Noob Overclocker needs help

Smoogels · 8 Feb 2013 at 16:11

Hello.

I currently have a 3570K that I wish to overclock, but I am all confused with voltages.

I managed to get to 4.2GHz without messing around with the voltage. It passes several hours of prime95 and it has never crashed (had this overclock for a few months). However, I feel like I want to do more.

When I crank it up to 4.3GHz on stock voltages, it starts to be 'unstable'. A few lock ups and crashes. When I try 4.4GHz on stock voltages it wont even get past the BIOs splash screen.

Now I just tried to mess around with the voltages. I changed the "Vcore" from "auto" to a different number (increased by 0.05v I think) and changed the frequency to 4.3GHz. But it would not boot past the BIOs splash screen and it locks up on BIOs. Only way to be able to use my computer is by clearing CMOS.

Am I right in just increasing the Vcore voltage? Even if I increase it slightly for 4.2GHz it still wont boot at all.

My specs are:
i5 3570K (4.2GHz stock voltage)
Gigabyte Z77X-D3H
Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) LP RAM (XMP to 1600MHz)
AMD 7850 OCed to 1050MHz
650W OCZ PSU

I am very grateful for all help/links/advice

Thank you.

Doomedspeed · 8 Feb 2013 at 16:52

Yes you are right to increase the Vcore..

You should be able to get 4.3 easy on 1.2V, maybe 4.4 too..

You may need to use LLC, what optiona do you have for LLC (levels?)?

Smoogels · 8 Feb 2013 at 17:23

Managed to get it working at 1.2V @ 4.3GHz and looks OK atm but will do a few more tests. I think the issue was not putting enough voltage on

However, I am presented with another "problem". The CPU now runs at 1.2V all the time, even when it's clocked down to 1.6GHz in idle. Is this normal? Thanks.

Doomedspeed · 8 Feb 2013 at 21:19

Yes that is normal..

I don't know if there anything you can do about it..

Maybe using offset voltages instead but they aren't very stable, they tend to fluctuate.

Have you still got Speedstep on?

Smoogels · 8 Feb 2013 at 22:21

Doomedspeed said:
Yes that is normal..

I don't know if there anything you can do about it..

Maybe using offset voltages instead but they aren't very stable, they tend to fluctuate.

Have you still got Speedstep on?

Thanks. Just wondered if that was the norm.

Yes, I've still got speedstep on and I assume I should turn it off now? Not much point downclocking to 1.6GHz while using more or less the same voltage as 4.6GHz