another OC noob

andrew_c · 17 Jun 2013 at 21:18

Hello guys and I'm sure some girls,

Although I am in the IT industry, mainly server architecture and support, I have never ventured past the stock parameters of my motherboard. I have a fairly cheap Gigabyte 880GM-UD2H with an AMD X4 640 (3.0GHz) processor but I would like to see if there is any more juice to be squeezed out.

On the side there is 8GB (4x2GB) Cosair XMS3 1600MHz memory and a pair of Crucial M4 128GB SSDs.

My target is 4GHz, though I fear stability would really suffer on this board.

I have made a start on improvements, especially the cooling side of things. I have installed a new CM 212 Evo cooler with Cool Labs liquid pro - idle temp is measuring around 18 degrees (dubious) with 23 degrees ambient room temp. I tried running Prime95, but the temp only climbed to 31 degrees after running flat out for 30mins. I use CoreTemp by the way.

So, I ask for your wisdom and any starting points/advice to help me reach my target? I did do a quick read which suggested the multiplier was locked on my CPU, though I am not sure how accurate the post was. So I guess my only option is to up the FSB and voltage?

Sorry for the long-ish post, just wanted to get everything down.

Best regards,
Andy

Edit: Thought I would post up a picture of what I currently see in my CMOS setup.

james_2k · 17 Jun 2013 at 21:22

dubious, id say physically impossible hehe.

first step would be to find out how to get some accurate readings on the temperature, because it cant be sub ambient at any stage. (unless you stuck it in a fridge or some LN2 fell into your case)

and so you want to make sure you arent actually cooking it when testing. then id say to google because there are abound to be lots of guides around on overclocking your cpu.

i know thats how i learned to do mine

andrew_c · 18 Jun 2013 at 00:01

Well, the thermometer I used for the room temperature isn't the greatest. I've had a dabble this evening. A couple of hairy moments when the rig wouldn't turn on - a quick tug of the power cable sorted that.

So this evening I managed the following...

Code:

2 passes IBT
fsb	+v	t	c
200	0	89.68	35
210	0	86.11	36
215	0	-	-	BOOT FAILED
215	0.05	83.91	38
220	0.05	81.26	39
225	0.05	79.50	39	IBT FAILED
230	0.075	77.41	41	IBT FAILED
230	0.1	78.73	41	IBT FAILED
225	0.1	79.44	41
230	0.125	77.66	44	IBT FAILED
230	0.125	77.66	44	IBT FAILED
227	0.1	79.11	42

I had to reduce the multiplier of the memory (when following the sticky guide in this section) - what kind of effect may this have?

Cheers, Andy

Frozennova · 18 Jun 2013 at 00:07

Give me till tomorrow and I'll post some info. 3.8 is probably you limit. I benched an x4 620 at 4200mhz roughly although the board died in the process. Had it running 24/7 for about a year at 3.8 before that..

andrew_c · 18 Jun 2013 at 08:44

Much appreciated! I noticed this board has a 4+1 VRM which might be cause for concern around the FETs, I don't want to strain things too much. Would a heatsink be a useful tool in combating any such temps or should I wait and see how things go?

I might have to steal the IR temp gun here at work and do some more playing.

Frozennova · 18 Jun 2013 at 09:39

My x4 620 was ran on an even more budget board than these. The chip also unlocked it's l3 cache so was effectively a Phenom II, the only time I ever had a problem was trying to put 1.75v through the chip in a suicide run.