**Official e8400/e8500 Retail OC Thread

[Garrett]

I'd almost think that the IHS on these cpu's isn't soldered on... seeing all those high temps... but it's probably some thermal sensor that no program can read out correctly... yet...

[rge]

First off, I am not saying the cpu's are not degrading, in fact give some are dead, some probably are.

However, I am saying it is difficult to discern variability from stability using runs of orthos less than 12 hours, and hence if one is going to investigate how often degradation does occur and how likely given a certain voltage, more reliable tests need to be done, like 12+hour orthos runs or failure to boot at given setting when before it would boot and say run orthos short time or superpi. There is a huge voltage span ~.03v where I can go from highly variable orthos runs to 12+ hours repeatable orthos stability.

I have 3 computers, only time I surfed during testing was the time I mentioned it, hence I mentioned it...most runs I am either asleep or at work. Also, there is no question that temps play a large role, I have most reboots during longer runs of 67-70C.

Personally, I think when I can go orthos stable for 5+ hours, and start running into reboot problems, I can either drop my ambients 10C (open window) or I can increase voltage another .02V or so to the point where I can be orthos stable with high temps.

Instead of arguing how much degradation is occurring or not, why don't we collect the info in a manner that is indisputable and demonstrable, and quantify it?

If we get a lot of people at different voltages, that are willing to just do one run of orthos minimum 12+ hrs now and POST IT with core temps showing, and then same test a few weeks later, and maybe few months after that we can get an idea of
1) how often it occurs
2) what voltages are likely to cause the problem.

Mine are below and already posted in the thread, one of each. (EDit I put them below, dont know if posted 4.05)

I am orthos stable x 2 runs over 14hrs at 4.05 mhz with 1.3375 in bios (1.33 cpuz, have loadline on) at my normal ambient temps of 25-27C.

I am orthos stable x 1 run 19 hrs (forgot turn off) at 1.3625 in bios, 1.36 cpuz.

[Zucker2k]

I think it's about time for a poll on this issue. It seems to me some people got duds I mean, I've abused my cpu more than some have here; I was one of the first to actually post my results and pumped more than 1.6v into my chip at certain points. 2 days ago, I was priming at 4.3Ghz with only 1.376v @ 8.5 x 506. Only degradation I noticed was in actual voltage needed for prime stability at 4.3Ghz which dropped from 4.160v to 1.376v

If there's any degradation taking place at all, I'll blame it on something else other than voltage/current. This cpu is very sensitive to bios settings, the memory sub-system is especially sensitive (could be due to the new speeds of these cpus). It will take some rewriting of internal latencies to get us back to core 2 duo stabilities. Maybe in 6 months, bioses will begin to mature.

[cadaveca]

Instead of arguing how much degradation is occurring or not, why don't we collect the info in a manner that is indisputable and demonstrable, and quantify it?

I agree, but I'm sick of listening to people without these cpu's, or without any degredation posting that it doesn't happen...I mean really, it's not like I'm saying all are gonna die..I hardly think that to be true.

But all this crap posting about it not possible, merely gets in the way of us that do have issue comapring to see whether there is a common factor here that can prevent others from experiencing the same!

Now I've posted how my cpu has been. If you've read my posts in the past, you'll be aware that I won't even bench until prime stable. that's at a very minimum of 12 hrs of prime

however, I want to make something perfectly clear...it may very well be orthos and prime that are killing these cpus.

Currently, as far as I can tell, alot of newer baords feature dynamic phase control of the PWM. I've yet to investigate this, but it seems to me that when usage drops on some boards, so do half of the used phases of the PWM. It also occurs to me that it's more than possible that when this change occurs, there is a bit of over-compensation occuring on the remaining 4-phases, possibly overshooting voltage supplied to the cpu, and thereby causing the damage.

SO before you start priming...are you using an asus board w/ EPU, or a board with digital PWM? Do you think, even if remotely...that it could be prime95/orthos, two of the highest current-drawing stability tests there are?

If so, I'd hazard gainst using prime @ more than 1.3675v until we either find the cpu's or boards as faulty!!!!

[G4h4o8s6T]

Agreed with all of the above! Ill be keeping my wolfie at 3.6ghz stock vcore until we figure out whats going on.

[Søndergård]

Hi guys.. Just wanted to share my E8400 results :P Last week when I recieved the poor thing, I managed to get it up and running dual orthos at 4Ghz with 1.28v for a couple of hours. This week I upgraded my WC setup, and now I am running 4.4Ghz 1,55v dual orthos testet for 1 hour. I will make a 8 hours run tomorrow. So far I have a 8 hour run at 4.3ghz 1.475v.



The new cooling..

[hazardous]

my e8400 500x8 at 1.25 volts on ix38 quadgt. Still dialing in the memory timings and voltages atm. W745A576. VID is .95 at stock settings, shown much higher at these speeds.

On a side note, damn these things get hot! I'm doing 63 C under load with only 1.25 volts and a dedicated loop with a Dtek fuzion, mcr320, and d5. I reseated the thing but that didnt seem to help much. I guess thats just how they run. Cheers.

[mrcape]

my e8400 500x8 at 1.25 volts on ix38 quadgt. Still dialing in the memory timings and voltages atm. W745A576. VID is .95 at stock settings, shown much higher at these speeds.

On a side note, damn these things get hot! I'm doing 63 C under load with only 1.25 volts and a dedicated loop with a Dtek fuzion, mcr320, and d5. I reseated the thing but that didnt seem to help much. I guess thats just how they run. Cheers.

Hey Hazardous,

I have the same chip/batch and I haven't had that high temp issue at all. At Orthos load I get 55c max temp on air with 1.29v. My Idle temps are 34 with same settings.



Maybe check the water setup vs stock cooler or other sink.

[.OCX]

however, I want to make something perfectly clear...it may very well be orthos and prime that are killing these cpus.

Now this is the kind of stuff I like to see discussed!

[trans am]

the only thing killing these cpu's are the users that keep complaining about them.

post your overclocks in this thread like the thread title says: **Official e8400/e8500 Retail OC Thread

not **Official e8400/e8500 Retail degrading overclock conspiracy Thread.

[ThatGuy16]

Only ones i have seen with the "degradation" problem are people that are or have pumped ~1.6v into them

heres a occt run, still not sure about these temps. They are accurate with the bios, and if i do a dump with cpuz, it says 58*c load.

[dinos22]

PEOPLE don't be crazy
don't Prime for 12hours that's just crazy. You will never in normal use stress the chip so much.....all you will do is end of killing the chip much quicker

let the chip be 1 hour stable, superpi stable and let it stand the test of time
not some crazy 12+ hour sessions

[mysticwizard]

just go my 8400, batch Q746A495 pack date : 01/10/08
hers tands 1.225V max?? i don't think they mean max but just standard?

[AriciU]

PEOPLE don't be crazy
don't Prime for 12hours that's just crazy. You will never in normal use stress the chip so much.....all you will do is end of killing the chip much quicker

let the chip be 1 hour stable, superpi stable and let it stand the test of time
not some crazy 12+ hour sessions

Or just test with OCCT half hour test. If it's stable in that it'll be stable in any game you throw at it. Only 24/7 number crunchers should test with 8-12hr Prime sessions IMO. Not people who bench, play games and surf the web.

[dogsx2]

PEOPLE don't be crazy
don't Prime for 12hours that's just crazy. You will never in normal use stress the chip so much.....all you will do is end of killing the chip much quicker

let the chip be 1 hour stable, superpi stable and let it stand the test of time
not some crazy 12+ hour sessions

XS has gone prime crazy.........

[sofarfrome]

XS has gone prime crazy.........

Really...12hrs and if it fails pump more vcore to it. Sheesh...I prefer 1hour of OCCT and then it is off to folding or something of the sort while gaming. That is the true test in IMHO. Nothing like burning out the chip before you get a chance to put it to good use (unless of course that is your intention )

[bonzo_catalin]

One step further , Zalman 9700 cooling .

[deathman20]

PEOPLE don't be crazy
don't Prime for 12hours that's just crazy. You will never in normal use stress the chip so much.....all you will do is end of killing the chip much quicker

let the chip be 1 hour stable, superpi stable and let it stand the test of time
not some crazy 12+ hour sessions

I perfer to know my systems rock solid. While anywhere between 6-24 hours is good for me depending on my needs to play with the system. I don't fold, I game ALOT and I want to make sure if I game im not going to crash in the middle of it and loose hours if not weeks worth of gear just because I failed to test stabiliy (really thats an over exageration). I do some 3D Renderings sometimes and I know that chews CPU cycles and if that fails its not life or death but its nice to know I can complete a rendering without it failing on me.

You won't kill your chip for stability testing it. Thats the point of doing such. Heck my old E6400 chip I had, had a nice run of 48+ Hours of stability in Prime, forgot I left it running over the weekend oops hehe. That chips nice and stable from 3Ghz to 3.6Ghz with a good amoutn of voltage and even 3.76Ghz, just have the cooling to cool it.

[rge]

Can someone explain to me, why whenever someone even mentions orthos stability, always the same people complain about it? I am not being argumentative, I just honestly don't understand?

You bench at 1.6 volts but scared of a 12 hour run of a program that puts no more stress on your system than folding at home for a day?

Trying to inquire about a possible legitimate problem, and a way to solve it, and get posts like - turning into prime crazy???

Must be some history to this, that I have not been posting long enough to understand...

I personally like max fsb runs, max OC, extreme cooling, but the other thing I like about this forum is its a good place to track down or refute problems.

Or is this forum for benching only, no problem solving allowed, and I simply did not read the fine print?

[ztop]

[QUOTE=hazardous;2758052]my e8400 500x8 at 1.25 volts on ix38 quadgt. Still dialing in the memory timings and voltages atm. W745A576. VID is .95 at stock settings, shown much higher at these speeds.

On a side note, damn these things get hot! I'm doing 63 C under load with only 1.25 volts and a dedicated loop with a Dtek fuzion, mcr320, and d5. I reseated the thing but that didnt seem to help much. I guess thats just how they run. Cheers.

is a q745a576?

[GLENBOY]

hiya ztop yes i have had 2 q745a an e8400 and e8500 and although both required low volts but ran hot , i had a q750a and that required a lot more voltage but ran cooler

[Zeus]

My E8500 ran Prime for an hour but failed 3d mark 06 at the same voltage.

These Wolfdales are much harder to get stable than the old Conroe, and are very sensitive to things like gtl voltage and even NB voltage.

Another thing with these cpu's is that it's windows that errors out rather than the actual program.

For example, running SuperPi at the edge of stability with a Conroe showed error messages like "not exact in round" and another error message i don't recall it's name but with this cpu i get errors like superpi shutting down completely or windows shows an error like: "SuperPi has encountered an error and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Prime and Orthos behave the same.

The coretemp reading is annoying as well, in my case core 0 is 33ºC idle where core 1 idles at 48ºC, now which one is right?

If it wasn't for the better performance this 8500 gives i would happily put my E6600 Conroe back in and get rid of all this strange behaviour.

I don't know if these problems are bios/motherboard related or if it just the Wolfdale's nature but i liked Conroe better when i first tried.

This cpu degration is another thing that bothers me, i hope i won't have to deal with that by keeping the 24/7 voltage as low as possible.

Another strange occurence that stood out is that Asus P35 boards seem to need more Vcore to get Wolfdale cpu's stable and with Asus Maximus motherboards it's very hard to go over 500fsb.

I still like my E8500 but i hate the downsides it has i tend to forget when i complete 3d mark at 4.6GHz.

[Supertim0r]

Asus P35 boards seem to need more Vcore to get Wolfdale cpu's stable

remember what I told ?

[hazardous]

My E8500 ran Prime for an hour but failed 3d mark 06 at the same voltage.

These Wolfdales are much harder to get stable than the old Conroe, and are very sensitive to things like gtl voltage and even NB voltage.

Another thing with these cpu's is that it's windows that errors out rather than the actual program.

For example, running SuperPi at the edge of stability with a Conroe showed error messages like "not exact in round" and another error message i don't recall it's name but with this cpu i get errors like superpi shutting down completely or windows shows an error like: "SuperPi has encountered an error and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Prime and Orthos behave the same.

The coretemp reading is annoying as well, in my case core 0 is 33ºC idle where core 1 idles at 48ºC, now which one is right?

If it wasn't for the better performance this 8500 gives i would happily put my E6600 Conroe back in and get rid of all this strange behaviour.

I don't know if these problems are bios/motherboard related or if it just the Wolfdale's nature but i liked Conroe better when i first tried.

This cpu degration is another thing that bothers me, i hope i won't have to deal with that by keeping the 24/7 voltage as low as possible.

Another strange occurence that stood out is that Asus P35 boards seem to need more Vcore to get Wolfdale cpu's stable and with Asus Maximus motherboards it's very hard to go over 500fsb.

I still like my E8500 but i hate the downsides it has i tend to forget when i complete 3d mark at 4.6GHz.

CoreTemp is really unreliable with these things. The latest version says I'm idling at 42 C...a fairly recent version (.95 something) says 36 C...The abit utility with my board says 30 C. Hard to know what to trust (i hope the abit!)

Honestly, after a few weeks of trying to solve issues with this processor, I absolutely hate the thing. Even on what I consider "stable" voltages i still get some random errors and crashes, like many others have had problems with. I'm also stunned at how hot mine gets despite my cooling system and lower voltage than my old Conroe. I'll be dumping this thing as soon as i can.

[Bail_w]

My E8500 ran Prime for an hour but failed 3d mark 06 at the same voltage.

Exactly the opposite from me. I pass 3dmark05,06 and dual super pi 32mb but i fail prime95 and orthos instantly at 4.5ghz with 1.45v.