Phenom II 965 BE overclock maxed?!?!?!?

Nathanleg · 22 Mar 2011 at 13:42

Hey guys, have recently got a Phenom II 965 and thought I would give overclocking a try as I have seen it is a very viable overclocking CPU.

At first I didn't use the BIOs to overclock, instead I used the AMD overdrive. Did not like it. So I started to use the BIOs instead.
Firstly I changed the multiplier to x18 and left the rest at default, it ran very stable (3.6GHz clock). Then I decided if I could push it that little bit further with x19 (3.8Ghz). I didn't really notice an problems but the clocks would randomly reset to stocks, I heard this was a safety feature. So instead I decided to alter the Bus speed and had the same results when getting close to 3.8GHz even when changing the voltages slightly.

This is as close as I could get to 3.8GHz without having issues, it seems fairly stable when using IntelBurnTest and Prime95 to stress test.

My Specs:
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO mobo
AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE
Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev.2
OCZ gold low-voltage 1333Mhz ram
Corsair tx650w PSU

My question is, could this be a hardware related problem or am I doing something wrong? I used to have a Q6600 OC'd without any problems so I do have some experience with overclocking

Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

Cooper · 22 Mar 2011 at 13:49

Hmmm...needs more volts i bet, 1.39 isn't really enough for the speeds your after, unless you got lucky and snagged a prime chip (unlikely)

1.50vlts should give you 'at least' 3.8Ghz with a 965, 4Ghz if you got a good chip....

Nathanleg · 22 Mar 2011 at 13:52

I think I tried 1.5volts with no success sadly, I shall try it again and give it a good stress test ASAP. I know the chip itself can OC to 4.2ghz with air cooling but I just don't seem to have that luck ^^

Cooper · 22 Mar 2011 at 14:07

Perhaps give the North Bridge some extra volts....

AMD's on chip memory sub system can go a bit flaky when overclocking.....

Nathanleg · 22 Mar 2011 at 14:22

The North Bridge is currently set to 1.10000, could you suggest a certain clock? Maybe 1.11250?

welshdragon · 22 Mar 2011 at 17:06

Leave everything on stock mate and just try a vcore of 1.425-1.450 with a multi of 18. Ran stable on my 965 with vcore at 1.425. Shouldn't have to touch anything else really unless you want to go down the bus route of oc'ing.

Surprised if you have already tried vcore and multi and it won't run stable. Keep in mind all chips different too and you might just be unlucky (doubt this mind).

SeeknDestroy · 23 Mar 2011 at 02:53

I've overclocked a couple of those chips and never was able to get 4ghz stable on air on either of them. One hit the ceiling at 3.8 and while the other would boot into windows at 4ghz it didn't pass stability tests and bsod. The most i got out of that one was 3.9ish

eddyc · 23 Mar 2011 at 13:48

Nice mobo!

Have you thoroughly tested stability with the cpu at stock? Might be some other issue (e.g. RAM) causing the stability tests to fail.

3.8GHz should be easily achievable with a small cpu voltage bump.

Also set Load line calibration to 19%.

Your CPU NB voltage seems too low. I thought stock was 1.2 ???

DWorrall · 23 Mar 2011 at 13:52

Nathanleg said:
My Specs:
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO mobo
AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE
Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev.2
OCZ gold low-voltage 1333Mhz ram
Corsair tx650w PSU

Exactly the same cooler, CPU and MOBO as i used to have

, Upgraded to the crosshair III though. Yeh there seems to be a wall at 3.8Ghz, i get 3.8 at 1.4 volts stable but after that, even at 1.5v i cant get it stable.

HeX · 23 Mar 2011 at 14:02

I've got 3.91 out of mine at 1.425V, but anything over that is a no go no matter what volts I throw at it.

Pighardia · 23 Mar 2011 at 14:03

965be
asus M4A89GTD pro
Arctic freezer 7.
4gb Corsair xms3 ram
Antec TP 650w
currently at 4ghz( or 3.98 if you're being picky). at 1.45v

i used the turbo evo, to auto-tune, and then tweaked it from there. auto-tuned to 3.9, so maybe i could go a bit higher?

changed motherboards the other day and was getting exactly the same. No change at all. old mobo was the Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AMD 880G.

Nathanleg · 23 Mar 2011 at 17:46

Thank you for all the reply's, I have tried a few tweaks since making this post but still haven't managed to hit 3.8Ghz stable. I guess 3780.4Mhz is still pretty good

@ eddyc I wasn't sure what you mean't by the "Load line" and also I couldn't see anywhere in my screenshot's anything about the NB voltage. :confused:

This motherboard is quite a lot different to my old P5n-e mobo, and yet I never really managed to overclock a lot with that either...
Is it possible that my mobo could be to blame? I have tried overclocking my GPU also (XFX 5770) and couldn't OC by even 10Mhz without it screen tearing. I am beginning to think that I may have a faulty mobo when it comes to overclocking though I am no expert in this subject ^^

Nathanleg · 23 Mar 2011 at 19:44

Ok so, I think I've managed to get it Overclocked to 3.8GHz stable now thanks to all of your feedback. I am yet to do a proper stress test but at least it isn't crashing during an IntelBurnTest which is an improvement, I am however a little scared to do a proper Prime95 test on it

Excuse the women's face

just my background.

Thank you all so much for the information, if you would like me to upload some pictures of the BIO's to show you how I did it I would be more than happy to.

eddyc · 25 Mar 2011 at 12:36

Hi Nathanleg

I am not aware of any piece of software that will tell you your cpu north bridge voltage. But you will have the option in your BOIS settings.

The load line calibration setting is also in BIOS. It reduces vdroop a bit I think. General advice seems to be to stick it at 19% and forget. It should/may allow you to use lower voltage settings in BIOS to achieve the same OC.