Opteron 146... My First Overclock

[AP0ll0UK]

Hi guys

These are the results of my first overclock with my new Opteron 146. Attached a screen shot. Please let me know what you think or if there's anything I could be doing better.

Will be adding SuperPI calculations shortly.

Idle temps are 38C, under Load the highest I saw it at was 53C - think I probably need a decent cooler like the XP90 or Arctic Freezer.

The hightest I had it was 310 x 9 @ 2790. Windows seemed stable but Prime95 came back with an error straight away doing the blend test which is what I used for the first test.

[igor0203]

Just 2.6GHz? You have an excellent stepping which should do at least 2.9GHz or more. So keep raising your FSB...

[Absolute_0]

Try something other than the 8.5x multi, you'll get up there.

[AP0ll0UK]

The only thing that put me off going a bit higher was the temps. 53C under load seemed a bit high but there again I'm not sure around what temps these should be running at with the stock heatsink and fan? Should I push it higher under those conditions or should I invest in a better air cooling?

[da-key]

Xp90C is a very nice cooler coupled with a panaflo. Even just the xp90 is lighter and does almost as good if it is lapped. Several good choices the xp90-120 are solid.

[AP0ll0UK]

Cool, I'll pick one up along with the Panaflo's, heard that their very good fans and also very quiet.

What do you think about the current temps at 2.6 with the stock heatsink and fan, are they too hot or is it safe to keep going?

[AP0ll0UK]

Ok, I'm running into a few problems. The current 2.6Ghz is Prime stable for 8 hours.

However, upping the multi to 9x310 will boot into Windows but fails prime in less than a minute. I tried upping the voltage but from the guide I was reading it suggested increasing Vcore by 0.025v but something else I read suggested put a 90ns Cpu onto 1.5. I tried the 1.5 option but it made no difference.

I'm a little stuck as I'm torn between leaving it as is or maybe dropping the FSB and upping the multi, however, the guide I'm going from suggests that a higher FSB is superior to a high multi.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[phadeout]

I'd get better cooling first....

Thermalright XP90, XP90C, XP120
or
Thermaltake Big Typhoon

[KoHaN69]

check whats ur max temp, w/ this tool:
http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com...topic.php?t=83

[da-key]

Whats the mem divider at? if its low at 200 or 166 than it may have tightend the timings auto.
A bios screenie of your memory timings would be great.
You may have to manually set latencies etc..

But yeah start with getting a better HSF.

[Rickster_64]

So what does everyone think IS a safe temperature for an aircooled chip using say an XP-90C or 120? I have a 120 and its lapped. When I get home tomorrow my 146 gets installed and I will post all my results. My venice hits about 114F at full load with prime and no I dont have a calc to convert handy, hehe. Just want to make sure thats a safe temp and thats @ 2.7ghz.

[VVJ]

The only thing that put me off going a bit higher was the temps. 53C under load seemed a bit high

So, what's the max temp of your proc?

[AP0ll0UK]

My venice hits about 114F at full load

Your 114F works out at 46C from this converter here - http://www.albireo.ch/temperatureconverter/

The MaxTCase program is a great idea. I've ran it and here are the results.



Does the 61C mean that it is safe for me to push it up to that temp on the stock cooler as long as I dont exceed 61C under load? My mem divider is something like 200 (1:1) but I'll take a couple of pictures and post them shortly. Everything is pretty much set to the Bios default or auto.

[Ket]

^probably why your getting problems, you cant leave the DFI boards to their own devices with memory timings, your gonna have to do it yourself.

[AP0ll0UK]

Hmmmm, not something I know how to do. When I first got this motherboard I had to flash the bios due to some issues with the dual channel memory. At that point I had to set some of the timings if I remember rightly but I've no idea how to start troubleshooting them in order to get a stable system at a higher FSB. Presumbaly by finding a happy medium as far as the timings are concered I will be able to get a better overclock?

Does anyone know of any good primers or docs that refer to setting timings manually? In the mean time I'll have a look around the DFI site and see if I can find any more info on there with them being the board vendor.

Thanks again

[da-key]

Most of the settings are specific to your ram/cpu combo. A64 tweaker is windows friendly.
A couple of settings are different for these opterons. Read preamble and one other im not awake enough to think of.