400MHz max on any cpu

[davepjr71]

It could be that your 2 CPUs can only be clocked by that much.

Why would you assume you can go way over 3 ghz with an fx-55?

I doubt any fx-55 can do any better.

As for your 3700+ maybe you just got a bad one. I had an Opty 170(2.0ghz stock) that would not budge more than 2.5-2.6ghz.

I also doubt that a DFI board would be the cause of a poor overclock.

You say you have read many guides and I can guarantee you DFI boards are the reason folks achieve their high overclocks.

I am not saying you are wrong, I am just being devil's advocate here and think perhaps your RAM is holding you back.

RAM to me is the biggest challenge on these boards, what works for epox or Asus means nothing here.

Until you know for sure without any doubt that your RAM is stable, you will be in an endless loop looking at your other hardware.

 

I'm not blaming the board at all. I'm simply trying to figure out if there could be something in the BIOS that I might need to look at. I started this post because I find it odd that 2 separate chips would end-up with the same results. I'm wondering about the RAM and that's why I'm going to stick my 2X512 in and see if I get similar results. I've read that people sometimes have worse overclocks with 2G compared to 1G. This is all a learning experience as is any electrical adventure. When running any experiment you figure out what the cause is by process of elimination. You also learn from talking to people who have more experience with the product then you do. The DFI has probably twice as many settings in the BIOS than th EPOX I own. I've asked about the effect of the Thermal Throttling setting in another post and haven't received a reply yet. I agree that 3GHz is pretty good and really haven't found too many better. However, isn't the whole point of overclocking to push and push some more?

 

Again, just trying to gain information, not listen to criticism. I was told and learned something a long time ago that I wish more people would learn. Read (listen), comprehend, then reply. This isn't directed at you. It's some of the other responses. I've stated that I have a problem at a particular overclock point and get a response stating that I'm misleading the forum about having trouble overclocking. I've stated that if I increase my voltage I get a stable system at 3GHz but do not prefer to do that at this time until I gather more info about the 400MGZ wall and am told that my system isn't stable.

 

It very well could be that both CPU's have the same limit. In my profession I find it fascinating when I run into a problem that seems to have a common connection and was turning to a forum of experts for some ideas. In no profession or field does it help to criticize people. I've seen many people's postings were they run the 1M test and tout the greatness of their overclock. Or, even their scores on 3DMark05. None of them show the results at 32M. One guide I read considers 8M to be adaquate for stability. Thererfore, I stated that I passed at that level. I've also passed at 32M.

 

Unless people are going to offer a real world solution or good advice I would appreciate you not responding at all. I've heard from people in other forums that they do not like coming here because they receive more criticism than help. READ, COMPREHEND, RESPOND!!!

[Kingfisher]

Well I am sorry you think I am criticizing, but you can't expect folks to overclock your board on a forum.

There are plenty of threads on the forum to help you achieve your best overclock, but only you can do it.

As for Thermal Throttling , noone has responded probalby because that has nothing to do with overclocking a DFI board.

 

Good luck.

[davepjr71]

Well I am sorry you think I am criticizing, but you can't expect folks to overclock your board on a forum.

There are plenty of threads on the forum to help you achieve your best overclock, but only you can do it.

As for Thermal Throttling , noone has responded probalby because that has nothing to do with overclocking a DFI board.

 

Good luck.

 

Kingfisher,

 

1. I didn't say you where criticizing me. I'm pretty sure I said that.

 

2. I'm not asking for anyone to overclock for me. I'm asking if anyone has run into a similar situation and can lend their expertise in helping solve a very specific problem. Isn't that the reason that the DFI forum was created in the first place by people who work for DFI? Or, am I missing something here. Did anyone here go to college? I would bet that if you did and your professors answered the way people on here do everyone would flunk. Or, worse yet leave the classroom not having a single clue what the hell is going on.

 

3. I selected the DFI board for it's rave reviews of being the best overclocking board. That why I'm using it and not my EPOX.

 

4. You just gave an example of why people get ticked at this forum. All you had to say was that the Thermal throttling setting does not affect overclocking. Instead of saying the reason no one answered is because it has nothing to do with overclocking. See, that is what is called a constructive answer.

 

5. I've done a search on this forum to answer my problem and couldn't find one so i created a post.

[kitfit1]

As Kingfisher has said, geting the ram settings right is THE most critical part of any clock. But the most critical part af any setup is the psu and i'm afraid the one your trying to clock your rig with just dos'nt cut it. On that basis i would strongly reccommend that you look at the reccommended psu's thread and get yourself something that will do what you are asking of it.

[Kingfisher]

4. You just gave an example of why people get ticked at this forum. All you had to say was that the Thermal throttling setting does not affect overclocking. Instead of saying the reason no one answered is because it has nothing to do with overclocking. See, that is what is called a constructive answer.

 

I appologize if I came off a bit sarcastic.

 

I really am trying to help, as are all the folks. I enjoy seeing people solve their problems, that is why I am here. I had to and now perhaps you have to.

[davepjr71]

As Kingfisher has said, geting the ram settings right is THE most critical part of any clock. But the most critical part af any setup is the psu and i'm afraid the one your trying to clock your rig with just dos'nt cut it. On that basis i would strongly reccommend that you look at the reccommended psu's thread and get yourself something that will do what you are asking of it.

 

 

Thank you for the straight forward answer. I guess i'm kind of surprised by the PSU though. I did some reviews and the Sunbeamtech was the first modular supply accepted by NVidia and all reviews (outside of this guide)praised it for it's rock solid voltage. However, none of the reviewers tried to overclock with it. Thanks again for the response.

[davepjr71]

I appologize if I came off a bit sarcastic.

 

I really am trying to help, as are all the folks. I enjoy seeing people solve their problems, that is why I am here. I had to and now perhaps you have to.

 

 

No problem. I like figuring things out for myslef. However, when I noticed the comon overclock between the 2 cpu's I figured I'd see what people had to say about it. That maybe I am missing something that i haven't thought of.

[kitfit1]

However, none of the reviewers tried to overclock with it.

 

And that, i'm afraid is the problem with the vast majority of psu's. Load up dual Prime on an x2 and watch the 12v and 3.3v lines drop like a stone, and of course the higher the clock(ie, 3gig)and the further they drop.

[acphydro]

I'm always open to new findings w/users experience,but in everything I've read so far it is confirmed that NF3 had issues when OCing on certain SATA ports,some were locked and some weren't.

 

On the NF4 chipset, everything I've read says all the SATA ports are locked, so there shouldn't be any probs on any of them

 

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread...ht=ports+locked

 

I have seen SATA cables being wonky and perhaps by moving them around it changed something,I can't explain your findings.

 

I won't disagree that is very possible that maybe the cable was faulty. Hell its even possible that theres a minor issue on just my board or etc. I wasn't that worried about it so never dug deeper into that issue i experienced as I did what I did and it went away.

[acphydro]

And that, i'm afraid is the problem with the vast majority of psu's. Load up dual Prime on an x2 and watch the 12v and 3.3v lines drop like a stone, and of course the higher the clock(ie, 3gig)and the further they drop.

 

Thats the first thing that came to mind when I read his sig, however before purchasing a new one theres at least a few things you can try before spending more money. I for one am cheap and I'll try anything possible when I have a problem like he's having to change some settings here or there and mess with it and see if I can get it going.

 

To the OP: Maybe I read your post too fast earlier and didn't read that you said it was stable with more voltage but I still wanted to know what tests you used to deem it stable and as far as I [and most of us] here are concerned superpi isnt THE stability test, it will just help you flake out problems sooner if you've went too far. I can get my cpu to pass superpi's 16M test at 2.9ghz using 1.57v but when I tried priming the pc, core 2 failed within 5 minutes and raising the volts didnt help. prime will test your ram if setup right, but I STILL prefer to use memtest for testing my memory as it does a far better job IMO.

 

It is completely possible that both your cpus will only go 400mhz over without crapping out, its not very likely but it can happen. With my 485W enermax noisetaker [i dont remember the rails specs specifically] i could only reach 2.5ghz with this cpu [and thats only because it was at stock voltage of 1.37 any higher than 1.4 and it couldnt even post] as soon as i put this new psu in and nothing else changed i was able to get to where I am now as shown in my OCDB entry.

 

Anyways I've already talked to you about this issue further and after trying our advice let us know what you come up with and if needed ask more questions and we'll be glad to help. Good luck with your project though.

 

BTW: What BIOS are you using anyway? I found the stock BIOS to not work very well with my setup [probably memory] I am currently using BigToe [ocz tony]s latest bios found in the bios section.

[davepjr71]

It passes prime95 with higher voltage.

 

The question about the BIOS is an interesting one. I have the latest from DFI right now and didn't know about trying out the bios from the site. I had some flake in another forum tell me that the BIOS has nothing to do with overclocking when I posed the question of switching BIOS.

 

The power supply issue would be a kick in the sack. I just bought the Sunbeamtech when I bought the DFI and the RAM. I thought on the guide that the Sunbeam is adequate if not running in SLI and hence the Tier 3 rating. I know the OCZ's are the cat's meow and may have to upgrade when I build my next system.

 

I am running prime now and will post results and settings tomorrow. Thank to all that gave good advice.

[red930]

There was another interesting thing about my Pat's, even in the SSDB I had to bump the V's to 2.7vdimm to get them prime stable,they would memtest clean 'til the cows came home at 2.6 though.

 

I needed 2.9vdimm to get them to run the rated pc4000,I've often wondered if I shouldn't RMA them because they should be able to do at 2.8vdimm