Overclocking Q9450 with Prime

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hey guys

Im currently overclocking my CPU doing tests with Prime whenever i can, but this morning Prime said i had 'fatal errors' on cores 1 & 2, could someone shed some light on what maybe causing this?

Temps are below 45c. Ive got the 780i xfx board, 8gb 800mhz dominator ram.

Im currently on my fone so might be a little hard to reply until i get back home.

Hope you can help.

cheers

i
 
Up the core voltage by say 2 notches and go again. Might be anything though, chipset or RAM voltage related as well. Unfortunately you may need to test various parts out before you get stable.
 
Are these voltages ok?

SL271179-1.jpg


And so far...

SL271180.jpg


Does everything look fine? Am i missing something?

Just a question... when someone says raise the voltage... what voltage am i supposed to be raising? CPU Core or CPU FSB??

Thanks
 
2.23??? is that vcore available?? Please drop it down to a reasonable level mate. Go back to stock and lets start from the beginning. 2.23v if that is correct will kill your chip in a very short time.
 
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2.23??? is that vcore available?? Please drop it down to a reasonable level mate. Go back to stock and lets start from the beginning. 2.23v if that is correct will kill your chip in a very short time.

sorry my bad... 1.23

Im just doing a memtest aswell which has failed. I checked out the FAQ on there website and it says about overclocking or i might have agressive ram timings etc. I really dont know about ram timings??

Would it help by taking 4gb ram out and re-running the memtest?

Tommorow i will try prime again witht he different CPU Voltage and see what happens.
 
Thats sweet mate, not too sure if i want to go that far though =)

Temps idle below 32c and full load at 46c with the H50 WC and im near 2.9 GHz i just want my sytsem stable. :cool:

3.6 is fine as long as you dont go above 70oc... I would google "q9450 780i overclock" and have a look at other peoples efforts, You will be able to get a baseline to work from. Though copying settings won't always work as all componants have small diferences.
Sometimes, as daft as it sounds its easyer to make a higher overclock stable than a small one... My Top tip is to use intel burn test, and do 5 passes after every change. Start with stock voltage and keep increasing till you complete 5 passes on high.. Then run prime95 for 12 hours.. As long as your temps (use core temp) stay below 70oc you will be fine.. Its a tuff little chip.. Good luck mate..
 
make sure your ram has the correct voltages set.
780i boards are notoriously bad for overclocking 65nm quads

Q9xxx are 45nm, still they could be crap with quads in general i guess. I'd also make sure the RAM is 1:1 with the cpu and not being pushed too far past its rated speed. No idea with Nforce boards though as i never used them.
 
thanks for the info guys. Ive googled 780i q9450 overclock numerous times and got some good results just everytime i up the fsb i get problems after the first few minutes of prime. Sometimes after the first few hours... Im now on my 3rd week of clocking my cpu, not every night obviously but i just dont know that much to do it.

I up the fsb by 5mhz do perhaps haf hour prime then do another 5mhz. If it fails then i up the voltage, run the tests when im at work just to make sure, but even then i get failure like i did on the certain cores im stumped. Then ill search google for answers and i come acoss the memtest... Run that and then more failures :(

All in all i find it quite hard to OC, maybe its my knowledge of how it works or maybe its my setup... Anyhow im getting the hump with it now lol I just may have a 480 sitting here next week :) and my cpu will be bottlenecking it.
 
Q9xxx are 45nm, still they could be crap with quads in general i guess. I'd also make sure the RAM is 1:1 with the cpu and not being pushed too far past its rated speed. No idea with Nforce boards though as i never used them.

I have the ram on 'synched' which from the google searches was best for my setup 'apparently'?? I will try tommorow and report back. I just wish i had more patience.

Thanks again

mach
 
make sure your ram has the correct voltages set.
780i boards are notoriously bad for overclocking 65nm quads

The 780i is great on 45nm quads with the later bios updates.. Though they do suffer bad vdroop, I cant see any reason why he can't hit 3.6-3.8 with that corsair h20..

Ram voltage need to be around 2.1v (i think)..
 
The 780i is great on 45nm quads with the later bios updates.. Though they do suffer bad vdroop, I cant see any reason why he can't hit 3.6-3.8 with that corsair h20..

Ram voltage need to be around 2.1v (i think)..

Yea ive updated to the P09 Bios. What would you recommend me doing with the RAM? Leave it on 'Synched'?

Would the 790i and the 780i be similar boards? What have you done SNAGGSTER to get to where you are?

Cheers
 
Hi mate here are my settings for 790i, Just change the settings listed,


***Spread spectrum settings**** ALL DISABLED
FSB MEMORY CLOCK..... LINKED
FSB MEMORY RATIO..... SYNC
FSB (QDR) MHZ..... 450
P1... ENABLED
P2... ENABLED

***MEM0RY TIMING SETTINGS****
You will need to find your timings for 1066mhz. as i have ddr3 @ 9 9 9 24 2t. Your ram should handle 1066

***SYSTEM VOLTAGES****
CPU CORE 1.45V (shows 1.377v in cpu-z after vroop)
CPU FSB 1.3
MEMORY..... YOU WILL NEED TO FIND THE CORRECT VOLTAGE FOR YOUR MEMORY
NFORCE-SPP... 1.4
NFORCE-MCP... 1.55
GTLVREF LANE 0 +30MV
LANE 1 -10MV
LANE 2 AUTO
LANE 3 AUTO

****CPU CONFIGURATION****
LILIT CPUID MAX AL... DISABLE
INTEL SPEEDSTEP... DISABLE
XPPM MODE... NATIVE
CPU THERMAL CONTROL... DISABLE
CIE ENHANCED HALT STATE... DISABLE
EXECUTE DISABLE BIT....ENABLE
VIRTUALISATION TECH... DISABLE

CPU CORE 0,1,2,3 ENABLE

Hope this helps mate...
 
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Thanks a bunch mate.

Im curious on one thing though, do you think 8gb RAM is too much? Memtest failed?? And where do i find the voltage for my RAM from? Would this be overclocked RAM voltage?

What benches do you use?

So many questions, but appreciate it, thanks.
 
I would use 4gb to start... Then try adding the other 4gb once its stable.. To be fair i dont think you will notice any difference unless your doing CAD..
The benches i use are... in order of tests

Intel burn test v2... 5 passes on high, if passed then
Intel burn test v2... 10 passes on high, then if passed
Prime95 (blend).... 12 hours
3dmark06.... 2 full runs... If passes all this then i class the clock as stable

Dont worry about asking questions mate, thats what people are on here for... And i ask enough!!!!
 
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