Very hot watercooled machine

Saul

Saul

Saul

Associate
Joined
3 Jun 2007
Posts
218
Hi all,

In my computer I have:
  • Asus Sabretooth X58
  • Intel i7 920 D0
  • Asus Tri-cool 4870X2
  • 6GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600Mhz
  • Silverstone TJ07-B V2 (see below for airflow)
and the following watercooling setup:
  • Laing MCP655 Pump
  • XSPC Dual bay 5.25" Res
  • EK-Supreme Full Copper CPU Block
  • XSPC RX240 Radiator (mounted on top of the exhaust fans, see the fans blowing air vertically below)
Loop: RES-PUMP-CPU-RAD-RES

For airflow I have:
  • 2 x Noctua NF-B9 at the back of the case
  • 2 x Noctua NF-S12B ULN at the bottom for my hard-drive
  • 2 x Noctua NF-S12B FLX on the radiator

Here's how my air is flowing in the machine (excuse the drawing, using mspaint -.-')
airflow.jpg


Here are my overclocking settings (excuse the massive voltages, I just wanted to see if increasing the voltage would stabilise Prime95):
  • Ai Overclock Tuner: Manual
  • CPU Ratio Setting: 21
  • SpeedStep Tech: Enabled
  • Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode: Auto
  • BCLK Freq: 200
  • PCIE Freq: 100
  • DRAM Freq: DDR3-1503Mhz
  • UCLK Freq: 3609Mhz
  • QPI Link Data Rate: Auto
  • CPU Voltage: 1.38125V
  • CPU PLL Voltage: 2.14V
  • QPI/DRAM Core Voltage: 1.425V
  • DRAM Bus Voltage: 1.66V
  • Load-line Calibration: Enabled
  • CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
  • And the rest of the Advanced BIOS settings are default

To my actual point/problem:
The idle temperatures are low 40s, high 30s, which seems quite normal to me. On load, low 80s. However, the overclock is not stable and bluescreens after about 5/10 minutes of Prime95. Also Black Ops will bluescreen after about 30 minutes of play time.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to change my airflow in the case? Change BIOS settings? Please help, it's my first watercooling setup and I'm not impressed! :(

Thanks in advance all!
 
Last edited:
Voltages are a little high. Temperatures aren't too dissimilar to my own setup. Pll is way too high. turn that down to somwhere between 1.8 and 1.9.

I'll have a look at your other settings, check my own and see if anything else needs to be changed.

My 930 kept crashing in prime and gta at 4.4ghz. So I've clocked it down to 4 and it's fine.
 
Air flow is not the issue your voltages are far too high.

CPU PLL seems too high at 2.14v try 1.88v for starters.

UCLK freq looks wrong shouldn't that be twice the DRAM frequency therefore 3006MHz?

CPU volts are definitely excessive at 1.38125v try knocking it down to 1.275v set multiplier at 20 and look for stability at 4ghz before going for 4.2ghz.

Qpi volts are too high at 1.425v I cant remember what mine is set at but its deffo not over 1.35.

Your excessive voltages are causing your high temps.
 
Ah yes, I missed the UCLK
UCLK - the higher you raise it, the less stability you have. The closer it is to being double the ram frequency, the more stable your system is. That's why almost everyone has it at 2:1 ratio with ram.

All these chips will do 4ghz, if you want to go further you need patience and you have to tweak it slowly.
 
TheCenturion said:
Voltages are a little high. Temperatures aren't too dissimilar to my own setup. Pll is way too high. turn that down to somwhere between 1.8 and 1.9.

I'll have a look at your other settings, check my own and see if anything else needs to be changed.

My 930 kept crashing in prime and gta at 4.4ghz. So I've clocked it down to 4 and it's fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help, but I've already got it easily stable at 4Ghz (prime 95 for an hour and was at 79 degrees highest temp)

mike gunnz said:
Air flow is not the issue your voltages are far too high.

CPU PLL seems too high at 2.14v try 1.88v for starters.

UCLK freq looks wrong shouldn't that be twice the DRAM frequency therefore 3006MHz?

CPU volts are definitely excessive at 1.38125v try knocking it down to 1.275v set multiplier at 20 and look for stability at 4ghz before going for 4.2ghz.

Qpi volts are too high at 1.425v I cant remember what mine is set at but its deffo not over 1.35.

Your excessive voltages are causing your high temps.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the voltage help, I haven't overclocked in years so I can't really remember what the right voltages are :S I'll go make some changes now and I'll post my new BIOS settings.

THanks again for the help all!
 
79 is very high. My chip didn't even reach 79 at 4.4ghz. It reaches 60'c with prime95 at 4ghz.

As Mike says:

bclk 200
multi 20
vcore 1.275
pll 1.88v
qpi 1.28v (if not stable, try 1.3v)
UCLK 2x ram frequency.
 
I'm on air cooled with the venom cpu cooler with 2 viper fans, my fully load temps are 60'c @ 4ghz @ 1.275v.
Why don't you try swapping you fans arounds, so your top fans are blowing in and the back fans are blowing out, that's how I have mine. Trial and error.
 
As already stated your vcore, pll and qpi are way too high and is just dumping a ton of heat into your loop. Is your 920 a c0 or d0?
 
How can you can say his vcore is too high? It might be too high but if his chip is poor then 1.35v+ is common for 4ghz. Especially if his motherboard suffers from vdroop, even with LLC enabled. My mediocre 920 needs 1.36v to run 4.2ghz stable.

QPI might also depend on how much ram he has. 12gb needs more qpi than normal.

I will agree that CPU PLL however is most certainly too high deffo drop that to 1.8 and see how you go.
 
TheCenturion said:
79 is very high. My chip didn't even reach 79 at 4.4ghz. It reaches 60'c with prime95 at 4ghz.

As Mike says:

bclk 200
multi 20
vcore 1.275
pll 1.88v
qpi 1.28v (if not stable, try 1.3v)
UCLK 2x ram frequency.
Click to expand...
Unstable with these settings. However, the CPU was very hot (50 degrees idle) and it refused to cool down, so I'm gonna give it another shot tomorrow and also move the fan headers around so I can control the radiator fan speeds from the BIOS. Do you mind telling me how you got to 4.4Ghz and what cooling setup you have?
JeffyB said:
As already stated your vcore, pll and qpi are way too high and is just dumping a ton of heat into your loop. Is your 920 a c0 or d0?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice and CPU-Z says I have a D0 920.
w3bbo said:
How can you can say his vcore is too high? It might be too high but if his chip is poor then 1.35v+ is common for 4ghz. Especially if his motherboard suffers from vdroop, even with LLC enabled. My mediocre 920 needs 1.36v to run 4.2ghz stable.

QPI might also depend on how much ram he has. 12gb needs more qpi than normal.

I will agree that CPU PLL however is most certainly too high deffo drop that to 1.8 and see how you go.
Click to expand...
Okay thanks. I have 6GB of DDR3-1600Mhz Corsair Dominator. So what PLL and QPI do you recommend? Also I've enabled load-line calibration which is supposed to prevent VDroop. I'll check what VCore CPU-Z is reporting when I get home next.

Will edit my main post to add the memory and D0 information.

Thanks for all the help everyone!
 
there's not really any point in recommending a specific voltage, as w3bbo has pointed out some chips just need more.

i think you should start again, and slowly work your way up to 4GHz, a clean slate is always a lot easier to start overclocking from.

i'd recommend writing down settings too, that way you can see what effect different voltages have on stability, and try different combinations of frequencies/voltages and find the quiescent point :)

good luck
 
As above, you will need to play with the voltages but as a start here are the settings I would dial in.

* Ai Overclock Tuner: Manual
* CPU Ratio Setting: 21
* SpeedStep Tech: DISABLED
* Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode: Auto
* BCLK Freq: 200
* PCIE Freq: 100
* DRAM Freq: DDR3-1600Mhz
* UCLK Freq: 3200 (or x16) Mhz
* QPI Link Data Rate: Auto
* CPU Voltage: 1.325
* CPU PLL Voltage: 1.8V
* QPI/DRAM Core Voltage: 1.2V
* DRAM Bus Voltage: 1.66V
* Load-line Calibration: Enabled
* CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
* And the rest of the Advanced BIOS settings are default

If you get a BSOD, write down the last three numbers of the code 0x000000124 etc. Post back your results and folk here will do the best to help you.
 
twist3d0n3 said:
there's not really any point in recommending a specific voltage, as w3bbo has pointed out some chips just need more.

i think you should start again, and slowly work your way up to 4GHz, a clean slate is always a lot easier to start overclocking from.

i'd recommend writing down settings too, that way you can see what effect different voltages have on stability, and try different combinations of frequencies/voltages and find the quiescent point :)

good luck
Click to expand...
Yeah I will do :) just previously I haven't really had the time so I just thought it'd be simple to get to 4.2... obviously not :L
w3bbo said:
As above, you will need to play with the voltages but as a start here are the settings I would dial in.

* Ai Overclock Tuner: Manual
* CPU Ratio Setting: 21
* SpeedStep Tech: DISABLED
* Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode: Auto
* BCLK Freq: 200
* PCIE Freq: 100
* DRAM Freq: DDR3-1600Mhz
* UCLK Freq: 3200 (or x16) Mhz
* QPI Link Data Rate: Auto
* CPU Voltage: 1.325
* CPU PLL Voltage: 1.8V
* QPI/DRAM Core Voltage: 1.2V
* DRAM Bus Voltage: 1.66V
* Load-line Calibration: Enabled
* CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
* And the rest of the Advanced BIOS settings are default

If you get a BSOD, write down the last three numbers of the code 0x000000124 etc. Post back your results and folk here will do the best to help you.
Click to expand...
I never had a code on my bluescreen... they all vary. I.e. An unrecoverable hardware error occurred, IQRL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL and also something to do with a timeout on receiving an interrupt from a secondary processor :s so yeah they're all different :p

Thanks for the advice all!
 
try googling them - i've done that before (such as the irq one you mention) and you'll see what the likely cause can be, i.e. not enough Vcore, or qpi.

the best approach i used was to up bclk until i couldn't boot into windows, then up vcore until it got in, the test with prime and see what happens. rince and repeat until you find vcore isn't doing anything, then try upping qpi voltage, once you gain stability at a reasonable voltage combination of the 2, up bclk again. keep going like that until you've found a point where vcore and qpi aren't making much of a difference, then try cpu pll (or as i have on my gigabyte board: qpi pll)

good luck, and happy clocking :)
 
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