Official GIGABYTE Forum
Overclocking, Benching, Events, Tweaking & Modding => Overclocking motherboards with AMD processors => Topic started by: Cess on September 20, 2010, 08:55:52 pm
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Hi.
I've just built my first PC for the release of Final Fantasy XIV. I know the i7 is the preferred Core for gaming but I didn't want to spend the money so I bought the Thuban Black Edition with OCing in mind.
My setup:
Cooler Master HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Big-Tower
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, 3.2GHz, AM3, 6C/6T
Gigabyte 890FXA-UD7, AMD 890FX, AM3, CFX, XL-ATX
Corsair H70, all-in-one CPU Cooler
Corsair TW3X4G1333C9A, 2x2GB, DDR3-1333, CL9 @1.5V
Sapphire HD 5850 Vapor-X 1GB Gamescom Edition
Western Digital Caviar Blue, 7200rpm, 16MB, 500GB, SATA-II
Thermaltake Toughpower XT TPX-875M - 875 Watt
I know nothing about overclocking at all but on the advice of some people on the AMD board I started by setting the CPU multiplier to x20, I've been told this CPU can reliably go to 4.2 on air cooling only so I decided to crank it up t 4 to start off. Booted into Windows and started Prime7 with CPU-Z open. An hour later and nothing, CPU-Z had the multiplier and speed at stock.
Fair enough, there is probably something else I need to do that I don't know yet. Then Easy Tune 6 caught my eye. I opened it up and the help file and find that I seem to be missing some options on it, specifically something called C.I.A 2 and instead I have a button on the tuner tab called "Easy Boost," I try it an my PC ends up hanging after about an hour of being left in peace. Not sure where to go from there I try the Core Boost feature on ET6, reboot my PC and as soon as it loads W7 the fan on my Graphics Card revs and I get a black screen, have to power down and reset the bios.
I'm feeling a little shredded here I spend a lot of money putting this together and I seem to be failing drastically - can anyone offer any advice on how I should go on?
All help appreciated, thanks.
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Hi there,
OK first off I should say that overclocking is a bit of an art rather than an exact science. What works for one PC won't necessarily work on another one. That said, I have the 1090T and have had it running at 4.2 on air so I know it can be done and also, it wasn't that difficult to achieve.
I would recommend that you get rid of EasyTune6 from your system and also any of the Energy Saving software that you might have installed.
In BIOS under the M.I.T. section you need to disable the Core Performance Boost Option (if this is available) The Core performance boost is actually designed to shut down a couple of the cores on the CPU and boost the frequency of the others, so not useful when you are aiming for a stable Overclock. Under the heading Advanced BIOS Features Disable the AMD K8 Cool&Quiet control. All voltage settings can at this stage be left to AUTO. The only thing to keep an eye on is the RAM settings and make sure that you keep them to 1333MHz. That should be all the changes you really need to do in BIOS at the moment, apart from the actually tweaking of the CPU.
When you Adjust the CPU Clock Ratio don't jump straight from X16 to X20 as 3.2Ghz - 4.0GHz is a bit of a large leap when it comes to O/C'ing. Go up a little bit at a time and see how the system responds, (X17, X17.5, X18, X18.5, X19.... ) Also remember to check what temperatures you are getting, with the H70 Cooler that you have 4.0 GHz should be quite easy to obtain but O/C'ing will produce more heat.
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Thank you. I'll try that this evening a post how I get on - I really appreciate your feedback.
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By the way Cess, I forgot to warn you there is a ban in this forum on yodelling ;D
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He's not yodelling. He's screaming in frustration!!! :P
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Fair enough then. No ban on that ;)
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Ha - funny ppls! I'm actually Scottish, I moved to Switzerland 3 years ago!
OK, next set of questions. I disabled the Turbo and Cool & Quiet and uninstalled ET6 and the Energy Saving software and turned the clock up to 16.5 (3.7). All seems well so I began a stress test and literally within a minute I had a flame icon appear beside Temp 3 while running speed fan.
(http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f181/AnansiBoy/Capture.png)
I don't really know what temp 3 is, or why Fan 1-3 is at 0 then it shows fan 1-5. Halp!
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Hi Cess,
To be honest I don't use SpeedFan so I'm not sure what Temp 3 is referring to. For CPU temperature monitoring I tend to use CoreTemp which is pretty good. I also use AMD overdrive when doing any testing as this shows individual core temps and also provides good info with regard to voltages etc. but, as with all monitoring software it does have a couple of glitches that can be a little annoying especially when you see something like TMPIN4 @ -294.7 °C.
With the CPU the thing to bear in mind is that the Max temp is 62°C although you can go above that briefly without too much worry. It is the Core Temp that is the main concern on the Phenom and as long as that doesn't go above the 62°C then you are pretty safe. From the picture you have posted the Core is being shown as 34°C which is well within the thermal threshold.
If you find that temps are increasing too much then you will need to start setting the CPU and other voltages manually as this is the probable cause.
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TMPIN4 @ -294.7 °C.
I would be really interested in how you managed that temperature....especially on air? 8) 8) 8)
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That's my little secret! ;)
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Hey, you should be over in the overclocking championships. You would win easy. ;)
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I would but getting those kind of frosty temperatures is really not a BIG secret.........
Have you met my mother-in-law? ??? ???
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Is that what is termed a THIRD PARTY COOLER :o
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Yes! ;)
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I don't really know what temp 3 is, or why Fan 1-3 is at 0 then it shows fan 1-5. Halp!
Temp3 is most likely your motherboard's northbridge. That is, if you have a sensor for it. I don't and it shows 78-82 degrees all the time ;D. I don't really get why it shows up as a flame as it doesn't seem that extreme a temperature to me.
The fan info is normal. It's the same way in my case. Just ignore the first 3 fans. In my case Fan1 ( the one with a speed ) is processor fan and the next 2 are system fans.
I'm actually more worried about your CPU voltage. AMD specification says 1.40v max but I have no idea how that translates to real reasonable max. Still, I think you must be pretty close to the limit of what's considered safe. I know that for Phenom II's with less cores the reasonable max seems to be 1.5v.
abisc115, you probably know more about this processor than me so go ahead ;D.
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1.475V was the stock voltage after 'Loading Optimised Defaults' in the BIOS. Should I be concerned now?
I've OC'd to 3.7Ghz and run a stress test, the CPU temp topped out at 40 degrees.
(http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f181/AnansiBoy/StressTest.png)
Getting a little excited about this now. :D
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From memory 1.5v is safe for the Phenom(I am sure absic will confirm) and the temperatures look good. I think you can start smiling. ;)
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Ahhh, man, I just noticed I misspelled absic's nick :-[ . Sorry!
1.475V was the stock voltage after 'Loading Optimised Defaults' in the BIOS. Should I be concerned now?
Didn't mean to scare you. Just a word of caution so that you wouldn't go overboard by accident.
I've OC'd to 3.7Ghz and run a stress test, the CPU temp topped out at 40 degrees.
Getting a little excited about this now. :D
That's how it starts... Then you get sucked in more and more ;D! Me, I got the stupid idea that I needed a better CPU cooler and that sent me on my overclocking way ;). It just felt like such a waste to not make the most of the cooler :P
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That's the way it always starts. One small computer and before you know it you have a server farm and are linked directly to the National Grid. ;D
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Ahhh, man, I just noticed I misspelled absic's nick :-[ . Sorry!
Hey, I've been called plenty of things and most of them aren't repeatable on a family forum! :D
1.475V was the stock voltage after 'Loading Optimised Defaults' in the BIOS. Should I be concerned now?
No. You're OK and you don't need to worry until you are pushing 1.5+.
I've OC'd to 3.7Ghz and run a stress test, the CPU temp topped out at 40 degrees.
Getting a little excited about this now
Wait until you hit 4.2 or higher, that's when the adrenaline really starts pumping. Can you push it a little more??? What happens if you go for 4.3 ??? ???
Welcome to to the club! ;D
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OK, I got 3.8 no problem, but as soon as I go to 3.9 the PC crashes at the W7 animated logo on boot. Should I try raising the voltage up .025 to 1.5V? Is 1.5 ok for this board? Also, I have the 6 core BE, should I enable CPU unlock in the BIOS (default is disabled)?
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You should be fine to up the core voltage to 1.5V but I wouldn't go beyond that. As for the cores I am really not sure so I should wait for absics advice but it does sound right.
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Hi Cess,
As I mentioned earlier you should be OK going to 1.5V and yes, it might help you get over the 3.9 threshold.
You really shouldn't need to unlock the cores on the CPU, unless you think there is a problem with one of them and want to disable it. You should be able to get the 1090T firing on all 6 cores though, so I wouldn't do this at such an early stage of overclocking.
Up until now, if you have followed the steps that I have suggested, all of the main settings in BIOS are still on AUTO, so a couple of things to think about as you start to fine tune other settings. The more voltage you pass through the various components the hotter things become. Also, the more overclocking you do to a component the shorter its life can become. I know that you understand this already, but it is always worth repeating.
If you are lucky, increasing the voltage to the CPU will get your CPU further up towards your target but it's important to note that other items can also have a bearing on attaining the heady heights of 4.0+ GHz. This is where it becomes harder to offer firm advice, as each motherboard/CPU/RAM combination will need slightly different settings. For example, on my GA-790XTA-UD4 Mobo with the same model CPU and 8 Gb of RAM I got to 4.2 GHz without having to make any major adjustments to voltages or timings, you can't get past 3.8GHz before you're having to make these.
However, if the voltage increase doesn't improve stability and the system still locks then you will need to start looking at possibly increasing the CPU NB VID Control also the CPU Northbridge Freq. You only need to make fine adjustments for them to have a big impact so don't be tempted to whack things up. Also make sure that you keep a very close eye on your RAM Speed if you make adjustments to the CPU North Bridge freq, as this will increase the speed of your RAM. I know your RAM is rated at 1600 MHz so I think you should be able to let it go up towards the 1500 MHz before having any real concerns but, it will be a bit of a balancing act to get everything fine tuned and running happily.
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Cool, I really apprecite all the advice. I'll do some more tweaking this evening.
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Once you have played with your CPU I'd strongly suggest getting K10Stat or PhenomMsrTweaker. They're great tools that allow you to expand on the idea of Cool'n'Quiet. Basically, you can have your processor changing voltages and frequency depending on load ( though I lock it at my max. setting for games, etc. ). It's great, because:
1) Less heat produced when idling;
2) Better power consumption;
3) Possibly longer life of the CPU as it's not running at high voltages all the time.
I'll just say that when my CPU is at 800Mhz my CPU fan is at ~250RPM ( controlled by bios ). Within 30min of turning the PC on it actually shut downs every now and then ( the fan, I mean ). Take note that it's not a stock cooler.
In the end, it's also just fun to play with it :P. Myself, I've been lucky as I found some voltage/frequency settings for my processor on the net so I just had to tweak them a little to reach stability.
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Thanks to Cess for starting this thread and asking all the right questions 8)
Having read this thread confirms my suspicions about EasyTune: it is a tool not fit for purpose. It does not come with any documentation or specification, and the Help file is a joke. I have tried using it a few times, and the only thing Easy Tune is guaranteed to do is crash your PC without leaving any log record. There seems to have been very little thought gone into this software. I will unistall my version of EasyTune and give AMD's overdrive (http://game.amd.com/it-it/drivers_overdrive.aspx) a test trial to see if it works any better.
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To be perfectly honest most of these FREE programs that come bundled with motherboards and the like are not up to much and if they work at all then that is a bonus in my eyes. I would always recommend steering clear of them and use a reputable program that is designed for the job.