E8400 doesn't go to 3.9Ghz anymore, after 5 weeks

keyser

keyser

keyser

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A month ago I RMA'd my mobo after my PC became unstable. I did some tests, but mainly one test which was try to reinstall Win7, which failed with BSOD the 2nd time around. The place I got it from confirmed that issue too. Now I've got a new mobo, but the problem was still there. So I though it was CPU at fault and tried to reinstall XP this time.. but, no BSOD..! clocked back to 3.9Ghz and PC hung, backed off to 3.6Ghz and fine so far (30mins blend, 2 L4D sessions. Going to do Othros and memtesting over next couple of nights).

BIOS settings were:
FSB Freq: 434
FSB Strap: 333
CPUv: 1.15 (stock)
GTL Ref: Auto (coz I've no idea what it should be and neither does anyone else AFAIK)
PLLv: 1.52
FSB Termination volt: 1.22 (now at 1.12, one notch above lowest - could have been that?)
DRAMv: 2.04
NBv: 1.3
Steedstep was enabled, not while I was experiencing problem nor at the moment while testing again.

I read that P5Q range of mobos set things to auto if set to the lowest setting (!) hence setting one notch above lowest. Also this time round, using 5:6 divider as these mobos don't do well on 1:1.

Max load temp got to 66C max - this is 'warm' but not too hot?
IntelBurnTest got it to 76C a few times while testing initially, but only for 10 mins at a time - could this have damaged it?

I'm not too fussed about 3.6 over 3.9, I can't RMA the CPU because there's no fault at stock speeds (again, didn't buy from OCUK, due to not having everything I wanted at the time)

I just wanna know if I did something wrong and make sure in a few weeks time, 3.6 doesn't become unstable! I'm currently thinking I should get a better heatsink..
 
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CPUv is low, very low really for an OC, whats the Vid? Id expect you to be running at least +0.1v on that
GTL ref yeah this is complicated prob best to leave on auto, but if you dont like auto look at CPU GTL 0.63 and NB GTL 0.67
FSB termination is a bit low too, try 1.26 which actually equates to about 1.22 actual
DRAM should just be whatever is rated, 2.1?
NB try 1.33 to 1.39 depending on no of DIMMs in use (less = lower)

I suspect the main thing here is the actual CPUv as you should be able to leave most other things (and prob even this) on auto to get to 3.9
 
VID is 1.15v. Yeah I guess it could be nothing is wrong! heh. I'm just using lower settings this time round, so more likely to crash at lower volts. The only thing I lowered is FSB Termination volt. Maybe all the problems were just XP got corrupted (no idea why, tested for everything) and Win7 being weird and throwing me off testing..

DRAM is rated up to 2.1v, but another great feature of these mobos is they overvolt the ram by an average of 0.08v :)
 
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Vcore is pretty low, also regarding the overvolt on the p5q's, it's reccomended to start with +0.02v on pll, fsb term and nb due to the boards overvolting on lowest manual setting as well as auto, also with ram they overvolt by upto 0.08v, my ocz ram is rated at 2.1v but i run it at 2.02 without issue.
 
What are your thoughts on 66C load temp? Do I need a better heatsink? Strangely it's 66C max load even at 3.6ghz, which was what I got at 3.9ghz too.. 4ghz was unstable in games and was 2c more iirc.

Yeah my PLL is +0.02, i updated that post while you posted yours :) I know about the +1 notch thing. Pretty poor from asus imo.
 
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