asrock 970m pro3 fx-6300

[UkayJ]

Hi, this motherboard is driving me mad. I installed the new cpu yesterday, replacing a phenom ii x4 955BE that I had overclocked to 3671.49MHz (204x18multiplier), 1.4375v.
I could not get any better with that voltage, didn't want to go higher.

FX-6300 : if I increase FSB to 205, it works, increase it to 210, it does not.
If I leave it on 200 and change multiplier to 17-17.5-18, it doesn't work.
Default voltage is 1.2875, I bump it up to 1.3-1.31-1.32-1.4, it's not accepted.
I've tried settings with 4 cores active, seems to make no difference.
RAM is either set to default 1600MHz or under to allow for when the FSB is increased slightly.

please help!

UPDATE
Several things could have affected some success :
1/ taking out 2x2GB sticks of RAM, same brand and speed but different model to the higher capacity 2x4GB sticks that I've left in.
2/ I had turned down the number of boot attempts to 1 (as logically if it doesn't work the first time, it's not stable) so I upped it to 2 (default is 3) and turned boot protection back on.
3/ mobo was defaulting the HT speed and NB speed (I think, I get them mixed up) to 2000MHz when one of them should be 2400MHz

 

[UkayJ]

MAYBE THIS WILL HELP SOMEONE ELSE OUT ONE DAY....

Stable settings look to be 230MHz FSB X 20 multiplier = 4.6GHz, 1.3625v w/ +50mv offset (tried it with 0mv offset but got BSOD).

CPU-NB voltage upped one step to 1.2v.

HT link and NB frequency are tied together at 2300MHz.

*1/ I put back in the 2x2GB sticks of RAM as Black Ops 4 ran out of VRAM (I think), this was after I upped the graphics from low to medium with just the textures set to high, not sure if RAM is related but I haven't had a problem since.
I lowered the timings of the 4GB sticks from 9-9-9-24 to match the 2GB sticks @ 8-8-8-24.

Temperatures on Core Temp seem to be fluctuating a bit from 16*C lowest idle up to 26*C when the processor does something minute.

-Cinebench gave a score of 547 at these settings and a max temp of 51*C.
-Intel Burn Test was about the same I believe.
-Prime 95 isn't working properly with the new cpu, it runs and Core Temp shows all cores @ 100% but it never progresses from the first test.

 

[UkayJ]

PLEASE HELP!

I have spent an uncountable amount of time trying to get this computer's overclock stable, I'm out of ideas.

SO...I think the motherboard might be the problem (it's name is in the title).

I have re-installed windows 7 64-bit, installed Overwatch and CoD4 and the latest Radeon settings program and drivers.

The GPU : simply increasing the power limit to max (50%) causes CoD4 Blackout mode to give me a black screen.

The CPU : simply increasing multiplier from 17.5 (default) to 18 (3.5GHz to 3.6GHz) causes in CoD4 Blackout mode, a black screen.

My computer is incapable of anything!

 

[pastymuncher]

Do you have the latest bios for the motherboard installed? The latest is 1.60 which states improves system compatibility and you can download it here. I believe Instant Flash is Asrocks built in flashing tool so download that version, extract it if it's a zipped file and put it on a USB stick. Reboot the pc, enter the bios and click on the Tools tab. You should fine Instant Flash in there so click on it and follow the instructions to flash the bios. Please Note, flashing the bios will reset it so write down your settings before flashing.

 

[UkayJ]

yes it is the latest BIOS but thank you for your thorough explanation.

I have overclocked the GPU a little : +50MHz memory, +1% (15MHz) core and I haven't had a problem in CoD4 Blackout. This is with the CPU settings in BIOS reset to default values.

I was wondering if the GPU was faulty as it's second hand but perhaps it's all the CPU.

The CPU was brand new though which is leading me to presume the motherboard is just naff.

Is my 600Watt power supply enough? Corsair SF600 (it's the small form factor one to save space).

 

[pastymuncher]

The Corsair SF600 has the full 600w available on it's 12v rail and is a very high quality psu and argueably the best of the SFX psu's. To give you a idea of power draw, I am running a BeQuiet Straight Power 11 550w psu in the pc in my siggy along with 12x 120mm fans, 4x 200mm fans, 2x fan controllers, 2x Temp monitors and a couple of leds for the reservoir. It only pulls 128-275w at the wall while gaming (depending on the game) and the very max I have managed to make it pull was 367w at the wall while using OCCT's psu torture test. Idling/ internet browsing is 72w at the wall. I have live power draw displayed in one of my fan controllers which is how I know what is being drawn all of the time. People often over estimate how much power a modern pc needs so your psu has more than enough power.

I doubt if it's the gpu as overclocking the cpu causes the problems. What gpu is it anyway? How hot are your vrm heatsinks getting as it's a known fact that FX series cpu's hammer the vrm's?

With regards to the cpu overclocking start from the begining again. There is a guide here for overclocking FX series cpu's. It's on Asus boards but I believe that Asrock and Asus use the same terminology so it should be relevant. This site has settings for FX 6300 overclocks of 4.4Ghz, 4.5Ghz and 4.6Ghz.

 

[UkayJ]

That's great to know I purchased the right PSU, thank you.

GPU is Asus Dual RX 480 (white fan shroud). I don't know how hot the VRMs are getting, how should I know that?

I have tried following that guide and started again, first using the multiplier I added 200MHz and windows feels a bit jittery but working fine. Same with a total increase of 300MHz.

The HTlink speed only goes to 2400MHz, not 2600. Auto, according to CPU-Z is 2000MHz so it's manually set to 2400.

While running Prime95 for 5 minutes, first thing to note is it didn't move on from the first test....and secondly ; the cpu started dropping the multiplier down to 7 every several seconds.

Prime95 has done this since I installed the new CPU but used to work fine when I had my 955 CPU.

Just loaded up CoD BO4 and while loading I got the 3 fatal errors again, not had that happen once while cpu has not been OCed. I'll try with vcore increased to 1.35v.

Tried that, didn't work. Reduced multiplier to give 3600MHz (+100MHz OC) didn't work....

 

[pastymuncher]

With the multiplier dropping it sounds like it's throttling which is why I asked about the vrm temps. HWmonitor could show the vrm temps if you could figure out which sensors they are, although it should be obvious if they are getting so hot that they are throttling because you will have a reading much higher than the rest. Basic test is put your finger on the heatsink when under load. If it burns your finger it's probably too hot!!

 

[UkayJ]

Thank you, not used that before, I've always used Core Temp.

HWmonitor shows that the "CPUTIN" goes from 41*C minimum to 54*C with just 2 mins of prime95 and that's at stock BIOS settings for CPU as I had to restore defaults to stop game crashing.

Has the motherboard had it?

 

[pastymuncher]

I don't think that's the sensor for the vrm's. Do you have Asrock's tuning software, ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility installed? If not you can download it from your motherboards web page here. That may tell you motherboard temps or it may turn out to be that there are no temp sensors for the vrm's on your board. What a lot of people have done in the past is when coming across vrm throttling is to mount a fan so it's blowing air across the vrm heatsink directly.

 

[UkayJ]

Re-installed the AXTU and ran prime95 for a few minutes, the motherboard temp got to 41*C, CPU temp 51*C (which is roughly what core temp usually gives me for the cpu).

I took side of case off and touched the heatsinks to the left of the cpu, could only hold fingers on them for several seconds before it became uncomfortably hot.

Yes I've seen the DIY VRM fans before but I don't want to have to do that. CoD BO4 is running ok with medium graphics so I'm thinking that one day when I have the money, I'm just going to go back to ATX sized case and mobo and make sure it's the best motherboard for overclocking (sufficient VRM cooling as standard and 8+2 power phase).

 

[ExoMale]

overclocking aside, do keep in mind that bo4 is new and if you look at the requirements they are quite high and it states the fx 6300 for the minimum requirements, so dot expect it to run fantastic in general.

 

[UkayJ]

Yes thank you I have considered this so I have also used Overwatch as well as CoD for testing and while it's appeared more stable it has eventually proved that the processor refuses to be overclocked and I've now found the limits of the gpu overclock on auto volts.

Of course I tried the GPU benchmarking programs but the real test is just playing a game.