My overclocking experience with GA-790XTA-UD4 and Phenom II X4 B55

[bytheway_r]

First, a short story for you guys:

This is the first board that I had to check the manual for where the clear-CMOS pins are. Want to guess? They're just under the graphic's card so once it's mounted you'll never see them. To clear CMOS you have to get on your knees, get some light, bend  so that you're looking from the ground up and hopefully you'll be able to see the pins then. That is, as long as your card isn't all that huge. To make it all more amusing, the battery is also in the very same place. To replace it, you'll have to actually take out your graphic's card.

I'd love to get some Gigabyte tech guy to overclock on this board with me watching. I'm not even going to start on how bothersome it was to clear CMOS.

Anyway, I'll try to keep this short.

Unlocking cores and reaching 3.8Ghz wasn't a problem at all. It was only a matter of raising the multi to 19x and adding a modest 0.250v to the stock value. CPU-NB overclocked just fine reaching 2.6Ghz with 0.5v. Now trying to get anything more out of it turned out to be more of a problem. I've tried both the FSB and multi but anything 4Ghz+ failed to pass stability tests right away. That is, with CPU volts not exceeding 1.5v. The highest clock I've reached was 3.99Ghz test stable @1.475v. Maybe it'd have been stable at slightly lower values, too but it wasn't worth it for me to get the additional Mhz. I've checked with 1.4375v and it crashed completely straight away.

After a lot of playing around I've ended with test stable ( I'll be checking it more thoroughly later ):



Set volts would be:

CPU: 1.425v
CPU-NB: 1.250v
RAM: 1.7250v

Everything else left stock.

Trying to get anything more out of this chip requires substantial increases in CPU volts and either adding volts to CPU-NB and RAM or downclocking them below what I get with this setup.

Now, there are things I'm not quite happy with:

1. For some reason after changing things in bios my keyboard doesn't work till system load. It's a wireless set from Logitech. I have USB keyboard support enabled and mouse support disabled in bios. As you can guess, this caused me a lot of grief when overclocking as I had to clear CMOS a whole lot. Problem is - I have no idea why this is happening.

2. Real vdimm is higher than set. Not so much as with my previous board but it's mostly 1.73v ( this I can accept ) without load and mostly 1.74v under load.

Other than that, failure to power up still happens every now and then. Not often, though. As it is, I'm guessing it must be the socket in the wall so not a whole lot I can do about it.

Ah, right. I know I'm exceeding 1333Mhz on the RAM but I really doubt that running it at 1360Mhz is going to damage anything .

[Dark Mantis]

This is the first board that I had to check the manual for where the clear-CMOS pins are. Want to guess? They're just under the graphic's card so once it's mounted you'll never see them. To clear CMOS you have to get on your knees, get some light, bend  so that you're looking from the ground up and hopefully you'll be able to see the pins then. That is, as long as your card isn't all that huge. To make it all more amusing, the battery is also in the very same place. To replace it, you'll have to actually take out your graphic's card.

Bloody clever these Taiwanese!

What Logitech keyboard is it that you are using? I have the wireless MK700 and that seems to work ok in the BIOS even though it is on an Intel board.

[bytheway_r]

I have this one: http://www.logitech.com/en-gb/keyboards/keyboard-mice-combos/devices/3072

One thing I forgot to add is that, depending on my PC's mood, I sometimes can get into bios setup. Then I have to switch the power off as I'm stuck in bios main menu . Actually, I'm still observing this curious phenomenon so I may add something more later on.

Bloody clever these Taiwanese!

I think they probably did that on purpose. You know, to discourage those idiots who want to play with BIOS settings . Now that I think about it, it's probably the same with this keyboard problem!

[Dark Mantis]

I think they probably did that on purpose. You know, to discourage those idiots who want to play with BIOS settings . Now that I think about it, it's probably the same with this keyboard problem!

Don't worry they've got it all covered! Wait until you get into the BIOS.....you think you have got problems now

Try using a PS2 keyboard instead of the wireless one for the BIOS work.

[bytheway_r]

Try using a PS2 keyboard instead of the wireless one for the BIOS work.

I'll have to find one first . I think there should be one back home, stashed somewhere .

[Dark Mantis]

You will just have to rummage in the deepest, darkest, depths of the store cupboard!

[bytheway_r]

Ok, it's official now - I'm an idiot .

Just now I noticed that for some reason K10Stat got screwed up when i increased stock CPU volts. For the moment I set it to 1.4125v and it's still displaying 1.440v in CPU-Z. Seems to be the sweet spot, though as it scored best in IntelBurn Test ( compared to one step higher or lower volts ).

[Dark Mantis]

So is everything working alright now?

I'm glad it's not just me that makes silly mistakes

[bytheway_r]

If by "everything" you mean my overclock, then sure . Keyboard's still the same.

[Dark Mantis]

With the keyboard have you tried different ports ?

[bytheway_r]

You mean serial ports? I don't really know a lot about bios settings. Anyway, if that's what you mean - yes.

At the moment I'm starting to think that maybe it's caused by hybrid firmware needed for core unlocking . Beats me why it worked fine on last mobo, though.

This is slowly killing me as I have to clear CMOS every time I tinker with my overclock . I'm trying to figure out if I'll be able to get 3.9Ghz with 1.4375v . Tried 3.99Ghz with 1.450v and it BSOD during Windows start up. Seems like I've reached the limit of what's reasonably achievable with this chip. I mean, I know it can run through 20 Intel Burn Test loops at 3.99Ghz and 1.475v but that's asking a lot for a ~100Mhz gain.

[Dark Mantis]

You mean serial ports? I don't really know a lot about bios settings. Anyway, if that's what you mean - yes.

No not seriel ports I meant have you tried swapping the keyboard receiver into another USB port?

[bytheway_r]

Yeah, tried that, too. I'll try to figure out what in bios is causing this later today or after New Year. Generally, my plans for the next 2 weeks just got all twisted. I've had some unlucky day from the morning onwards and so far the worst thing that has happened was damaging my car ( it'd be illegal to drive it now ). I really hope that was the pinnacle of the day.

[Dark Mantis]

Oh, bad news mate. Some days you just wish you never got up in the morning. Well I hope things get better for you.

[bytheway_r]

Yeah, indeed. Sometimes everything seems to work against you.

Seems like my bad luck ran out, though. I've played a bit with bios and figured out this keyboard problem. I'm starting to believe that someone really didn't want any overclocking on this board. Keyboard works fine until you set CPU / CPU-NB multi higher than stock. It can be changed from "auto" to "manual" but once you move the multi it'll disable your keyboard. Now I wish K10Stat could overclock the CPU-NB, too .

I've added 1Mhz to FSB and now my CPU's at 3.895Ghz with 1.450v. I'm guessing about volts as in K10Stat it's set to 1.435 but there's no such value availble in bios and CPU-Z reports same voltage as with 1.45v set. Anything over that BSOD under stress, so I'd have to either add volts to CPU or CPU-NB or RAM to stabilize it. Not worth it in my opinion.

Anyway, I think I'll write to runn3R about some bios fix for this keyboard issue. I'm pretty sure this can only be a software problem on Gigabyte's side. I'm not going to try Support as I just know they wouldn't have a clue.