Unstable OC on 965 BE

[stayplation3]

I can't get my AMD 965 BE to be stable at 4ghz. When I stress test it it's fine for a minute then down clocks to like 800mhz and vcore to like 1.0 or something. The temps aren't a problem it only gets to 47c max and I have all the options that could be causing this in the bios disabled. My pc always works fine at this clock, it only does this when I stress test it. But it's still annoying D: Heres a video I made of what it does, and a pic of my bios options I have disabled. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XUHWs_JW-M

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Do you have any motherboard overclocking software installed?

[erocker]

Turn off Cool & Quiet.

[stayplation3]

no i dont have overclocking software installed. erocker i have a picture of all the stuff thats disabled on my post

[stayplation3]

?

[Norton]

Try going into "jumper free configuration" in your BIOS and manually set your CPU (multiplier, NB, HT, etc..) If those setting are in Auto it may allow the OS to downclock the CPU

Send a pic of that page- I don't remember all of the setting that are available.

My $0.02

[stayplation3]

chipset voltage: auto
PCI/PCIe CLK Status: enabled

[Senupe]

Ok mate, i got a M4A79XTD EVO and the experience tellme this:

Set you Load Line Calibration to High (4)

CPU Voltage: 1.45 -1.46v

Lower NB speed, it doesn't affect performance, put it on 11 and let it at 1.1v if the
VDDNB is the NB voltage controller. (NB@2200MHz and 1.1v)

Check your RAM specs and see if 1600MHz is supported at that voltage, if you can reduce it to 1.6 or 1.55 that saves you heat.

Disable QuietFan on the BIOS and then stress test.

[Fatal]

Originally Posted by Senupe

Ok mate, i got a M4A79XTD EVO and the experience tellme this:

Set you Load Line Calibration to High (4)

CPU Voltage: 1.45 -1.46v

Lower NB speed, it doesn't affect performance, put it on 11 and let it at 1.1v if the
VDDNB is the NB voltage controller. (NB@2200MHz and 1.1v)

Check your RAM specs and see if 1600MHz is supported at that voltage, if you can reduce it to 1.6 or 1.55 that saves you heat.

Disable QuietFan on the BIOS and then stress test.

Not sure what you are saying a higher North Bridge effects performance. I have benchmarks to prove it.

stayplation3 like Erocker said turn cool and quiet off. I was never able to get stable clocks with anything on auto with my 940 so I would set every thing manually. You should take down a template of all your settings and post it.

[stayplation3]

i did post all my settings... you can see in the picture cool n quiet is off, and i set my nb speed to 2600 based on this (CPU-Frequency * 2 ) / 3.15. my ram specs say 1.55-1.75 voltage so its at 1.65. the only other thing that was mentioned was load line calibration. whats that? should i take it off auto and set it to 4?

[Norton]

Check this setting in Windows Power management- if set to passive it may slow down your CPU especially if stress testing (setting to active may correct the issue):

[stayplation3]

its on active and as for the LLC here is a pic of my options. what should i set it to?

[Jstn7477]

Not to rain on your parade, but I believe you are significantly reducing the lifespan of your motherboard by doing this. Your board only has a 4+1 phase power regulation system without any MOSFET cooling at all, it only has a 4 pin power connector, and you're running your CPU at settings that make it draw 180-190 watts under load. Trust me, I had a 955BE at 3.8GHz/1.475v on an ASRock A770DE+ destroy that board in less than 6 months under heavy CPU load, and the whole area on the backside of the motherboard under the power regulation section was charred black when I was done with that board.

I'd prefer you find a good voltage/frequency combination to stay at instead of "omg motherboard rape" overclock. A good tool to use to calculate your overclock wattage is http://extreme.outervision.com/tools.jsp#cpuoc

Just my 2 cents. If you want to blow up your $70 motherboard fairly quickly, keep going for 4GHz.

[stayplation3]

thats fine ill just get a better one if it breaks. but can anyone help me? i havent found a solution yet. what do u guys think i should set my LLC to?

[Fatal]

I looked around for your board and Jstn7477 is right you’re pressing your luck. What is the highest stable clock you have been able to use stayplation3? Most that use the LLC start high and try to drop it from what I found. Here’s a guy that wanted 4.0 as well.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=357111

[stayplation3]

but i dont know whats high. 100%?

[stayplation3]

??

[brandonwh64]

Originally Posted by stayplation3

??

I would just get it stable at 3.8ghz and leave it. 4ghz for AMD chips (thuban/denab) are pushing it at best. Most chips never seen over 4ghz stable.

[Jstn7477]

Exactly, it took quite a while and lots of settings changes on my Crosshair III Formula to get a 4GHz overclock, which also seemed to degrade my processor substantially. After having it overclocked that way, it then took ~1.425v to just keep it stable at 3.6GHz.

[xxdozer322]

my 965 is unstable at 4.0 and its watercooled, i set it to 3.9 an it sits perfectly fine.

[stayplation3]

well it runs perfectly fine at 4.01 on everything but stress testing so ima just keep it at that and forget about it

[Jstn7477]

I'm sure you'll start seeing crashes in other things besides stress testing. When you overclock something to the point of instability, it will likely perform slower than the chip overclocked to a lesser, stable frequency because the system has to correct all the errata your CPU is now generating.

4.0GHz is just a number. It's not like you are passing GO and collecting $200 for reaching this frequency. I bet the chip would run much better at 3.8GHz with less voltage, increase the lifespan of both your motherboard and the CPU, and even saving a bit of electrical cost and keeping your room a little cooler. It's not like Denebs are anything amazing anyway (their memory controller is horrible and is highly sensitive to RAM's CAS latency) so I doubt you'll see much difference at 200MHz lower core clock but you'll likely be 100% stable.

Again, my $0.02. I currently have 8 different machines plus some in storage that perform distributed computing tasks, so I have quite an understanding of how overclocks scale and how stability can be affected. I can easily tell you that the overclocks on those machines are at least 100-300MHz less than the same machines of the "average overclocker" simply because they may run Windows fine at higher frequencies and pass stability tests, but they very quickly fail any distributed computing applications.

[stayplation3]

ive had it like this for a while already and its never crashed besides on prime95. and it runs noticeably faster at this clock than stock

[stayplation3]

it even does this at 3.8ghz lol

[MasterInvader]

Back in the days with my 955B and the Crossghair2 I had a similar problem, it only reach 4.0 with lower bus cpu/nb.

But if you manage 3.6/3.8 stable with higher CPU/NB the performance its better then 4.0 with less CPU/NB.

If you want a 4.0 try this:

CPU BUS: 220
CPU Multi: 18
CPU/NB: 2200

or

CPU BUS: 225
CPU Multi: 17.5
CPU/NB: 2000