Q9650 4.0GHz Help

[MercuryDoun]

Why do you keep setting higher voltage on your ram and PLL... and everything for that matter??? Set your DRAM voltages to what its rated for. And leave it at that. At your current settings you are putting more voltage into the ram for something is that 5% under clocked. Its totally unneeded, set it back to 1.65v

 

This is probably why you burnt your ram out. DO NOT just arbitrarily increase voltages for no reason other than its unstable... you know that it could be unstable because the voltage is TOO high???

 

At this point in time you've changed so many settings and messed with so many voltages. Really the best thing i can say is reset the motherboard to factory defaults/clear CMOS and start over from scratch. Why is your PCI freq. at 105? baseline its 100... ive NEVER heard of any reason to take it over 101 or 102 except for ludacriously extreme OC's with Liquid nitrogen... The only reason to raise PCI Freq. would be if you hit a FSB wall, you dont know that you've hit a FSB wall, your unstable, usually FSB wall is it wont boot or make it to windows even. Turn that back down to 100, that could be your problem right there! Like i said you really need to clear your CMOS and start over. You've done much more damage than good at this point mindlessly raising voltages left and right just because "well it worked for someone else"

 

Use other peoples BIO's settings as a guide line not a fact. No hardware is exactly the same. If you take my advice and start over. Try walking your way up to 4.0Ghz... like 100-200Mhz at a time. Dont raise your voltage unless you need to get what it currently set stable. You will find this method is MUCH more effective. You raise voltages in massive amounts at time. Try increasing the clock 200mhz over stock, you will not likely need to increase any voltages at all. Learn what the BSOD hex-codes mean.

 

BSOD x00000101 = more vcore, only raise but alittle each time, like .025. If you made it into windows, and started a stress test, but fail after 30 minutes, it means you are close, just alittle more vcore and you could be set. No reason to jab an adrenaline needle full of 1000cc's face melting voltages directly into your CPU.

 

BSOD x00000124 = USUALLY is northbridge but not always. Try raising by .125v instead of by .4. If your Northbridge voltage is already set really high and you get this code, try lowering it by alittle instead of raising.

 

These are really the only two BSOD's you should see if its CPU related.

Edited November 22, 2010 by MercuryDoun

[moskwiz]

@MercuryDoun

Thanks for the recommendations.. I started from scratch and have 3.62 stable right now.. going to go up nice and slow =)

The BSOD hex i have relatively little to do with since I haven't seen a BSOD when overclocking for ages anymore.. Instability is OCCT-fail derived =)

 

btw, My DRAM V was at 1.65xx only because the before setting would have been 1.64xx.. So that wasn't a deliberate setting the DRAM higher than recommended.. I am using it on 1.64xx now tho

 

Will keep anyone listening posted ^^

[MercuryDoun]

@MercuryDoun

Thanks for the recommendations.. I started from scratch and have 3.62 stable right now.. going to go up nice and slow =)

The BSOD hex i have relatively little to do with since I haven't seen a BSOD when overclocking for ages anymore.. Instability is OCCT-fail derived =)

 

btw, My DRAM V was at 1.65xx only because the before setting would have been 1.64xx.. So that wasn't a deliberate setting the DRAM higher than recommended.. I am using it on 1.64xx now tho

 

Will keep anyone listening posted ^^

 

My bad on the ram. I was thinking for some reason at first that it was supposed to be 1.60v then then i checked your ram and saw 1.65v but forgot to change the rest of my post because i was tired and R-tarded. Oh well. You werent over by any margin so its nothing bad there.

 

Yeah glad you got 3.6 stable. Thats what i run my i7-930 at 24/7. There is no difference in FPS between 3.6Ghz and 4.2Ghz... if there is it is like 1... whoopie?? Now if you wanna look cool in a benchmark however... then i drag mine back up to 4.2Ghz... but with my cooling and my CPU @ 3.6Ghz i never get over 58c on the hottest core while running prime95 even for 24 hours straight. so its about the best possible high clock low temp solution i could come up with. I know Core2's are pretty different that i7's but still.

 

Thats why i dont like to use OCCT... sure it doesnt hard fail and BSOD, but you have no idea why it fails. But yeah... just work your way up slowly, and dont change any settings/voltages unless you actually have a reason. You will find working your way up slowly will put you at the lowest possible voltages to achieve the highest clocks you set your sights on.

 

Again sorry about the ram voltage.

[medbor]

If you press F8 on windows boot screen you can switch off BSOD reboot. If it crashes in OCCT you will then get the HEX (assuming reboot crashes and not software hanging)

[moskwiz]

No sweat MercuryDoun, it's all good.. after all what you proposed was right..

 

However I am very sad to post that as of now my motherboard has died on me which is a total and indeed an epic FAIL since i had used it only about 2 months.. Without going into further details it works on its side and doesn't when the pc is upright.. I was a damn fool making the risk of buying a second hand motherboard (one built for OC'ng even) without any warranty and now have paid the price..

 

So since I won't be OCng on this system anymore I see no real reason to keep this post alive.. Probably going to get an i7 or maybe a 1090T.. gonna start a new post here soon..

 

Thx for everyone who posted and helped me out with OCng.. real sad this happened.. I was just about to get good at OCng on 775

[MercuryDoun]

No sweat MercuryDoun, it's all good.. after all what you proposed was right..

 

However I am very sad to post that as of now my motherboard has died on me which is a total and indeed an epic FAIL since i had used it only about 2 months.. Without going into further details it works on its side and doesn't when the pc is upright.. I was a damn fool making the risk of buying a second hand motherboard (one built for OC'ng even) without any warranty and now have paid the price..

 

So since I won't be OCng on this system anymore I see no real reason to keep this post alive.. Probably going to get an i7 or maybe a 1090T.. gonna start a new post here soon..

 

Thx for everyone who posted and helped me out with OCng.. real sad this happened.. I was just about to get good at OCng on 775

 

OH NO!! Thats pretty epic fail man. I hope you actually have the money to invest into a new system!!! Well it would be alot cheaper to just get a new MoBo for all the stuff you have now... but if you REALLY want to goto i7 or Phenom II... Id highly recommend the i7-950 or the Phenom II x6 1055t. The 1090t is alittle easier to overclock with, buts proven that the 1055t can hit pretty much the same clocks at the 1090t, so as far as OC'ers or, its pretty much win. Still, if i had a vote id say get a new MoBo and keep what you got. Maybe wait to do a entire system rebuild until the next gen of CPU's Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer. Just buy the cheapest socket 775 board that supports DDR3 ram and C2Q's and go with the flow until its time for some next gen win sauce.

[moskwiz]

Yeah, I did a lot of thinking on that front and decided that since I've been through a lot of fails very recently on the pc front (first my new rams failed, then motherboard.. now my laptop is starting to die on me) I don't really want to get into another temporary solution which doing what you suggested would be.. And since I'm not really an enthusiastic overclocker (I just do it to prolong my hardwares lifespan a bit) and what matters to me most with pc's is that it would perform very well on games and multimedia, not that it got more points on a benchmark, I'm probably gonna go for a nice and reliable Sabertooth x58 and i7-950 which will be more than sufficient for all games for a few years easy, then when the warranty ends OC the CPU to 4+ =)

 

Besides I already put almost 200$ into a previous gen mobo (Rampage Extreme) and I don't want to put another 100$ or so in another one.. It's just stupid to buy old stuff in a market that completely overhauls itself every 2 years or so..

 

I know Bulldozer and Sandy Bridge will be out Q1 and Q3 respectively, but i doubt they'll inspire a software-upgrade so vast that it would render an i7-950 useless on the front of high-end gaming. Even if intel is arrogant enough to obsolete their award winning platforms in under 2 years, software developers aren't.. I mean there are what, 3.. 4 games in the world that actually utilize more than 2 cores When it comes to pc-gaming and multimedia and not such IT-territories where 8 cores and 12mb of cache actually have a purpose, such as sound and video editing, servers etc., a 3.6GHz i3 is pretty much powerful enough to let you play anything on 'high' to 'very high' for the next 2 years. So ultimately, when push comes to shove even an i7 950 is total overkill for 80% of the mainstream users who have one and will be for years to come.

 

Be all that as it may, I'm not saying having a Bulldozer wouldn't be totally sweet.. also I'm not saying that right now is a good time to buy high-end stuff - in 3 months I'm betting all the current superbeasts will cost a good third less.

So you do make a valid point, however getting a bulldozer in 6 months and rocking it out with a cheap mobo (that i'd also have to buy) until then would still definetly be more expensive than the expansion that I'm planning right now.. Also in terms of usability, Bulldozer wouldn't give me any real advantage over a 950 and 8g of 1600Mhz in the applications I use my pc for.. So you see, getting a reliable and sturdy yet powerful enough system right now is still wiser than the alternative, because goddammit I am a gamer and OC'er (albeit a humble one) and I do want a good computer!

 

So there =D The battery of my laptopt is almost dead and it's 8am after a long nights out working, I'm going to sleep. Please do reply and convince me otherwise

 

Btw, thx for the sympathy.

[MercuryDoun]

Actually, most games that have been made within the last year or so now, Are using 4 cores. There are however only 3-4 games using 6+ at this time. But its very quickly expanding. Dev's are starting to get the idea, that they need to write their programs to use as many cores as possible. Hard-coding it to 2 or even 4 cores, is no longer acceptable! Seriously, next year we are gonna be moanin and groanin about how "Crysis 2 only uses 8 cores WTF??? Thats BS my 12 blah blah, it totally wasted on this." Then 6 months later, Metro 2034(no idea if Metro 2033 is getting a 2nd game, im just using it as an example) is gonna be using upto 20 cores or something stupid like that, and everyone is gonna be upgrading to crazy new systems to take advantage of it. It never ends, and it never hurts to have more cores than are currently required by today's standards, Because that makes it future resistant!

 

Im not saying dont jump into a i7 system, i love my Asus MoBo and i7-930. I guess if you sell your CPU, you can reuse pretty much everything from your old PC, and really cut back on the costs of the new CPU/MoBo. I just realized you already had DDR3 ram in it. So yeah, thats actually pretty cool i guess. Not gonna talk you out of it. Just making a point so you can make a more informed decision.

Edited December 4, 2010 by MercuryDoun

[moskwiz]

Totally agree, as I said in my previous post (at some point) "Be all that as it may, I'm not saying having a Bulldozer wouldn't be totally sweet.. also I'm not saying that right now is a good time to buy high-end stuff"

And I'm quite a gullable fellow so it isn't actually all that difficult to talk me out of things

So give me your point of view - since you have a comfortable current-gen rig, are you going to upgrade to next gen or will you skip it and wait for the fictional "Sandy Bridge 2 (or whatever they're going to call it)" because your current rig is timeproof enough?

[MercuryDoun]

Totally agree, as I said in my previous post (at some point) "Be all that as it may, I'm not saying having a Bulldozer wouldn't be totally sweet.. also I'm not saying that right now is a good time to buy high-end stuff"

And I'm quite a gullable fellow so it isn't actually all that difficult to talk me out of things

So give me your point of view - since you have a comfortable current-gen rig, are you going to upgrade to next gen or will you skip it and wait for the fictional "Sandy Bridge 2 (or whatever they're going to call it)" because your current rig is timeproof enough?

 

Here is my Plan:

 

Two more final upgrades/pieces to my Rig. A 90-120gb Mushkin SSD, one of the ones with the sand force controller. As well as a new AMD 6950, 6970, or 6990(whenver it that they come out, and whatever i finally decide is going to be the best price/performance ratio for me, prolly the 6970) Once i get these final piece in play. My system will be labeled "Complete" which of course is only until i decide to put another 6970 into it. But im having thoughts about using the new GTX 580's instead. Waiting for the 6970 to release, and see the reviews.

 

However, im hoping to buy a Bulldozer system when it releases(provided im able to afford it at the time, i might be buying a new car around that time) not really to replace my current rig. But more because im a big AMD fan and id really like to get my hands on their next gen processor, and have some fun overclocking it. I dunno, seems like a crazy amount of fun and awesome. Should the Bulldozer system turn out to be significantly better than my i7 rig, i may or may not sell it. But regardless my reasoning for getting a Bulldozer computer has nothing to do with my i7 not being good enough. I honestly and truthfully feel that with any socket LGA 1366 i7, you are plenty good to skip the next generation of CPU's because the i7's are that good. Obviously the next gen of processor's are going to be better, but im pretty sure that a overclocked i7 will be just fine for use with any game/program within the next 2 years, and beyond hopefully.