Yet another overclocking n00b

thesnowdog1971

thesnowdog1971

thesnowdog1971

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2 Sep 2008
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:D

Not too sure about the best way to do this really so I guess I'd better say what I've got and how I'm planning on doing things and listen to any advice that you guys can give me.

I have the following, with everything set to Auto in the BIOS and Speedstep disabled:

Q9550 (so I'm running this at the stock 2.83GHz atm)
Asus Rampage Formula
Noctua NH-U12P using the supplied NT-H1 thermal paste
8Gb Geil Black Dragon 800MHz RAM
Powercolor 1Gb 4870 (running 8.10 and fan speed set to 40%, temp currently 37 deg idle)
Antec 1200 case with reasonable airflow but bugger all cables tied, I've got a spaghetti junction over to one side through the holes and my case is open.


When I looked about an hour ago I had a NB temp and SB temp of 30 deg max, and all cores of my CPU were in the low 20s, maximum 23 I think - but my case is open. When I get off my arse tomorrow, get some gaffer tape and sort out my cables properly and manage to get the thing closed how much will this add to my temps..?

And will I be better off letting the thermal paste cook and cool for a few times before I even think about overclocking..? I've had the machine running (but not doing much, I've just been surfing really) for 4 or 5 hours and was thinking of giving it another 3 hours before shutting down and letting it cool down for a few hours before doing the same thing tomorrow for another 8 hours. How long do you think I should do this..? just a couple of times for 8 hours or maybe a bit more..?

I was also thinking about changing the maximum temperature before a shutdown in the BIOS from 90 degrees which seems a bit too bloody toasty for my liking lol, and was thinking about 60 or 70.

Sorry for the essay, all these questions and I haven't even started overclocking yet lol :p
 
Okay cheers. One thing I'm a bit concerned with is my NB temperature. I installed and played Stalker last night and my NB temp caused PC Probe to sound an alarm :eek:

This is the first time I've built an Intel machine so have absolutely no idea what's acceptable for these temperatures. I know that PC Probe isn't entirely accurate but it still seems pretty high to me. My machine is idle now and I've just put the front fans on Warp Factor 10 and my NB temp is 39 degrees. :eek:

Going down the road to get some gaffer tape and sort my cables out so I can bung the sides on and see what difference it makes. I was thinking that having the case closed would be more beneficial that having it open as air would be circulating properly, is that right..? Or will my temps go up even more..? :confused:
 
Depends, whats the temperature of your room? With a closed case air circumvention would be properly so should lower temps if anything. Goodluck :).
 
My room is bloody freezing, no central heating lol. Just got my gaffer tape so will have a go at sorting my cables out so that I can close the case. Have got a shedload of spare unused cables from my power supply...how can anyone use that much stuff for gawd's sake lol :D
 
thesnowdog1971 said:
My room is bloody freezing, no central heating lol. Just got my gaffer tape so will have a go at sorting my cables out so that I can close the case. Have got a shedload of spare unused cables from my power supply...how can anyone use that much stuff for gawd's sake lol :D
Click to expand...

Haha yea i know, I got loads of leftovers too :p. Let me know how it goes mate :D.
 
Aw bugger, have just downloaded Core Temp and it gives me the following:

Tj Max 100%
Core #0 38
Core #1 30
Core #2 35
Core #3 35

And this is idle at stock speeds. :(

I only switched the machine on at around 10pm last night and ran it without doing much for around 7 hours then shut it down for a few hours to cool down. Am doing the same thing today to allow for the thermal paste to bed in, but these temps seem a bit high to me at stock speeds without doing much in terms of processing..?

I've basically connected everything up yesterday and am running everything on Auto in the BIOS and disabled the Speedstep thingy so that I had an idea of what sort of temps I'd be getting with everything out of the box.

I seem to remember reading on here at some time that the Tjmax thingy should be 95%, but can't remember if that's for quad cores or how I can change it..

PC Probe II is giving me a CPU of 17 degrees so that just shows how crap that is lol.
 
Are you using the stock cooler? Maybe you should buy a new cooler, those temps do seem a little high. Or take off the heatsink and reapply it, making sure its on properly.
 
Am using a Noctua NH-U12P but not too sure if I've got the fan the right way round. At the moment the fan is sitting on the side of the heatsink facing the front of the case with the Noctua logo visible. Is that right..? Or should it be the other side of the heatsink or the side that it's on now but with the fan the other way round..? :confused:
 
i think these cpus run a little hot, i got one like 2 days ago and currently overclocking. mine was 40c when load at stock, now at 3.6Ghz load 50c after 20 mins stress test
 
Frositay said:
How can it be possible to put a heatsink + fan on wrong way lol. The fan should be pointing away from, in the OPPOSITE direction of cpu.
Click to expand...

Quite easy mate. There are two sides to the heatsink of the NH-U12P, 1 facing the front of the case and 1 facing the back. I've only ever used stock coolers on AMD systems before and there's only 1 way to put a stock HSF in.

It makes sense to have the Noctua logo on the fan showing, after all, what's the point in having a logo on a fan if it's facing the heatsink? So what I really want to know is which side of the heatsink should the fan go..?

I've just popped my hand in the case and can feel the fan blowing air out. Surely it should be blowing in towards the heatsink shouldn't it? Or is it sucking the warm air from the heatsink. If it's supposed to be blowing air towards the heatsink then I'll have to turn the fan round so that the logo is facing the heatsink. I'm confused lol :confused:
 
Yup, will do that tomorrow and see what difference it makes. I might have to clean off the thermal paste and redo it, I might have put a bit too much on perhaps. One thing I've noticed is that the applying instructions for the Noctua paste differ from the instructions for AS5. With the Noctua stuff it tells you to bung a bit in the middle and the AS5 tells you to draw a line. I'm guessing I should just follow the instructions for the Noctua paste?

Going to buy some Isopropyl Alcohol tomorrow. Any idea what I should use to apply it?
 
Reseated my heatsink and have knocked 5 degrees off my NB and SB as well as a few degrees off my core temps. Had too much of the stuff on there I think.

I've just had a quick go at overclocking and it's a bit more complicated than I thought it'd be. The Rampage Formula lets you change everything but the kitchen sink lol. Had alarms going off all over the place including the FSBT (whatever that is lol) and the NB voltage.

I've gone to Extreme Tweaker but you can't switch that much to manual, have no idea where to start. I want to overclock to 3.2GHz at as low a voltage as possible as I'll be running this machine 24/7, and I don't want to shorten the lifespan of my new baby if at all possible. :eek:

The first thing I've seen is the Extreme Tweaker part of the BIOS and the only options I can see that make any sense are CPU Level Up (which I'm worried about using due to me not controlling voltages and stuff) and the AI Overclock Tuner. Selecting Manual from there gives me a shedload of options that I can't make a great deal of sense of :confused:

Any help will be much appreciated, but please make it as idiot-proof as possible cos I haven't got a clue what I'm doing lol :D
 
set all voltages to their manual values (look on manufactures website/back of box for voltages) then increase the FSB by 5, boot into windows, run prime95 for 30mins, if no errors repeat.

If windows fails to boot (and resets your FSB back to default) either up the voltage of cpu or change multiplier and start the process over again :). it takes A LONG time to find a perfect setting, dont expect it to happen in a day :P. The other voltages like NB, ram etc should only be tweaked if stability is compromised so say works fine for few hours but then BSODS. Goodluck :).
 
Cheers, have started messing about with CPU Level Up thing and selected 9770. All lights on motherboard are green and when I booted into Windows x64 PC Probe gave me a warning about the NB voltage. It's currently 1.46v but seeing as all the lights on the motherboard are green I've adjustd the warning level in PC Probe so that it doesn't nag me.

I've run Prime for 40 mins with small FFTs and maximum temps across all cores are 56, 55, 53, 52 and my Vcore is 1.26. Going to try large FFTs next and see what happens.

I'm going to save the OC Profile in the BIOS when I'm done then start looking at setting all voltages to manuals as you've suggested. And I've just realised, I haven't slept since the night before last. Damn series 4 of Lost to hell!!!! lol :D

Thanks for your help. :)
 
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