OC athlon II x2 235e 2.7ghz to 3.2GHZ.. help please!!!!

leoh

Hi, I have overclocked the cpu to 3.2ghz by upp the bus to 239 (200 original) on stock voltages and most of the time it runs fine,
but sometimes it wont boot on the first go,, or even the second.,,also the same problem when trying to resume from hibernation,,it not a hibernation problem as it resumes fine when on stock fsb.

Can anyone help me set some voltages to get everything to run..

I have cool and quiet enabled as I don't want it running flat out all the time.
but if its critical to run better il obviously disable it

mobo msi gf165m p33 (latest bios)
cpu amd athlonII x2 235e (stock cooler)
ram 4gb ddr3 ocz 1333 (ocz3p1333lv2g)
psu ocz 500 corexsteam
graphics ati xfx 6770 1gb


Any help would be appreciated :pac:

Monotype

Sounds like it's unstable.

Grab a stability testing program like prime95.
Get something to monitor the temperature of the CPU. Try to keep it below 60.

If you're getting errors with prime, then up the voltage a very small bit. Two steps should be enough (typically about 0.025V each, so that would be 0.05).
Go back into windows and test it again. To be sure that it's stable, you'd want to run it for at least 6 hours. People often leave it for 24.

You should be able to get a bit more of an overclock with it though. 250 is often doable, but it depends on the board.

Watch your RAM speed though. Grab CPU-Z at
http://www.cpuid.com/

When you overclock your HTT, you are overclocking your RAM too. There's an option in the BIOS to underclock the memory usually referred to as a multiplier or a divider to compensate for overclocking. You can overclock the RAM too, but you won't want to do both at the same time since you won't know which is unstable if you get an error.

You said you had 1333MHz RAM.
Open up CPU-Z and go to the memory tab. Your RAM should show up as 667MHz there without any overclocking. If it's above that, you should go into the BIOS and change the divider/multiplier so that it's not overclocked.

leoh

ok thanks for that il get some on the dowload, but i dont know what to start the voltages at, ive looked at the voltages on the vcore with cpuid, with everthing left an auto and only the fsb up at 239,, the vcore is 1.288 so should i start at this and keep upping the voltage untill it starts.??? il take some pics to give a better idea and also to which setting i should be upping.. im not too sure if im changing the right one.

so am i right in the one to change is highlighted in red,,,

Monotype

It usually says in the BIOS what it's currently at, even if it's set to auto. It's usually around the same place or in a hardware monitor/information page. I wouldn't rely on CPU-Z. I think it starts at 1.35V or 1.4V with those CPUs. You could try 1.288, but if it's too low, you'll know soon enough. You don't have to have the setting way out otherwise you won't want to be able to boot at all. You can reset the BIOS settings by moving some jumpers around on the motherboard by following instructions in the manual, but you generally don't want to have to do that.

leoh

Monotype wrote: »

It usually says in the BIOS what it's currently at, even if it's set to auto. It's usually around the same place or in a hardware monitor/information page. I wouldn't rely on CPU-Z. I think it starts at 1.35V or 1.4V with those CPUs. You could try 1.288, but if it's too low, you'll know soon enough. You don't have to have the setting way out otherwise you won't want to be able to boot at all. You can reset the BIOS settings by moving some jumpers around on the motherboard by following instructions in the manual, but you generally don't want to have to do that.

ive tried from 1.28.. with no posting,, so im going to try from 1.4 then go down if it boots..

leoh

i dont think i needed to down clock the ram as it was running slow than it should, but i did anyway to find out if that helped.. it didnt really. i got up as far as 1.425 ... should i keep going untill it boots?


Do u know what is the max volaage i can go before burning out something... so far the temps are very good,, not going above 40C
ive also disabled cool and quiet and it seems to boot better on the stock voltages.. currently running at 3.3ghz with 250fsb

Monotype

You should be safe up to about 1.45 or maybe even 1.5. If you find that you're needing more than that, you're going to have to turn down the HTT. I wouldn't venture to 1.55V unless you were in windows and you could clearly see those temperatures.

You might also want to lower the HT link multiplier. This multiplies by the HTT to get the HT link speed which you can see at the bottom of the first window in CPU-Z. I think it's supposed to be below 2000MHz.

Yes, you should disable cool and quiet until you are completely stable and you've finished testing. You can switch it back on again later.

The memory might not be at a high speed if it's set to auto. You should really give it a specific multiplier to be sure that it won't cause problems.

Edit: Just saw your pictures there.
The HT link is probably the CPU-NB ratio. So if you have a HTT of 250MHz, you'd want this ratio to be 8. 8x250 = 2000MHz, which is safe. Seems a bit low in CPU-Z at 952MHz, maybe it's over compensating with auto.
FSB/DRAM ratio is the RAM multiplier, so you can set this so that you RAM isn't overclocked. It's on auto now and clearly by CPU-Z, it's not overclocked.

If you're not booting into windows, rather than upping the voltage, you should perhaps lower the HTT, check your temperatures with a few minutes of stress test. If they're okay, bump up the HTT a bit more and voltage if you need it.

leoh

Monotype wrote: »

You should be safe up to about 1.45 or maybe even 1.5. If you find that you're needing more than that, you're going to have to turn down the HTT. I wouldn't venture to 1.55V unless you were in windows and you could clearly see those temperatures.

You might also want to lower the HT link multiplier. This multiplies by the HTT to get the HT link speed which you can see at the bottom of the first window in CPU-Z. I think it's supposed to be below 2000MHz.

Yes, you should disable cool and quiet until you are completely stable and you've finished testing. You can switch it back on again later.

The memory might not be at a high speed if it's set to auto. You should really give it a specific multiplier to be sure that it won't cause problems.

Edit: Just saw your pictures there.
The HT link is probably the CPU-NB ratio. So if you have a HTT of 250MHz, you'd want this ratio to be 8. 8x250 = 2000MHz, which is safe. Seems a bit low in CPU-Z at 952MHz, maybe it's over compensating with auto.
FSB/DRAM ratio is the RAM multiplier, so you can set this so that you RAM isn't overclocked. It's on auto now and clearly by CPU-Z, it's not overclocked.

If you're not booting into windows, rather than upping the voltage, you should perhaps lower the HTT, check your temperatures with a few minutes of stress test. If they're okay, bump up the HTT a bit more and voltage if you need it.

So it booted with 1.440 at the min. Going to run prime for 6 hours ... il post the results of errors if there is any and temps see what u think....



RESULTS


ok so core temps look good but the TMTIN0 is hitting about 50c which is the cpu,, no error reported, no warning from prime95 for 6 hours, now to try hibernation and turning off and see does it boot every time.

leoh

so i tried restarting and it kept failing to boot so i raised the voltage until i got to 1.495v an ran prime95 an it blue screened.. i im lowering the voltage and leaving the ram on auto.. see how it runs now on prime95..

i noticed that when i set the voltage to 1.495v and it booted, i checked the actual voltage in the hw monitor in the bios and it only reads 1.425v ?? is this normal ???

Monotype

Sometimes there can be voltage offsets which can lower or raise the voltage. - i.e., looking at your BIOS screen shot, you should probably be also changing the voltage VDD.

CPU Vdd Voltage: This is the positive voltage supplied to the FETs. MSI states (on another 790FX board with Phenom II) that 1.3 to 1.4V is typical safe value, however we've increased it here because we've added additional cooling to the CPU socket area with two large fans

CPU Voltage: Typically the 45nm SOI Phenom IIs can withstand quite high voltages so 1.5V should be OK if it's properly cooled. However it's worth mentioning that this is wrongly labeled, and is actually the voltage offset, as increasing the Vdd above adjusts this value as well.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/05/11/overclocking-amd-s-phenom-ii-x3-720-be/3

I think you'll have to lower the HTT a bit. Most of the times, those CPU chips will manage more - often up to about the 3.7-3.8GHz mark. I had a sempron running from 2.8GHz to 3.8GHz. Sometimes the motherboards themselves aren't capable of a very high HTT and that might be holding your CPU back..

Changing the Northbridge voltage can help things along a little too.
Try the VDD first though to see what happens.

leoh

well after the fails yesterday i remembered that i changed the rams ratio to auto which ran at 1333mhz and after running prime on it this morning it kept bsod so i change it back to 1:2 and so far the bsod hasn't happened and prime is not showing errors straight away,, i'm still running prime for a few hours to see what i get...

I had a look at the vdd voltage an the max it can go to is 1.3v so i just left this on auto as i think it run at that anyway..

at the min ive the voltage on the cpu at 1.420v,, This is starting to feel like a guessing game!!!!

i have read that these boards dont seem to overclock well,, some have reported them going on fire :eek:

anyway il keep on testing see how far i can push it :