Need help pushing Opteron 146 > 3Ghz

Ok, I've hit a bit of brick wall as far as my overclock is concerned.

I've had it running at 280 x 10 for about a month and everything is fine, no crashes or oddities, Counterstrike Source runs lovely and all is well except for Prime 95 which either on a blend test or small ffts will halt within a minute, SuperPI calculations are fine. The last prime stable is about 275 x 10 at 1.425 volts and about 51C under load.

I'd like to achieve the 3Ghz mark and also have my system Prime stable if possible so I can do folding.

As far as my system is concerned, during testing with my cpu to find the max fsb on a low multi, it will hit 320mhz and then anything above that and the machine gets just past the Bios screen and then reboots, regardless of the voltage. That was at 320 x 6 at 1.4 volts. Increasing the volts made no difference.

The ram is fine and is rated to 300mhz and the system was run at 310 x 9 for quite a while until I saw that it was better to not have the ram on a divider and also to try and use the higher cpu multi for better performance. This is how I arrived at the 280 x 10. I've tested my DDR 520 ram timings under mem test for a couple of hours (but not for the full 8 yet) and everything was fine with test 5.

290 x 10 at every voltage from 1.3 to to 1.6 booted into Windows but prime halted within seconds of it starting. At 1.6 volts I noticed the cpu was at 54C and not under full load so I daredn't go any further.

To be honest I'm stuck. I've seen loads of people hitting 3Ghz on air and I am hoping that my system should be good enough to hit that, I don't know what I can do to get it past where it is at the moment.

If there are any screen shots I can post which will help then please let me know and I can post them.

:D PPL should know not every Opty 146 doin' 3GHz...........:stick: - have one doin' 3.1, another one 3.2 but two I have tested with 2.88 and 2.95 max. 32M stable.

So U need a little luck to catch a 3GHz chip.........;)

:toast:

Raise LDT volts for fsb above 320Mhz and you should be ok with booting.

GL hitting 3Ghz Prime stable, cause it aint easy.

I agree not all opties wil do 3ghz but the cabye 0540 is a very good stepping in general and i have not seen many not doin 3Ghz on proper aircooling. I do not have any TCCD mem but with me UTT and BH5 a weak drive strength (3 in me case) and data drive 1 helped a lot for high HTT stability. 54 degrees idle under a big typhoon sounds a bit high to me, are you sure contact/the mount is ok?

I agree, from what I've read the the stepping I have isn't a bad one and should be able to achive 3Ghz without too much hassle I spent the extra cash on the Big Typhoon as at the time people were saying it was the best air cooling solution you could get without going to water.

The 54C was under partial load at 1.6 volts and as I mentioned, I bricked it so I dropped it back down :D I've reseated the cooler twice, the first time I don't think it was on tight enough and so there wasn't a great connection between the cpu and the cooler, I could do it again but its a bit of a pain and it is on fairly secure this time and I used AS5.

I'll have a quick search and see if I can find suitable voltage for the LDT unless anyone can make any recommendations. I'm also a bit unsure as to what safe temps are for chipset, I seem to remember a while ago that if it was creeping into the late 50's then it was advised to go for a better cooler. Mine used to be in the early 50's reguarly so used some AS5 with the stock cooler and that knocked about 5C off.

Attached is a screen shot if that helps provide you with a bit more info.

http://www.ap0ll0uk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/ss.jpg

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Originally Posted by v0dka

GL hitting 3Ghz Prime stable, cause it aint easy.

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In theory, what do you think the hardest part of getting an Opteron 146 stable at 3Ghz is?

my Opti had some serious issues with temps which hampered OCs....previous owner reckons there was a 23C drop in temps once he popped the IHS off for his phase setup....

it's prime stable at 3.1GHz now on air :)................so i would pop the IHS and reap the benefits :toast:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/2...12hours4hu.jpg

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Originally Posted by dinos22

my Opti had some serious issues with temps which hampered OCs....previous owner reckons there was a 23C drop in temps once he popped the IHS off for his phase setup....

it's prime stable at 3.1GHz now on air :)................so i would pop the IHS and reap the benefits :toast:

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I'm a little scared about doing it because a) I don't want to damage the chip removing the IHS and b) How my Big Typhoon is then going to be remounted and how the chip will cope.

Also, I noticed you got an x11 multi on that 146, how did that happen? lol

AP0ll0UK
Your RAM. Use a divider

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Originally Posted by AP0ll0UK

I'm a little scared about doing it because a) I don't want to damage the chip removing the IHS and b) How my Big Typhoon is then going to be remounted and how the chip will cope.

Also, I noticed you got an x11 multi on that 146, how did that happen? lol

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i overclocked the multi :D

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Originally Posted by dinos22

i overclocked the multi :D

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lol is 11 the max? or is it unlocked?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tHe_jOkeR

lol is 11 the max? or is it unlocked?

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http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=88876

Ok, a couple of things.

Using a divider: should I push the fsb as high as I can get it on say a x9 multi and have the ram on a 1/2 divider whilst I'm playing around and then try and get it on about 180?

With regards to overclocking or unlocking your multi, how did you do it? I saw a very large thread somewhere recently which involved some messing around electronics, is that what your referring to?

[EDIT]
Ah, just seen your post, I thought I'd seen your "We're going to Germany" image somewhere else on here,. Having the x11 multi will help a lot in you getting to 3.1 then :D

nah i was joking.....it just unlocked on its own....donno how.....wish i knew how dude

with divider and stuff make sure you know the limits of your RAM in case it is hampering your OCing

or if you can't be bothered just drop to lowest divider and go crazy on the CPU MHz first

I'm dropped the multi right down to 1/2 and the cpu multi to about 6 and I could boot into Windows at up to 375 at 1.4v and it primed for 7 minutes lol :(

If at that stage it won't prime with such a low mem divider and cpu multi then surely that means that is around the ceiling of the cpu, but dropping it down back to around 330 is the same.

I've got a feeling I'm going round in circles and might just start again from scratch. To be honest I'd rather not remove the IHS until I know that temps are limiting my overclock. What seems to be the main problem at the moment is getting the system stable above 275 fsb which is the last prime that was stable for a few hours.

so keep the divider at 1/2 and multi at 10x and see how far you can go ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dinos22

so keep the divider at 1/2 and multi at 10x and see how far you can go ;)

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Had a play around some more. Upped the divider from the 1/2 to 133 as my system wouldnt boot up on 1/2, it would hit the windows logo and then reboot, 133 divider was fine though. Dropping the ram volts from 2.6 to 2.5 on the 1/2 divider would get it into Windows but it ran horribly slow so I tested with the 133 divider.

Even with such a low divider, Prime would halt testing small ffts within a few seconds. SuperPI on a 1MB test would run through fine. Upped the volts from 1.425 to 1.5 but it made no difference. Tried upping LDT volts from 1.2 to 1.4 but that didnt help either. Upped the fsb to 290 and prime was the same and SuperPI then started to crach within seconds.

Temps seem about the same as what they are now, idling between 39C and 41C.

Have I really hit the limit of my cpu or is there anything else I can try?

-:[Bump]:-

-:[Bump]:-

My opty does 2.95Ghz with 1.57v on DFI Expert Prime Stable.

It passes Super PI32MB at 1.55v at 3Ghz but fails prime. Ive up'd the Vcore
wo 1.67v and it fails prime at 3Ghz after 3Hrs.

I know the IHS is bad contact cos temps are higher. U think i could hit 3Ghz with the IHS off.

My new 146 CACJE 0601 GPAW don't go higher than 2880 prime stable. Even with 1.7v. I tried that because the temps never go higher than 41c load. I will send this back to the reseller tomorrow, seems I've got bad luck lately with my chips (last one a 165 CCBWE 0551 UPMW only does 2610 prime stable...)

So nothing is sure when overclocking...

CPU is too hot...

Like other posters said above, consider removing the IHS. That should bring your temps down and allow more vcore, and if your CPU scales with volts, you'll get an increase (maybe not 3GHz though).

I think to reach 3GHz, you must have a very good chip. Some cpu just can't do 3GHz no matter what cooling/vcore is used.

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Originally Posted by scottk

Like other posters said above, consider removing the IHS. That should bring your temps down and allow more vcore, and if your CPU scales with volts, you'll get an increase (maybe not 3GHz though).

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To be honest I don't think my cpu likes volts all that much as the more I give it, the worse it seems to react.

Does removing the IHS make all that much difference? How hot are these Opterons expected to run before they are 'too hot' and cause Prime to fail?