Just a bad clocker? :(

Rooster212 · 16 Jul 2012 at 17:34

My CPU is a bad clocker

My motherboard is a Gigabyte Z68X-UD4-B3 and my chip is a 2500K.

This is with LLC off.

Basically, I've been trying to overclock from scratch again, so I started from stock at x40 multiplier. I had to go all the way up to 1.31v.

x42 required 1.36v, x44 I couldn't get to because I went to 1.40v and didn't want to go higher.

Is there some setting I am missing? I had PLL Overcurrent or whatever that setting is.

I then tried with LLC (Load Line Control) at level 5, which got me to x44 (so 4.4Ghz) @ 1.375v, but in CPU-Z I saw the volts go as high as 1.428v. So basically, I am confused as I hoped I'd be able to get a better clock starting from scratch. 4.4ghz is the low/average end of Sandy clocks if you ask me, and my H70 is pretty good (under IBT @ 4.4ghz, I get 70 degrees when its at 1.428v)

So, is my motherboard the issue? The VRMs getting too warm? Or just crappy motherboard/crappy chip? I really wanted to get a better clock without getting stupid volts out of the chip.

Justintime · 16 Jul 2012 at 17:40

Try a lower LLC, maybe 3 so it won't creep up so high. What are your other components? I mean psu/RAM/Gpu etc.. Quite possible you have a poor chip, not the first i've seen struggle to 4.4Ghz. btw is it the 16Gb dominators at 1866? Quite possible you need higher VTT, would try about 1.1-1.15v to start.

hyperst · 16 Jul 2012 at 17:42

Well I could give you some settings to try out but bear in mind I have an asus board.

1, I would reset BIOS by clearing cmos according top your manual.

2, set your profille for your ram to xmp if it is xmp ram you have.

3, Set load line calibration to level 3

4, set your multiplier for cpu to 45

5, use offset voltage if you can, if you can set an offset of + 0.030 for cpu.

That's all I had to do for mine at 4.6ghz, no need to enable pll overcurrent or anything else.

Justintime · 16 Jul 2012 at 17:45

hyperst said:
3, Set load line calibration to level 3

5, use offset voltage if you can, if you can set an offset of + 0.030

.

Could be wrong, i don't use many Gigabyte boards here at all mainly due to getting good discounts on Asus boards, but the GA-Z68X-UD3P i have here does either fixed with LLC or offset without LLC, this is with the latest BIOs too! Not sure about his board.

PaulyD · 17 Jul 2012 at 09:28

Justintime said:
Could be wrong, i don't use many Gigabyte boards here at all mainly due to getting good discounts on Asus boards, but the GA-Z68X-UD3P i have here does either fixed with LLC or offset without LLC, this is with the latest BIOs too! Not sure about his board.

Same as mine, either LLC or offset from VID. I much prefer the later of the two.

Rooster212 · 18 Jul 2012 at 11:46

Ok i'll try that out, I do have 4x4GB Dominator RAM, I still had issues getting clocks high with 2x4GB, so I don't think the extra RAM made any difference to my clock...

I'll try LLC lvl 3 later on when I have some time, offset doesn't exist on my motherboard as far as I know. Wish i did

I always reset my BIOS when I start a fresh overclock, I updated to the most recent a few weeks ago as I was having issues with my SSD (turned out to be something else), what should setting my VTT a little higher do? I am always getting 101 BSOD's which I've been lead to believe is too low a core voltage, I'll take your comments and try again later

thanks guys, i'll post back my results a little later.

8 Pack · 18 Jul 2012 at 12:22

What PLL you at on Sandy there is always a sweet spot for PLL that allows you to bring Vcore down abit. I find its around 1.5 - 1.55v.

If your not benching I am not sure why your bothered about a few mhz anyway.

If I was you I would not hammer any CPU with IBT it kills em. Even Intels own engineers rarely use it and they cringe when they find out how its been used by the general user.

Rooster212 · 18 Jul 2012 at 12:32

OK, i'll change about the PLL and see if it makes a difference...

I just like overclocking 8 Pack! Seeing a nice 4.5GHz in CPU-Z is nice sometimes! And it does actually make a difference in some of the things I do such as game in BF3 on 64 player servers and video conversion which I do quite a lot.

I find that IBT weeds out an unstable overclock very quickly... 10 runs of IBT on High will always make it crash if it is going to at all, and I don't find the temps ever went too high. I know it will always give higher temps than usual too so if i see it get past 85, I would go back to Prime for further testing.

Justintime · 18 Jul 2012 at 14:39

Rooster212 said:
I'll try LLC lvl 3 later on when I have some time, offset doesn't exist on my motherboard as far as I know. Wish i did

I.

Its called dynamic vcore. However testing a UD4 today i found its the same as the UD3 in that enabling that disables LLC. LLC works fine on my Asus boards with offset enabled so its rather annoying!

8 Pack · 18 Jul 2012 at 14:51

Rooster212 said:
OK, i'll change about the PLL and see if it makes a difference...

I just like overclocking 8 Pack! Seeing a nice 4.5GHz in CPU-Z is nice sometimes! And it does actually make a difference in some of the things I do such as game in BF3 on 64 player servers and video conversion which I do quite a lot.

I find that IBT weeds out an unstable overclock very quickly... 10 runs of IBT on High will always make it crash if it is going to at all, and I don't find the temps ever went too high. I know it will always give higher temps than usual too so if i see it get past 85, I would go back to Prime for further testing.

All IBT or Prime proves is the PC can do IBT and Prime. Using your PC as you would everyday is the best stability test by far and tends not to degrade chips like over doing IBT etc can.

Try tuning PLL it is important.

Rooster212 · 18 Jul 2012 at 15:42

Good shout on the PLL, I put that down to 1.50v and I am now getting further in Prime tests!

At stock my PLL is 1.8v on my motherboard, is that right?
Tried these combinations (all at x44 multi and 100mhz bclk)

-------------------------------------
Vcore: 1.36
LLC: Level 3
PLL: 1.6v

Failed on 23rd run of 8k FFT Blend in Prime
Just crashed and completely froze.
-------------------------------------
Vcore: 1.37
LLC: Level 3
PLL: 1.5v

Failed on 1st run of 10k FFT (after all 23/24? runs of 8k of FFT Blend)
Got a BSOD, 0x00000101.
-------------------------------------
Don't have much time today to do anymore, I appreciate the help though