Anti's Opty OC log.

Anti

Right so a bit of history about this overclock. Its using a dfi LP nf4 ut-dr. People always wonder why i went for that board and not the expert or sli-d. Well its quite simple, Its practicially the same board, but a better pcb layout and has much more voltage and timing control then the other dfi boards. I modified the board to allow SLI last summer, it was just a simple carbon trace method on the SB. Which took 10 mins. The cpu is a opteron 170, i chose this because of the higher clock speed as standard, and scan.co.uk messed up the price and didnt notice when i bought it. The ram i was always using was corsair twinx xms4000. The ram is rated to run at 250mhz at 3.1v But would never pass 232mhz no matter what voltage, timings or divider i threw at it. So 2.8/2.85 was the highest i could go stable. A few months ago i managed to pick up some crucial ballistix ddr4400 from hopeful, and i didnt have any luck with this ram at all. IT would just not allow the pc to boot, but was fine in a p4 machine

So 3 weeks ago i seen l31mr0d had some mushkin extreme ddr4000 for sale, and he had managed to get some nice speeds from it. So i picked it up from him for a great price. I think he managed to get about 280mhz form it at 1:1 with some mad timings on 2.7/8v. But i go about things differently, so i stuck the ram at 2.95v and used my own timings, even though i havent a breeze what half of them do or mean, and supprisingly it seemed to work out well. Going in at 1:1 i can go up to 300mhz stable, with no airflow. I now have the dominator air flow yoke installed, well cable tied in And plan to see if i can push to 320 1:1 as atm i have to do 320 9/10 to get 3.2ghz even at 3.2ghz the cpu dosent pass 30c even under orthos load for 6 hours. at 2.9 it wont pass 28c after a 24hour torturetest. And thats with using 1.5v and for the first time i have noticed the board has a 0.3v vdroop



The only thing that worries me is the chipset, as 43idle and 47load seems high for a watercooling setup, i have removed the block many times and re-applied tim but no luck. Still, its 20c less then what the thermalrite hr05-sli with a 60mm antec fan could manage. I'm still burning her in gently, and plan to hit 3.5ghz and have the fastest opteron on water in history

Wish me luck.

L31mr0d

Nice going. Would love to see some benchs of this system in comparison to a C2D system. Maybe post some screens of 3Dmark and SiSandra.

The reason I never went over 2.8v on the RAM was I told that going anywhere near 3v was the killzone for these chips. Plus that they wouldn't scale well with extra volts. I had mine failing 10hr+ memtest86 at 280Mhz@2.8v.

Anti

Yeah ill take some screenies of 3dmark and si sandra tonight when i get home. Having not net access at home is a real pain in the arse. I think ill also try submerging my res in ice for a hour too with the system off and see if i can push even further.

L31mr0d

I think we are getting close to having a reoccurance of Glines spontaneously combusting PC. I would love to see an Opty hit 3.5Ghz. Hit 3.6Ghz and you'll be allowed into the hallowed 100% overclock club.

Edit: Why no internet? Not even 56k?

Anti

Moved into a new gaff, The phone line was just connected yesterday. And after BT had the cheek to charge 127€ to connect it they say i have to wait 7-10 working days for the modem to arrive

Plus, id have to hit 4ghz to get the 100% overclock. And unless someone like krazy8's wasnt to loan me his phase change im not gonna hit that

L31mr0d

Anti wrote:

Plus, id have to hit 4ghz to get the 100% overclock. And unless someone like krazy8's wasnt to loan me his phase change im not gonna hit that

ah dammit, forgot you cheated and got a 170 instead of a 165. Yeah 4Ghz would be a pipe dream. Maybe when you are done with the chip and its not even worth selling, just go for glory and see if you can boot at 4Ghz and get a CPUz screenshot onto your PC before the core melts itself.

P.S: there's a good IHS removal video here: http://www.diy-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43100

Anti

Yeah i seen a good few of them on youtube supprisingly they look easy enough, but quite time consuming. good thing i live with a electrician. He will probably be handier with a blade then me

L31mr0d

Yeah I wouldn't just use a bare stanley blade. If you can, use it in a holder and set it to ~3mm, that way when you cut in you can be guaranteed you won't hit any of the other components under the IHS. Also i'm pretty sure the resistors are SMT, so they aren't easily dislodged either.

The process I understand is as follows. Cut the 4 corners first around the IHS, then work the blade slowly along the edges. Then twist slightly on the IHS to remove it. I'd do it myself if I wasn't such an aficionado of gargantuan air coolers.

Anti

hahaha

Right ill give it a go tonight, and ill report back tomorrow with pics.

L31mr0d

so did you pop it?

Anti

Nah i got home and all we had was a rusty stanley blade His car is in getting a new turbo and he left his tools in it.

I also think i fooked my board too. When installing the dominator cooling under the pipe i hit of one of the tall caps, and i think i broke a leg off it. I can get into the bios fine. But i get a bsod when trying to enter windows and a error about the registery being corrupt. Ill have a better look at it tonight.

awhir

you can fix it by just resoldering it I HOPE

Anti

Yeah i hope so IF it is broken i think i will just flat cap them all. As there are a load of them way to close to the ram area on the board.

Anti

I seem to have hit a wall. For some reason cpu temps have jumped from 25 idle to 35idle

And when i go past 3.2ghz my registry becomes corrupt and i have to do a repair install Anyone experienced this before?

Im also having a graphics card heat problem. I had a 120mm akasa amber fan sitting behind the 8800gtx blowing air out the back, but it was obviously messy and no way to mount it there. So i used a sunbeam fan pci bracket fan mount to blow air onto the card from ontop:



As you can see the fan in the top right hand corner. Im thinking of adding a 80mm fan behind the card no to aid the airflow, but no where to mount Unless i superglue it to the top of the inside of the case. I think alot of the heat problem is i had ot move the 8800gtx to the second pci-e slot, as the nb block i have was in the way, and the xfi card is right next to the 8800gtx and is impeding airflow. Only thing i can think of is going back to onboard sound. And cutting a hole at the top of the case for 2 fans to blow air down onto the card.

Any ideas or suggestions are more then welcome.

Beelzebub

Anti wrote:

I seem to have hit a wall. For some reason cpu temps have jumped from 25 idle to 35idle

And when i go past 3.2ghz my registry becomes corrupt and i have to do a repair install Anyone experienced this before?

Im also having a graphics card heat problem. I had a 120mm akasa amber fan sitting behind the 8800gtx blowing air out the back, but it was obviously messy and no way to mount it there. So i used a sunbeam fan pci bracket fan mount to blow air onto the card from ontop:



As you can see the fan in the top right hand corner. Im thinking of adding a 80mm fan behind the card no to aid the airflow, but no where to mount Unless i superglue it to the top of the inside of the case. I think alot of the heat problem is i had ot move the 8800gtx to the second pci-e slot, as the nb block i have was in the way, and the xfi card is right next to the 8800gtx and is impeding airflow. Only thing i can think of is going back to onboard sound. And cutting a hole at the top of the case for 2 fans to blow air down onto the card.

Any ideas or suggestions are more then welcome.

You asked for it!

Try a desktop fan blowing directly onto the area.
It's not a permanent solution unless you:
1 - Leave the case open
2 - Don't mind the extra noise.

It should bring the temps down 5 degrees or more. Though that might not be enough.

Anti

After a few bios tweaks i have been running constantly at 3.2ghz with no hassle for a week, apart from the css lock ups.

L31mr0d

Anti wrote:

After a few bios tweaks i have been running constantly at 3.2ghz with no hassle for a week, apart from the css lock ups.

is it topless yet? what happened to going for 3.5Ghz? you still aiming for that?

Anti

I left it on im afraid, My aim for the last 2 weeks was having her stable. As in about 10 mins, the whole pc will be up for sale on adverts.ie. Minus the 8800 and the x-fi ofcourse