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[Zzoram]

Well I installed my new heatsink and fan, which was rather painful because the fan had to be put in AFTER the heatsink, and the bastard kept popping out as I was putting in the fan so i'd have to start all over again to reach the push in plugs. I appreciate how easy its supposed to be but a back plate would have worked much better.

Took me at least an hour. I took out the old thermal grease with methylated spirits and q-tips, the job the guys who built it for me did was pretty crappy. They obviously used the drop-in-middle method which leaves the sides completely barren.

Anyway i'm at 3.4 ghz at 4.250 volts (q6600, g0), looking pretty stable at 35-45 degrees. I could push it harder but I don't really see the point in pushing 50 for an insignificant increase.

WHAT? :lol

You must mean 1.425V, because your CPU would've melted somewhere past 2.0V...

 

[TheHeretic]

WHAT? :lol

You must mean 1.425V, because your CPU would've melted somewhere past 2.0V...

Lmao yeah my bad!

Yeah the Intel recommended max voltage is 1.5.

 

[Zzoram]

Lmao yeah my bad!

Yeah the Intel recommended max voltage is 1.5.

Most people don't go past ~1.4V because after that you start risking hardware failure, or at the very least SEVERE life shortening. Running CPUs above 1.5V would likely make them last a few months instead of a few years, even if you cooled it properly.

 

[TheHeretic]

Most people don't go past ~1.4V because after that you start risking hardware failure, or at the very least SEVERE life shortening. Running CPUs above 1.5V would likely make them last a few months instead of a few years, even if you cooled it properly.

Its only at that voltage I can keep things stable. You think I should cut back?

 

[Zzoram]

Its only at that voltage I can keep things stable. You think I should cut back?

It's probably fine at 1.425, just don't go any higher. Your temperatures are insanely low though, what HSF and paste?

 

[TheHeretic]

It's probably fine at 1.425, just don't go any higher. Your temperatures are insanely low though, what HSF and paste?

I know, my temps are great. I already listed my HSF, Xigmatek HDT-S1283 Red Scorpion, comes with a 120mm fan. I used Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal grease, and applied it very carefully Its a zero metal grease, I hate risking a short...

Honestly I was expecting to run into temperature problems long before stability problems, but here I am at 35 degrees idle, 45 degrees load at 3.41 ghz and 1.425 volts.

I've been playing Crysis for an hour, and did a 30 minute CPU stress test before that. I was stable at 1.375 volts at 3.2 ghz, for reference, so it took a big voltage jump to get this higher clock stable.

 

[Zzoram]

I know, my temps are great. I already listed my HSF, Xigmatek HDT-S1283 Red Scorpion, comes with a 120mm fan. I used Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal grease, and applied it very carefully Its a zero metal grease, I hate risking a short...

Honestly I was expecting to run into temperature problems long before stability problems, but here I am at 35 degrees idle, 45 degrees load at 3.41 ghz and 1.425 volts.

I've been playing Crysis for an hour, and did a 30 minute CPU stress test before that. I was stable at 1.375 volts at 3.2 ghz, for reference, so it took a big voltage jump to get this higher clock stable.

That's when you know you should stop. When it starts to take huge voltage increases for minimal clock speed increase, you've found your limit. I just oc my E8400 from 3.0GHz to 3.2GHz on stock voltage, I can do 3.3GHz prime95 stable for like 8+ hours, but I didn't bother to, I wanted to leave a bit of a buffer incase of degredation. Some people have experienced that a voltage that is stable soon after you get a CPU may no longer be enough after a few months, due to degredation.

 

[TheHeretic]

That's when you know you should stop. When it starts to take huge voltage increases for minimal clock speed increase, you've found your limit. I just oc my E8400 from 3.0GHz to 3.2GHz on stock voltage, I can do 3.3GHz prime95 stable for like 8+ hours, but I didn't bother to, I wanted to leave a bit of a buffer incase of degredation. Some people have experienced that a voltage that is stable soon after you get a CPU may no longer be enough after a few months, due to degredation.

I read that 1.450 was the cap at which I should stop, and reading on overclocking forums people seem to have no hesitation in going higher. 3.4ghz was my goal, and considering my temps i'm somewhat apprehensive about throttling back unless I am doing damage to my CPU.

 

[chespace]

How did you know that you had to do a voltage increase?

I'm doing a Prime95 test right now with real temp and CPU-Z open and my vcore is 1.320.

Can I lower that for lower heat? If I want to bump my OC up to 3.6, how do I go about doing that?

Multiplier for Q9550 is x8.5 and my FSB is at 1600 right now with a bus speed of 400 Mhz.

 

[TheHeretic]

How did you know that you had to do a voltage increase?

I'm doing a Prime95 test right now with real temp and CPU-Z open and my vcore is 1.320.

Can I lower that for lower heat? If I want to bump my OC up to 3.6, how do I go about doing that?

Multiplier for Q9550 is x8.5 and my FSB is at 1600 right now with a bus speed of 400 Mhz.

I simply played around with speeds and found what worked. I initially went with 1.350 3.2 ghz, which was fairly stable. From there I wanted to jump to 3.4 ghz and tested all the voltages inbetween 1.35 and 1.425. Everything is perfectly stable at this voltage, finding your own sweet spot is just trial and error.

 

[chespace]

I simply played around with speeds and found what worked. I initially went with 1.350 3.2 ghz, which was fairly stable. From there I wanted to jump to 3.4 ghz and tested all the voltages inbetween 1.35 and 1.425. Everything is perfectly stable at this voltage, finding your own sweet spot is just trial and error.

And by error, you mean BSoD?

 

[Zzoram]

How did you know that you had to do a voltage increase?

I'm doing a Prime95 test right now with real temp and CPU-Z open and my vcore is 1.320.

Can I lower that for lower heat? If I want to bump my OC up to 3.6, how do I go about doing that?

Multiplier for Q9550 is x8.5 and my FSB is at 1600 right now with a bus speed of 400 Mhz.

Don't lower it, unless you want to downclock your CPU as well. Your numbers are fine.

 

[Zzoram]

And by error, you mean BSoD?

Prime95 errors are just indications of the CPU making a mistake in a calculation, and is slightly unstable. The reason this is bad is because it may make mistakes while you save files, corrupting them. Usually your computer will just freeze or not even boot into Windows if it's really unstable.

 

[chespace]

Okay so if I want to push 3.6, what should I do?

If I lower my multiplier, that means I have to raise my FSB frequency, right?

I was under the impression that the FSB had to be half of the speed of your RAM (which in my case would be 400Mhz), no?

So 3600 divided by 8 would be 450 Mhz if I were to lower my multiplier to 8. Right?

 

[Zzoram]

Okay so if I want to push 3.6, what should I do?

If I lower my multiplier, that means I have to raise my FSB frequency, right?

I was under the impression that the FSB had to be half of the speed of your RAM (which in my case would be 400Mhz), no?

So 3600 divided by 8 would be 450 Mhz if I were to lower my multiplier to 8. Right?

Generally, it's easier to overclock with higher multiplier. That is why the Extreme Edition CPUs have unlocked multiplier, and are meant for overclockers (although they are so expensive nobody buys them).

Your RAM will overclock if you bring your FSB up, and they are linked.

Read this before you do something crazy :lol

Actually don't read that, it's from 2004 and is slightly outdated

 

[TheHeretic]

Okay so if I want to push 3.6, what should I do?

If I lower my multiplier, that means I have to raise my FSB frequency, right?

I was under the impression that the FSB had to be half of the speed of your RAM (which in my case would be 400Mhz), no?

So 3600 divided by 8 would be 450 Mhz if I were to lower my multiplier to 8. Right?

Well I try to keep the highest multiplier possible to stop me from running into RAM problems. I would stick with 8.5x and do a 423 FSB. Test voltages to see where you are stable. If you can't even get into windows are you have no chance at that voltage, so increase it slowly. Read up on what the maximum safe voltage is, but going over 1.5 is universally for experts only.

You might also have to increase your RAM voltages if you above your RAMs maximum (for DDR2800 its 400 fsb), which I hate doing.

 

[Zzoram]

I think Che should just read a lot of guides. There is so much info you should read before pushing your CPU that hard, because you are taking a risk. He's already got a great and fast system, I just don't want him to break it trying to reach 4.0GHz

 

[chespace]

Well I try to keep the highest multiplier possible to stop me from running into RAM problems. I would stick with 8.5x and do a 423 FSB. Test voltages to see where you are stable. If you can't even get into windows are you have no chance at that voltage, so increase it slowly. Read up on what the maximum safe voltage is, but going over 1.5 is universally for experts only.

You might also have to increase your RAM voltages if you above your RAMs maximum (for DDR2800 its 400 fsb), which I hate doing.

Oh weird. CPU-Z tells me that my DRAM Freq. is 480 Mhz and that the FSB ratio is 5:6.

This means I can probably leave my multiplier and just raise the the FSB to 423?

Yeah, I should just basically do a bunch of reading. :lol Still, I am so tempted to get that extra 200Mhz.

 

[TheHeretic]

Oh weird. CPU-Z tells me that my DRAM Freq. is 480 Mhz and that the FSB ratio is 5:6.

This means I can probably leave my multiplier and just raise the the FSB to 423?

Yeah like Zzoram has said, you are bearing a risk when you start pushing your CPU that hard. If you don't know what you are doing, don't touch the voltages. You can overclock your speeds until the cows come home, its only when you start juicing up the electricity that you risk doing permanent damage.

You can adjust your ratio to anything you want, again with the RAM you can overclock it without touching voltages. A 1:1 ratio is still the best for performance, because then both components are talking to eachother at the same pace.

 

[chespace]

Yeah like Zzoram has said, you are bearing a risk when you start pushing your CPU that hard. If you don't know what you are doing, don't touch the voltages. You can overclock your speeds until the cows come home, its only when you start juicing up the electricity that you risk doing permanent damage.

You can adjust your ratio to anything you want, again with the RAM you can overclock it without touching voltages. A 1:1 ratio is still the best for performance, because then both components are talking to eachother at the same pace.

Yeah, scary. If I want a 1:1 with my FSB and DRAM, then 480 * 8.5 = 4080.



I think I'll stick with 3.4 for now. I doubt any game will force me to OC due to a CPU bottleneck any time soon.

 

[TheHeretic]

Yeah, scary. If I want a 1:1 with my FSB and DRAM, then 480 * 8.5 = 4080.



I think I'll stick with 3.4 for now. I doubt any game will force me to OC due to a CPU bottleneck any time soon.

3.4 is where its at, man.

*high fives*

 

[chespace]

Okay, just made a tweak in bios.

Turned off SpeedStep so now I'm always at 3.4GHz... or wait... am I? Shit, Real Temp show me still oscillating from 2.4 to 3.4 -- except my idle is now at 29 degrees. :lol WTF is going on. I thought I turned it off.

Also, my DRAM freq. was set at 960 for some reason so I throttled it back to 800 and now my FSB and DRAM ratio is 1:1.

 

[Zzoram]

Okay, just made a tweak in bios.

Turned off SpeedStep so now I'm always at 3.4GHz... or wait... am I? Shit, Real Temp show me still oscillating from 2.4 to 3.4 -- except my idle is now at 29 degrees. :lol WTF is going on. I thought I turned it off.

Also, my DRAM freq. was set at 960 for some reason so I throttled it back to 800 and now my FSB and DRAM ratio is 1:1.

Sounds like you had some auto stuff going on. I'm not sure why your CPU is twitching that much. I think there are 2 things you have to turn off to get it to stay at your overclock all the time, or at least that's the case with some motherboards.

 

[TheHeretic]

Okay, just made a tweak in bios.

Turned off SpeedStep so now I'm always at 3.4GHz... or wait... am I? Shit, Real Temp show me still oscillating from 2.4 to 3.4 -- except my idle is now at 29 degrees. :lol WTF is going on. I thought I turned it off.

Also, my DRAM freq. was set at 960 for some reason so I throttled it back to 800 and now my FSB and DRAM ratio is 1:1.

Your motherboard is lowering your multiplier when its not being used very much to save on power/keep temps down. Mine does it as well, its completely normal and it shows you have a good MOBO, I wouldn't turn it off.

But it looks like you've got a lot of automated shit going on there, your gonna have to play around with your bios.

 

[Zzoram]

Your motherboard is lowering your multiplier when its not being used very much to save on power/keep temps down. Mine does it as well, its completely normal and it shows you have a good MOBO.

You can turn it off though, and a lot of people do when overclocking.

 

[TheHeretic]

You can turn it off though, and a lot of people do when overclocking.

Yeah, don't really understand why though.

Oh and Chespace use Coretemp to monitor temperatures, its the most accurate.

 

[Zzoram]

Yeah, don't really understand why though.

Oh and Chespace use Coretemp to monitor temperatures, its the most accurate.

RealTemp is just as good, and was made specifically for the 45nm Intel CPUs, while CoreTemp was originally made for the 65nm Intel CPUs.

 

[TheHeretic]

RealTemp is just as good, and was made specifically for the 45nm Intel CPUs, while CoreTemp was originally made for the 65nm Intel CPUs.

RealTemp tells me i'm at 10 degrees lower across the board, than Coretemp.

 

[Zzoram]

RealTemp tells me i'm at 10 degrees lower across the board, than Coretemp.

Just set the TJMax to the official, and both programs should display the same temperature. Both temperatures calculate your CPU temperature based on how far from the TJMax the sensor says it is.

Intel®Core™2 Duo processor E8000 and E7000 series: 100°C
Intel®Core™2 Quad processor Q9000 and Q8000 series: 100°C
Intel®Core™2 Extreme processor QX9650: 95°C
Intel®Core™2 Extreme processor QX9770: 85°C

The worst thing about the 45nm chips is they all have AWFUL sensors that are highly variable. Nehalem will apparently have much better sensors.

 

[TheHeretic]

Just set the TJMax to the official, and both programs should display the same temperature. Both temperatures calculate your CPU temperature based on how far from the TJMax the sensor says it is.

Intel®Core™2 Duo processor E8000 and E7000 series: 100°C
Intel®Core™2 Quad processor Q9000 and Q8000 series: 100°C
Intel®Core™2 Extreme processor QX9650: 95°C
Intel®Core™2 Extreme processor QX9770: 85°C

I don't quite understand. Are the readings i'm getting now correct?

 

[Zzoram]

I don't quite understand. Are the readings i'm getting now correct?

It's probably close, but not exactly. The sensors measure distance from TJMax, and RealTemp and CoreTemp estimate what that translates to in degrees. However, it's not a linear model, and nobody really knows how it looks, so it's all guessing.

The only thing we are fairly confident in is the reading of distance from TJMax (which in itself can be off by up to 20). We want to stay far from TJMax, around 25-30 away from it or more at load is ideal. TJMax is the point where we cross from safe to breaking, as determined by Intel, and the safety features will force the CPU to throttle down (unless you disabled it in bios). Since the 45nm sensors vary by up to 20 in some cases, we want to stay more than 20 away from it to be sure we're below it.

Also, the sensors get more accurate the hotter the CPU gets, so the idle temperatures are more likely to be very wrong than the load temperatures. The sensors were not designed to show us idle temperatures, they were designed to save the CPU if it reaches the "too hot" point.

The newest versions of RealTemp and CoreTemp have the official TJMax values by default, the older versions were just guessing at the TJMax so are less accurate (unless you manually set it to the proper TJMax).

 

[captive]

Well I installed my new heatsink and fan, which was rather painful because the fan had to be put in AFTER the heatsink, and the bastard kept popping out as I was putting in the fan so i'd have to start all over again to reach the push in plugs. I appreciate how easy its supposed to be but a back plate would have worked much better.

Took me at least an hour. I took out the old thermal grease with methylated spirits and q-tips, the job the guys who built it for me did was pretty crappy. They obviously used the drop-in-middle method which leaves the sides completely barren.

I had this problem with my arctic freezer. Everytime i thought i had it it would pop out pretty easily.
It was rather annoying.

 

[TheHeretic]

So I was noticing a large discrepancy between cores, 8 degrees difference at times, and decided to reposition the HSF, which brought down the other two cores giving me another 8 degrees of head room. So now i'm at 1.45 volts and 3.5ghz, oh god, i'm addicted! :lol

Even during the prime95 torture test my cores aren't going above 42, its getting a little spooky, i'm starting to doubt what i'm seeing. It is a really cold night however.

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

I ran my overclocked cpu on Prime95 for 4 hours last night with no errors. Should I be ok?

 

[Nemo]

I can't seem to get anything other than stereo sound on my Z-5500. It's connected to my motherboard via optical. Mobo is GA-P45-something. Driver is ALC888. I've tried a lot of things but never seem to get surround, even in games. Everything is checked to either 5.1 system (in Windows) or 6CH in the driver settings.

Anyone can help me?

 

[Cheeto]

I can't seem to get anything other than stereo sound on my Z-5500. It's connected to my motherboard via optical. Mobo is GA-P45-something. Driver is ALC888. I've tried a lot of things but never seem to get surround, even in games. Everything is checked to either 5.1 system (in Windows) or 6CH in the driver settings.

Anyone can help me?

Does the driver's control panel have a speaker test?

 

[ahoyhoy]

I'm getting a lot of crashing in Warhammer online. I've only had the game for like 2 days and I've probably crashed to desktop around 4 times and received a full on computer restart (forcibly) about 3 times. My CPU cores read about 45-50 C and my GPU reads around 60-65 C when this happens, so I don't think it's any part of the computer overheating.

 

[Nemo]

Does the driver's control panel have a speaker test?

Yes, and every time I test anything in there it displays every speakers but only the left/right front speakers make any sound.

 

[lachesis]

I ran my overclocked cpu on Prime95 for 4 hours last night with no errors. Should I be ok?

Depends on who you ask - I've ran about 18 hours +, but I hear others don't do that much. Some sites suggest full 24 hour test. I've ran into problems after 4 hours before, so I tend to stick to at least overnight testing.

 

[VictimOfGrief]

What's wrong with modular PSU's?

Connections degrade over time.

The argument is that you don't keep'em long enough to experience that since you'd sell the box to someone on CL/Ebay and then pick up another one and go on the merry go round one more time.

Reason people pick up the Modular PSU's is the cable management is a bit easier.

I for one am old school and will stick to the one sheath to rule them all mentality.

Also as far as the above OC'ers, I really do suggest you leave it be for a while and test it to make sure it's stable for what you do before fiddling with it again.

I know the temptation is to say "just a little more.... just a little more..."

But then you run into the board not booting, have to do the CMOS reset and back to square one.

A good strategy is to keep the CPU Multiplier @ 8 or 8.5, FSB @ 400 and the FSB multi @ 2x and Vcore voltage below 1.4V on the initial overclock and then go from there.

 

[Cheeto]

Yes, and every time I test anything in there it displays every speakers but only the left/right front speakers make any sound.

I don't have any experience with that setup, but it sounds like the unit itself is converting anything sent to the surround channels to the appropriate stereo channel. Check out the manual/settings on this piece...

Also is the subwoofer working?

 

[brain_stew]

I ran my overclocked cpu on Prime95 for 4 hours last night with no errors. Should I be ok?

CPU or blend? You should really be doing 8 hours of short FFTs asa bare minimum in my opinion. Personally I find OCCT finds errors much, much quicker than Prime95, and is the program I'd recommend for stress testing.

 

[Chiggs]

Nothing, but he spent $350 on a PSU, more than his video card :lol

Hey, it was $299.99! And I've always thought the knock against modular PSU's was something of a myth. Besides, everything degrades over time.

 

[Nemo]

I don't have any experience with that setup, but it sounds like the unit itself is converting anything sent to the surround channels to the appropriate stereo channel. Check out the manual/settings on this piece...

Also is the subwoofer working?

Subs working.

I checked manual, and couldn't find anything. But I'm 99% sure this isn't the case. It should be handling whatever's thrown at it the way it's supposed to output. Never got any problems with PS3.

When testing surround, it does seem to output in surround. It just seems like the other speakers aren't connected. If you know what I mean.

 

[VictimOfGrief]

Hey, it was $299.99! And I've always thought the knock against modular PSU's was something as a myth. Besides, everything degrades over time.

Yes but the modular connections are based on a physical connection which will wear out. The non-modular PSU's directly tap the source and there's not as much chance of something wearing out.

Usually it boils down to preference and appearance as I stated above.

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

CPU or blend? You should really be doing 8 hours of short FFTs asa bare minimum in my opinion. Personally I find OCCT finds errors much, much quicker than Prime95, and is the program I'd recommend for stress testing.

I did blend. Ill check out OCCT for some more testing tonight. Thanks!

 

[brain_stew]

I did blend. Ill check out OCCT for some more testing tonight. Thanks!

That's not nearly enough then. So, yeah, give OCCT a fair few hours as well then.

 

[CTLance]

Would you guys kindly allow me to rant a bit? Thanks.

I just finished building a ~200€ (+OS) Office PC for my stepsister. Abit A-S78H, 1GB RAM, 160GB WD HDD, AMD 4450e, and a cheapo LG DVD writer. As cheap as it can get while remaining quiet, cool, and somewhat performant. I had to install XP instead of 2k due to ATis shitty driver situation... actually, this is where they pissed me off. I know it's been like that for a long time now, but since I unwillingly joined the NVidia army and none of my friends got an ATi card I didn't notice that they hadn't reverted to something usable again by now.

On a side note, I am really tempted to make me another one of those for home use. PC hardware is hella cheap these days.

Anyway, back to the driver situation.
Has ATis driver setup always sucked so much? Holy shit, they don't even include the .NET2 runtime, just pop up a messagebox ("You be needing .NET 2.x durr" - [OK] ) stating the requirement and regardless of .NET being installed or not proceed with the installation - including several steps where they actually invoke .NET executables to install the CCC. This, of course, doesn't work, so it pops up not one, not two, no, a whole barrage of cryptic error messageboxes. What the fuck. I know I shouldn't have trusted Abits shitty "Q-Installer", but please check if your runtime environment is installed before relying on it, and fail gracefully, you jackasses.

Oh god the CCC. What a load of bullcrap. The last time I seriously used an ATi card was in the days of the Radeon 8500, and I always remembered the clean and unobstrusive control panel with the incredibly well thought out and accessible features, e.g. Theater mode. One click, and any overlay would be zoomed to fullscreen on the second monitor. ONE FUCKING CLICK. After getting my 6600GT I always complained about how NVidia has a hopelessly convoluted setup, but I guess I'll have to shut up now. Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ on a popsicle stick, what a messy and resource-intensive interface. And for what? You can "skin" it, ooooh. That's just great.

On top of that the shitty installer included a WOW ad/installation - It simply drops a shortcut to a "Free WoW trial" on the desktop, no questions asked. What the flying fuck. And since when do I need to register my hardware at ATi anyway?

ARRRRGH. What a load of crap. I just needed to setup a simple SoHo machine. I did not want to battle a huge-ass driver full of bloatware that doesn't check for or install all needed runtimes. I do not want game installers copied to my HDD without my consent, and certainly not by a chipset/graphic card driver installer. What the fuck, Ati?


Whew, thanks for listening. I feel better now.


Btw, just so you guys don't think I've been duped, here are the steps I followed to get to the drivers:
Go to ati.amd.com -> Support and Drivers -> Choose "Download Graphics Drivers" -> Win XP -> Integrated/Motherboard -> Radeon HD 3200 -> Press "Go" -> get redirected to http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/integrated-xp -> download drivers.


Now back to fondling that cheapo PC.
Ooooh yes. I think I'm gonna underclock you and remove that noisy CPU fan. You like that don'tcha.

 

[Cheeto]

Subs working.

I checked manual, and couldn't find anything. But I'm 99% sure this isn't the case. It should be handling whatever's thrown at it the way it's supposed to output. Never got any problems with PS3.

When testing surround, it does seem to output in surround. It just seems like the other speakers aren't connected. If you know what I mean.

Hmm, I don't know then. Unless the drivers simply aren't working correctly, I still think the problem has to be with the Z's controller.

 

[lachesis]

Hey, it was $299.99! And I've always thought the knock against modular PSU's was something of a myth. Besides, everything degrades over time.

That's a damn fine PSU. I LOVE modular PSU. Mine's 520 HW from Corsair - albeit it was little bit more expensive, it's darn well worth it, I found - especially compared to the mess that I have on my 2nd build.