***The Official Core i5 Overclocking Thread***

[str4nger]

On the plus side I note the price of the bundle has gone up by £60 now that its not a this week only, which makes me feel better about the buying experience...

bundle was about 70 pounds more expensive compared to components it contain, bundle contains CPU that is sold with Dirt2. I have a document with my name on it and its a document about what bundle contains and on the list is:
"StockID: CP-301-IN; Description: Intel Core i5 750 2,66GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - OEM + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game"

of course i dont have to mention that Dirt2 is not there but it seems i paid for it if bundle contains item that has it. right ?

i know that there is no mention about it on the web site in the bundle description but the description doenst even say what kind of cpu is in it (OEM or retail)

Bottom line is that you pay about 70 pounds for a testing of cpu that should guarantee 4GHz overclock but it seems it doesnt

 

[str4nger]

I got an instant reply when asked for a refund but only telling me that order number is for unpaid or cancelled order. It's says order number on the invoice?

i believe order number is under the barcode on your invoice

thanks for that post ... ive checked again and it turned out that i made an error in order no ... so i had to start a new thread because there is no edit option in support forum

maybe now i will have my answers

 

[F2kSel]

That's the number I gave them, I think they're just trying to be awkward. None of which bothers me as they are just up the road and will find me in the shop Monday.

The game is just a leaflet with a number on that you put into steam so ring them and get it sent to you.

 

[str4nger]

yes i know how it works ... i had a steam ticket for HalfLife 2 in times of radeon 9600

 

[F2kSel]

I'm still getting help from OC_uk trying to get thie i5 OC_Bundle stable, I was sent a bios update with new profiles but the same probelem of failing on core 3 continues.

I've now been told to increas CPU Diff Amplitude to 1000mv which I've done and is being tested and if that doesn't work to try raising the Vcore again.

Is there any danger of running with Diff Amp 1000mv?

 

[str4nger]

I'm still getting help from OC_uk trying to get thie i5 OC_Bundle stable, I was sent a bios update with new profiles but the same probelem of failing on core 3 continues.

I've now been told to increas CPU Diff Amplitude to 1000mv which I've done and is being tested and if that doesn't work to try raising the Vcore again.

Is there any danger of running with Diff Amp 1000mv?

I wonder why they are not trying to solve my problem there is no answer for my posts and that really starting to play on my nerves.

ive done a lot of testing ... im now using the F6 bios and i must admit that te F5f was a crap. i had stable cpu o/c at 3,8GHz (19x200) on the F5f bios and the games were runing fine but video playback (youtube hd) was hanging up the radeon driver. now with F6 bios and the same setting the problem is gone ... after an update ive lost OCuk profiles but thats not a problem because their settings wasnt as stable as the one ive figured out.

temps are lower now with F6 compared with F5f when using the same voltages (readout from Coretemp)

i recomend update to F6

but unfortunately i still cant get 4GHz stable ... even with Vcore @1,38125V (didnt try higher because at thiss temps it doesnt make sense)
and Qpi/Vtt at 1,4 ... or incresed CPU PLL up to 1,86V

allways the same core fails

 

[F2kSel]

Did you try a web note, the support forum is very slow to respond.

The new Bios they sent me was still F5f unless I did it wrong.

As for changing the CPU Diff Amplitude to 1000mv it made no difference and failed after 50 mins of prime so I did the second part and upped the voltage on vcore a notch and it failed after 9mins.

I don't see why I'm having to do what I've paid someone else to do.

If I buy a car and it goes wrong I've never been asked to strip the engine.

Oh and it's the same here Core 3 for me all the time.

 

[str4nger]

can you do stable 3,8GHz ?

i think ill try that web note

 

[F2kSel]

can you do stable 3,8GHz ?

i think ill try that web note

I don't know I haven't tried. I keep thinking about it but forgetting to do it.

I don't use the new PC so I have to keep plugging it all in and out and I'm getting a bit fed up with it to be honest.

I will try 3.8GHz tomorrow and let you know but how would I set it to 3.8?

I was told by OC_sales that the support forum was unofficial anyway.

 

[str4nger]

I have some good news for you F2kSel

i think i achieved new level of stability on 4GHz
i was able to pass IntelBurnTest for the first time
im not calling it rock stable yet as it was not very much tested but its far mor stable than before

1. the way to go is update your BIOS to F6 from gigabyte website

2. set load line calibration to lvl2

3. set cpu clock drive at 700mV (i think its CPU Diff Amplitude in F5f bios and 1000mV is not the way to go - thats why it fails even faster than your last setting)
also for PCIE is best to have 700mV ... 900 was causing me trouble with my radeon 5850 but only while playing hd video content - tested on youtube hd where my radeon driver handed up every time; games worked fine)

4. make sure you have turbo disabled

the voltages you can set as in OC_uk's profile

remember that after bios update you will loose your profiles so use a piece of paper if you cant remember everything

timings has to be set as well

i hope it will work for you anyway i think its worth trying

 

[F2kSel]

Cheers glad you seem to have got it sorted, right now I'm not about to replace the BIOS other than what OC_uk have asked me to do. As I don't know where that would leave me if it doesn't work. It may give them an out.

I will ring them Monday morning and if I don't get through on the phone and the snows gone I'm going to call into the shop and find out what's going on. They're only ten mins away and I need a fan extension cable anyway.

If I don't get it sorted in the next few days I'll probably try your settings.
The other reason I'm not keen on messing about is that I've tried on countless occasions to Overclock PC's and have never had good results and usually end up at stock.

 

[str4nger]

im an overclocker from years and i allways liked it. this was my first and last time i decided someone else to do it not because i didnt want to waste my time only because i wanted do be sure that i will have a good cpu sample that is capable of doing that 4GHz.

if you are not going to update the bios to F6 try some other way on your F5f like:
load line calibration to lvl2
CPU Diff Amplitude to 700mV
and 20x200 with turbo disabled

try this 700mV im sure OC_uk didnt asked you to try it
see how it works maybe you wont need a F6 BIOS (but its good anyway because now i got a bit lower temps compared to the same settings at F5f)

btw ... just passed IntelBurnTest 30 loops at high stress level i think ill go for 4,2

 

[F2kSel]

Strangely I can't get IntelBurnTest to work on this PC it just says not configured for this system. I'm using XP right now and it is the right version as it works on my other PC.

 

[str4nger]

use prime95 instead it will take longer if stability improves a bit but it will do the same

are you using a 2.3 version or 1.x ?
if you are using something below v2.3 try this:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/IntelBurnTest-v2.3-download-2047.html

 

[F2kSel]

I do use prime, right now I'm testing with :-

load line calibration to lvl2
CPU Diff Amplitude to 700mV
and 20x191 with turbo disabled

to see if it's stable at 3.8
Load line was already at lvl2

IBT is the same version I have that won't run.

If it runs for 2hrs I'll up to 20x200 and see what happens.

 

[Khrest]

Any ideas what to start changing to go for higher than 4.0?

My i5 bundle is stable at 4.0, but wont boot at 4.1. I'm thinking memory, but surely thats only slightly over the rated speed at 205?

 

[F2kSel]

It ran at 3.8Ghz for two hours no errors. I've also gotten IBT working and it did 10 loops with no error although the temps shot up to a max of 77 deg.

I'm not sure the Bios update they sent me has gone in because the date on it says 09/18/09 which seems quite a while ago to me.

 

[str4nger]

to Khrest

you could be chipset limited ... try rising pch voltage a bit because its hard to believe that from stable 4GHz only 100MHz gives you no boot. oh ! and also try 206 not 205 ... i know it sounds funny but sometimes some of the settings can be more unstable than the others and no one can explain it other way that "it dont like this setting"

whats your qpi/vtt and vcore ?


to F2kSel
thats good ... try 200x20
maybe the update they provide wasnt an update of the bios itself i could be the same F5f with loaded in new OC_uk profiles ? thats why you still have the old date ... its the date of bios not the date of flashing a bios into flashrom.

what update procedure did you use ? Qflash ? dos bootable disk ? or some windows aplication ?

oh ! and your IBT temps at 3,8GHz with this type of cooling are normal

later ill try to overclock beyond 4GHz myself ... now i need to go and buy a christmas tree
ill post the results later today

 

[F2kSel]

I used a usb pen and Qflash, I'm sure it's gone in now and it's still the same bios number.

I'm now testing with prime95 at 20x200 and will see what happens over the next few hours.


Seems fine at 20x200 both prime and IBT seem stable. Thanks for that.

But is there any problem doing it that way and turning off Turbo?

 

[str4nger]

sorry i dont understand what you mean with this turned off turbo ...
you have it turned off already, right ?

anyway good that you seem to finally run stable 4GHz

if you only have disabled turbo and the rest like EIST and C1E is enabled your CPU will drop multi while idle. it works for me and is stable. so you can save a bit of energy and your cpu will run with lower temp.

it also is better than 20x191 + turbo because your ram runs at 1600 and it is designed to do so so why not using it ? i dont trust this turbo option because of its design.