Are my sandybridge are ok ?

Soldato
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22 Mar 2009
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I had set bios setting as followings:

vcore 1.35v (LLC Level 6) push it around between 1.36 and 1.375v in windows under load)

dram at 1.50v with 1866MHz

I was worry about vcore rise to 1.375v but it should be ok as long kept temperature below 75C!

This room is very warm indeed 28C with central heating on.

Are my 4.60GHz look ok ? Why is CPU-Z not reading vcore correctly ?

 
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What which box are you looking at to check your overclock?

CPU-z will always show the stock speed next to the name.

Check the Core Speed in the Clocks box in CPU-z and it should say what your CPU is running at. (where 4500MHz=4.5GHz)

4ghzcpuzidle.png


Edit: Yours is fine. It shows it's running at 4601.2MHz(I think) which is ~4.6GHz
 
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Are you running the latest version of CPU-Z? If I recall there were issues with older versions reporting the wrong voltage. If you are, then as said it's probably the voltage being stepped back when idle.
 
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1874240

Where can I find speedstepping in the bios as my is Z68 board GA-Z68-UD4-B3 rev 1.0

I might try get LLC level 6 down to 5 and put vcore a notch down in the bios see if it stable for 4 hours. The highest LLC level will increasing vcore but the bios vcore will always stay at 1.35v or less.

Updated: prime95 now running for 52 mins as temp is 62C on core 0, 70C core 1, 74c core 2 and 68c core 3 - look like I have to re-seating H50 or I probably switch over to Noctua D14 out of my other pc.

Nice preview of gigabyte touch bios screen:
 
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Are my 4.60GHz look ok ? Why is CPU-Z not reading vcore correctly ?

your temps look a little on the high side there mate.
what cooler are you using?

should be a lot lower using vcore 1.375 in windows !
perhaps consider remounting the cooler to get temps better ?

Are you running the latest version of CPU-Z? If I recall there were issues with older versions reporting the wrong voltage. If you are, then as said it's probably the voltage being stepped back when idle.

all gigabyte 1155 boards do this. use something like hwmon to read voltage bulldog. it really good lol
 
your temps look a little on the high side there mate.
what cooler are you using?

should be a lot lower using vcore 1.375 in windows !
perhaps consider remounting the cooler to get temps better ?

Yeah I do aware of temp lots higher due to rubbish Corsair H50. I haven't got much time to swap the Noctua D14 cooler from my other pc CM 912 Haf plus where the i7 920 was on the machine. My daughter is having my i7 920 at stock speed as she can use it for her school work but I have to get that Noctua D14 out or maybe I leave it alone and get another Noctua D14 to buy from ocuk on Monday. (and perhap plus IC Diamond 24 too)
 
all gigabyte 1155 boards do this. use something like hwmon to read voltage bulldog. it really good lol
it a pity from gigabyte board - should they fix the next version! Yeah I use hwmonitor and also gigabyte bios touch to watch the vcore! (It never go over 1.37v as I think it ok for 4.6 rjk ? or could I get it lower and the LLC level 1 to 10 (I hate that things! My other board doesn't have that, only disabled or enabled but no level option)
 
I had reseated H50 again, it now reading temp at 54C, 61C, 63C and 60C and it far much better now with 4.60GHz. I did manage to drop vcore down at 1.34V and leave at Level 6 LLC and it still ongoing prime for an hour and a half as under load vcore stay at 1.340V say hwmonitor and touch bios software.

I was bit angry with Gigabyte with the cold boot issues, the board kept rebooting after shutdown. I had to removed the graphic card to get that battery out. There is no CMOS CLEAR button at the back at all, very annoying with Gigabyte took that thing off, plus I did notice the Secure HDD Erase (for SSD performance) found no SSD (even the bios was set at IDE mode) found no SSD at all. I will report this to Gigabyte to get it fixed.
 
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the reason there is no clear CMOS is because you used to have an x58 board. the x58 chipset is an enthusiast chipset which means the boards are a lot more feature packed. the board will have been circa £200 when you purchased it.
the z68 board is classed as a mid range board still as it is essentially a p67 board
Intel 'P' series boards generally have a lower feature set which is reflected by the price point they are aimed at.

if you notice above the front panel headers, you will see a pair of cmos jumper pins.
short them with a screwdriver to reset the CMOS. just means clocking the system without the side panel on.

your temperatures sound a lot better now mate.
the BIOS wont report the SSD if it is on one of the SATA3 ports. my crucial m4 and Intel 510 are both on SATA 6gbps ports and neither show in the BIOS.
however, if you check boot priority, then the drive will be there.

the cold boot issue is something that happens when the computer has a flakey clock.
you need to be doing a little more voltage tweaking.

I personally use level 6 LLC on my pc at home but level 5 should be fine.
you may want to try dropping your DRAM frequency to 1600mhz
it may be that the IMC on your CPU is limiting the overclock.
I have noticed that the majority of SB cpus dont like higher clocks on the CPU with high DRAM frequencies.
personally, I cant see the point in any memory frequency above 1600mhz as the gains are not even noticeable. I would take an extra 400+MHz on my core frequency. over a few more MHz on the DRAM.
 
Thanks Rjk. I just sorted out my 4.6GHz and it now fully stable after 8 hours prime blend test overnight and passed 25x linx stress. I had reduced the memory ram down to 1333MHz 4 slots of 2GB corsair that say on the box 1333MHz at 9-9-9-24 at 1.50v, so I use 8GB ram and went fine. I also try level 5 LLC but it not stable, so I leave as level 6 LLC and the bios vcore set at 1.35V, Ram set at 1.50V, VCCIO at 1.105V, CPU PLL at 1.8V and VCCSA at 0.920V. Under loads in windows vcore was varies from between 1356v - 136.8v and max temp is 64C after 8 hours blend tested. Idle vcore is 1.38V.

Are these look ok rjk ? I still waiting for Thermalright Silver Arrow with IC Diamond 24 Thermal Compound tomorrow and get rid of Corsair H50. And Temperature should be lots lower than H50.
 
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