What causes system insablity?

OzyOly · 3 Jun 2007 at 19:55

Hey all, I haven't overclocked before now. I have my E6700 at 3.02GHz. In sp 2004 (2 instances of course) it was fine until the second run when on the last leg of the test one of the cores had 1 error.

My temp is 63C on full load after 1/2 an hour. I'm going to be water cooling the pc in 4 weeks (want to get up to 3.2GHz).

But for now, is this one error something to worry about?

Also my Ram is clocked at 906MHz (timings 4-4-4-12), I have no idea how to change the divider so don't know how to lower this speed.

Should I change my CPU clock to 2.97GHz? The temps aren't that much different.

Also, last question. What causes system instability? Is it the heat?

Oh, just the mention, I haven't touched the voltages at all yet.

Thanks guys.

OzyOly · 3 Jun 2007 at 20:11

Right. Well, it is giving me another error.

Just wondering now, is it 'safe' to run my PC if it gets errors in orthos, I'm using that niow.

OzyOly · 3 Jun 2007 at 20:27

Mattus said:
It's 'safe', as in, you're not gonna break anything. It may be unstable, though, and there's a small risk of data corruption.

System instability has many causes, but in most cases the root cause is that some component (CPU, RAM, chipset etc.) is running at too high a speed in relation to its voltage. Temperature also reduces the attainable speed, but it's definitely not the main cause - a CPU can be stone-cold and still unstable if it's clocked too highly.

I would back it down to 2.97. It should eliminate the Orthos error, and you won't notice the difference.

Ok, lowered. Just about to run orthos again. Hope it's stable this time. Yeah I did the get error, on the torture test, but it passed the first one, it's only ever on the second round.

OzyOly · 4 Jun 2007 at 07:48

Ok it ran othorso for an hour, it had rebooted plenty of times fine last night. Turn mu PC on this morning and it wont even boot.

So cleared the Cmos and all is right again, but still, why does it do this? How do I make it stable?

OzyOly · 4 Jun 2007 at 16:46

You might want to read this, it has my bios options (or lack of them) at the bottom.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17737967

OzyOly · 4 Jun 2007 at 17:25

I have ninja syth mine with AS5 applied.

OzyOly · 4 Jun 2007 at 18:34

I have the syth ninja mini, still 120mm fan, but slightly less fins in the heat pipe.

I have 4 case fans, all 80mm, 3 exhaust and one intake.

All at max speed. At the moment at 2.91GHz it's 43 idle and 60C load.

OzyOly · 4 Jun 2007 at 18:56

fobose said:
3 exausts, aswell as a 120mm fan on your PSU exausting? Would it be possible to change some of the exausts for intakes? It might help with your air flow, its worth a shot if its not to much hassel.

On my old case I used to have 2 80mm intake, 2 80mm exaust and a 120mm PSU exaust. New case has 2 120mm intake, 1 120mm exaust and PSU 120mm exaust - without the second 120mm intake my temps were a lot higher.

Sure, Ill change two of them to intakes then. One intake at front (fast), 2 intakes at side (slow) and leave one outtake at the back (fast).

OzyOly · 4 Jun 2007 at 19:01

Cob said:
Tbh you shouldn't need to touch any CPU or chipset voltages for 3.0ghz with an e6700. Raising the fsb to 300mhz should be enough.

What's your memory voltage, and which motherboard are you using?

Memory voltage is 2.1V and mobo is Dfi infinity 975x

OzyOly · 5 Jun 2007 at 13:06

Ok another problem, this morning my PC again refused to post.

Yesterday at my new clock speed of 2.91GHZ, the PC was boot and reboot fine, on and off all day and 3 hour orthos blend test with zero error.

This morning (like the 2.97GHz speed) the PC refused to post and I had to reset the cmos again.

Do any of you guys have an idea to what's causing this???

What is so damn different about the day time apart from it being hotter hmm???

OzyOly · 5 Jun 2007 at 19:58

Anyone have any idea why my PC refused to post in the morning or why it fails orthos at 3.02GHz?

OzyOly · 5 Jun 2007 at 20:11

stinka said:
i d have good look at your memory

run memtest for 20 mins to see if you get any errors leave it for a couple of hours would be better

try slackening your timinigs to 5-5-5-15 is a good start

What, check my memory while it is overclocked?

Yeah, my timings are 4-4-4-12 atm.

Ok, Saturday I'll have a play about with it. Got A-level exams to do first. :S

OzyOly · 6 Jun 2007 at 16:58

Ok loosened the ram timmings and changed two out take fans to intakes and cleaned my dust filters.

At 2.91GHz the temps on load are 53C when room is 28.6C.

3.02GHz still fails on orthos.

I'm going to upto 2.97GHz, then I'm not sure how to go any higher, even if my temps are going to be lower. I don't know how to make it stable. :confused: