I've got some questions about overclocking with a FX 8350

[TechHands]

even though I have all power saving settings off, nothing seems to keep my clock speed from changing. My HT speed along with my NB and cpu core clock and memory clock is always changing. (I can't find anyone experiencing the same thing - I've seen no proof that this is normal when overclocking etc.)

I'm making changes to my bios such as increasing voltages but no monitoring program seems to read any of them out correctly. (my NB voltage reads out as the default value in all the monitoring programs I have used so I don't know if the changes such as this is even being made when I do them in the bios if they don't show when I get into windows)

I'm not trying to lay a list of issues that I have but i'm ready to overclock more and make sure my rig is right and nothing is giving any issues that could hold me back like a hot northbridge and maybe too high of a memory clock with too low of dram voltage.

I have a feeling that for some reason something is not getting enough voltage and is making my northbridge overheat sense it is the one component on my motherboard that even seems to get hot while everything else is a normal "low" warm easy to touch. (the most I could find out is that it seems that raising the right voltage could remove a heat related issue and make things normal and cool).

I'm trying to work this out so I'll learn and know what to expect, (no doubt I can find a better motherboard such as the latest top tier 990fx board that gigabyte has out, sense it has a heat pipe that connects the VRM, NB, and SB all together so I assume that is optimum. Can I get some help please so maybe I'll learn what I need to know (I'll get a multimeter so I can use that too).

I 1st want to know why my BLCK is always changing though and never really ever staying at just one speed "set" but it's always got to be moving for some reason always going up and down the change is small but it still shows in most monitoring programs along with the bios also showing it change. I assumed it was normal but it's the 1st on my list to find out if it is or not.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

For monitoring i use the free software Hwareinfo64 , you're blck is ok ,they all move a bit.
Is your Is in high performance mode.
What kind of OC are you going for, might be your Vrm causing throttling .

 

[TechHands]

I tried going past 4.5ghz and my clock speed started to drop and go back up, this was after running prime95 for more then 1hr. CPU temp still seem to be OK during this but it only started to happen when I knew the system was at it's max temp such as NB temp assuming my mofset or vrm stuff isn't even coming close to being too hot but my NB easily does 90c-100c+ like 102c but I see that people says nothing will change unless 120c is reached. All I know is my NB is the only thing that I have noticed to seem like it's running away from being so hot while everything else seems normal but I've seen so many people say 90c and like 91c is normal under full load and the NB is expected to get that hot. So while I thought my cpu temp would be 1st to keep me from overclocking it seems to be something else.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Something's not right there then my Nb on air never got above 60C @4.5 are you running really tight memory timings and what volts are you running your Nb at.
Who says 90C is fine ,it isn't on a Nb chip doing 2+Ghz

The only chips on your mother board allowed to get to 90-120C are you're Vrm chips afaik

 

[TechHands]

I'm assuming the 100c temps are coming from my NB sense it always stays to hot for me to even touch it. My VRM heatsink has always been less then warm feeling when i've touch it under full load. I don't know what so say other then that temp could be my VRM and the VRM heatsink is making hardly any contact with the mofset so then the heatsink itself doesn't get hot but the VRM itself is running away getting too hot. These programs give out so many readings I can't be for sure which temp or even voltage are "what".

I just O/C to 4.6 again and that temp went to 106c easily fast but nothing odd happen but I'm sure after an hour or more running prime95 it will but that temp usually stays and doesn't get any higher if you know what I mean.

 

[EntropyZ]

Those temperatures are abnormal, even with running Prime95. Have you disabled all power saving features like Cool n' Quiet? Disabled Turbo? You're sure? Strange that you're reaching such temps in a case such as the one listed in your specs.

There are few motherboards out there that can handle the full 140W TDP and more. Your MB should be fine though.

I would suggest starting over from defaults, disabling all power saving features first, and see if the CPU is always running at max clock even when idle, take that for a run, make note of anything that might be important, then go back to the BIOS, bump up the speeds and voltages as needed and retest again. Keep doing that until you reach desired speeds and temperatures.

Also make sure you're not on the power saving setting in WIndows power options, just in case. Usually you don't even need to touch that.

You might be applying voltages that are too high.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Crappy cooling on your northbridge and vrms are at fault here. 970 boards are not know for being overclocking friendly. Your better off with a 990fx board. 970's can't take the power draw of a oc'd fx8 for to long. You can try pointing fans at the northbridge and vrms and see if it helps.

 

[tabascosauz]

@TechHands Moving to a 990FX board is not going to solve anything. What matters is the construction of the board's power delivery, and yes, there are 990FX boards with poorly thought-out VRMs too.

Dial it back to stock speeds and look at the temps. If they are still very high, then it's not the OC that's the problem. A VRM system with plenty of phases like the UD3P has is not a free ticket to high OC; you will see many people who, when going past 4.5GHz, require active cooling in the form of a small fan hovering over their VRM heatsinks to dissipate the heat. It may help, but first you should figure out if it's just the OC that is causing the temperatures or something else wrong with the board (or perhaps improper contact between the MOSFETs and heatsink pads?).

The 970A-UD3P is not nearly as crappy as the ones that ASRock and MSI have produced, but it's not going to tolerate that much power draw either. It is heatsinked but the surface area is not abundant. The 990FXA-UD3 (the latest revision), for example, has a lot more surface area in addition to a heatpipe connecting VRM with NB.


EDIT: I need to read. Moving up to a 990FX board (as long as it doesn't come from MSI or low-end ASROCK) will probably help you because most recent revisions of good boards like the 990FXA-UD3, 990FXA-UD5 and Sabertooth are heat piped and if the NB generates excess heat it will spread up to the bigger VRM heatsink to cool down the NB. The UD3P doesn't have that and the NB cooler is also pretty puny. Dunno if a fan might help with the tiny surface area. I suppose taking off the NB heatsink to check contact might be kind of hard, what with the NB heatsink being the only heatsink that is attached by push pins.

 

[TechHands]

I'm back at optimized defaults now in bios and I'll start over.

I'm not going to be able to go past 4.5ghz running prime95 for an hour or more without that issue happening that makes the speed drop and then raise back up. I'll try it again but I'm already assuming something about this motherboard isn't going to let me and just for that reason I'm already aiming to get the new gaming 990fx board that gigabyte just come out with but that will still be far away sometime from now.

I can do something like 1.45v for the cpu on a medium loadline at 4.6ghz easily but it's not stable running prime95 for more then a hour.

I also should check the VRM mofset heatsink and see what kind of contact it's supposed to make sense I'm thinking it touches compositors? The VRM may not be something that takes sizzling heat to make it overheat.

As it is though I'm not going to be able to go past 4.5ghz without inspecting my mobo and see whats up and whats making contact on the chipset.

besides that one temp everything else is 60c or less not counting my temps on my gpu so thats why the 100c temp kinda stands out to me you know. It's always been that hot honestly with previous cpus but it's not kept me back from going past 4.5ghz until now with the 8350 that I'm using.

I'll see what happens again and try to decide what overclock I can maybe reach, as it is I wasn't seeing no real improvements in my FPS from the overclocking so I'm having a hard time understanding why I should even try but I feel like my gpu is good enough so that any possible overclock from my cpu would just benefit my fps sense it's always below 60fps anyway or if it is above 60 it's only cause I'm looking at nothing in the game like the ground or something. Using clock locker on my gpu seems like the right thing to do and i'm assuming getting the most ghz out of my cpu is the right thing to do too so I'm in the deep until I maybe get the better top tier 990fx mobo unless I can change something to enable me to get 4.7ghz or more with this 8350. the 4350 and 6350 I had both easily did 4.9ghz stable running prime95 for hours but I didn't keep them like that sense I felt like the cpu volts that it took to reach that was ridiculous. I was thinking 4.7ghz would be easy for this 8350 so that's why I'm trying to go past 4.5ghz sense I was thinking about getting a water cooler if I was able to do 4.6ghz or more.

I'll try later today maybe and see what happens right now i'm not into running prime95 for that long, it's kinda time consuming.

Edit: even running prime95 now at optimized defaults my clocks are still dropping and stuff but I don't know whats normal and what to expect even after all the reading I've done from the internet. I assume my clock should stay at it's default speed if i'm loading it to it's max.

 

[Bones]

Those temperatures are abnormal, even with running Prime95. Have you disabled all power saving features like Cool n' Quiet? Disabled Turbo? You're sure? Strange that you're reaching such temps in a case such as the one listed in your specs.

There are few motherboards out there that can handle the full 140W TDP and more. Your MB should be fine though.

I would suggest starting over from defaults, disabling all power saving features first, and see if the CPU is always running at max clock even when idle, take that for a run, make note of anything that might be important, then go back to the BIOS, bump up the speeds and voltages as needed and retest again. Keep doing that until you reach desired speeds and temperatures.

Also make sure you're not on the power saving setting in WIndows power options, just in case. Usually you don't even need to touch that.

You might be applying voltages that are too high.

I didn't see exactly what cooling you are using, are you on air or water for the CPU?
You also indicated you were increasing voltages, that adds heat to the system so until you can figure out the "Why" for temps are going up, stop doing that!

I'll say these FX chips are responsive to voltage, for 4.5GHz it should be attainable with about 1.40v's or so, perhaps a little more depending on the exact chip, you'll have to experiment to see what your chip wants either higher or lower. At stock speeds I've ran my 8320 with 1.30v's and even at what would be an 8350's stock speed it's done that with 1.32v's no prob.

NB voltages as a norm (Based on what I've seen with my 990FX boards) should be good for that with no more than 1.20v's period, perhaps less since at least I know the 990FX chipsets are also responsive to voltage and 970 chipsets are similar.
CPU-NB voltage will play a part in temps seen, I've always ran 1.1v's with the stock 2000MHz speed and it's been completely stable. For higher CPU-NB speeds more is required of course but even for running it at 2400MHz about 1.5v's or so should do it, give or take.

Speaking of what settings are in your BIOS, can you post a screenie of your BIOS with the settings you are using?

A simple pic could tell the tale and be aware that sometimes temp readings shown are not accurate, all it takes is a wonky temp sensor to see some crazy stuff and the board itself not knowing any better will react to it accordingly. I've seen this even with brand-new boards showing all kinds of crazy readings and I have a few boards with that problem, drives me nuts at times trying to make it act right with an OC applied.

Get a pic of the BIOS with your settings and we can be of some real help and also be sure to get one of the temps the board is seeing.

 

[TechHands]

I'll get my bios pics up so you can see.

I turned all the power saving stuff off in the bios and left everything else untouched so now my clock stays the same but still changes with small increments 1-10mhz up and down. Is this normal? I've looked hard on the internet trying to find out if that normal and if so then I can move on from that.

Aside from that I already know I can get 4.3ghz at my stock voltage of 1.33v and that's running prime95 over 24hours so 4.3ghz is no issue.

and right now other then the power savings stuff turned off in bios with nothing else changed. I'm just wanting to see how this is for right now and then I guess go to 4.3ghz and start increasing the cpu voltage 1st.
if you still want me to show my bios even if I don't have much change right now I will.

Edit: I don't know what to make of any temp reading that's not the cpu or gpu core temp, I i'm finding it hard to figure out if or what other voltages should I change or if I should even try. :-/

 

[Bones]

I'll get my bios pics up so you can see.

I turned all the power saving stuff off in the bios and left everything else untouched so now my clock stays the same but still changes with small increments 1-10mhz up and down. Is this normal? I've looked hard on the internet trying to find out if that normal and if so then I can move on from that.

Aside from that I already know I can get 4.3ghz at my stock voltage of 1.33v and that's running prime95 over 24hours so 4.3ghz is no issue.

and right now other then the power savings stuff turned off in bios with nothing else changed. I'm just wanting to see how this is for right now and then I guess go to 4.3ghz and start increasing the cpu voltage 1st.
if you still want me to show my bios even if I don't have much change right now I will.

Edit: I don't know what to make of any temp reading that's not the cpu or gpu core temp, I i'm finding it hard to figure out if or what other voltages should I change or if I should even try. :-/

Yes, give us a shot of the BIOS so we can advise you accurately.

Fluctuation in MHz is normal to see and the amount you're saying is normal so that's not a problem, it's when it's really bouncing around you'll have a problem. 1 to 10 MHz fluctuations is OK so that's a non-issue.
You can go into the BIOS and see what the readings are and compare them to what you are seeing in your monitoring program to get an idea of what is what. If reading temps straight from the BIOS it should tell you what part of the setup it' getting it's temp reading from.

As for increasing CPU voltage, you really want to increase speeds while leaving voltage alone to begin with.
The idea is to figure out the least amount of voltage it takes to reach a given speed in MHz, then to test for stability once you get it there. If it's unstable at the target speed then add a little voltage then retest it to see. Be sure to add voltage in increments, even an increase from 1.33v's to 1.40v's is actually a moderate increase so baby-step it as you go until it's stable. Monitor temps as you go to see what it's doing, you'll eventually get an idea of how it's behaving and what to do with it. Know that sometimes too much voltage in addition to causing it to run hot can even keep it from booting up, this would be caused by temps spiking hard while trying to initialize the OS.

The cooler in your system's profile should be good enough to handle a 4.5GHz OC so unless it's a problem with airflow through the case or something it should do.

 

[TechHands]

I'll get some bios pics rounded up, I'm wanting to take break from O/C though right now, my system kept locking up about 2-3 hours ago and all I have done it just turned the power savings off in bios but I went in and lowered my DRAM voltage to 1.490v and now it's not froze up sense. I have small problems and issues such as that and I'm doubting that lowering the dram voltage did anything to actually keep my system from freezing any more but something has.

I'm by no means having a walk in the park with trying to overclock this so far, and to top it off I can't show myself any actual proof the any overclocking is actually doing me any good and that makes me paranoid making me think with the more I try to overclock the more slow my system is going to get.

I having a very hard time keeping myself consent right now that any overclocking is going to help me get more fps in games, I'm still going to try but I'm just bummed out right now and may need to sleep more on it before I push my overclock higher.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Well being stable is everything. If it's not stable your just shooting yourself in the foot. Mt rig has be oc'd at 4.4 for over 2.5 years now running 100% load 24/7/365. I have overclocked it higher and it was stable but for longevity I dropped it down and it's been super happy where it is at. So you may need to lower your ocing goal especially with that 970 chipset board.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well being stable is everything. If it's not stable your just shooting yourself in the foot. Mt rig has be oc'd at 4.4 for over 2.5 years now running 100% load 24/7/365. I have overclocked it higher and it was stable but for longevity I dropped it down and it's been super happy where it is at. So you may need to lower your ocing goal especially with that 970 chipset board.

Mine is at 4.9GHz Gaming stable on Air, at 5GHz Netflix causes a Lock Up, unsure what more I can do to get the golden 5.

 

[TechHands]

Yea I don't think i'm going to get past 4.4ghz without something happening doing a 24hour stress test. But like I said my previous cpu's was stable doing long stress tests with what I would say an extreme O/C. If this cpu is alright I don't see myself having a real need for a water cooler now. I need to see whats up with my VRM/MOFset and NB because I feel like that is maybe the issue, I feel like something about the 8350 is drawing more power, I have good airflow so i'm thinking I need to remove the chipset heatsinks all except the SB and see if I can make sure I do nothing wrong so that I can get them back on. It still would be nice for me to keep using this MB it just that I do not want to hit some limit trying to o/c this 8350.

I was thinking about lowering voltages in bios and see which one causes the system to fail 1st and see just how much it takes by lowering them to cause issues. As it is right now I don't know if my dram need more V or less. I could trail and error this stuff but I'm falling short on having or making the time to do so.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Mine is at 4.9GHz Gaming stable on Air, at 5GHz Netflix causes a Lock Up, unsure what more I can do to get the golden 5.

I crunch on mine so I wanted to keep a modest oc on it. Wcg is very touchy with overclocking and I also wanted this rig to live a very long life considering it does run full load all the time.

@TechHands If it where me I would set it at 4.2 or 4.3 and call it a day before you take out the board or the cpu or even both. That board doesn't have a strong enough vrm circuit for ocing a fx8 very far.

 

[TechHands]

that's what I will do is maybe just leave it at 4.3ghz and use it as much as possible before I change or do anything else major. It's just that once I stop O/C the cpu I then starting thinking about overclocking everything else such as ram HT and NB along with using the FSB just to increase all that. So I need to settle on something so I don't continue to think I can do more and then I start trying while I'll usually end up upset sense it does seems that maybe the FX 8000's might not clock as well as the previous cpu's I had did with this mobo but I need to move past thinking about the past like that and settle with this now so I can actually use my computer and try to have some fun.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

that's what I will do is maybe just leave it at 4.3ghz and use it as much as possible before I change or do anything else major. It's just that once I stop O/C the cpu I then starting thinking about overclocking everything else such as ram HT and NB along with using the FSB just to increase all that. So I need to settle on something so I don't continue to think I can do more and then I start trying while I'll usually end up upset sense it does seems that maybe the FX 8000's might not clock as well as the previous cpu's I had did with this mobo but I need to move past thinking about the past like that and settle with this now so I can actually use my computer and try to have some fun.

Good idea. Also leave the memory, fsb, and the NB at stock. Just use the multi to increase the clock speed and use as little voltage as necessary to get it stable at 4.3. You rig will thank you in the long run. Hell mine a 4.4 i have yet to see anything I can't do. Mine runs games just fine. I never see any slow downs or dropped frames. Also my memory is running at 1600 because FX procs don't like to run the memory at 1866 when all 4 slots (32gb) are filled. I don't see any difference from when I had 2 slots filled running at 1866.

 

[TechHands]

i'll do that

 

[Aquinus]

I'm pretty sure we told you an an earlier thread that your motherboard isn't well suited for running an 8c CPU, not just the 9000-series CPU. Several people suggested a new motherboard and this is exactly why. Sorry buddy, but, there was a reason for the recommendation. I would run the CPU at stock because you fry something.

 

[ASOT]

970 has 4800MT/s mean HT is 2400 by default,here 8350 is limited to 2400!

990FX has 5200MT/s HT 2600 wich is proper to FX 8350,also NB 2200!

Change MOBO,that 970 can not handle ...OC or run it stock

I had M5A97 R2.0 and FX 8300,95w TDP and barrely handle OC 4.0Ghz

 

[Countryside]

For FX cpu Monitoring it would be best to use AMD Overdrive it displays thermal margin thus giving you better heads up before your cpu throttles.

PS: Read the Manual, Overdrive is not your regular temp monitor.

 

[TechHands]

I did install overdrive but I deleted it after checking it out.
I wont really bother to overclock much now unless I have a look and see if the chipset heatskinks can be re applied for the better but I don't plan on turning off this pc any time soon.

The best thing I can think of is maybe trying that new 990fx board that gigabyte come out with sense it looks to have the best chipset cooling possible with a heat pipe that connect all 3 chipset heatsinks, I think that is good sense the SB is always cold it would spare itself to help cool the NB which seems insanely hot. Maybe in the next month or so I can get that board and try it out, I'm not looking to invest much more into this pc before I try and go intel but I'm thinking I should try and make that change and swap it out and maybe try to get $50 for this mobo to help pay for the 990FX gaming mobo. So I feel like it wouldn't be too crazy just to try it out as long as I can sell it too and not loose much $$. I'm thinking if I sell the 990FX gaming I might could still get $100 for it to help pay for the intel mobo.

So that is what is on my mind, but for the record I got this mobo sense I assumed it would be enough but I understand that while it's good for a 8370 that doesn't mean it will overclock one to it's limit I guess and be 100% reliable.

Yea, I was thinking about this last night and when I did build this PC I do remember being told to go intel and then I could have a much better upgrade path with CPU's. Thing is back then I was overwhelmed by all that intel had to offer and I didn't understand their chipsets and what cpu could go in what socket but now I'm well aware and I understand the Z97 X99 and Z170 chipsets anything below those I have no real interest.

Also I decided to get this mobo because it was pretty much the cheapest mobo that seem to have everything I needed as long as I didn't want to go past the 8000 cpu's.

 

[eidairaman1]

Still not listening... smh.