overclicking noob here got a bsod with 17 920 3.00ghz!! help!

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hi

i finnaly got the guts to try an overclock.

I decided to go to 3 ghz to start with.

All i did was set the vcore to 1.35 as i heard this was safe for a decent overclock then up the bclk from 133 to 150. it auto set my ram from 1333 mhz to 15?? and the ram voltage set at 1.64v the highest deemed safe.

It booted ok, the temperatures were a bit high under full load peaking at 85 degrees but as i understand safe. but half an hour on prime 95 it bsoded! i thought 3ghz was supposed to be an easy overclock? what went wrong!? could it be my ram should i put it back to 1333 mhz or below? the ram is rated at 1600 mhz but the board wont allow me to set a ram voltage of 1.65 and didnt want to set above that so i originally downclocked to 1333 to avoid hassle.

any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!
 
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holy crap before i did the overclock everything was stable if it was 1333 in the bios then would it have been running higher? according to cpuz the dram frequency is 668 dont you multiply that by 2 to get the actual clock?
 
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Sounds to me like the heatsink isn't seated correctly. There's no way 1.35v should produce that kind of heat.

hmm it was at 100% load and they do run pretty hot probably more to do with my thermal paste. i havent seated a heatsink properly before and prime 95 and grand theft auto iv pushed my cpu at the time to shut itself down so probably cant be that.

i dont think my ram was running at 2000 mhz from the look of it. maybe it cant run past 1333 though for some reason - since the bios auto sets my ram speed with the bclk what effect will settting the ram speed lower have? will it stuff anything up? thanks
 
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RJC

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Ah, re-read your op, your ram is set to 1500mhz? I was thinking of the multiplier.
But still have ago at lowering the memory speed to near 1333mhz.
 
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Try the stress test at stock again with lower volts. If the temps are still high, I'd wager it's the heatsink. Instabilities may be from the RAM, but the RAM won't cause the CPU to run that hot.

It could be something as simple as it not being quite screwed down properly, or it could be too much or too little thermal paste. How much did you apply when putting the heatsink on?
 
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hi yeah the ram was running at around 1550 ill try lowering it nearer the 1333 mark again. i read that as long as it doesnt go higher than about 85 degrees at full load thats ok, bearing in mind ive got a c0 stepping i7 not a d0 and in the real world your barely ever going to be at full load.

i tried to apply a thin layer of thermal paste all over but may not have been perfect in all honesty.

at stock i leave the vcore on auto and the voltage is at 1.22 and at full load its like 17 degrees cooler which i think is a bit much at 68 degrees ish. if i leave the vcore on auto for the overclock will it only set the voltage as high as it needs which may be lower than 1.35 resulting in lower temps? only i heard never to keep the vcore on auto when overclocking.

thanks for the help
 
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Soldato
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hi yeah the ram was running at around 1550 ill try lowering it nearer the 1333 mark again. i read that as long as it doesnt go higher than about 85 degrees at full load thats ok, bearing in mind ive got a c0 stepping i7 not a d0 and in the real world your barely ever going to be at full load. i tried to apply a thin layer of thermal paste all over but may not have been perfect in all honesty.

thanks for the help

Have you tried lowering the volts? Mine are at 1.25 or something, I imagine that would lower temps a bit. The temperature is fine, but at 3GHz, there should really be scope for a bit more. Not guaranteed 4GHz, but I would have thought you'd be able to get 3.4+
 
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Have you tried lowering the volts? Mine are at 1.25 or something, I imagine that would lower temps a bit. The temperature is fine, but at 3GHz, there should really be scope for a bit more. Not guaranteed 4GHz, but I would have thought you'd be able to get 3.4+

hmm the vcore goes up to 1.225 at auto vcore at stock settings so im thinking lower wont be enough or doesnt it work like that?
 
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I suspect it's just too hot. Hot doesn't just mean dangerous, it can mean unstable too. I second trying about 1.25, really you should be using whatever voltage it runs at by default (ask cpu-z) for small overclocks

^The board takes a pretty amateurish guess at what voltage is required. By and large they just get it wrong.
 
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I suspect it's just too hot. Hot doesn't just mean dangerous, it can mean unstable too. I second trying about 1.25, really you should be using whatever voltage it runs at by default (ask cpu-z) for small overclocks

^The board takes a pretty amateurish guess at what voltage is required. By and large they just get it wrong.

ok ill lower the ram speed to 1333 ish and lower the vcore to 1.225 which is what it runs at, at stock and see what happens.

edit ok prime running now, did the vo;tage to 1.225 as suggested cpuz seems to have upped it to 1.248 at full load though. my temps are around 70 - much better hope its stable like this! ill go watch some tv and keep an eye on it.
 
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ok ill lower the ram speed to 1333 ish and lower the vcore to 1.225 which is what it runs at, at stock and see what happens.

edit ok prime running now, did the vo;tage to 1.225 as suggested cpuz seems to have upped it to 1.248 at full load though. my temps are around 70 - much better hope its stable like this! ill go watch some tv and keep an eye on it.

Yeah the volts go up slightly in CPU-Z. Vdrop or Vdroop or whatever. I just go off the one in the BIOS.

Those temps seem much better. I didn't even ask before, but what CPU cooler are you using?
 
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im using the akasa nero, 1 of the first 1366 coolers. the temps have raised slightly in the hour its been on prime 95 now at around 75. though the cores range from 71-75 so not too bad still. So i think it may have raised to about 90 at 1.35v which i'd be uncomfortable with. whats the average stable overclock you can get at stock voltage? i think i read about 3.2/4 ghz depending on cpu.

no errors or bsods yet though.
 
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I get 3.5 stable at 1.2V and 70C peak.

ooh thats good, if i get 3.4 ghz at the same vcore or slightly higher but staying at around 80 degrees ill be happy. then i can say its faster than the 975! if i hve no errors by midnight ill try 3.2 tomorrow then 3.4 the next day - if things are still stable ill run prime all day to make sure then see how crysis runs! it seems that crysis seems to get allot better framerates with cpus over 3ghz!
 
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You have to be scientific about it, although 3.0GHz should be a walk in the park.

Ignore XMP, just punch in manufacturers specs and add some volts to CPU + QPI/VTT (I found 1.3V on each good) then dial up the clock 10 BCLK at a time until you lose stability under load (or get too hot etc). Balance memory multiplier and uncore to keep RAM below manufacturers rated speed. Dial it back a couple of notches then start working the volts down 2 notches a go, starting with CPU.
 
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at the moment seems stable at 3.2 ghz with voltage of 1.25 which is a little higher than what it gets to on auto at stock which is 1.22. i havent tested prime for more than a few hours yet however will do on my day off but it looks like its at least free of bsods! as you usually get those pretty quick right?

oh yeah is there a site thats done benchmarks of a core i7 at different clocks with a few specific games to see how much difference certain overclocks make? id like to see when ill start seeing a difference
 
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Soldato
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BSOD can happen at any time really, obviously the more unstable it is the quicker it can happen. I have had one happen at about 7 hours into testing before.

Not really a site that done exactly that, would be best trying yourself on a few benchmarks and can then see the difference yourself :)

Most reviews of the actual 920 chips will have benchmarks of them running games against other chips etc and will probably have a section which shows how far they overclocked and what results they got
 
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