Cause of failing to overclock cpu to 4.0Ghz

[ballistix]

Is there a way to find the cause of my Phenom II 550BE not being able to go above 3.9Ghz? Basically I get a stable overclock till 3.9Ghz, but as soon as I try to go for 4.0Ghz the system will simply boot loop. It'd reach the Windows screen where the little bar moves around and then restart without any evident cause of the failed boot.
I have no problem with the 3.9Ghz so all I want is to know what is causing it. Like, is it the CPU (bad chip...one of the unlucky ones), mobo...not enough ram...or if it's me not doin' it right lol.
Now, I've been at it for quite a while and I've tried many different "tactics" but they all end up with the same boot loop so I don't wanna waste my time any more with a lost cause...I just want to know why so that I can learn from my mistake and maybe watch what I buy/do next time. Learning is basically what I wanna get out of this, as I am new to overclocking. I don't take any classes on IT nor do I go to college where I can learn it or anything so everything is self taught on my own time.

I had to reset cmos because of my last experiment that I did and failed so I thought I'd start again (as if I won't end up at my 3.9Ghz as before but it's no big deal) meaning I can't supply you with screenshots for now on things you might need to help me with this, although I could tell you how things were while I had my stable 3.9Ghz oc. Though this is not as much about the oc as I said, but what is the causing it to not be able to be realized.

Thx in advance to everyone who'd take the time to help me understand the situation a little better.

[informal]

It probably is an issue with clock wall for one of the cores(or both).There also could be an issue with hot spots on the cpu when you reach certain power level(say you OC to 4Ghz with some overvolting,the chip hits the power/thermal wall and errors out).
On the brighter side,the whole "4Ghz" thing is just a psychological thing,you are actually just 4/3.9=1.02 or 2% off. performance wise with you current clock. In other words,you gain nothing with 4Ghz,or nothing worth mentioning.I'd say even with 4.4Ghz Overclock,you'd only gain 10% over what you have now so just relax since 10% is not much either. 3.9Ghz is a lot and will be enough for anything you throw at it next 2 years.More cores could help though .

[ballistix]

Thank you very much Informal. I shall now explain: For the 4.0Ghz, it is really a psychological thing as you said, and thats why I tried to get to it, because not everyone could so you could say I was after the status of having a 4.0Ghz rather than that extra 10%. I do hope(well I don't hope that it's anything but...) it's the cpu because I the board is good and it'd be a real shame if I were to find out that it had let me down. I did hear stuff about dfi how they are no longer as good as others that used to be bad...but I still think they make good boards, as opposed to the CPU's where is more like the lottery where u get a better chip.
I did try to get it to be a quad or a tri cored cpu, but it's simply impossible with my chip and probably my cooling. -The second flaw that a 550 could have lol. It works like a quad on stock speed...and I probably could get a small overclock but I'd rather stick with higher speeds and a dual core as it doesn't really bother me.

[informal]

Yeah I'd say stick with 2 cores and high clock for now and unlock if some game (like GTA4 ie.) makes good use of extra hardware you can provide.Also you can use extra cores at stock speed for 3d rendering or say, video transcoding (but that alone can be done much faster on a GPU than on any CPU we can buy today ).

[ballistix]

Hey I was re-reading your first post, and I was wondering about the thermal/power wall and overvolting. The cpu works at 3.9Ghz on 1.5 aswell as lower voltages like 1.42 or something like that (which I found was the lowest voltage delivering stability). So why would 4.0Ghz not work on it and be "overvolted". I mean: I didn't overvolt. lol And wouldn't this cause bsod's rather than a looping boot. What could be a recipe for a boot loop like that anyway? In general, not my case necessarily.

[bldegle2]

LOL, still trying to get a different answer than the one you got over @OverclockersClub Forums????

I have 2 940be's, they kinda do the same thing as your 550 when trying the 4gig, but I was able to get one of them to 4 gig when raising the x's from within winders, still not stable, but at least it worked for a few minutes at a time....it is what it is...

Your CPU is at its limit, be happy with the 3.9 stable....both my 940's needed to be run about 200/300 MHZ below their top speeds (both would do 3.94/3.95) to get them absolutely stable....if you are getting a 3.9 clock stable and your CPU won't do 4gig, consider yourself lucky it is stable at close to its absolute max....

good luck in your quest....

laterzzzz..................

[ballistix]

Haha hey you. Well I kinda didn't get much of an answers so now I'm working on the on the "hot spot" theory provided by informal as well as the question I asked him. Just wanna undestand it better. I don't care about the 4.0Ghz anymore. :P

[bldegle2]

"I don't care about the 4.0Ghz anymore."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LOL, what a crock....

Get a different CPU and see what is.....I have purchased enough CPU's in my lifetime to supply a medium sized company, burned up many, gave too much volts to some, froze others with pelts and then Phase for a higher than average clock, sometimes bought 4 or 5 at the same time trying to find a 'cherry'.....

Admit it, you are infected, there is really no cure and when you start making some decent cash, need I say more?....

Laterzzzz................

[dball3]

I was just wondering if it's definetly a loop, Do you have windows set to automatically restart after bsod, If it boots and bsod's you may not see the error. Other than that, the only thing i can say is tinker with little obscure settings in the bios, and different combinations of nb speed and multis to see if you can get a little bit more from that chip.

[neo mike]

Grab a new 965 C3 you will get your magical 4 ghz more than likely, 3.9 to 4.0 like your really going to see the difference, its all a pride thing.

[ballistix]

"I don't care about the 4.0Ghz anymore."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LOL, what a crock....

Get a different CPU and see what is.....I have purchased enough CPU's in my lifetime to supply a medium sized company, burned up many, gave too much volts to some, froze others with pelts and then Phase for a higher than average clock, sometimes bought 4 or 5 at the same time trying to find a 'cherry'.....

Admit it, you are infected, there is really no cure and when you start making some decent cash, need I say more?....

Laterzzzz................

Omg! How did you know?? When I bought my stuff I though "meh...I'll just oc a little bit...so I get my money's worth...3.6 will do." Then I started...and I was like..."maybe a little more" then "maybe another 0.2" untill I got where I am now, and yes I will in fact probably buy another cpu and try and overclock it. Although I don't admit it.

FOR DBALL3: Yes it is a loop...I just have to select "start windows normally" from a menu that comes up after the loop. After bsod my pc stays that way untill I restart it so thats not it lol. I think I'm gonna check my thermal paste and heatsink...I think i f***ed it up a little when I was installing. Too long to explain how exactly lol but I might have.

[daellum67]

Wait, so you are saying that you can get 3.9 stable with out an overvolt? As in stock vcore? Raise the voltage a few notches if that's the case and 4ghz will be EASY.

If that's not the case, the only thing you can try is more volts even if you are currently above stock, it most likely won't hurt your chip to see what vcore it wants to run 4.0ghz prime stable and then step it back down if you're uncomfortable there. You could try to raise HTT to 205 and see if that helps, but unless your mobo's bios is bugged it will likely will be harder to do it that way than just raising the core multi to 20. If you REALLY want 4.0 you can set your NB to 2.0ghz or 1.8ghz or even 1.6ghz and reduce NB voltage to the MINIMUM it needs at that clock for stablility, but you'll end up with less overall performance for a 4ghz epeen if you do that.

These chips aren't like intel ones, you can't raise 10 other voltages to dangerous levels to get a "UNDER 1.3625V = I'M SAFE" high clock.

If you've maxed out an AMD between 3.6-3.9 and can't get stable higher, it's 9.5 times out of 10 the chip. So if you're unsatisfied with what you have now:
http://www.shopblt.com/cgi-bin/shop/...r_id=601515881
OR
http://www.petrastechshop.com/pecoel.html

You can probably hit a decent quad core clock with that water setup and the C3 chip will just OC higher period.

[Glow9]

Yeah man listen to bldegle2 and send me that "horrible" chip of yours.

[bldegle2]

ballistix,

now that you are infected......the only way you are going to get 4gig is to get another CPU....actually, finding the upper GHZ limit of a particular CPU (whether AMD or Intel) is the easiest thing in the whole overclocking equation when finding the limits of your hardware.....it is the first thing I do, prolly takes all of 10 minutes after initial fireup and a couple or reboots.....the real bugger is in the mems timings/sub timings, getting a handle on the NB, making sure all your MB hot spots are taken care of, and then making the proper modifications (usually a fan or two, maybe an extra heatsink).....

again, if you want 4gig, you need to try another CPU....or get mucho better cooling, a water setup may get the 4 gig you so desparately want....the wall Informal was referring too is kind of a permanent thing, it MAY move upwards after the CPU is used for awhile (maybe a couple of months) and worked hard, this worked in years past with the older sillycon, newer sillycon may not respond in kind....

word of warning, you may spend your hard earned, get your new CPU, and find that you still can't get the 4 gig, it is totally the luck of the draw, however, the newer C3 steppings are getting the 4 gig more easily from early reports.....when cash is tight, spending another $200+ for a CPU and getting nowhere can be frustrating as many can attest to.....

laterzzzzz..................

[demonkevy666]

if anyone read the reviews of C3 they said inter core latency was lower in C3.
that was the so called wall you speak of.

[ballistix]

Lol I don't want to get to 4.0Ghz anymore ok? It's not possible at this point with this chip (obviously it's the chip). I also don't like watter cooling. So for now I'll stick with what I have (and a 3.9Ghz cpu) and when I get a job one day and the cash starts flowing then I'll see what I'm gonna do.

For daellum67: I get to 3.9Ghz with 1.42V...which I don't really consider as an overvolt...simply an increase in voltage. I guess for me overvolting means going above the comfortable voltage of the cpu which would be also the one that has been provided by AMD in my case. I think it's 1.48V or something. I run 3.9Ghz @ 1.42 or something. I tried to run 4.0Ghz while voltage was set on 1.5 or even higher I'm guessing...(I couldn't see exactly since I never got into windows but it would have been around 1.55V)so I didn't get any difference. Anyway, forget the OC. I'll just do my 3.9Ghz again, and maybe tighten some timings...up some more the NB n stuff...so I really get the last few drops of power out of my stuff.

(in my head: NEED.....MORE.....C P U..550 MUST 4.0 GIMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!) lol jk.but seriously .... if I didn't know better I'd say it was the exact same thing as gambling in a casino, u buy a cpu, if it doesn oc, u go and buy another one etc. until u go bankrupt or hit the jackpot.

[zanzabar]

liquid cooling dosnt help to get 4ghz and its not the cpu its the bios as affter every micro code update it changes were it randomly gets to not work, mine with a 720be and a gd70 started with 3.9 being the barrier then an update and it went to 4.0 being the barrier

[BeepBeep2]

"I don't care about the 4.0Ghz anymore."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LOL, what a crock....

Get a different CPU and see what is.....I have purchased enough CPU's in my lifetime to supply a medium sized company, burned up many, gave too much volts to some, froze others with pelts and then Phase for a higher than average clock, sometimes bought 4 or 5 at the same time trying to find a 'cherry'.....

Admit it, you are infected, there is really no cure and when you start making some decent cash, need I say more?....

Laterzzzz................

Troll...

[ballistix]

liquid cooling dosnt help to get 4ghz and its not the cpu its the bios as affter every micro code update it changes were it randomly gets to not work, mine with a 720be and a gd70 started with 3.9 being the barrier then an update and it went to 4.0 being the barrier

Well if that is the case which it might not be, I gotta wait for an update. On the other hand maybe older bios might make the cpu oc to 4.0Ghz though also not likely. I guess in this case there is really no way to know 100% what is the problem. Also, as I said I'll just leave it alone for now.

[FlawleZ]

It probably is an issue with clock wall for one of the cores(or both).There also could be an issue with hot spots on the cpu when you reach certain power level(say you OC to 4Ghz with some overvolting,the chip hits the power/thermal wall and errors out).
On the brighter side,the whole "4Ghz" thing is just a psychological thing,you are actually just 4/3.9=1.02 or 2% off. performance wise with you current clock. In other words,you gain nothing with 4Ghz,or nothing worth mentioning.I'd say even with 4.4Ghz Overclock,you'd only gain 10% over what you have now so just relax since 10% is not much either. 3.9Ghz is a lot and will be enough for anything you throw at it next 2 years.More cores could help though .

Well said. My 720BE seems to hit a stability wall around 3.7Ghz. But from 3.5Ghz - 3.7Ghz performance difference is hardly worth losing sleep over. But I'm in the same boat as Zanzabar, its likely a BIOS issue as these GD70's are great boards but have finicky BIOSes.

[haylui]

your motherboard and PSU is capable of powering any chip that is able to clock to 4.0GHz and beyond.
I believe the chip itself hit the limitation.
3.9GHz is pretty good already. The locked 2 cores are there for some reasons.

[sinar]

Get a phase change unit....then your limit will be 5Ghz

Its a good invesment

[i found nemo]

may as well do phase on vid cards then too! lol

[ballistix]

lol if u gimme the unit for free I might. Although I don't have the time nor the money for this. My PC hasn't become "that" kind of PC yet. For now it's for gaming n stuff, but also overclocking...so what I get with the set up I have now is what it's gonna be until... well I dunno but I'm not gonna make major changes any time soon lol. Maybe just add a small 80GB HDD for the OS.

[Raiderman]

c3's have been fun so far. Just playing with the multi.