OC Temperatures for i7-930

[Swervin]

As wevsspot has stated it's always a good idea to check both your cpu and cooler with a flat edge or large razor blade to make sure neither are very convex or concave.

 

Besides that, your main problem is you have everything set on AUTO. Your Bios will determine what voltages it thinks you need to be stable, and more often than not it will overvolt.

Set the vcore manually along with the qpi/vtt, pcie, memory and pll for that small of an OC and test again. I'm betting your temps will be substantially lower.

 

interesting read, my idle temps about low 30s-mid 30s, with ambient temps about 18-20 degrees... but i'm using a Noctua U9B (limited space in my case). what i need to ask you experienced people and may help with the OP, how would be the ideal voltage, etc to aim for or set to, to be stable...

[ccokeman]

I would check the TIM, Orientation of the fans, heatsink, and have you look at the voltages applied other than vcore. On auto the QPI volts normally get shanked much higher than needed significantly increasing the thermal load on the cooling system. 1.24v applied is not going to give you temps in the 90-100C range.

 

TO apply the time a small rice sized dab in the middle will do the trick.

[wevsspot]

Most every d0 revision i7 920 and the recently released i7 930 will hit 3.4Ghz or higher with near stock vcore. So an initial setting of 1.24v for cpu voltage should be more than enough for a 3.2Ghz overclock. My best guess for your blue screen is because your memory multiplier isn't set correctly. Pushing your bclk to 153 and your cpu to 3.2Ghz shouldn't be stressing that system at all.

 

Get back into your BIOS and see what the effective memory rate is at 153 bclk. For now use a multiplier that will keep your g.skill sticks running at or near their rated timings of DDR3 1600.

[Speedway]

Ok, so I have some idea of what went wrong. First, I removed the HSF and, sure enough, it wasn't spread evenly. One whole heatpipe had no paste touching it at all (ouch!). I thoroughly cleaned it off and reapplied it and screwed it in but still felt uneasy about it... so I took it off and it was a little light on one side so I added a little dab more and my cores are now idling @2.8GHz somewhere between 38 and 43 C. At full load I'm somewhere between 64 and 70. I suppose that's right but I'm not really sure. I may try redoing the process again tomorrow unless people are more than sure that they're acceptable temps.

 

I've tried to go manual on vcore settings but just keep ending up with bluescreens. Part of the problem is I don't actually know what my stock voltage is and can't seem to find that information anywhere. I know the basic idea is up the BLCK until it starts failing and then amp up the voltage but beyond that I'm just a n00b. I can't find any solid guides to OCing i7s and am wondering if it's worth it for the trouble.

 

 

WHOA......slow down The i7's are some of the best overclockers out! You just have to get the hang of it!

 

OK, 1st of all if you have your voltage set to AUTO and you are only trying for a mild overclock like the 3.3-3.4 range, then you should not be getting a BSOD. I have my BLCK set to 160 on a 24/7 overclock with my voltage setting on AUTO, and have no problems! With everything set to AUTO, you will see different voltages, as well as overclocks, due to the jump up in clock speed when needed for programs that are more demanding. But, I know when my pc isn't running anything, I have seen voltages as low as 0.98V. That said everyone will have different opinions on what your max volts can be. I personally have had my i7-930 running stable over 4.3GHz with the voltage just over 1.4V. I also would NEVER go over 1.5V on the Vcore, but would certainly push it up close to that.

 

Really the bottom line on your cpu, is when it comes to damaging it by overclocking, the main thing you want to look at is the temps. Like Dr. said hitting 80C is about as high as I would want to see it, and that would only be when I was really pushing the limits of my system! A comfortable overclock for me is going to be closer to the mid 70's under load, but it will completely depend on your cooling as to what clock speed that means for you! When overclocking I keep an eye on the voltage, but my biggest concern is always the temps! Every cpu overclocks differently, so a guide will help give you an idea of how to do, which you already know with upping the BLCK and adjusting the voltage, but everyone's results will vary due to different cooling, as well as the cpu itself! Hope this helps some.

 

Glad you at least got those temps under control, when I started reading this post, I figured it was without a doubt the contact between the cpu and heatsink!

Edited July 19, 2010 by SpeedwayNative

[D3PyroGS]

Thanks for the helpful replies. I'll try to re-apply the TIM (which I'm assuming is an acronym for thermal paste? ) using the dot method when I get off work and try to get my idle/load temps as low as others I've seen with my cooler/case combo. One thing I'm still not sure about is my "stock voltage." The 1.24V I said was, as I recall, what the ASUS Ai Tweaker program said while I was running Prime95 (though I believe it was as low as .95V during idle). Does anyone know how to determine a good baseline voltage? I was messing around with it last night and that's what I believe gave me the BSOD's.

 

Can anyone clarify how voltage affects temperature? I'm assuming higher voltages mean higher temps but not everything I've seen confirms this. Also, will BSOD's occur if I happen to set the voltage too low and too high? Or just one of those cases?

[Drdeath]

Thanks for the helpful replies. I'll try to re-apply the TIM (which I'm assuming is an acronym for thermal paste? ) using the dot method when I get off work and try to get my idle/load temps as low as others I've seen with my cooler/case combo. One thing I'm still not sure about is my "stock voltage." The 1.24V I said was, as I recall, what the ASUS Ai Tweaker program said while I was running Prime95 (though I believe it was as low as .95V during idle). Does anyone know how to determine a good baseline voltage? I was messing around with it last night and that's what I believe gave me the BSOD's.

 

Can anyone clarify how voltage affects temperature? I'm assuming higher voltages mean higher temps but not everything I've seen confirms this. Also, will BSOD's occur if I happen to set the voltage too low and too high? Or just one of those cases?

 

 

You need to disable all your power saving features when overclocking.

[D3PyroGS]

You need to disable all your power saving features when overclocking.

 

Update: So I re-reapplied my TIM a few hours ago using the dot method and got good temps on stock settings. I overclocked to 3.8GHz based on this guy's settings (since he has my motherboard) and am currently running Prime95 with temperatures of 76,77,73,72 C. I'm pretty happy with this as these seem to be stable temps AFAIK. So two questions now:

 

1. Do the higher temps in my first two cores suggest that my TIM is still applied funky or is this normal?
2. Do higher voltages mean higher temps, or is temperature strictly clock speed-related?

Thanks!

[CowKing]

Update: So I re-reapplied my TIM a few hours ago using the dot method and got good temps on stock settings. I overclocked to 3.8GHz based on this guy's settings (since he has my motherboard) and am currently running Prime95 with temperatures of 76,77,73,72 C. I'm pretty happy with this as these seem to be stable temps AFAIK. So two questions now:

 

1. Do the higher temps in my first two cores suggest that my TIM is still applied funky or is this normal?
2. Do higher voltages mean higher temps, or is temperature strictly clock speed-related?

Thanks!

1: That's completely normal to have a 2-5c difference in temperature

2: temperature will increase with a higher clock speed, but a LOT of that increase is from the voltage

[D3PyroGS]

You need to disable all your power saving features when overclocking.

Ok, I did that following the guide for 4.01GHz (and lowering the vcore and QPI a tad) and am getting temps up to 85C. My settings, for reference, are as follows

 

Ai Overclock Tuner.....................[Manual]
CPU Ratio Setting......................[21.0]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode...........[Enabled]
BCLK Frequency.........................[191]
PCIE Frequency.........................[100]
DRAM Frequency.........................[DDR3-1531MHz]
UCLK Frequency.........................[3063MHz]
QPI Link Data Rate.....................[Auto]

CPU Voltage Control....................[Manual]
CPU Voltage............................[1.23125]
CPU PLL Voltage........................[1.80]
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage..................[1.21875]
IOH Voltage............................[1.14]
IOH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50]
ICH Voltage............................[1.20]
ICH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50]
DRAM Bus Voltage.......................[1.64]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto]

Load-Line Calibration..................[Enabled]
CPU Differential Amplitude.............[800mV]
CPU Clock Skew.........................[Delay 300ps]
CPU Spread Spectrum....................[Disabled]
IOH Clock Skew.........................[Auto]
PCIE Spread Spectrum...................[Disabled]

C1E Support............................[Disabled]
Hardware Prefetcher....................[Enabled]
Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch...........[Enabled]
Intel(r) Virtualization Tech...........[Disabled]
CPU TM Function........................[Enabled]
Execute Disable Bit....................[Enabled]
Intel(r) HT Technology.................[Enabled]
Active Processor Cores.................[All]
A20M...................................[Disabled]
Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled]
Intel(r) C-STATE Tech..................[Disabled]

 

I want to run it at this speed if possible, but I feel that my load temps are too high. Any suggestions for lowering them? Decreasing vcore isn't really much of an option here as this is about the lowest I could stably get it. To be honest, I don't know much of what the other non-auto values do or if any of them can be changed but I'm open to suggestions, if anyone has any.

[wevsspot]

Relative to power saving features on the new intel chipsets and cpus.........

 

Once you have found a stable overclock, you can often re-enable things like Speed Step, C1E etc. without consequence.

 

About the only "for sure" power/protection feature you need to disable is TM (thermal monitoring) or it will cause cpu throttling once it detects that your cpu is reaching tmax based on the readings coming from the temp diode onboard the cpu.

 

Using C1E can often help reduce cpu temps by 4-5C because the board is throttling down the processor cores and energy consumption based on cpu load.

 

Another couple of things that will help lower temps is to disable Hyperthreading and Virtualization Technolgy.

 

Incorporate all of the suggestions I recommended above and you'll find at least a 4-5C drop in your temps.

 

Regarding the max temps you reported above.... how are you loading the cpu? If you are running Linx, OCCT or Prime, those programs will be stressing your cpu to the max and you'll not likely see those types of loads/temperatures during normal usage.

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

[D3PyroGS]

Using C1E can often help reduce cpu temps by 4-5C because the board is throttling down the processor cores and energy consumption based on cpu load.

We're talking about a normal gaming load, not a full Prime95 load, correct?

 

Another couple of things that will help lower temps is to disable Hyperthreading and Virtualization Technolgy.

I currently have virtualization disabled but I don't know if I want to disable hyperthreading. I'm assuming that's what gives you the 8 logical cores as opposed to 4, but I'm not sure how disabling it affects speed. If I run faster at a stable 4GHz w/o hyper than at 3.8 w/hyper then I'm all for that. Basically, whichever performs more optimally.

 

Regarding the max temps you reported above.... how are you loading the cpu? If you are running Linx, OCCT or Prime, those programs will be stressing your cpu to the max and you'll not likely see those types of loads/temperatures during normal usage.

I'm doing a Prime95 blend test utilizing 100% on all cores. I understand that no normal usage could ever be so stressing but I'm honestly not sure how high the temps go while in an intense gaming session. In your opinion, at what temperature should I say, "I'm happy with this; I'm done"? 3.8GHz is pretty awesome and if I can't get to 4.0, it's OK with me.

[wevsspot]

There are a handful of apps that can take advantage of hyperthreading. It's a neat technology with tons of potential, but from the software side a lot of that potential hasn't been tapped yet. From a gaming perspective, some titles actually perform a little bit better with HT disabled.

 

Here is an older article that I read when I first started dabbling with the i7 stuff;

 

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/ci7-turbo-ht-p1.html

 

In my case I have HT enabled, but I'm under water so temps aren't an issue for me at 3.8Ghz.