High core temps

[dust]

I have started prime95 and the core temps reached 77 degrees C in just 13-15 mins. The test was still running but the temps did not seem to have settled yet. I terminated the test and moved to reduce the voltage.

I have read in a thread that the core temps should be kept below 75 degrees. I have lowered the voltage for the CPU from 1,4375 V to 1,425 V and the RAM from 2,2 V to 2,1 V and ran the test again. After 8 mins the temps of three cores are at 73-74 C whilst the second core reports only 65-67 C ( the same difference was recorded during my previous test).

The task manager reports all the cores being used at 100% .

The funny part was that after I changed the voltage for both the CPU and the RAM the CPU-Z reported a multiplier of 6 after restart and so did the Core Temp( reporting now 75 C for the three cores after 12 mins). After I started the test though the multiplier shown by both the apps was normal (8x456)

I don't know what to make out of this, I'd appreciate some answers.

 

[OCGuy]

You need to disable Speed Step and C1E to fix the multiplier.

Also, that voltage is too high for that chip. You are degrading it faster than necessary.

 

[dust]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
You need to disable Speed Step and C1E to fix the multiplier.

Also, that voltage is too high for that chip. You are degrading it faster than necessary.

All right the multiplier is fixed but if I lower the CPU voltage further the system is rebooting as soon as I run the prime95.

Best option?

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Drivenbyvoltage

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
You need to disable Speed Step and C1E to fix the multiplier.

Also, that voltage is too high for that chip. You are degrading it faster than necessary.

All right the multiplier is fixed but if I lower the CPU voltage further the system is rebooting as soon as I run the prime95.

Best option?

List all your voltages:

VTT or FSB TERM
Northbridge


OCing quads isnt quite as easy as duals.

 

[dust]

From top to bottom:

Cpu V - 1,4375 V
Cpu PLL V - 1,6 V
N Bridge - 1,49 V
DRAM - 2,1 V
FSB TERM V - 1,4V
S Bridge - 1,125 V
SB 1,5 V Voltage - 1,6 V
CPU GTL V reference - 0.65x
The N Bridge GTL and the DRAM controller reference are on auto


And I was wrong earlier, it's not stable even at 1,425 V for the CPU, it seems the 1,4375 is the lowest acceptable

 

[OCGuy]

1.5V on the Northbridge is high as well. I would say 1.4V is all you would need for that.


Maybe you are having a V-droop issue?

What other options does your BIOS have? Does it have Transaction Booster, and CPU spread spectrum?

Back your CPU down to 450FSB. Some boards are known for having a 450FSB wall on quads.

Also, make sure your RAM is underclocked to rule out having sticks that just dont OC well.

 

[dust]

I lowered the FSB TO 450, the CPU voltage to 1,4 and the NB v to 1,41 but the prime95 failed me in a couple of secs. Provided the other voltages are ok I need to increase the CPU and the NB to their previous level to make it more stabile.

 

[dust]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
1.5V on the Northbridge is high as well. I would say 1.4V is all you would need for that.


Maybe you are having a V-droop issue?

What other options does your BIOS have? Does it have Transaction Booster, and CPU spread spectrum?
Back your CPU down to 450FSB. Some boards are known for having a 450FSB wall on quads.

Also, make sure your RAM is underclocked to rule out having sticks that just dont OC well.

AI transaction booster and both PCIE &CPU spread spectrum all being set to auto.

 

[dust]

All right, I tried several things today and....


For FSB 425 with multiplier 8 I set 1,425 vor the CPU, 1,6 V for CPU PLL( somebody pls tell me wht is that translated into noob dialect), 1,45 for NB, 2,1 for DRAM, 1,4 for FSB TERM V, 1,125 for SB and 1,6 for SB 1,5V (again...what's this?!?)

The thing is the prime95 ran for 2 hrs without problems and the temps got to 72 degrees on the 4th core all the others being lower than that, especially the second core which is always lower by 6-7 degrees than all the others ( is that normal or not?). I stopped the test and moved to increase the FSB(greed).

After several pathetic attempts at 456*8, all unlucky of course, I managed to stabilize the system at 3,5 MHZ ( 438*8) by increasing the CPU voltage by one step-1,431 V and LOWERING the FSB TERM V to 1,36.

The prime95 is still running in fact, i got no errors so far ( abt one hour), I'm going to leave it for as long as I can be around and update the post. The temps from left to right - 70 - 62-70-70 so far...

I'm still not convinced I cannot obtain similar results with lower voltages and I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong or not doing something else

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Drivenbyvoltage

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
1.5V on the Northbridge is high as well. I would say 1.4V is all you would need for that.


Maybe you are having a V-droop issue?

What other options does your BIOS have? Does it have Transaction Booster, and CPU spread spectrum?
Back your CPU down to 450FSB. Some boards are known for having a 450FSB wall on quads.

Also, make sure your RAM is underclocked to rule out having sticks that just dont OC well.

AI transaction booster and both PCIE &CPU spread spectrum all being set to auto.

Disable Transaction Booster, along with any other option that says "Disabling may help with the ability to overclock the front side bus".

I couldnt figure out how to get my E8400 over 3.8ghz for two days. I disabled all that extra crap in BIOS and I could boot @ 4.3 on a C0.

 

[dust]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
[

Disable Transaction Booster, along with any other option that says "Disabling may help with the ability to overclock the front side bus".

I couldnt figure out how to get my E8400 over 3.8ghz for two days. I disabled all that extra crap in BIOS and I could boot @ 4.3 on a C0.

I disabled CPU & PCIE Spread Spectrum, I chose Lighter setting for AI Clock Twister( supposedly is improving the stability@ the cost of performance of course), couldn't disable Ai Transaction Booster( no such option, it's either auto or manual, the level is set to 13 by the sys), I have disabled the DRAM Static Control and the Loadline Calibration.

The C1E and the Speed Step are disabled since the issue with the wrong multiplier in CPU-Z.

The CPU TM Function and the Vanderpool are still enabled, first one on auto since I don't know what they are for and were previously enabled.

After approx two hrs yesterday on prime95 at 3,5 MHZ the sys rebooted. I have seen the guide posted for overclocking and it appears the quads are stable at 1,45 - 1,5 v for FSB higher than 420 and lower than 440 therefore my voltage might be to low at 1,431v.

It is recommended though to keep the voltage below 1,4 for 45nm chips meaning a 400 FSB.

I'll bring the voltage up by one step for the CPU @ 1,4375 and maybe the NB at 1,47 and ... let's see.

If it's not working then it sucks, I'm not willing to load the CPU with higher voltage than this. I guess I'll have to back down the OC TO 3,4 max.

The case also sucks, it's a Vento 3600 and everything seems crowded, I have 6 fans all together ( Asus Silent Square EVO CPU cooler), even one of the fans is resting on the GPU cooling the NB.

I've been thinking of water cooling especially since I saw it was so popular in here but how does that solve the voltage problem. I would probably get lower temps throughout the sys but the chip will still get fried after a while.

 

[Mango1970]

Dear God man... 1.4375 V +?? I am running my Q9550 C1 at its stock Vid (as per CPU-Z) at 1.175 in bios on an older Asus P5K-E P35 mobo at 3.51Ghz. Why on earth do you need all that juice?
Above all else please test your RAM (you can use Vista's own ram testing when you hit F8 at boot up) or maybe your board has a variant as well. Others have stated that probably already -- underclock the ram if you have to for testing.

I was crashing when I first got this CPU after 30 min of prime and I thought it was my CPU. I tested the RAM and sure enough EVEN tho my DDR2 is rated at 5-5-5-12 1000Mhz... well shit.. it's not. I had to bring it down a bit and once I found where the RAM was stable and what voltage... I was able to bring my Vcore back down to stock and still maintain 3.51Ghz. Our cpu's are not that different... a dinky .5X. Heck my system is sucks compared to yours... I can't imagine that mobo you have requiring that much on all voltages... if anything it should do better than my older p35.

 

[Drsignguy]

I have to agree. My Q9450 had a VID of 1.250v and I am at 1.300v at my current OC of 3.4. Temps NEVER reach above 65c with anything I throw at it.

Mango1970 is correct, I haven't seen anything about what you have your ram set at. It should be set at 1:1 ratio if you haven't already and set it to 5-5-5-15 if all possible.

Also, what is your VID on that cpu. If you have a higher VID, it may be more difficult reaching 3.6.

 

[dust]

The Core Temp reports the VID AS 1,25. I guess my first and really big problem is that I don't identify correctly the voltage applied to various parts. This is mainly because my Bios reports them with different names and I'm totally new at this.

Today I managed to stabilize the sys at 3,5Mhz and the voltages are still high. I'll check them again and post their values as reported by the Bios once I reboot the sys later on. I did run the prime95 and it was stable for five hours until I decided to dick around and started some additional tasks( internet mostly). The system then rebooted itself and I went straight to the log test for prime and found no errors reported. The temps reached at 72c on the fourth core and they were oscilating between 67-72 on it during the last hour. The second core has still got 7-8 degrees lower temp than all the others throughout the entire test and it seemed to have processed faster what the prime95 was throwing than all the others. The fourth core was the laziest and I have noticed several times that for a few seconds only the second core was two tests ahead of the fourth core.

The RAM I'm using has a 5-5-5-18 timing at 1:1 ratio, I have never touched and further suggestions on how to alter the timings properly would be highly appreciated. I have run once the memtest for only one cycle though (all 9 standard tests) and it gave me no errors. I have seen after that a proper test should be run on 6-15hrs and I'm planning to do it soon. I would prefer to by next to the comp while doing any of the tests and my schedule doesn't always allow me this

 

[dust]

My voltages exactly as they are named in by the Bios:

CPU V - 1,43125 V;
CPU PLL V - 1,56 V;
FSB TERMINATION V - 1,36 V;
DRAM V - 2,1 V;
NB V - 1,45 V;
SB V - 1,125 V;
SB 1,5V V - 1,6 V;
CPU GTL VOLTAGE REFERENCE - 0,65X;
NB GTL VOLTAGE REFERENCE - AUTO;
DRAM CONTROLLER V REFERENCE - AUTO;
DRAM CHANNEL A&B VOLTAGE REFERENCE - AUTO.

Now if I understood correctly the FSB termination voltage is the vcore threshold and it seems to be at the high safe limit, I wouldn't mind lowering it but it is useless as long as I don't identify all the others. For instance the CPU PLL voltage or SB 1,5V voltage as well as the GTL voltage reference for both the CPU and the NB, the DRAM controller voltage ref, all these are unknown parameters for me.

I'm running XP

 

[Drsignguy]

Personally I fell that your voltages are high. Also, if you are testing and your system just suddenly reboots during that test while your surfing, then your system is NOT stable. I think you need to start from scratch and go to a stable level and then post back what you have as for voltages. Like I mentioned, my VID is 1.25v also and I have it set to 1.300v in bios with a vdroop to 1.216v in windows @ 3.4Ghz.

 

[dust]

The default values are all set to auto. Which are the minimum voltages for all of the above? I could set them to whatever the Bios is claiming but the CPU is missing. What CPU V and CPU PLL V do you use as stock? Which one is the VID setting?

 

[Drsignguy]

Vcc, vcore, cpu voltage is what you are looking for. When you set to "auto" it usually sets it to a higher voltage. Look for it and set it to what your VID is and then set Ram to 1.9v and 5-5-5-15, Lock your PCI-E to 100Mhz. Boot it up at stock and then test. You need to know where to start for a stable system and then move up from there.

 

[dust]

Thanks a lot! I'll try it in the evening.