X2 4400 first time overclock - help!

[sanjeevdas]

Hi all,

After all the excellent dicussion and guides on this forum I decided to oc my machine:

AMD 64 X2 4400+
ASUS AN832-SLI DELUXE
2x1GB Corsair Value Select

Here is what I did: FSB 240, CPU multiplier 11, mem divider 183 Mhz. Initially tried a 166Mhz divider, but CPU-Z reported memory running at 188 Mhz (why, shouldn't it have been 199.2? ). So upped it to 183 Mhz and now mem running at 203 Mhz. Left vcore at 1.40V but CPU-Z reports 1.424 (does the MB up the voltage itself?).

Ran memtest86 for about an hour an fifteen minutes. No errors (two passes).
Temps seems a little high, 46C idle, 57C load.

My temps seem high. I am using the stock HSF and have a 120 mm fan blowing out from the rear. I am thinking of adding an additional fan at the front to blow into the case, Should I also try another HSF? I am thinking of getting the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro.

Here is an image:

Image

Ran dual prime 95. One core failed after 18 hours 40 minutes:
FATAL ERROR: Resulting sum was -2291087359456988, expected: 3922630830389536
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.

What should I try now? Is it my memory. is my temps too high? Any help would be much appreciated.

thanks.

 

[Hacp]

Increase voltage. Maybe something like 1.42-1.43 in the mobo? 240x11 is 2640 IIRC, so that should at least need a voltage bump. As for temps, they are pretty normal.

I had to go to 1.45 to get 2.64 on my 4200+.

 

[sanjeevdas]

CPU-Z already reports 1.424. So I should increase it in the mobo as well?

 

[sanjeevdas]

I increased vcore to 1.425 on the mobo and eased off on the FSB a little. Right now it is at 237. Running dual prime 95 now.

Guys, any other advice? How high dare I go on vcore?

thanks a lot.

 

[aggressor]

I've heard for air cooling, you should really stay around 1.45-1.5v. These dual core cpus get pretty hot.

 

[sanjeevdas]

Thanks aggressor. It did run for 18 hr and 40 minutes last time, we'll see how it goes this time.

BTW, the OC guide by zebo should be sticky.

 

[TrevorRC]

Under air, keep the voltage under 1.45; anything else and the chips will hit over 60C.

Also, how hot are your PWMICs?

Finally, backing off a few Mhz (Literally 1-2HTT) will bring it into complete stability. Is it worth pumping an extra 8-16Watts into your chip and adding ~10Cs to the idle and load temps for 10Mhz/20Mhz?

 

[sanjeevdas]

TrevorRC,
Uhhh sorry...what are PWMICS?

I did back off on the HTT. Instead of 240 Mhz it is running at 237 Mhz now. Has been running dual prime 95 for 12 hours now. Also added a front fan and the loads temps are now 51C.But today is a slightly cold day in northern California...

No, you are completely right, I'd rather go for stabilty than speed. I am perfectly willing to go for 230x11 if thats what it takes.

 

[Markbnj]

I'm running mine at 250 x 10, and I needed 1.475vCore to get it stable.

Under air, keep the voltage under 1.45; anything else and the chips will hit over 60C.

Sorry, but statements like this are too broad. I have mine on air, Zalman cu7700 series, and the chip idles at 32-34c and loads to high forties at 1.475.

Of course, I modded the side panel to put a 120mm blowing right on the Zalman, but the point is that "on air" doesn't mean anything relevant. What kind of fans and how many? How much airflow? What is the ambient temperature?

 

[sanjeevdas]

In my case I am using two 120 mm fans. One blowing out from the rear top and another blowing in from the front bottom. Both are rated at 53 CFM:

http://www.vantec.com.tw/_en/01_product...erview.php?mainid=1&fid=9&sid=23&id=91

I am using the stock HSF and right now it idles at around 40C. Ambient temperature right now should be around 15C but on a warm summer day could be 25-30C.

 

[Markbnj]

40c idle is maybe a wee bit above optimum, but nothing I would freak out over. Unless it is hitting 60+c when playing games it's probably not worth sweating about, although nearly all of us here do sweat about it anyway .

I had 40+c idle temps when I first oc'd with the stock HSF. It's a pretty good HSF for stock, I think, and I would feel comfortable leaving it idling at 40c. You'll get better performance and less noise from a better cooler with a larger fan, not to mention some small improvement from replacing the stock thermal pad with some arctic silver TIM. Lots of good threads on this topic in the Cases and Cooling forum.

 

[MBrown]

Doesn't 12 hours of prime means its stable? I think 18 and a half hours of prime is more than stable.

 

[sanjeevdas]

Thanks to everyone who replied. After reducing the HTT to 237 and the increasing vcore to 1.425 an adding another 120 mm to the front, dual prime 95 ran for 24 hrs and 9 minutes without any warnings or errors.

My temps right now are 41C idle and 52C at load.

I guess my next steps would to to either get a better HSF and AS TIM, or reduce the HTT a little lower to drive down the temps.

 

[themusgrat]

12 hrs. is almost stable, the farther you get, the less bumps in voltage you need to be truly stable. I would call it a day, if I did 18 hrs. Not that I do more than 12 hrs. BF2 calls. 24 hrs. is as good as you need. Temps are fine. Welcome to the forums.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: sanjeevdas
Here is what I did: FSB 240, CPU multiplier 11, mem divider 183 Mhz. Initially tried a 166Mhz divider, but CPU-Z reported memory running at 188 Mhz (why, shouldn't it have been 199.2? ). So upped it to 183 Mhz and now mem running at 203 Mhz. Left vcore at 1.40V but CPU-Z reports 1.424 (does the MB up the voltage itself?).

OK, first off, memory clock is derived from the cpu clock speed and the memory divider can only be a whole number (and is always rounded up) so your motherboard takes your CPU clock and divides it by 14 (which would give you a 157MHz mem clock at stock) because it is the closest it can get to 166MHz without going over it.

Secondly, have you updated your bios? Your temperature may just be being misreported and, I've found, newer Bios revisions are normally more accurate (though some actually mess up temperatures). It could also be that you didn't install the heatsink correctly, though since the stock heatsink is pretty straight-forward to install I doubt this.

Ok, now, let's look at your problem. Have you tried increasing the memory voltage or just running at 188MHz? The penalty from having a lower mem clock is not big (you could even try increasing the HT a bit, in order to make it be nearer to 200) and if it gains you stability it's certainly a small price to pay. Running memtest for 1.25 hours is hardly enough considering that sometimes problems happen many hours into it. Also, try touching the heatsink's heatpipes to see if it actually warms up significantly.

 

[sanjeevdas]

Furen,
Mem Divider is now at 183Mhz. CPU-Z reports FSBRAM at CPU/13=200.6Mhz. I guess that is ok for now.

Nope, I haven't updated the bios, next on my list. Thanks for the tip.

Given that it is prime stable to more than 24 hrs now, and memory at 200.3, how long should I run memtest86?

 

[sanjeevdas]

themusgrat,
Thanks a lot. Appreciated!