Klondike Gold Bundle OCing nightmare

[thissmallfish]

Hi guys,

I purchased the stated bundle from OCers back in the beginning of July and I've had nothing but trouble with it since then. After first installing, I was getting BSoD errors (0x124) near constantly. The support staff at Overclockers have been absolutely magnificent in their attempts to help me get to the bottom of the issue but I've had no joy... so I'll open the floor to the general public to see if there's any suggestions.

It appeared to be the case that the supplied overclock (4.4GHz) was too much for the system to handle. I can appreciate that not all chips are equal but from what I have read, asking 4.4 is not exactly asking for the moon on a stick. To their credit, overclockers have offered to refund the cost of my overclock.

Interestingly, when I tried running Asus 4-way tweaker... it suggested that the system could handle 45/45/44/44. But as soon as I closed the program after finishing the tweaker - BOOM. Straight into BSoD errors again. This confused me because I understand that the 4-way tweaker is quite conservative in terms of voltage (soft limit of 1.25v vCore) and you would have thought that a piece of software, developed by ASUS for ASUS products would produce a stable overclock.

So... what's going on here? Have I just got a dog of a chip? Or could something more sinister be going on?

Caveat: I am not massively computer tech literate. I know some of the basics, enough to poke around in the BIOS and have a rough idea what's going on but I am not one for tweaking endlessly.

I just want to use my computer to play games on my summer holidays damnit.

 

[thissmallfish]

Link to product page: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-170-OE

 

[thissmallfish]

Might be worth asking in the Customer Service section for the guys there to help you.

Second this, had issues with my 670i and another system for family member, the staff in the technical support section couldn't have been any better.

You have access to a top notch support service and a great warranty on the bundle, they will fix it!

In terms of the problem, the BSOD code hints at cpu voltage needing adjusted (increasing it further may cause heat issues though). If you haven't already, run the system without any overclocks see how the stability is and you could even run some memtest passes overnight and benchmarks/game/folding programs to verify.

Then try incremental overclocks and voltage increases to see where the problem occurs. If unstable at stock settings then the whole process of elimination begins.

Post up in the customer service section or send in a web note.

In the original post I stated that I had been in contact with customer service. Unfortunately, no resolution was forth-coming after numerous emails and overclockers.co.uk kindly offered a refund on my overclock.

Because I am stubborn and do not wish to run at 3.9GHz max (stock) I am opening the floor to group opinions. I'm hoping that the laws of greater sample sizes leads to a wider range of suggestions.

 

[thissmallfish]

Have you downloaded and installed real temps? I'm assuming you've had a go at reseating the ram sticks and naking sure they are in matching colour slots, and running the cpu at stock/factory settings and it's been fine.
Try running a stress testing program and monitor your temps that may throw some light on the problem.

Hi Hakanese, thanks for the response. I will answer your questions on a point basis.

Have you downloaded and installed real temps?

Yes I have real temps installed.

I wonder if your issues are heat based?

I wondered that as well. I tried running the intel burn test v2.54 with no overclock at standard and then high settings. I found that I was getting temps in the mid to high 60s. I then tried gradually increasing core ratio and voltage until I started losing all stability. At the time of writing, I'm able to get up to 4.2GHz at something like 1.23v vCore. But the temps now fly up to the mid to high 80s region.

I have the supplied Alpenföhn cooling system installed. In addition, I have 4 chassis fans installed (two induction at the front, 1 rear exhaust and one top exhaust)

I'm assuming you've had a go at reseating the ram sticks and naking sure they are in matching colour slots

Yes sir. They are both in the gold slots. (I have no idea what the correct terminology is). In any case, they're the slots the RAM came in from overclockers.

running the cpu at stock/factory settings and it's been fine

Yep. I've yet to blue screen at factory settings (default optimised). Which leads to the suggestion that it's a limp chip.

 

[thissmallfish]

Yeah I did read that you had stated you had already been in touch but the support over the phone or webnote may differ from the direct support on here.

Of course running at stock is not ideal but it allows you to fault find in order to get an idea as to what's causing your issues.

I am not sure as to why you were simply offered a refund rather than getting to the nitty gritty as this differs from the solutions I received, on both occasions.

Yeah, they were really good in trying to help though. I think it just got to the point where the guys felt I just had a dog of a chip. I don't doubt that's the issue. But maybe... maybe there's something that might be worth looking at or get mentioned that could make the difference!

 

[thissmallfish]

It may well be that the chip isn't up to par for above 4.2GHz overclocks.

Of course of course, often it's the case a wee setting or two cures all.

All I was trying to say was your situation seems similar to my experience and yes it was a pain and hassle going through everything but for the end result of having mine collected and left with the gentleman I dealt with who had it for a couple days to get to the bottom of (of which it could only have been part of the bundle components as I made sure I had checked everything I could*).

*ended up being the chip itself which had to be swapped.

Hmm. I had not considered asking them to take a look at it. What did it cost you to get it picked up and looked at?

 

[thissmallfish]

In terms of fault finding, you now know the level at which it becomes too hot/unstable. You can now start to swap around the ram, run the system with minimal/no components connected and rule out anything you can which may be causing it .

What PSU are you using? Are you able to try a different one?

PSU replaced on the recommendation of overclockers. Gone from a 550w to a 1050w XFX.

I have tried running mobo gpu rather than my 5850. I can have a play with the RAM sticks I guess but memcheck86+ didn't find any issues when I ran that...

 

[thissmallfish]

You have 24 months of warranty so absolutely no cost to myself, it was arranged by the same gent I was dealing with in the forum. As was the different issue with the system for my family member which was sent back and fixed/altered.

I have never had a company be so accommodating and efficient at the same time.

Like you, I wanted to rule everything out that I possibly could so I wasn't wasting anyone's time or miss something resulting in a 'no fault found' cost scenario.

That's exactly my thing mate. Plus, I always make the assumption that I must have screwed something up . The thing is though, if there is no faults per-se but the chip is indeed a bit weak... does that constitute a 'no fault found' error or not? Technically, the chip is operating to intel's factory standards... but according to the product description at overclockers.co.uk the product is faulty... hmm.

 

[thissmallfish]

(i.e. updating BIOS, as stated in all bundle page terms) you are guaranteed the overclock for the 24 month warranty period.

********. Voided my warranty then. That'll teach me for not reading the warranty thoroughly.

 

[thissmallfish]

I have no idea how to check that. I have re-entered the configurations that the guys at ocuk originally put in it though as profiles. How can I roll back my housekeeping efforts?

 

[thissmallfish]

0x124 usually suggests not enough vcore.

Does it only BSoD under load, or does it happen while it's sitting idle too? If the former, check loadline calibration as suggested above. If it's the latter, try bumping the core voltage a little (temperatures permitting).

Sorry for the slow response been away racing this weekend.

The system just shuts off during Windows boot at the moment. The following quote outlines a new overclock configuration that I was sent back in July. Been testing this all afternoon and my Vcore is up to 1.370v and still can't even boot into Windows yet.

Ai Tweaker:
Overclock Tuner - Manual
CPU Core Ratio - Sync All Cores
1-Core Ratio Limit - 44
Internal PLL Overvoltage -Auto
Memory Frequency - 1600mhz
OC Tuner - As Is
EPU Power Saving Mode - Disabled
DRAM Timing Control - Press Enter
Cas Latency - 11
Ras to Cas Delay - 11
Ras Pre Time - 11
Ras ACT Time - 32
Command Mode - 2

Secondary Timings
Read All - Auto
Press Esc

Digi Power Control - press enter
Loadline Calibration - Level 5(Ultra)
Press Esc

Extreme Over-Voltage - Disabled
CPU Voltage - Manual Mode
CPU Core Voltage Override - 1.250
CPU Cache Voltage - 1.250
SVID Control - Disabled
CPU Input Voltage - 1.900
DRam Voltage - 1.500
CPU Spread Spectrum - Disabled

Prior to updating the bios I was able to get into windows and fire up MSFS for a while and suffer the odd blue screen. Now I can't even get into windows with these settings. Very frustrating!

 

[thissmallfish]

restore defaults on motherboard, and try your OC at x45 1.28v (manual voltage, not offset). and LCC calibration high/extreme and leave everything else at stock. You can play with offset later to get lower volts at idle.

I loved the simplicity of this idea so I gave it a go. Unfortunately, still not getting past the Windows login screen. EDIT: I'm now going back through the process of increasing LLC but with a multiplier of 44. Managed to get to the desktop and as I glance at it everything looks normal. Let's try FSX and see what happens...

Leave all the auto overclocking crap alone, it's never stable in my experience. And I would reccomend using prime 95 to stress test over IBT. IBT cooks cpus.

Yeah I've decided that stuff isn't worth a ****e. I tried the Asus 4 way tweaker job and it reckoned I could get to 4.6! It promptly **** itself on rebooting of course

 

[thissmallfish]

Multiplier of 43 looks like a winner. Going to try bringing my RAM up to the stated 1600MHz and then creep the core cache multiplier closer to 1:1

 

[thissmallfish]

Forget what I said... Comp seems to crash (no blue screens, just a hard off and on) seemingly at random. I continuously monitor temps when I'm in FSX and typically around 50-60C under load with max peak temps of 70-71C.

At the moment the only tweaks to my system are:

Multiplier: 41
VCore: 1.25 (Adaptive)
Vcach: 1.2 (Adaptive)
SVID: disabled
Spread spectrum: disabled

Which is what I was running last week and this seems stable. Very very frustrated at this time. Is there anything else hardware related that could be causing these issues? I'm aware that I'm not tweaking anything to do with the HDD or GPU but could these in any way be causing an issue if they're past their best? I'm certainly not getting carried away with the tweaks and have attempted to follow numerous guides.

 

[thissmallfish]

I'd personally set everything to dead stock in the BIOS (including voltages on Auto), set the RAM timings via XMP and then bump the CPU multiplier by 1 and test each time. This should give you some idea of voltage ranges for your chip (it will likely apply too much voltage at you increase the multiplier, so I'd recommend keeping an eye on the temps). Once you've found something that appears to be stable with 'normal' use, you can start optimising the CPU voltage.

Ok, that's the opposite way round to what I've been trying so far so that seems like a logical suggestion. Thanks

 

[thissmallfish]

Have you been denied any warranty support for this?

Even if you rolled back the BIOS to original and applied the overclock settings?

Yeah, because like a wolly I accepted a refund on my overclock. I still have warranty on the hardware though I believe. To be fair though, I'm pretty sure it's not a hardware fault because the system runs absolutely fine on completely vanilla settings. Well, I think it does anyway. It certainly never BSoD or hard resets itself.