My i5 760 Overclocking adventure!?

[Dward]

Hey Bren, I'm still trying to fix the spiking CPU Fan issue.

I am trying EVERYTHING! One thing I'm trying at the moment is an increased VTT/QPI voltage, 1.27v. (It was 1.25v)

It has not spiked since doing this, however I only just did it this morning!

Is there any harm in increasing this to 1.27v?

Cheers

 

[Dward]

Hmmm dam, it still spins up to ~2000rpm

 

[brencat]

QPI/VTT voltage has absolutely NOTHING to do with CPU fan spinning up. Do you have SMART fan control enabled in Bios ? Also, why are you concerned with the fan speed dynamically changing as needed? That's a great feature in my view, unless you are one of those 'silent PC' freaks. But feel free to disable the SMART fan feature and manually set your own speeds.

No harm with QPI/VTT up to 1.30-1.35v but why do that? You were perfectly rock stable at 1.25v @ 200 Bclk. Don't re-break it by changing stuff after all the time spent.

 

[Dward]

Yeah you have a good point! Yeah I do have SMART fan control enabled in the BIOS.

Ok yeah I'll just leave it as is, although 4Ghz is silently nagging at me!!

 

[Blitz KriegeR]

Just read through your trek, wonderful! Congrats mate! You've inspired me to see if I can get the Vcore down on my 6600!
{Bren, cheers for providing all that great knowledge and the patience! Oh, and yes I know my CPU is and works very differently!}

Anyhow, just wanted to chime in on that fan noise bit. I've built many systems with a few of them showing this problem. It's nothing to worry about, and likely not related to your overclock/voltages in any way/shape/form. Most likely it's related to the fan control code kicking in if you have it set to auto-adjust the speed based on load/temps.

Fan settings is a very each-his-own thing. Personally I just run my fans at 100% all the time, using SFLEX 120 F's @ 1600RPM, 64CFM, ~25Db (can't hear them over ambient noise at my desk).

 

[perdomot]

I can't believe you are at 3.8Ghz with such low voltage while mine takes 1.264 vcore just to get 3.6Ghz stable. Maybe I've got the voltages wrong. Dward, can you post all your bios settings including stuff you disabled and what voltages you are using? Thanks.

 

[perdomot]

Hey Bren, I'm still trying to fix the spiking CPU Fan issue.

I am trying EVERYTHING! One thing I'm trying at the moment is an increased VTT/QPI voltage, 1.27v. (It was 1.25v)

It has not spiked since doing this, however I only just did it this morning!

Is there any harm in increasing this to 1.27v?

Cheers

The included fan with my CM 212+ also spins up periodically. You might want to order a better fan like the Scythe GT series. Push a lot of air and very quiet so if it ramps up, you wont hear it.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

trying to do 20 things your playing the hit and hope game.
make sure your base clock can reach your desired goal.
turn everything else down so you can focus on one thing at a time. Turn the CPU multiplier down to something low like x12. Put your ram multiplier on its lowest setting. then set uncore x2 that of the ram multi youve setted. Put the Vcore and QPI/Vtt on their normal values but just make sure their of auto.

Now push the base clock up by 10 or 20mhz. save boot into windoows prime it but choose Just stress testing. If it runs happy after 5 min reboot back in bios push it up another 10 or 20 mhz save it back to windows prime again.

If prime gives you a error or you get a bsod back to the bios and raise the QPI/Vtt voltage by one increment and run the test again. Repeat this until you reach the base clock you were looking for or reach unsafe temps.

 

[brencat]

trying to do 20 things your playing the hit and hope game.
make sure your base clock can reach your desired goal.
turn everything else down so you can focus on one thing at a time. Turn the CPU multiplier down to something low like x12. Put your ram multiplier on its lowest setting. then set uncore x2 that of the ram multi youve setted. Put the Vcore and QPI/Vtt on their normal values but just make sure their of auto.

Now push the base clock up by 10 or 20mhz. save boot into windoows prime it but choose Just stress testing. If it runs happy after 5 min reboot back in bios push it up another 10 or 20 mhz save it back to windows prime again.

If prime gives you a error or you get a bsod back to the bios and raise the QPI/Vtt voltage by one increment and run the test again. Repeat this until you reach the base clock you were looking for or reach unsafe temps.

Didn't bother to read the thread at all right? Dward has been all sorted with his overclock. Just didn't realize his mobo had SMART fan control.

 

[brencat]

I can't believe you are at 3.8Ghz with such low voltage while mine takes 1.264 vcore just to get 3.6Ghz stable. Maybe I've got the voltages wrong. Dward, can you post all your bios settings including stuff you disabled and what voltages you are using? Thanks.

Every chip is different. That said, I really think it's the H55 chipset holding you back now.

 

[perdomot]

Every chip is different. That said, I really think it's the H55 chipset holding you back now.

Is it really that much less than the P55?

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Didn't bother to read the thread at all right? Dward has been all sorted with his overclock. Just didn't realize his mobo had SMART fan control.

was actually for Perdomot whos stuck on 3.6. Sorry thought I quoted him. my appoligies

---------------- Now playing: Van Dyk, Paul - For An Angel 2009 via FoxyTunes

 

[tweakboy]

Wow, 1.25 is really low. A junkyard HSF can even handle its temps on idle and load. thx

 

[Dward]

New Problem:

I got those weird artifacts back again in BC2. So I decided to run the OCCT:GPU test. It came back twice (out of two runs) with errors.

I restarted my computer and went back to STOCK settings and ran the same test, no errors.

What do you think may cause this? And what can I do to fix it?

My PCI Express Frequency (MHz) is set to 100 in the bios.

 

[brencat]

New Problem:

I got those weird artifacts back again in BC2. So I decided to run the OCCT:GPU test. It came back twice (out of two runs) with errors.

I restarted my computer and went back to STOCK settings and ran the same test, no errors.

What do you think may cause this? And what can I do to fix it?

My PCI Express Frequency (MHz) is set to 100 in the bios.

Dward,

Can you elaborate on the other artifacts you are seeing? You mentioned last time that the progress bars when capturing a flag were white or clear as opposed to red or blue. This is nothing, IMO.

Look, the game is glitchy. I told you when I was using my GTX 260 and the 260.99 WHQL drivers that on occassion, the screen would just go completely black. Until I moved around or got out of that specific spot on the screen, then the screen would come back. Meanwhile, sounds, the game, my cable connection, etc all were unaffected and continued fine.

However, since I switched to the 6950 2 weeks ago (along with a good driver sweep registry cleaning beforehand), I haven't had ANY problems running BFBC2. The game runs smoother, and looks great.

So I'm not sure, but it could be a combination of nvidia drivers interacting with a glitchy game. It's got nothing to do with your CPU overclock, so I would re-enable your settings. You didn't mention you were overclocking your GTX 460, but if you are, perhaps check your load temps and set up a graduated fan speed profile with MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision if the card is getting too hot.

 

[yepp]

Any of you guys with Gigabyte P55 boards get motherboard coil whine/squeal under load with LLC enabled?

 

[brencat]

Any of you guys with Gigabyte P55 boards get motherboard coil whine/squeal under load with LLC enabled?

Not on mine. It's been a terrific mobo so far.

 

[Dward]

Dward,

Can you elaborate on the other artifacts you are seeing? You mentioned last time that the progress bars when capturing a flag were white or clear as opposed to red or blue. This is nothing, IMO.

Yeah so when all the bars should be BLUE (flag fully captured), not all of them are colored in. Say maybe the 3rd from the left is blank with all the others colored in.

Look, the game is glitchy. I told you when I was using my GTX 260 and the 260.99 WHQL drivers that on occassion, the screen would just go completely black. Until I moved around or got out of that specific spot on the screen, then the screen would come back. Meanwhile, sounds, the game, my cable connection, etc all were unaffected and continued fine.

However, since I switched to the 6950 2 weeks ago (along with a good driver sweep registry cleaning beforehand), I haven't had ANY problems running BFBC2. The game runs smoother, and looks great.

So I'm not sure, but it could be a combination of nvidia drivers interacting with a glitchy game. It's got nothing to do with your CPU overclock, so I would re-enable your settings. You didn't mention you were overclocking your GTX 460, but if you are, perhaps check your load temps and set up a graduated fan speed profile with MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision if the card is getting too hot.

The card is getting to 79C. I have not overclocked it at all. The weird thing is tho, when I put my computer speeds back to stock I get no errors.

So at the moment I am going back a few steps and running the test with 200x16. If it passes with no errors then I know its got something to do with the extra Vcore, as this test uses 1 core in which the CPU voltage fluctuates a lot.

If it comes back with errors I'll continue to try and eliminate other possibilities.

Cheers

 

[yepp]

Try 50-100 runs of LinX with a problem size of 5000, that should get your Vcore fluctuating.

 

[brencat]

The card is getting to 79C. I have not overclocked it at all. The weird thing is tho, when I put my computer speeds back to stock I get no errors.

I think that's a bit hot. Set up a fan profile to increase the speed while gaming. Temps near 80c tend to scare me even though GPUs are much more tolerant of heat than CPUs.

Oh, and that "glitch" of one or two clear colored bars during flag capture when they should be blue -- I finally noticed what you're talking about...that's definitely the game dude. Happens to me all the time. Didn't even notice until tonight. It's not your PC.

Wow, you are hyper sensitive detail oriented!

Now get that beautiful i5-760 back up to 3.8ghz where it belongs!

 

[yepp]

Could be to do with on-die PCI-E controller not getting enough juice. Which is why you're seeing artifacts in 3D whereas traditional CPU stability tools like Prime95 or Linpack doesn't detect.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2832/19

Unfortunately the PCIe controller on Lynnfield is tied to the BCLK. Increase the BCLK to overclock your CPU and you're also increasing the PCIe controller frequency. This doesn't play well with most PCIe cards, so the first rule of thumb is to try and stay at 133MHz multiples when increasing your BCLK.

The second issue is the bigger one. As you increase the BCLK you increase the frequency of the transistors that communicate to the GPU(s) on the PCIe bus. Those transistors have to send data very far (relatively speaking) and very quickly. When you overclock, you're asking even more of them.

We know that Bloomfield can easily hit higher frequencies without increasing the core voltage, so there's no reason to assume that Lynnfield's core cannot (in fact, we know it can). The issue is the PCIe controller; at higher frequencies those "outside facing" transistors need more juice to operate. Unfortunately on Lynnfield rev 1 there doesn't appear to be a way to selectively give the PCIe transistors more voltage, instead you have to up the voltage to the entire processor.

Intel knows the solution to Lynnfield's voltage requirement for overclocking, unfortunately it's not something that can be applied retroactively. Intel could decouple the PCIe controller from BCLK by introducing more PLLs into the chip or, alternatively, tweak the transistors used for the PCIe interface. Either way we can expect this to change in some later rev of the processor. Whether that means we'll see it in the 45nm generation or we'll have to wait until 32nm remains to be seen.

The good news is that Lynnfield can still overclock well. The bad news is that unlike Bloomfield (and Phenom II) you can't just leave the Vcore untouched to get serious increases in frequency.

 

[brencat]

Could be to do with on-die PCI-E controller not getting enough juice. Which is why you're seeing artifacts in 3D whereas traditional CPU stability tools like Prime95 or Linpack doesn't detect.

@YEPP, that article was written well before we understood the importance of increasing QPI/VTT voltage as the Bclk was boosted. As you can see, both Dward and myself are running 1.25v QPI/VTT (vs stock 1.1v).

That is not the issue. He is focusing on a game specific glitch that occurs in BFBC2. It's not like he's seeing graphics problems, tearing, snow, etc. on other games, and if he is, he hasn't mentioned them. This is strictly this game only and it is such a silly bug in my opinion, that we shouldn't even be discussing it in this thread as it will likely confuse others coming here for the first time seeking OCing advice for their i5-760s.

@Dward...if you're reading this, please ignore that bug and go back to enjoying BFBC2 and racking up the body count. Oh...and put that OC back to 3.8ghz!!!

 

[yepp]

He did mention errors in OCCT GPU test while OC and not during stock.

If that article is outdated then please ignore.

He could up VTT a notch to see if he pass OCCT GPU while overclocked.

 

[Dward]

Ok huge update: I decided to be 100% sure that I did not get any errors at stock speeds, by running the GPU test for a long time.

Guess what...lots of errors!!!

So bren you will be pleased to hear my CPU is back up to 3.8Ghz! I've ordered a Gigabyte GTX 560 Super Overclock anyway. So when that arrives I'll be doing a reformat and obviously new NVIDIA drivers.

I will report back when more testing is done once this has happened.



p.s. interesting read tho about the PCIe controller. So Bren, a 1.25 QPI/VTT helps the situation not only for the CPU, but the PCIe controller as well?

 

[brencat]

Ok huge update: I decided to be 100% sure that I did not get any errors at stock speeds, by running the GPU test for a long time.

Guess what...lots of errors!!!

So bren you will be pleased to hear my CPU is back up to 3.8Ghz! I've ordered a Gigabyte GTX 560 Super Overclock anyway.
p.s. interesting read tho about the PCIe controller. So Bren, a 1.25 QPI/VTT helps the situation not only for the CPU, but the PCIe controller as well?

That article was written in sept 09. I'm not sure they fully understood how all the moving parts fit together as we understand the today. Honestly I don't know of another person on these forums with Pcie problems related to higher Bclks. Like I said...old article, early speculation.


Nice choice on the vid card...even though you passed on the 6950 (haha).