Core i7 920 Overclocking

iB CoMpL3XiTy

iB CoMpL3XiTy

iB CoMpL3XiTy

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Hey all, I recently had a lot of trouble with random bluescreens and whilst I was in the process of finding out what was causing the bluescreens I had set my Core i7 920 at stock speed (turns out the bluescreens were caused by a faulty graphics card)

So today I decided to put my orginal CPU overclock back on, my orginal overclock was at 4Ghz, Entered the BIOS and entered the settings I used previously for my 4Ghz overclock, pressed F10 to save and exit, PC restarts and says that the overclock isn't stable, I go into the BIOS to check that everything is how it should be and try again, this time it boots into windows but I have no display on my monitor, signal cut out just after posting...

This doesn't happen at stock so I assume that it must be that the overclock isn't stable, tried the same settings in the BIOS but lowered the speed to 3.6Ghz, tried booting but again got a "No Signal" message just before entering windows, Next I tried 3.2Ghz however this also failed.

BIOS Settings:
BLCK 200 - 160
Multi 20
Vcore 1.33xxxV
DRAM 1.60V
QPI/VTT 1.335V
Load Line Calibration Enabled
RAM speed at 1200Mhz or below
Latency Timings 8-8-8-24 1T
Hyperthreading Enabled
Turbo boost disabled
Others left on AUTO

Core i7 920 D0
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
3 x 1GB OCZ 1333Mhz 8-8-8-24 1T 1.60V
Corsair HX850
Powercolour HD5850 (stock)
Corsair Obsidian 800D
Custom Water for CPU and GPU
Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB

So guys any idea why anything other than stock results in a signal loss? Your help is much appreciated as always ;)
 
have you swapped the card it does not say in op

sounds like its crashing when it gets into windows. do you have speakers? is there still sound?
 
Not swapped the card at all, I had crossfire HD5850's and the bottom (slave) card died so I removed it and thats when I decided to re-apply my overclock.

I have speakers and I can hear windows start up sound and my HDD going like crazy and also I can hear MSN after its automatically signed me in.

The graphics card seems to work fine when the CPU is at stock, Do I need to change the PCI-E frequency? Or does the CPU/motherboard change the PCI-E frequency once I've overclocked the CPU?
 
leace it at 100mhz but you could try 101mhz not supposed to mess with that can kill your sata ports but upping it buy 1 or 2 will not make no odds

you say your gpu was faulty try the other one
 
No point in trying a dead GPU is there? Like I said I removed the faulty one.

I'll try 101Mhz for the PCI-E. One thing I did just notice is when I started up call of duty BO I got a faint electricial buzzing sound, sounds alittle like coil whine to me, However I'm having trouble pin pointing were its coming from, I'm thinking its coming from the CPU socket area but could be wrong and I'm not sure if it would be a problem or even a sign of a problem.

Thanks for your help so far ;)
 
sorry miss read your post. what psu do you have. ocz are bad for coil wine ive rma'd 3

as above said up the volts a little on your memory. normally you dont need it unless your clocking high or have all slots filled but maybe your ram needs a little kick
 
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Force the PCI-E clock to 100MHz rather than auto. Up the vCore to 1.4v and see if it boots. You can always tweak it down but would be good to rule it out.
 
My PSU is a Corsair HX850, its been fine in the past powering my Core i7 920 @ 4Ghz and 2 x HD5850's at 1000/1200 1.225V
I had a Coolermaster Real Power M700 before that had really bad coil whine...ewwww!

My RAM is rated at 1.60V (says on the sticker on the side of the RAM) but I have tried 1.64V aswell..

Just tried 101Mhz PCI-E but no joy.

I've cable braided my 24 Pin and the 8 pin CPU cable so maybe I messed it up ?
Does the motherboard provide any power at all to the CPU, or does the 8 pin provide all the power?
 
1.4V didn't work, got no display at all and had to reset CMOS.

I tried everything at default/AUTO but upped the BLCK to 150 which gave me a 3Ghz Speed and had my RAM set to its rated values. This got me into windows but when I tried to open CPU-Z the PC lost signal...
 
There is a logic bug to do with i7 overclocking if I remember rightly. Go into UnCore & QPI Features and set Uncore Frequency to DDR3 Speed X2 +1. So for example if you have a 4GHz CPU overclock (200 BCLK) and a memory multiplier of 6.0 that would mean a memory speed of 1200MHz, normally you'd set Uncore to 2400MHz but instead set it one more X higher than two times the memory speed, 2600MHz in this example.
 
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Quick question.

Have you updated the bios in the last while at all?

If you have that might account with why your saved overclock will not hold. The update might have (not writ in stone mind you) changed some settings within the bios that invalidates or makes your saved settings unstable.

If that is the case then you will have to start from scratch with your overclock.
 
Not updated the BIOS in a long time, perhaps 7 months or more, and I have no OC profiles saved, I just know the settings and manually key them in.

Some good news though, I'm typing this with my CPU @ 4Ghz 1.35000V (higher than I'm comfortable with tbh) all other BIOS settings are the same as the ones in my Orginal post. All I've done is take out the 8 pin CPU and 24 Pin motherboard cable extentions.

Don't know what to expect now, I think its too early to say problem solved, running OCCT atm, temps are already at 57C :(. but I'm pleased its working

I'll post back with an update and let you guys know what the crack is, thanks for all your time and help.
 
Really pleased to hear you are sorted (well nearly) mate. Will check back a little later to hear that you are totally happy with things :)
 
iB CoMpL3XiTy said:
Not updated the BIOS in a long time, perhaps 7 months or more, and I have no OC profiles saved, I just know the settings and manually key them in.

Some good news though, I'm typing this with my CPU @ 4Ghz 1.35000V (higher than I'm comfortable with tbh) all other BIOS settings are the same as the ones in my Orginal post. All I've done is take out the 8 pin CPU and 24 Pin motherboard cable extentions.

Don't know what to expect now, I think its too early to say problem solved, running OCCT atm, temps are already at 57C :(. but I'm pleased its working

I'll post back with an update and let you guys know what the crack is, thanks for all your time and help.
Click to expand...


Don't worry, I'm watercooling my temps are probably worse than yours. Your temps are absolutely fine.
 
@Jones, Yes I've been using the extentions for about 8 months now, but I do move my PC around a lot (LAN sessions) so maybe a cable came slightly loose or something...
After I took the extention cables out I had a look for obvious signs of damage and I can't see any...

Been testing 4Ghz with 1.306xxV (Under load in Windows Vcore is 1.264V) seems to be stable so far, I've also tightened my memory timings from 8-8-8-24 to 6-6-6-16, currently running OCCT to check stability.
Not had any signal loss since removing the extention cables so I assume they are faulty (most likely due to my cable braiding).

Thanks everyone for their input, I really appreciate it.
 
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