Trouble getting 3.8Ghz stable with 955BE + m4a89gtd-pro/usb3

[Bri7man]

So I have a 955BE and I am trying to get to 4Ghz on air with a CM 212+ cooler.

My first goal is 3.8GHZ but I can barely make it stable past booting, Prime95 testing results in a very swift BSOD.

NB and HT frequencies set on auto

1.45V CPU/NB
1.2V NB
1.2V HT

5-7-7-27-32 1066 RAM settings

[mav2000]

is it a C2 or C3 chip?

[Bri7man]

It's a C3, sorry for the hasty post, adding as many screens as I can atm. I really want to get to the bottom of this. I'm at 3.8Ghz right now with the sreens above, my comp keeps BSODing randomly.

For the CPUZ Screenshot you can hold CTRL + mousewheel to make the screen zoom, although if you are helping me here you probably already know that. :P

[mav2000]

Try 1.475V. Its not unknown for the chip to need around 1.5V + sometimes for 4 Ghz.

[Bri7man]

Muuuch smoother + faster bootup with 1.475V at 3.8Ghz. Coretemp says idle temp is 37C(night time). I'm going to go to sleep but I'll post tomorrow Prime95 results. Appreciate the advice.

[Daveburt714]

NB and HT frequencies set on auto

1.45V CPU/NB
1.2V NB
1.2V HT

5-7-7-27-32 1066 RAM settings

You have those voltages listed wrong according to your bios shots.

You listed "1.45 CPU/NB", that is actually your CPU core voltage (or just CPU v's)
What you have listed as "1.2 NB" is the CPU/NB (Intgrated (on die) Memory Controller or IMC).
When people speak of "NB" they are normally talking about the chipset NB (x90/x80) on the motherboard (totally different from IMC).
Not trying to be picky, just want to make sure your on the same page with most peoples verbage...

That being said, and not knowing all your gear, the most glaring possible problem to me is your memory timings.
CL5 may be difficult for any mem kit to handle reguardless of frequency.

Try setting your mem to auto.
Find the limits of the cores first and then come back and tweak the IMC/mem timings keeping the CPU @ or a little below it's known limit.

You'll have much better luck finding the limit's of each component by itself.
Once you know that, you can add them all together and have a better idea of where the failure may be...

EDIT: You might also want to turn on "CPU Load Line Calibration".
This will stop any potential Vdroop on the cores under load.

[Shocker003]

Trouble getting 3.8Ghz stable with 955BE + m4a89gtd-pro/usb3

So I have a 955BE and I am trying to get to 4Ghz on air with a CM 212+ cooler.

My first goal is 3.8GHZ but I can barely make it stable past booting, Prime95 testing results in a very swift BSOD.

NB and HT frequencies set on auto

1.45V CPU/NB
1.2V NB
1.2V HT

Your main problem is the RAM timing 5-7-7-27-32 1066
Set the timing to auto and underclock it to 9-9-9-27-32 800
then start your normal cpu overclocking. Pushing up the fsb will push up the ram freq. as well.
I normally push up the fsb untill i get my ram´s factory freq.
The after stability test; tighting the timing and run you test program again.

[Bri7man]

You have those voltages listed wrong according to your bios shots.

You listed "1.45 CPU/NB", that is actually your CPU core voltage (or just CPU v's)
What you have listed as "1.2 NB" is the CPU/NB (Intgrated (on die) Memory Controller or IMC).
When people speak of "NB" they are normally talking about the chipset NB (x90/x80) on the motherboard (totally different from IMC).
Not trying to be picky, just want to make sure your on the same page with most peoples verbage...

That being said, and not knowing all your gear, the most glaring possible problem to me is your memory timings.
CL5 may be difficult for any mem kit to handle reguardless of frequency.

Try setting your mem to auto.
Find the limits of the cores first and then come back and tweak the IMC/mem timings keeping the CPU @ or a little below it's known limit.

You'll have much better luck finding the limit's of each component by itself.
Once you know that, you can add them all together and have a better idea of where the failure may be...

EDIT: You might also want to turn on "CPU Load Line Calibration".
This will stop any potential Vdroop on the cores under load.

I appreciate this info very much! So if the "1.2NB" I listed is not the common NB reffered to, which one in my pic of the bios is the one that I should be adjusting for voltage? I'm a bit lost.
I set the HT and NB frequencies to AUTO because I didn't understand what Dolk meant in his guide. I was following this: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=596023 but I didn't understand a lot of what he was talking about like changing the HT and NB using a multiplier and the ratio at which to do so, I don't see a multiplier for it I just select the frequency I want it seems. I get the CPU multiplier though, and that's how I get my clock speed. In my BIOS you can see I changed my multiplier to 19 to give me my speed. I don't see an option to change a multiplier for the HT or NB frequency like it seemed he was talking about(and even so how would I know which to select, he just gives 2 examples of stock settings), so I sort of gave up and started inputing my own own frequencies but I don't like doing things blindly like that so I just set them to AUTO.

My gear is:
WIndows 7 x64 Ultimate OS
Radeon HD 5850 GHX Card
ASUStek M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3 Motherboard
AMD PhenomII x4 955 BE Processor
8GB(4 x 2G sticks) of GSKILL PC3-10700 Ram
Corsair TX 750 Watt Power supply

Trouble getting 3.8Ghz stable with 955BE + m4a89gtd-pro/usb3

So I have a 955BE and I am trying to get to 4Ghz on air with a CM 212+ cooler.

My first goal is 3.8GHZ but I can barely make it stable past booting, Prime95 testing results in a very swift BSOD.

NB and HT frequencies set on auto

1.45V CPU/NB
1.2V NB
1.2V HT

Your main problem is the RAM timing 5-7-7-27-32 1066
Set the timing to auto and underclock it to 9-9-9-27-32 800
then start your normal cpu overclocking. Pushing up the fsb will push up the ram freq. as well.
I normally push up the fsb untill i get my ram´s factory freq.
The after stability test; tighting the timing and run you test program again.

I'm a bit confused on how to set the RAM frequency to 800 and have it on auto, with my BIOS in the first screen shot above with the "DRAM Frequency" I can only choose a frequency and set the timings which are in the 5th screenshot, or set it to AUTO and set the timings. Thanks for the input!

[BeepBeep2]

Dolk's guide certainly isn't the know-all guide to Phenom II. He mislabels a few things and makes rather crude assumptions/takes his opinion to be fact in other areas. It seems a lot of guys over there refer to his guide as a bible though. Furthermore, that thread has 63 pages and members of OCF seem to randomly quote any bit of info they read within the thread...

Anyway, the voltage selections are pretty straight forward, and the two you want to focus on right now are the two under "CPU & NB Voltage", your CPU core voltage and your CPU/NB voltage (relates to CPU's memory controller).

1.475v for 3.8 GHz though seems a bit much, it's hard to believe you need that much, but it isn't impossible.

[Bri7man]

Dolk's guide certainly isn't the know-all guide to Phenom II. He mislabels a few things and makes rather crude assumptions/takes his opinion to be fact in other areas. It seems a lot of guys over there refer to his guide as a bible though. Furthermore, that thread has 63 pages and members of OCF seem to randomly quote any bit of info they read within the thread...

Anyway, the voltage selections are pretty straight forward, and the two you want to focus on right now are the two under "CPU & NB Voltage", your CPU core voltage and your CPU/NB voltage (relates to CPU's memory controller).

1.475v for 3.8 GHz though seems a bit much, it's hard to believe you need that much, but it isn't impossible.

It seemed I ended up asking more questions than I came for answers in that guide. With your info and the previous posts I have some work to do, so I'm going to get to it.

It seems people are saying you can either get lucky with a 955BE and get 3.8Ghz at stock voltage, or need up to 1.5v + to run 4.0Ghz smoothly. If that's the case, it's summer and I have time, is it worth returning this CPU and getting a different 955BE? The source I got mine from specifically lists the model # for the C3 revision so I'm not worried about receiving a C2 revision.

[BeepBeep2]

It seemed I ended up asking more questions than I came for answers in that guide. With your info and the previous posts I have some work to do, so I'm going to get to it.

It seems people are saying you can either get lucky with a 955BE and get 3.8Ghz at stock voltage, or need up to 1.5v + to run 4.0Ghz smoothly. If that's the case, it's summer and I have time, is it worth returning this CPU and getting a different 955BE? The source I got mine from specifically lists the model # for the C3 revision so I'm not worried about receiving a C2 revision.

Yours looks like it might even need upwards of 1.55v to run 4 GHz with any form of stability.
Personally, I would try to return the CPU and get another...but you may have trouble trying an RMA or such with a CPU that works at stock frequencies.

I recently purchased a 955 BE C3 that did 4.2-4.3 GHz stable on air, but I've also owned a 965 BE C3 (2 years ago) that only did 3.9 at 1.53v, more voltage than my 955 needs for 4.2.

[Daveburt714]

I'm not familiar with that particular board, but most Asus boards are similar, so I'll try and offer some help step by step...

In your 1st screen:
Set "AI Overclock Tuner" to Manual.
This should give you another option, something like "HT Ref, or HT Reference" and should have a preset value of 200. Don't mess with it for now though.

Set your DRAM frequency to "1333" (for now), your ram is rated 1600, but lets keep it out of the equation for the time being...

Set the CPU/NB Freq. to 10x or 2000, depending on how your bios handles it. 10x means 10 times the HT Ref (currentlly set at 200 as above).

Set the HT Link to 10x or 2000 (exact same situation as the CPU/NB shown above).

Under "DRAM Timing Configuration", go in and set ALL of those to "auto" for now!

Lower "CPU Voltage" to 1.40. If your system won't post, you can bring this back up as needed, but watch your temps (keep <56c unbder load).
In general, you only want to raise this when you get crashes and should keep it below 1.5v and 56c load.

Your 2nd bios screen:

This seems to be where you were getting the most confused, so I edited it to help you understand (I hope )



The first edit "CPU Voltage" is the voltage set for the CPU cores and may need to be rasied as you raise the CPU ratio (multiplier (currently set @ 19)

The 2nd edit "IMC (MemController Voltage) is the voltage for the CPU's memory controller.
You may need to adjust this higher once you start raising the IMC, but for now 1.20 should be fine.
NOTE: This voltage relates to the CPU/NB Freq. that we set to 2000 (10x) above, so when you start raising it, this will be the corresponding volatge.

The 3rd edit "NB (Chipset) Voltage" is the voltage for the motherboard NB and offers very little benefit under normal cooling.
You can leave this @ auto 99.9% of the time. I've never found increasing it to be usefull for everyday use...

Edit 4: I'm not sure how your bios handles this, but you should set it one click above nornal to start with (or 130% depending on how it's handled).
This setting will stop Vdroop, but may overshoot voltages too much under load.
Keep a CPU-z screen open and watch your voltage to make sure it doesn't droop or overshoot too much when loaded and adjust this setting accordingly.

Using these settings you should be able to find the limits of your CPU Cores without the IMC or Mem coming into play...

The "HT Ref" mentioned above can be used to make fine adjustments, but keep in mind that it affects the CPU, IMC AND Memory clocks!!!
If you want to use it to fine tune, just raise it until you can get one more multi on the CPU, then set it back to 200 until you get a feel for it.

A little long winded I know... But I hope it helps.

[BeepBeep2]

@Dave He needs more than 1.45v to boot at 3.8...

[Daveburt714]

@Dave He needs more than 1.45v to boot at 3.8...

Maybe, maybe not.... In his 1st post he said his mem was set @ 1066 5-7-7.
Seems to me that could very easily cause a "No Post" situation...

[BeepBeep2]

He said that 1.45v barely made it past booting, and 1.475v helped a lot.
What do you think Dave?

1066 CL5 with DDR3 is not a tough feat, I think...if you have ram that does 1600 8-x-x you can do 1066 CL5 without issue. He has Gskill ECO rated 1600 7-8-7, which is PSC...I think it can do 1066 5-7-x easy even at 1.5v.

[Bri7man]

Wow.. Thank you so much Dave and Beep! I really appreciate it and this is starting to make more sense.

So with your settings Dave, it booted up just fine although not as fast/smoothly as before with the higher voltage.
I unfortunately did not see a HT Ref
The voltage stays put at 1.404
I'll start Prime95 to see how stable it is.
Here's the screens:


Edit, Prime95 is putting temp at 55-56C :/
Voltage is spiking from 1.416 -1.428 while running Prime

[Daveburt714]

He said that 1.45v barely made it past booting, and 1.475v helped a lot.
What do you think Dave?

1066 CL5 with DDR3 is not a tough feat, I think...if you have ram that does 1600 8-x-x you can do 1066 CL5 without issue. He has Gskill ECO rated 1600 7-8-7, which is PSC...I think it can do 1066 5-7-x easy even at 1.5v.

I'm not looking to argue with you Beep, and what I said is what I think...

Your right that it could be a poor sample and the memory may do 1066 5-7-7.
I still stand by my recommendation to take the memory out of play until he finds out what the chip can do though...

When I said set the CPU v's to 1.40, I followed that stament with this:
"If your system won't post, you can bring this back up as needed"

What would you suggest, leaving the memory alone and cranking the core voltage even higher 1st?

I'd consider that pretty poor advice when doing a rough dial in...

[Daveburt714]

I unfortunately did not see a HT Ref

Gratz Bri7man!...

Your bios is calling it "CPU Bus Frequency", but it's the same thing as HTRef.
You can slowly add to this clock and it will fine tune your CPU clocks. For every 1 you add, it will add 1x the multi to core Frequency.
EX: 200 x 19 = 3800
201 x 19 = 3819
202 x 19 = 3838
203 x 20 = 4060 (get the drift? )
Keep in mind that this clock also effects the IMC and Memory clocks though!

Those temps are OK, but getting close to where they might cause stability problems.
As for the LLC, I'd say thats right in the range you want it.

You can try going back into bios and dropping your CPU v's to 1.375/1.3875, it may not work, but it will lower the temps a little.

You'll get the hang of it...

[Bri7man]

Haha awesome!!

So do you think it's worth keeping? I also never really turn my computer off, I restart it about once every 2 days but that's about it.

Prime95 still running strong btw, 55/56C. No errors yet. *crossed fingers*

[BeepBeep2]

It's worth keeping

[Bri7man]

Sweet! If it's staying put at 3.8Ghz on 1.4V, maybe I can squeeze 3.9Ghz out of it?

I'm sure time will tell, it is about to be summer and it's going to be hotter, I'm sure I'll find a good balance per season.

[Daveburt714]

Seems like a decent chip...

Do you have tweaking software for Windows?
If you do, load it up and lower the CPU v's as much as you can until it becomes unstable @ 3.8 (Prime), then just give it one bump up, before trying for higher clocks...
The reason I say this is because of your temps. And when you start adding IMC clocks they're only going to go higher..
Hopefully, you don't really need 1.40v for 3.8Ghz.

[Bri7man]

It's been running with no errors for an hour and 23 minutes now. I hope so!

Something to consider is apparently it takes 200 hours of the computer heat cycling the cpu in order for my artic silver paste to cure, so hopefully the temp goes down a bit over time.

What software would you recommend for dialing the voltage? Maybe I can lower the IMC and CPU a bit at this speed.. That'd be great. About how long should each test be running Prime95, think an hour and a half is decent?

[BeepBeep2]

1.4 for 3.8 certainly isn't bad, my old 965 needed 1.47v for 3.8 ...Phenom II scaling is around 100 MHz per .05v but his temps are a little on the high side to add too much more to the current OC IMO.

For quick testing on lowering voltages, 1h is enough, then 2-8 hrs after that, but is really up to you.

Asus TurboV EVO should be on your motherboard CD for voltage and overclock control.

[Bri7man]

Bummer, I was hoping for 4.0Ghz but I guess 3.8Ghz stable isn't really something to complain about.