CPU Voltage basics.

[Mozno1]

My apologies to Admin just realised i posted in the wrong place please delete the post with the same title in the hardware general forum.

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone could spare me a minute to answer a quick couple questions about CPU voltages. I am new to overclocking so you might have to stick with me.
The system I have is listed in my sig.
I have a lot of different voltage settings in my BIOS:
VCore
CPU VTT
CPU PLL
NB and SB
+1.2v HT
and of course memory.
As I overclock the CPU do I need to raise these all these voltages slightly (as in if I raise Vcore all others must be raised to keep up), or is there only certain voltages I need to concern myself with as I raise the CPU speed? I am also presuming that raising the memory voltage is not required when talking about CPU overclocking (I have my memory unlinked form the CPU) is this correct?
Please note that I am not really asking "what should I set my voltage settings to" but more "what is the basic principal behind raising my voltages".
I hope you guys can help me out because I'm loosing the will to live.

Cheers guys.

 

[Mozno1]

Thank you for your response.
That's pretty much what I have done, raised my FSB to 1533 which is giving me 3.4 but if I go up another level (say FSB up to 1573) things start to go unstable.
When I am thinking of raising the voltage to stable things out should I raise everything a little or just certain settings? Also when I do raise voltages how much should I raise them by 0.1v or maybe 0.01v I'm really not sure.
Any more help out there guys?

Thanks again.

 

[Mozno1]

OK I will try that.
So I'm going to try setting my multiplier in at x6 then set my FSB setting to 1600 and up the north bridge voltage slowly until I manage to get it stable. Once I have that turn my multiplier back up one notch at a time also gradually up-ing the VCore until stable again.
That's a totally different way of doing things than I was looking at, hope I get some joy. I had a Q6600 in this board and managed 3.0GHz without even touching any voltages!? Strange.
Thanks for your help alexp999.
Anyone out there had / heard about / got any info on the Asus Striker Formula / 780i chipset?

Thanks again.

 

[Mozno1]

Hi again,

Thanks for the update i will take a look at the thread you suggested later.
I'm busy at the moment trying to get the FSB stable at 400, not having a lot of luck at the moment though.
I have raised the voltage on the north bridge in 0.02 increments form 1.32v to 1.58v currently. I have tested with Prime95 (Blend test) after each increment and had either failure on one or two workers or in some cases a nice BSOD.
One other thing I would mention is I have disabled things like Intel Speed Step Tech and enabled Load line Calibration (reduces VDroop).
I will let you know later if I ever get it stable.
How high do you think I should / can take the NB voltage safely? This board has little LED indicators which show green / amber / red as you raise the voltages, as of yet the NB voltage is still green, which I presume means that it is well in the safe limits!?

*edit* - OK so I have now tested in increments of 0.02v all the way up to 1.62v at which point I got errors at POST and loading in to windows. Does this mean that this board truly is rubbish and will never even achieve a measly 400MHz bus? It seems odd however that just messing about I have achieved a FSB of 1533 giving me CPU speed of 3.45Ghz without even touching the NB voltage all I did was raise the Vcore form 1.3v to 1.34v. Help guys I'm stuck.

PS - What you guys think to this? I was thinking of maybe investing in the Blitz Formula, only trouble is its a P35 chipset instead of P45.

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Asus_Blitz_Formula_and_Extreme_P35_Motherboards/

 

[Mozno1]

Hmmm OK.
I don't understand why I would want my memory linked to the FSB in a 1:1 ratio? Surely this would lead to the memory being overclocked and then I would be unsure if it was a memory or cpu overclock causing instability?

Cheers.

 

[Mozno1]

Well after all this time of trying I am still only at a FSB of 1573. I have this running nice and stable now but as soon as I try to step up to 1600 *BOOM* the wall of overclocker death.
Anyone any idea at all what might be the issue?
I have raised both NB and Vcore voltages and no joy. From the voltages listed above anyone think there may be a voltage I am missing.