ASUS 650i Overclocking

[idiotekniQues]

download orthos and run it and check your temps after its been runnin for a few minutes. while its running open your case, ground yourself and touch the northbridge heatsink. if you cant hold your fingers to it for more than 10 seconds cause it is that hot, that is a problem.

 

[akaliel2]

Okay, I ran othors for 10 minutes, my CPU temp peaked at 47C and never went any higher. My MB temp peaked at 34C. I took my case side off as it was still running and touched the NB heatsink. It was warm, but not hot. I'd estimate it was about 50C, tops, maybe lower. But it wasn't hot enough that I needed to take my hand away. If my morning coffee was as hot as that heatsink, I could gulp it no problem. I wish I had a program that coud tell me the exact temp. I also had my hand a wee bit too close to the CPU fan. It scraped me pretty good. Ouch!

What do u guys think?

My 3DMark score finally broke 10,000 (10,150 to be exact). Hurray!

 

[idiotekniQues]

it sounds ok temp wise for me. i would run orthos a bit longer and make sure when you put your hand in there. you cant find the NB temp as far as i know without putting a sensor on it yourself.

those cpu temps are excellent under load, is it cool in your house or is it just that super airy case. usually if i run orthos for 10 minutes the temp wont increase in 3 hours by more than 1 degree.

what cooling solution did you put on your cpu?

 

[akaliel2]

Just stock cooling for the CPU. My basement is pretty cool and the Antec Nine Hundred case has great cooling.

Okay. New problem. I turned off the PC, without incident, then i attached a small 80mm fan that points directly at the NB. I plugged it in and turned on the PC.

I powered up, but doesn't post. My monitor is constantly in power saver mode. When it did this before, whenever I tried 1600FSB when I hit reset, it would boot to an error message allowing me to enter the BIOS. But this time, nothing. What do I do!!!! HELP!!!

 

[akaliel2]

I got it to reboot. I unplugged the PSU from the wall and just let it sit for a while. Then rebooted and at least got the normal error for overclocking too much. I set if back to 1333FSB and I think I'll just stay there, I only got a 5% boost in 3DMark from going to 1600 from 1333 anyway.

Well, off to play Oblivion now.

BTW I set the NB voltage back down to 1.39 and the Vcore is 1.45.

 

[akaliel]

I noticed that when I finally got into my BIOS that my Vcore was set back to Auto. It was like it forgot what the Vcore setting was and reset it.

 

[idiotekniQues]

dont keep it on auto.

im not sure why you only seem to want to goto 1333 or 1600 or maybe that is all you type here.

why not go in between? a nice easy OC at 1500 and 750ram is still below your ram specs, this board's easy range and will surely be stable and run cool.

dont expect crazy gains in 3dmark, but it will speed up other more cpu intensive applications.

 

[akaliel]

I didn't keep it on Auto, I set it back to 1.45v. I don't know why it went back to Auto in the first place but my guess is that when I rebooted, the Vcore voltage spiked and scared my board stiff. So it reduced the Vcore, however with the FSB set to 1600, it couldn't provide enough power to boot.

If I persisted I could probably find a good balance to get 1600 running. Like I said previously, it was running stable while the PC was on, it wasn't too hot and didn't encounter any problems with my stress tests. It was just when I rebooted that it zonked out.

It was a close call, I was "this" close to doing a CMOS reset. I'm not going to try for 1600 again. I don't think I'll even try for 1500. This last scare was enough to get me to stop. I'm done trying to push this board. For whatever reason it wouldn't even boot with 1600 unless I put 1.56v into the NB, which was a little too high than I was comfortable with.

I guess I got a wimpy board. I envy you who can get 3.2ghz from 1.375v on the Vcore and 1.39 on the NB. Mine won't even post with those settings. Perhaps in a couple months (or years) when ASUS gives us a new BIOS they were tighten up these issues, and I'll make another attempt.

Or I'll just wait until next winter when I get my Xmas bonus and just buy a Quad Core

 

[idiotekniQues]

i hear ya.

best to do what you are comfortable with.

i am more of a cautious overclocker than a hardcore oc'er myself. i dont build lots of rigs or do it too often so i am no pro at this. i just read a lot and decide how far i want to go.

i dont want to stress my stuff too much above spec. but i do think you have plenty of leeway within the very safe realm of tweaking timings/voltages/fsb etc.

good luck with your new rig either way you go.

 

[akaliel]

I couldn't resist. I just had to try and push more. I changed the FSB to 1500 and rebooted. It loaded into Vista just fine and ran stable. I ran orthos for 30 minutes, no problems. CPU temp never rose above 44C, MB temp was at 34C. Ran stable for the rest of the evening. I even tested rebooting, to see if the previous problem would reoccur, it didn't.

Looks like I got a stable 1500FSB, yah!

 

[mantras]

Glad you got some stability. I have the same cpu and motherboard and thought I'd share my settings as I'm trying to push to the next level as well.

I'm stable at oc to 3 ghz with orthos stability test over 12 hours. I have vcore at 1.33125V, ram at 2.013V and NB core at 1.393V.

For the last 2 days I've been trying to get stable at the 3.2ghz mark and coming close. Actually stress testing now while at work so we'll see when I get home
Current test setting at 1.33125, 2.085, 1.563. For some reason I can't get windows to fully load when below the NB core voltage at 1.563 when CPU at 3.2ghz. Doesn't matter what I set the cpu voltage or memory too...so still trying to see if that's a safe temp for the North Bridge. It's been hard researching the safe voltage setting for it

 

[akaliel]

That sounds exactly like what I experienced. Windows would lock up half way through the load if I tried the NB voltage any lower than 1.56. I did get it to boot and run stable. It wasn't until I was satisfied and rebooted that I experienced problems. It wouldn't reboot. It didn't even post for half an hour. Very scary. 3.0Ghz is enough, I think. Only 200 3dMarks difference. Not much.

I might lower my Vcore though. I'm running it at 1.45v which is probably a little high. I'll try 1.35 tonight, and if that runs stable I'll leave it.

 

[mantras]

oh I just saw you are running vista. I'm still on XP pro so I wonder how much differnce the vcore will need to be if any. I may put vista beta 2 back on my machine to test or I'll wait till my Vista Business copy comes in the mail.

 

[akaliel]

Ya, it might need more volts. Not too sure. My brother has TechNet Plus, which his work pays for. He gave me one of his 10 licenses of Vista Ultimate.

 

[mantras]

Yeah keep us updated. Also test from a cold boot. I was able to reboot fine at a certain Vcore setting but once I turned off the computer and restarted the next day the Vcore needed one more level up to get the machine up and running.

 

[akaliel]

Heh, I'm WAY ahead of you, well a couple hours ahead, anyway. I tested a cold boot this morning before heading off to work. Nearly had a heart attack when I noticed my monitor not responding. Took me a minute to remember that it was set to analog input b/c my wife was using the old PC (which uses the analog input) to do her emailing last night. I switched to digital and windows was already on the screen. WHEW!!!!

Almost had to call in sick!

For 3.2Ghz I had the Vcore at 1.45 and it wouldn't load from a cold boot. You may have to try 1.5. Which was a little too high for me, the way voltages jump around sometimes.