, and can you return the system on the basis that the reseller doesn't know what he's doing? DSR should suffice.

I should append that although this is a shop linked forum, any responses to the effect that the ocuk staff would do it better can be taken fairly seriously, as most of us (on these boards) overclock the things ourselves anyway.

If you don't return it (I really, really would do. It's unfit for purpose) then we can certainly help you overclock it. You're probably going to need a new cooler though. I'm curious to know if it turns off before it bsod's on you during prime, but I wouldn't be brave enough to run the test so can't ask you to.

Sorry man :(
 
Oh great :(

I read good reviews on the damn cooler so chose that one myself :(

Thing is, id prefer help to set it up right

I did ring you guys up initally but you couldnt give me the graphics card i wanted so ended up in this situation :(

im thinking it would be easier to

1. Get a new cooler
2. Get some help setting it up

Advice appreciated
 
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I'm nothing to do with the store I'm afraid. The vast majority of us are customers who noticed this is quite a good community and hung around.

The corsair H50 is a very similar concept to the domino, but a considerably better execution. Otherwise the old standard of a massive copper and aluminium heatsink still works rather well. I think that card is a very rare one at present, but graphics isn't really my area so I'm not sure.

The route I'd advise is returning the system for a full refund and sourcing components from elsewhere then assembling it yourself, primarily as a money saving exercise. If dropping another £50 on a cooler doesn't matter then fair enough, spare yourself the hassle. Still, we may as well give it a go on the current cooler. Aside from the coolit and possibly the case and psu you've got a very good specification there (which psu is it?).

The process of overclocking is increasing the bsck number from the starting point of 133 to anything above this, then stability testing. If it passes, great, go for a higher bsck. If it fails, you play with the other settings looking for stability, which once found, means it's time to move upwards. It'll be vcore and/or qpi, probably just those two, up to 4ghz, with a couple of things set by hand to begin with.

First save their profile for future amusement, then load default settings.

Under one of the menus you'll find qpi multipler, this needs to be at x36. Probably adjacent to this is uncore, this varies a bit from system to system but as a likely starting point set it to x14. Nearby is hyperthreading, which you also want to disable (this will hurt performance relative to having it on, but the heat it generates is going to make the following process a much shorter one and lead to lower clock speeds and so ultimately lower performance).

As you're using 12gb of ram 1600mhz is unlikely, so to start with find a ram multiplier and set it to six, or a ram frequency and set it to approximately 800mhz (I know this is far lower than stock, it'll go up soon). PCI-e frequency set to 100, and ram voltage to 1.6V and you're probably good to go.

Sensible starting values for vcore and qpi of 1.2V (or close to this, doesn't matter if it's a little bit off), then stability test. For this first run through keep these below 1.35V, and stop if temperatures go over 80 degrees.

Stability testing is a discussion unto itself, I'm going to suggest intel burn test version 2.4, with ram set to maximum, and running at least 20 loops/iterations before moving up to the next frequency. If the program crashes, the computer crashes, the blue screen of death occurs, or it just switches off, you're unstable. In all but the last case changing voltages should help, if it just turns off either your psu is inadequate or it got too hot. I'd stop testing if it goes over 80, and settle on the previous stable setting as the best available.

^that's a bit crude, but it's probably sufficient to find the limits of the coolit and to get you a bit more familiar with the process.
 
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Thank you very much for the response, the system i got on friday and hasnt really been used yet. (Ie ive used it for the net as i was waiting for activation on here to get advice)

To be honest, i dont want to go through the hassle of sending it back.

I would like some advice though, if the cooler isnt great, then fair enough it can go. If you could recommend to me the best cooler i can get for it that would be great.

As for the PSU - I couldnt comment as im not 100% sure now as i cant remember what they said it was.

Might be worth recomming me one of those too (if i find out mine is crap) The rest of the actual setup I did get for a good price, better than i could have build it myself getting the parts from ****** which is why i actually went down this road. As for the OC, im happy to change that myself going off advice of course so will try the above though ill be using prime95 to do the torture tests

BTW - The Ram is Corsair 1600mhz but the BIOS tells me its only running at 1166mhz, again i assume this is to the bad setup.
 
The psu is well worth checking, with luck the label on it will be clearly visible in your case. Finger's crossed for a good one. Sending it back is likely to be hassle, featuring couriers I imagine. Shame really, as I doubt you're the only person they're selling things like this to :(

I think it's worth having a play with the coolit. It'll probably be better than the intel stock cooler, and you'll learn loads. You may discover that your system stable at 3ghz is quite fast enough and it's not worth taking it any higher, depends what you use it for. The "best" i7 cooler is a topic of ludicrous numbers of threads, I'm reluctant to suggest one since I haven't looked into it particularly closely (I'm using water, so don't care that much about the current gen of heatsinks). Search (or probably just looking through this page) will yield mad amounts of discussion on it, generally with the same names coming up repeatedly.

Corsair power supplies are hugely popular on here with good reason, but there are a lot of good brands out there. Sadly there are a few, ez-cool comes to mind first, which have very loose ideas of what a Watt is and indeed of the specifications they're meant to be following.

Prime 95 will do just as well, it's an excellent program.

I'm using 12gb of 1600mhz corsair, but it's running at 1200mhz cas7 at the moment. A side effect of moving to 12gb is that you end up running the ram slower, it happens. The memory controller is under more strain so can't cope with such high speeds. Quite immoral of them to sell you 1600mhz clocked at 1166 instead of the cheaper 1333mhz clocked at 1166 though.
 
The PSU is HuntKey x7 (seems its 900w) - Im waiting to be told its rubbish?

As for the above recommended settings... am off to try now and will def post back

Really do appreciate the advice and help :)

Edit: Ok i need some more help, sorry to be a pain but im having difficultes with those settings, for instance...

QPI x36 / uncore x14 - x what? What am i multiplying to get the number?
Ram Multipler is where?

As my screenshots above show, ive got things like DRAM frequence but the lowest setting is 1173mhz (which is what the bios is reporting the speed as being) You mentioned 800mhz, not sure if thats an additional setting, and if so, where it is

Sorry to be a pain
 
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I think you missed the reset to defaults before you begin step. It's times the bsck as it happens, so it's possible the Asus board will want you to set uncore to 14x133 rather than leave it as x14. It deals with ram frequencies in absolutes, 800mhz will be available after resetting to defaults.

Sorry it's a little vague, my gigabyte reports multipliers, my old socket 775 Asus worked in absolutes so I'm not sure which x58 asus boards use.

It's no bother at all, after all theres a reasonable chance you'll come across something through trial and error in a few weeks which helps me with my system. I hope your temperatures work out better than I expect them to. Moving bsck up 5 at a time is probably reasonable btw, smaller intervals make it easier to get it stable each time but take longer.
 
oh right, sorry. Before i reset to defaults, you said to save the profile. Unless im missing something i dont have that option.

So, just to confirm, im multiplying the bclk by 14 for uncore and by 36 for qpi to get the number to use.
 
On idle im still getting

40 degrees on the lowest core and 45 degrees on the highest. Doesnt seem right? :(

That lowering the v.core to 1.2750

Edit: With prime test, it reset.

Double Edit: Well ive taken the casing off, and stuck the coolit to full (it was on medium setting)

Im idleing now at 37-40 degrees and with Prime95 stress test, for 15mins (will do propper test tomorrow) got to 79 degrees at highest.
 
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I missed the bit about your psu. While I haven't heard of Huntkey that's not in itself too damning. Google doesn't seem overly negative about them, so you may be alright there.

Prime turning your computer off isn't so good though. What were the temperatures before it turned off? I tend to use this program to monitor them. Should switch off near 100.

40ish at idle sucks, but then your qpi voltage might be through the roof and your cooler isn't very good, so it's not too surprising either. I still think your best bet is to return it on the grounds that they've missold it, and get a different graphics card. Probably one of the high end single gpu ati ones, and play with it for a bit. If it struggles, stick another one in. Fewer overheating issues, better gpu overclocking, more exciting in photos. All good really.

4ghz with 12gb is going to be difficult but should be manageable on high end air cooling.
 
I def want my current graphics card, damn i was waiting for it to come out before i bought my pc. Infact i plan on having 2 in crossfire at some stage soon so a diff card is out the question.

Temps when prime turned off was pretty much instant, i.e. within seconds. Also not sure if this is worth mentioning or not, but my temp reading on the Domino ALC is 30-32 degrees on idle, is this reading off something else?

everything is back to the way it was when i got the pc. qpi voltage is back on auto as well now as i didnt know what to do with it all tbh.
 
SB420 said:
I def want my current graphics card, damn i was waiting for it to come out before i bought my pc. Infact i plan on having 2 in crossfire at some stage soon so a diff card is out the question.
Click to expand...

What on earth are you going to do with two 5970s? Even one of them alone can play Crysis :eek: :p
 
lol its because i keep setting all settings to max. Not going to be long before ill have to turn the settings down.

I need recommendations on what cooler to go for. Not so keen on water setups just incase theres ever any leaks, got tempted by the coolit domino alc as it was a sealed unit. Not fussed about the price, just want performance, and ideally... quiter the better
 
The H50 is at the quiet/performance sweetspot IMO. While some coolers may be better than the H50, they're noisier to achieve the same cooling potential. So I'd go either full water or the H50, and full water's out under threat of leakage.
Unless the noise level isn't that important at all, in which case Megahalems by reputation, though I haven't used it myself.
 
Out of the heatsinks, the megalahems or the thermalright ultra 120 extreme are the best candidates. The megalahems is more likely to physically interfere with your ram. I'm not sure what the current favorite fans are. The corsair H50 is basically what you've got now, except it works much better. What's your case?

Overclocking will take more than an hour, either you pay someone to do it competently or you accept that you'll be spending several hours googling things like "qpi ram voltage ratio". You've seen firsthand the consequences of taking shortcuts with this, they're not pretty.

edit: isn't the H50 every bit as likely to leak as a custom loop? Not sure about your noise reasoning either, the H50 seems to need two powerful fans to match the temperatures achieved using a heatsink with two powerful fans, so I imagine it makes about the same amount of noise.
I just can't believe you're keeping it. They sold you something that turns off under load and yet you don't seem to mind all that much. Quad crossfire is going to be buggy as hell because such a small fraction of the gaming population use it, I'm fairly sure you'll be better off with two of the best single gpu cards available instead.
 
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So your saying this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-002-CS&utm_source=froogle

is going to be better than what ive got? I was expecting it to cost more, not less lol.

They look the same concept except the make which obvioulsy i know is good

Edit: Am happy ordering one of these after reading some reviews from people showing lower temps than the coolit domino, Hopefully easy to fit?
 
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Hmmm it dont turn off under load on there settings, just when i lowered the vcore to 1.27500 though ive read now that at least 1.3v is needed to have 4ghz stable which is the number im aiming for.

Regarding sending it back. Crossed wires i think. Im not saying im happy with the oc setup, but its easy for me to run it at default clock speeds until i get a new cooler, and then i can test again.

At the end of the day, no other company seems to be able to supply me the hardware i wanted for the same amount. The oc i can change, the hardware price i cant. And that was with me pricing the parts up myelf originally as i was going to build it myself

Re noise, i just meant i dont want more noise than i have atm with the coolit alc - and its def not the quietest thing in the world on full speed
 
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