Since you've gone from stock to 4ghz without stability testing, you have no method besides blind guesswork with which to work out what needs to be changed. You'll need to slightly alter several settings, and some may need to go up whilst others down. This is why it is recommended to overclock a bit, get it stable, then overclock more, as you will need to change fewer settings each time the closer the intervals.
The idea is get x bsck stable. Then increase a tiny bit. Hopefully you will now only need to change one setting to get it stable again, so try things sequentially, setting them back if they didn't help, until it's stable. Then move up a bit more.
Or you can jump in at the desired speed, hope it posts, then spend ages guessing what needs to be changed. In practice a compromise between the two is best, but for a novice, the slow and steady approach is much more reliable. I went from 133 to 200 bsck in steps of 5, and will be going up in jumps of 2mhz next time I try for over 4ghz. I'm considered cautious though.
Minimising voltages is a good thing, not so much because high temperatures are dangerous but because it's harder to get it stable the higher the voltages are.
I think you've guessed the flaw in your strategy. Looking at lots of peoples settings and trying to correlate them is never going to give you your settings, as hardware is unique. Well, not all identical anyway. Instead it's a much better idea to find out what all the individual terms are. I personally google everything in the list, one at a time, then experiment for a while and then google the terms again. The better you understand the settings, the better your chance at getting them set correctly.
This approach isn't without fault either though. It's time consuming, and you're still a bit screwed if you come up against an unusual problem.
yeah and im using cheap ram so maybe thats an issue too.My experience isn't particularly comparable. I'm using a Gigabyte UD5, so while your bios will look pretty familiar to me, my board is "supposed" to be better at overclocking. I'm also watercooling. However I'm running 12gb of ram instead of 6, and I'm very certain that makes life a lot more difficult.
but are they all proven stable, or are they like me, it works ok with what i do so its ok?I think I'll get 4.4 with 12gb of ram stable when my board gets back from rma. The number of people on here with 920s at 4ghz certainly suggests its very possible, and at least a few of them are using UD3Rs.
I suspect you'll be able to get 4ghz stable by only varying vcore and qpi, personally I'd try 1.3V vcore, 1.3V qpi, 1.66Vdimm, x36 qpi multiplier, x15 uncore, x6 ram, turbo off, bsck = 200, multi = 20. I know that's stable on my board, so it's where I'd be inclined to start with your one. If it's unstable, lower bsck until it's stable then work upwards, playing with the uncore multi and vcore. This is a poor second to researching all the terms and spending ages on trial and error though, as I only really know this would work for my system because I've tried it.
PCI frequency - 100
CIAZ -disabled
CPU clockdrive 800Mv
PIC Express clock drive 900Mc
CPU cliock skew 100ps
IOH clock skew 0ps
Mate, just a quick headsup, when running 3d Mark Vantage with nVidia cards, you need to disable PhysX to get a true CPU score, when PhysX is enabled the CPU tests get ran on the GPU instead..
Hard to say if they're stable by my standards, by gaming-only standards, or something else entirely. Rjkoneill seems to think some of the ud3r boards struggle to hit 4ghz stable, that you made it 4 hours into blend suggests you're pretty close so I think you'll be alright.
pci-e frequency should be 100, though 102 or 103 will help if you try for over 210 bsck.
clock drive should probably be on auto, though these seem to be system dependent which settings work best. Mine seems to like 800/800.
clock skews on auto or on 0ps I believe, as they shouldn't matter at all for these frequencies
cheap ram shouldn't matter actually, unless trying to go over the specs written on them
ok, well will save my settings and then start tweaking it a bit. is it true that 1.35v is the safest max for the vcore?
im aware my mobo isnt the best, but i was only planning on hitting 3.5-3.7GHz, but the temptation to reach a round 4GHz was too high. but this has now made me wonder how many 4GHz's are actually stable.
as for my ram, its running under what the sticker says in some instances as its 1866MHz and im only just over 1600MHz i think.
The principle I work on is no more than 1.35V for uncore (QPI/VTT?) and no more than 1.5V for vcore - although currently my vcore is at 1.35 otherwise temps get unmanageable on my current cooling.
Version : FF2
Release Date : 2010/01/12
Description :
1. Beta BIOS
2. Support Intel Gulftown CPU
My experience isn't particularly comparable. I'm using a Gigabyte UD5, so while your bios will look pretty familiar to me, my board is "supposed" to be better at overclocking. I'm also watercooling. However I'm running 12gb of ram instead of 6, and I'm very certain that makes life a lot more difficult.
I think I'll get 4.4 with 12gb of ram stable when my board gets back from rma. The number of people on here with 920s at 4ghz certainly suggests its very possible, and at least a few of them are using UD3Rs.
I suspect you'll be able to get 4ghz stable by only varying vcore and qpi, personally I'd try 1.3V vcore, 1.3V qpi, 1.66Vdimm, x36 qpi multiplier, x15 uncore, x6 ram, turbo off, bsck = 200, multi = 20. I know that's stable on my board, so it's where I'd be inclined to start with your one. If it's unstable, lower bsck until it's stable then work upwards, playing with the uncore multi and vcore. This is a poor second to researching all the terms and spending ages on trial and error though, as I only really know this would work for my system because I've tried it.
maybe there should be a sticky/how to on checking stability of an OC, as im sure i am not alone with thinking running a few apps will constitute a stable setup.