educate me about overclocking

[zCypher]

It would appear that my motherboard, a Biostar TA870U3+ doesn't allow me to increase the multiplier beyond 16.5x - which gives the stock 3.3GHz of the X3 455 processor. Disabling or enabling the 4th core doesn't seem to change this.

There is a program called "TOVERCLOCKER" that came with the motherboard driver CD, which allows me to adjust the "cpu clock" (200MHz) which then gets multiplied by 16.5. I have a bit of leeway there, but once I get to 220MHz the system reboots.

It would appear I am a noob. I currently have 2x4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 (set to 1600 though my OC efforts were the same when it was at 1333). CPU temps were utterly terrible with the stock HSF (peak 91c during Prime95), this has been cut down to peak 67c with a 212 EVO with all 4 cores enabled. If I keep the 4th core disabled, HWMonitor reads idle as low as 15c and max 25-26c which I have a hard time believing. BIOS temp readings have been consistent at 27-33c the whole time. I don't believe there to be a cooling issue at this point.

Am I basically out of luck for overclocking with this board? Or am I just fundamentally misunderstanding how it all works? I figured I'd inquire with all the overclocking experts here before messing with any more settings.

Learn me good please!

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

http://www.techreaction.net/2010/10/14/phenom-ii-imc-ram-overclocking-guide/

 

[Concillian]

You have several different things that can cause issues:

- mobo "FSB" (I forget what AMD calls the Front side bus) this is the number that is 200. Motherboards used to vary quite a bit in how high this could get. Probably still do, but 220 sounds like a low max
- Hypertransport speed.
- CPU speed
- memory speed

You want to isolate these and figure out which is causing your limit, then try to figure a way around that limit.

I usually start with the bus speed

Set CPU multiplier very low
Set HT multiplier very low
Set memory multiplier / speed very low

Now step up the 200 number until it starts giving you problems.

Now set that low and max the HT multiplier and move the bus speed up again until you hit the limit. If the limit is lower, then lower the HT multiplier one and repeat.

Then check the memory

Last you do the CPU, so you know everything else is in good shape, then you can find the right voltage and speed for a comfortable & stable CPU and max temperature.

I suspect you're hitting the CPU limit, as it takes some work to get a Phenom II to 3.8 GHz.

Good luck.

 

[zCypher]

Not a phenom, but an athlon II X3. with the unlocked core it gets read as a phenom in cpuid but it's wrong, as it has no L3 cache.

anyway, I was able to get it to 4GHz by lowering the ram speed prior to overclocking
however it only lasted 5-10 minutes before rebooting

 

[Concillian]

anyway, I was able to get it to 4GHz by lowering the ram speed prior to overclocking
however it only lasted 5-10 minutes before rebooting

That means something is not stable. You need to isolate each subsystem and find what isn't stable.

Download Prime95 and OCCT. Run OCCT at every step when testing stability. It will find stability issues before reboots happen. Reboots mean you are very unstable, most likely you would still not be fully stable at 5% lower clock than what you rebooted at.

Once you identify which subsystem is unstable, you can take measures to increase stability of that subsystem, until then, you're just shooting into the dark.

 

[zCypher]

I had never heard of OCCT. Will definitely check it out, thanks!

 

[zCypher]

ok, running OCCT at stock everything thankfully havent run into any problems so I guess I haven't ruined anything.
doing the power supply test with gpu at 2048x1152, cpu usage is staying between 95-99%, ram is at 11576 used, gpu temp maxing at 67 so far , cpu temp is at 32.

what I noticed after running the first cpu test is that it autogenerated a bunch of graphs which was a nice touch!