• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

AMD® Phenom™ II Overclocking Thread

Hey gareth170, cool man then you should just take some time out and relax as much as possible as that was a horrid bit of trouble-shooting you had to go through last week! . . . I am interested which setting you changed on your GF so that you feel better after talking to her? . . . I dunno if I am doing something wrong but every time I talk to my GF she makes me feel worse lol! . . . is it a BIOS setting or do I need to improve my cooling? :D

gurusan: thanks for that, I was thinking about the power regulators and stuff . . . your into all that right? . . . can you tell by the "bitz" that are soldered around the CPU socket how good they are i.e are you down with your power components? . . . I'm not sure how to determine from looking at a boards specs & photos how good the PWM/MOSFETS/Power-Regulators are? . . . I'm thinking it should be possible to know which board will calmly deliver a stable 1.6vCore + and which one will blow up etc? . . . any tips? :D
 
Guys remember Martini1991 is the youngest member of the team so it's expected he will have his own ideas about certain things, handle with care! :)

Spread the love! :D
 
gareth170 & Martini1991: Would it be possible for the pair of you to get along a bit better, you both upset each other even before you entered this thread! :p . . . enoughs enough now, your both great and both respectable types so can you please both just say sorry and shake hands . . . . please! :)
 
Good to hear, just be aware that Gareth sometimes has physical discomfort and periods of feeling unwell which can get someone down or make them feel ratty . . . so lets just make sure we can do what we can to make his overclocking experience as pleasant as possible! . . . and Gareth if I have upset you myself in the past or been harsh with you then please accept my humble apologies, I'm sometimes a hard task-master but my heart is in the right place! :cool:
 
Keep the two "suspects" separate during questioning Martin! . . . Stability testing can normally be fitted into a slot where it doesn't cause you any interference or disruption . . . . I've been blending for nearly a week and a half solid, still can surf, email, photoshop etc but no gaming . . I ran a 500 loop LinX yesterday and although it passed fine I was unable to use the PC as it was McClunkus . . .

I normally have the overclocked machine to my right just sitting there testing, burning in etc and use another machine as my main workstation but not long ago I decided to swap this idea around and use the "in-progress" overclocked machine as my main workstation and keep the second clocked/stable machine to my right for surfing and stuff while I bench the main system.

I found that for stability testing and flushing out little boogeys then using the machine for about a week with a combination or "diagnostics" and plenty of real-world apps (folding, p-shop etc) gives me great confidence the clocks are good and robust . . . each to their own! :cool:
 
Hey zoomee: crikey you are a bit "frustrated" ain't ya! :D . . . hehe anyway let me say this . . . pretty much all the info you need is in the screenshots and peppered amoungst the many posts, as long as the image includes two copies of CPU-z, an app to display temps and "any" kind of stability test your sorted!

It doesn't matter what CPU voltage is set is BIOS but rather what the chip actually gets, you can "spy" this from the CPU-z screens as well as the OCCT screens (that's no ones posted except Gareth & I lol!) . . . . You can see the Ht Ref.Clock in CPU-z, you can see the CPU-NB and HT multiplier in CPU-z as well as basic memory speed and timings! :cool:
 
zoomee: I would like to think that everyone who has contributed so far has left a Technical-Trail that makes it easier for others to follow, everyone is sharing as much info as they can so I think your gonna need to be a bit more patient and work things out at a pace where you don't become frustrated? . . . I hope I said that in the right way! :D

I've been using this platform since nov 2009 and I still consider myself an AM2+/AM3 nOOb! ;) . . . . The only voltages I've had to take off [Auto] is vCore, that's up to 2500MHz-HT Link and 2500MHz CPU-NB, above those speeds I need to play with either the HT link volts or the CPU-NB volts (depending which is running faster, they are both independant), TBH I've not seen huge gains running the HT link much above 2GHz but I've seen good gains from running the CPU-NB MHz as fast as possible, the CPU-NB on two chips I've tested all run "flawlessly" up to 2.5GHz using [Auto] CPU-NB.

Just take your time and I'm sure you will get the hang of it soon enough . . . and yes I have had some "sudden" reboots as you described them, 9 out of ten times this is fixed with a little extra vCore . . . although if your clocking the CPU-NB hard it could be that? . . .it could also be a thermal thing? . . . lots of possibilities dude and please forgive us if we can't get you fixed up as quickly as you would like! :cool:
 
Hello liamcrane and welcome to the thread! :) . . . . please read the welcome post here and preferably the whole thread . . . . sorry I missed your previous posts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . so it seems you are a complete beginner eh! :D . . . . can you tell me how long you had the new system please, also can you tell me what the idle and load temps are of your chip while it is running at stock? . . . all the apps you need are in the welcome post, best to start a bit slower as it seems you don't know what you doing! :p . . . . slow down buddy! :cool:
 
Hey Liam, what I would suggest is to reset your system back to stock or backdown the overclock to stock, for "testing" purposes only I think it would be reasonable if you "disabled" CnQ in BIOS . . . . then download CPU-z, Core Temp, Fritz Chess Benchmark and Prime 95 which are linked in the welcome post, download them, unzip them, run Core temp, run CPU-z, watch CPU-z for a few minutes and write down on a piece of paper the vCore figure, it may be a static vCore figure or it may move up & down, write all the variations down, also in CPU-z look at the [Memory tab] and note down NB Frequency, DRAM Frequency, FSB: Dram ratio and the main timings (numbers), unzip and run Fritz benchmark (a few times) write down the scores (or take a sceenie PRT SCN) . . . . next run prime 95 blend "Stress Test" for 30mins-1 hour, check if the vCore figure changes at all and also take a note of the "load" temps shown in core temp . . . once you done all this you will be ready to overclock your chip from 3.2GHz to 3.4GHz! :cool:
 
Nice one, how come there is two Fritz windows? :D . . ok go into BIOS and take the vCore from [Auto] and set it to say 1.25vCore and try all the tests again! (takes notes of the vCore/Temps too!) :)
 
liam, you will be fine using AMD overdrive to do that quick undervolt test! :) . . . obviously we would love to explain all the ins and outs of image editing and posting things up but we really need to keep to the overclocking stuff, settings, hardware, temps etc in this thread otherwise it just makes it harder to read for people in the future, if you really want to sus out the image stuff feel free to mail me direct at the address here :cool:
 
Hello AndyClough and welcome to the thread! :) . . . . please read the welcome post here and preferably the whole thread before you start . . . . You got some premo kit there so shouldn't take too long to get it up to speed! :D
 
Nice one Martini1991! :) . . . Screen of the day! :D

Now any chance you could visit post #622 and sort us out an OCCT of that 4GHz clock pleeeaaassssseeeee! :p

Mail me the images directly if it helps cut down the hassle! ;)
 
Martini1991: thanks a lot for the OCCT test, you and Gareth both have a sweet motherboard by the looks of it! :)

rumble291: Welcome to the thread! :) . . . . please read the welcome post here and preferably the whole thread before you take off . . . . that looks like a good start there, don't worry about the discrepancy between the vCore you set in BIOS and the actual vCore your processor gets (as seen in CPU-z etc), not sure if AMD overdrive understands any voltage changes made from the BIOS? . . if you change volts in OverDrive though it should show up correctly?

liamcrane: Looks like you got a nice "undervolt going there, if your sure it's nice and stable make a note of the vCore you set in BIOS as well as the vCore your chip gets in windows (idle/load) then bump up the CPU multi by a notch and repeat the process . . . if it crashes or caused a Prime Blend error/reboot then go back into BIOS and increase the vCore by one or two notches, test again . . . . we are gonna repeat this process again and again, increasing processor frequency using the CPU multi, testing, increasing vCore, testing etc etc . . . keep a good notes of the BIOS set vCore, the windows reported vCore, idle/load temps etc . . . your rolling! :D . . . P.S can you redo your screenies and make them a bit smaller (i.e "clump" the windows together and crop the image to avoid excessive blank space/desktop icons, also don't forget to include your name somewhere in the image! :)

phill0i: Welcome to the thread! :) . . . . please read the welcome post here and preferably the whole thread before you take off . . . . Very nice first result there! . . . could you be about to join Martin & Gareth in the elite "4GHz Deneb Club" :D . . . don't forget to include your name in the screenies! :cool:

@everyone else: Hope all is good and I am hoping one or two or you can add a little Star Wars vibe to your future screenies! ;)

callistot.jpg
 
nelcon: Welcome too :), sorry you sneaked in there just after I made the post above! :p . . . how super, 4.1GHz screenie! . . . 8 hours prime blend stable also, great work! . . . please read the welcome post here and look forward to any more results!
 
gareth170: I just noticed in post #1060 you said "the HT link does nothing much to the performance" . . . while I agree it may not be a massive boost there is possibly some advantage to running with a faster HT-Link? . . . . In post #399 I posted a really basic set of results showing the differences between simple CPU-NB and HT-Link speeds, have you done any testing like this yourself? . . . if so can you post up the data please, if not then maybe when you feel a bit better you could devise a set of tests/benches yourself to share with everyone . . . waddaya reckon? :cool:

liamcrane: nice work my friend, nice small steps, plenty of testing and note taking, hopefully you feel a bit more "engaged" in the process now? :) . . . to answer your question the Prime Blend test is pretty heavy going on the processors so I don't expect many games would take the temps higher? . . . there may be some but personally I found my games don't heat the chip anywhere near the same level as the torture tests . . . . 45°C full load is sweet, I'd say by the time you get to 3.6GHz you should get some deep testing done, gaming, priming, encoding, folding, whatever is it you do but give it a good hammering in order to feel confident the clock is good and robust . . . . it's always tempting to "rush" a bit when overclocking but nearly always leads to frustration when you lose control of the system stability . . . if you take it at a nice pace and give yourself enough time to "verify" the stability then when it all goes **** up after pushing on with the overclock you kinda know the last setting you changed wasn't so hot! :D
 
liamcrane: as gareth has mentioned this strange phenomena where the vCore you set in BIOS is different from the vCore you get in BIOS-Health Menu/CPU-z is well known, it's called vDrop and is pretty much normal. The reading you really need to pay attention to is the figure you see in CPU-z/BIOS-Health Menu, there isn't an official name for this "real-world" vCore figure so I just call it vCore Actual . . . It does help others who are reading about your work if they are informed of both figures (i.e what you set and what you get, idle/load) . . . The other variation of weird voltage that is quite common is called vDroop (Droop not drop as above), this is when the vCore sags/droops when the processor is under load . . . . both vDrop and vDroop can be offset to some degree if your motherboard has a BIOS feature called something like "Loadline Callibration" . . . I've only just started playing with this setting myself but found it works pretty good! :) . . . . props to eddyc for the info . . . . the last variation of voltage and is something I'm dealing with now is called McRipple, that's not the official name but I think it rolls off the tongue lol, anyway McRipple is where the vCore graphs look like they are actually seismic earthquake print outs! :p . . . . I'm still working out why this happens? . . .doesn't appear to be causing any problems but I think the less variation the better . . . both Gareth and Martin's vCore graphs are 100% smooth line with 0% ripple!

If you have time read post #622 where you can see my OCCT vCore graph and also a link to the software . . . also read post #624 where eddyc has linked up some useful info on Loadline Callibration . . . sorted! :cool:

[edit]

Oops one last thing for anyone just joining the thread, please read post #576 where it's explained how to configure the forum software to show "maximum" posts-per-page . . . having 80 posts each page really helps reading through & navigating large threads! ;)
 
Last edited:
Hey phill0i, nice result and nice screenie, I want that font dude! :) also I was hoping you could select your own Star-Wars graphic hehe! . . . I sent you an email to your trust account for more details . . .
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom