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955 issues

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21 Jun 2011
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I put a budget build together for a friend today, with a Phenom 955 BE and a Biostar A780L3L 760G + 1 stick of 4GB 1333 ddr3 gskill ram, windows 7 installed fine and I decided to check the clockspeed, turned out to be 800mhz or something ridiculously low, I thought it was windows being dippy about calculating clockspeeds but it turns out the mobo had set everything to minimum (or near lowest) values (~1.05v CPU), so I tried to get it to just above stock to start with (3.4ghz), using a 200mhz x 17 multiplier and 1.35v CPU, however windows crashed upon loading, I suspected maybe extra volts were required but even with a 1.45 voltage it will not load windows @ 3.4ghz.

I then tried for something lower and found windows only seems to load at 2.9ghz even with 1.4v :confused:, so I suspected something fishy and decided to post here in hope of advice. I am not a complete noob to overclocking (I have an e7200 in my rig @ 4ghz), I'm just less knowledgeable when it comes to AMD overclocking (it might be something herp derp obvious!). I can provide BIOS photos if needed. Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance
 
Return everything in the BIOS to default. When the CPU speed is 800mhz it's AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet kicking in. This is perfectly normal as it reduces the clockspeed and voltage when the PC is on idle. Run something like prime and you will see the speeds will shoot back up to 3.2ghz.
 
Forgot to mention I disabled that

In order for it to be fully disabled, you also need to change the power plan in Windows to High Performance. This will stop the CPU from dropping to 800mhz. You can find this by going into Control Panel->Sys and Sec->Power Options.

Have you tried running Prime to see if it goes back up to 3.2ghz?
 
Windows 7 also has a version of c'n'q. If the power profile is set to balanced it will downclock things. From the control panel set the power profile to 'performance' and see if that helps! Everything should run at full speed 24/7 then.

*darn it just pipped to the post!
 
Have you tried running Prime to see if it goes back up to 3.2ghz?

I haven't installed prime yet but I opened lots of hd videos via youtube and the processor shot straight to 100% usage but that was before I disabled Cn'C, the problem now is it only boots windows @ 2.9ghz, 300mhz under what it should be at stock and that is with 1.4v, 0.5 more than stock volts. Could it be the northbridge or other settings? Seriously, I am that uneducated on AMD overclocks haha
 
Do a CMOS reset. It sounds like you messed up something you shouldn't have. It should say in the manual how to clear the CMOS.
 
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After resetting the CMOS, disabling cool n quiet and changing W7's power setting to high performance, it still runs at 800mhz unless changed, after changing to 3.2ghz in the settings via a higher multiplier I still get the problem, although in the post messages it says the cpu voltage is 1.05v even though I think I am changing it (labelled VID value in the bios) to 1.375v
 
Can it boot into windows now at stock settings?

Honestly I would just leave CnQ on. There's no harm in leaving it on and it does save power when the PC is on idle, which does mean lower electrcity bills.
 
Can it boot into windows now at stock settings?
Nope

Honestly I would just leave CnQ on. There's no harm in leaving it on and it does save power when the PC is on idle, which does mean lower electrcity bills.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure it isn't CnQ, because it doens't increase to 3.2ghz ever even under load, it just sits at 800mhz no matter what.

The problem now is that I can set the speed fine manually to 3.2 but it wont boot windows because the cpu volts are seemingly always at 1.08v, even if I set it in the bios using the setting that I think is core volts (VID value as I previously mentioned), in the post message after saving the values it seems to go back to 1.08v
 
Well I just checked the CPU support list, is the 955 the 125w version?

Yes it is, damn, the site I bought it off said it could cope with 125w power x4's fine, weird, looks like I will be getting a refund then :( cheers for the help guys
 
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