MCH - why does this help stability?

ROfu

ROfu

ROfu

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Joined
20 Oct 2002
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Hey guys could someone give me the reason for the MCH voltage having such a large baring on stability?
If i understand it correctly the MCH is the memory controller and PCIE controller voltage?
How does this effect an overclock.

I've been having some strange crashes today, with the odd corrupt windows file - this overclock as been stable for a few weeks, I've hammered it with Orthos lately for 15hrs solid.. an no probs.

Currently i have the MCH @ 1.6v which i was advised to do for stability - my system IS less stable with a lower MCH, so i would like to know what this is doing.

Have considered pushing it more, but untill i totaly understand what relationship it has to my system (as far as overclocking) i am a little hesitant.

Cheers
ROfu
 
Your increasing the FSB when overclocking, hence anything that is affected by the FSB can become unstable i.e. CPU, Memory and Chipset. Assuming you have delt with the 1st two and your sure these arnt the limiting factor then increase the MCH voltage.
 
Does raising the MCH overvolt the PCIE card as well.. or just the controller?
I understand needing the keep the memory controller stable, My initial confusion was due to the mem controller being on the die for AMD cpus, so forgot that intels are offchip.

My only concern is .. if overvolting the MCH too much could result in burning out your gfx card... obviously the mobo chipset is covered by most heatpipe configurations but the gfx card already has enough stress keeping itself cool without additional volts.

Any advice would be appreciated

Cheers
ROfu
 
No the MCH voltage does not affect the voltage supplied to the graphics card. Increasing the MCH voltage and speed will cause the northbridge chip to get hotter though. Some boards do allow you to increase the PCI-E voltage I think. Never felt the need to mess with it.
 
Papa Lazarou said:
No the MCH voltage does not affect the voltage supplied to the graphics card. Increasing the MCH voltage and speed will cause the northbridge chip to get hotter though. Some boards do allow you to increase the PCI-E voltage I think. Never felt the need to mess with it.
Click to expand...

I know it's irrelevant but are you greek? ;)
 
Cheers for the replies, One final question - what is a recommended "limit" to overvolt the MCH?

I know how much to overclock ram and know how far to push the CPU. But the MCH is a mystery. Currently i run mine at 1.6v which ime told is normaly a solid amount for a moderate overclock. I intend to overclock further when i have the time, and could do with a limit before i should stop.

I appreciate the limit is massively affected by the cooling setup on the motherboard chipset. but what is a higher end limit if you have good cooling on the chipset?.

Cheers
ROfu
 
I'm running mine at 1.35v @ 420 FSB (Stock is 1.25v on AB9 Pro motherboard). I don't know what the upper end is TBH. The board only allows adjustment to 1.45v so in most cases thats going to be the limit. Its perfectly stable at 1.35v though. Could probably push mine further, just getting to grips with the latest BIOS update and set it straight to 420 without any issue.
 
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Run my mch @ 1.65v 24/7 which is the limit for early P5Wdh boards. Only really needed to increase from stock when FSB was 350+ allowing a more stable clock on the memory.
 
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