Chip stable at a speed it was previously unstable at??

[Maximilian]

I have an opty 170 CCBWE 0546XPMW with an Epox 9NPA+SLI and i could only get it to 2.5ghz previously with the voltage bumped to 0.50. I tried for 2.6 but it just wasent prime stable, it would always fail after a few minutes, even with the voltage bumped up by 0.75 it would still fail at 2.6, no temp problems or anything though, but now a few months later im giving it another try, and its managed to stay prime stable for an hour and a half now with a temp of 54*C at 2.6ghz (with a crappy fan).

Why couldnt it do this before? Whys it stable now? Im gonna keep it running for 24hrs just to be safe.

Things that have changed since the first attempt:

1. Removed arctic silver and replaced with generic thermaltake white stuff. I was screwing around with heatsinks and ran outta arctic silver, the spread on the cpu was getting thin anyways.

2. Im using SP2004 instead of prime 95 (yea i know ones just a GUI of the other but its still a change)

 

[DarkKnight69]

called burn in...it is true!

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: DarkKnight69
called burn in...it is true!

Yea i been reading into that, looking at the 100 reply "BURN IN WORKS" thread. Its only 6 hours prime stable, beats hell outta 2 minutes prime stable though

 

[robertk2012]

What where the temps at previously. Is it a different time of year(abient temp). Even with artic silver it takes a few full load cycles to set. No other componets have changed at all?

 

[dguy6789]

There could be many factors. Different ambient temperature is more than likely the cause. I still am not convinced that burn in is anything more than a myth.

 

[robertk2012]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
There could be many factors. Different ambient temperature is more than likely the cause. I still am not convinced that burn in is anything more than a myth.

I agree.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: robertk2012
What where the temps at previously. Is it a different time of year(abient temp). Even with artic silver it takes a few full load cycles to set. No other componets have changed at all?

Yea it totally does, but im not using it. Ive got thermalright white goo now instead. The arctic silver layer was too thin after i was finished messing around with heatsinks a while back so i replaced it entirely with this stuff, seems to do the job.

Back when i tried to hit 2.6 it was winter, pretty cold. Now its summer and the heating in our house is actually on! Brittish summer isnt that warm you see

Absolutely nothing else has changed, been added or been taken away, its all stayed the same. Ive also never done the entire "burn in" method thing... its just been running at 2.5ghz stable for the past few months, 2.6 wasent stable at any voltage it seemed. Today its been running various programs to sort of burn it in, although i havent raised the voltage to where itll fail prime in seconds, i dont wanna do that, but its been crunching numbers all day, prime/max cpu/cpu burn in, failed prime after 6 and a half hours.

 

[robertk2012]

well thats still not prime stable. The difference from booting windows and failing prime in a short period of time is not much from a failure 6 hrs in.

 

[Billb2]

Thin is good. The best heat ransfer is bare metal to bare metal. The AS5 is supposed to just fill in tiny manufacturing imperfections in the Heat sink and CPU (tiny warps and scratches). A gob the size of a grain of rice. http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

Use Isporpoyl alcohol (and coffee filters...they're lint free) to clean off the old stuff and then reapply AS5 correctly. Temps will go down.

If you want to get really esoteric try Shin Etsu X23-7783D.
http://microsi.com/packaging/thermal_grease_x23-7783d.htm