Phenom 2 810 + Asus M4A78T-E: Update: PROBLEMS

[xSauronx]

So many X3 posts around here, i thought Id freshen it up. I bought an 810 because I had a 6GB DDR3 kit from Anand himself (suckers!) and intend to run some VMs

Im using a Sunbeam CCF for the cooler
12.5 x 270
Vcore 1.55
CPU/NB 1.4375
Dram 1.66
HT 1.28

ive played with this for a while over the last couple of days, Id kinda like to think I can tweak it a little more but Im tired of it, so maybe next week Ill play around and see if I can keep this OC while lowering voltages. I run linux and cant find something to read the CPU temps, soo all I have is BIOS readings after I burn-in for an hour. 49C idleing right after a reboot.

lengthy update:

no more oc, i *might* know why but someone help me out.

scenario 1 (original OC):
1 CCF/120mm fan blowing to the front
1 120mm case fan lower-front blowing out
1 80mm fan on the side blowing in towards the NB heatsink

scenario 2 (current):
i got a 120mm in the mail and changed my setup:
120mm upper-back blowing out
CCF/120mm blowing towards the upper-back 120mm
1 120mm lower-front intaking air, blowing it over my 3 HDsc

i reasoned that in scenario 2 i could get fresh air over my drives (spaced in every other bay) and that any heat may rise and get taken out the upper-back with the heat from the CCF, while the side 80mm fan could keep a little extra air over the NB

if I OC, i get problems with scenario 2, whereas with scenario 1 i was getting 3.375 OC. i cant even get 3.125 on acceptable vcore (1.45) and im wondering if, in scenario 1, air from the CCF fan was blowing over the ram and cooling it? memtest shows memory errors now if I OC, and I expect its just heat related.

any ideas/suggestions or should i ask this in the cooling forum? im not sure i want to rearrange everything again at the moment.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
So many X3 posts around here, i thought Id freshen it up. I bought an 810 because I had a 6GB DDR3 kit from Anand himself (suckers!) and intend to run some VMs

Im using a Sunbeam CCF for the cooler
12.5 x 270
Vcore 1.55
CPU/NB 1.4375
Dram 1.66
HT 1.28

ive played with this for a while over the last couple of days, Id kinda like to think I can tweak it a little more but Im tired of it, so maybe next week Ill play around and see if I can keep this OC while lowering voltages. I run linux and cant find something to read the CPU temps, soo all I have is BIOS readings after I burn-in for an hour. 49C

Did Anand autograph the RAM? 😛

Have you tried a higher overclock on that 810?

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: xSauronx
So many X3 posts around here, i thought Id freshen it up. I bought an 810 because I had a 6GB DDR3 kit from Anand himself (suckers!) and intend to run some VMs

Im using a Sunbeam CCF for the cooler
12.5 x 270
Vcore 1.55
CPU/NB 1.4375
Dram 1.66
HT 1.28

ive played with this for a while over the last couple of days, Id kinda like to think I can tweak it a little more but Im tired of it, so maybe next week Ill play around and see if I can keep this OC while lowering voltages. I run linux and cant find something to read the CPU temps, soo all I have is BIOS readings after I burn-in for an hour. 49C

Did Anand autograph the RAM? 😛

Have you tried a higher overclock on that 810?

Well, actually, the *box* the RAM came in is Signed by the CEO and VP of OCZ 😛

Anand gave away some motherboards, and he signed the box for one of mine. Thanks Care

I tried what Anand got in his DDR3 AM3 article, where they topped out at 3.75ghz on the 810. Once I start pushing some of the voltage or speeds higher than what I have in my OP to get it, I get terrible artifacts so I never went past watching it POST.

Still, from 2.6 to 3.37 is quite a nice bump, and Im happy with it. I ran into the same wall at stock voltages that everyone else seemed to, which was about 3.12Ghz.

 

[starfireone]

Too bad you can't get better temp readings. They are probably a little higher.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: starfireone
Too bad you can't get better temp readings. They are probably a little higher.

yeah, but its been running stable. ill end up putting windows on it at some point in the near future, i think i have the windows 7 beta ona disc somewhere, so if i find it this week ill see if i can get more accurate readings.

 

[xSauronx]

lengthy update:

no more oc, i *might* know why but someone help me out.

scenario 1 (original OC, 1 hour stable with 4 cores tasked in linux):
1 CCF/120mm fan blowing to the front
1 120mm case fan lower-front blowing out
1 80mm fan on the side blowing in towards the NB heatsink

scenario 2 (current, no OCing, wont fully boot an OS):
i got a 120mm in the mail and changed my setup:
120mm upper-back blowing out
CCF/120mm blowing towards the upper-back 120mm
1 120mm lower-front intaking air, blowing it over my 3 HDsc
1 80mm fan on the side blowing in towards the NB heatsink

i reasoned that in scenario 2 i could get fresh air over my drives (spaced in every other bay) and that any heat may rise and get taken out the upper-back with the heat from the CCF, while the side 80mm fan could keep a little extra air over the NB

if I OC, i get problems with scenario 2, whereas with scenario 1 i was getting 3.375 OC. i cant even get 3.125 on acceptable vcore (1.45) and im wondering if, in scenario 1, air from the CCF fan was blowing over the ram and cooling it? memtest shows memory errors now if I OC, and I expect its just heat related.

any ideas/suggestions or should i ask this in the cooling forum? im not sure i want to rearrange everything again at the moment but im sure as hell tempted to!

 

[xSauronx]

any thoughts? i think ill switch it back this afternoon and see if it behaves again

 

[heyheybooboo]

I don't know anything about the M4A78T-E so could you give us an idea as to your NB/IMC & HT speeds?

How do you control them from the BIOS? Are they 'locked'?

I ask this because if your AMD base clock is 200MHz --->270MHz you may want to drop the HT multiplier from x10 ---> x9 (and same with the NB/MC) ...

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
I don't know anything about the M4A78T-E so could you give us an idea as to your NB/IMC & HT speeds?

How do you control them from the BIOS? Are they 'locked'?

I ask this because if your AMD base clock is 200MHz --->270MHz you may want to drop the HT multiplier from x10 ---> x9 (and same with the NB/MC) ...

no this board and bios offer lots of tinkering options for overclocking (anand used this board to OC the 720 and 810, which is why I went with it). most settings are on auto, if theyre not, then i list them. the bios allows you to store OC Profiles, so I tested the below configs and they worked fine.

profile 1: 3.12Ghz
12.5 x 250
vcore 1.45
cpu/nb 1/4

profile 2: 3.37Ghz
12.5 x 270
DRAM 1440Mhz
cpu/nb 2430Mhz
vcore 1.55
cpu/nb 1.4375
dram voltage 1.66
ht voltage 1.28

both of those were booting and running fine, i get a new fan and move things around and....i can post, but neither linux nor windows 7 will boot.

i moved my cooling back around so that the cpu fan is blowing over the ram again and i went with profile one, and i got a lockup within 30 minutes of a memtest. thing is...the ram is ddr3 12800, and profile one shouldnt be pushing it whatsoever. ill play with one stick at a time tomorrow, perhaps, and see if one of them will work with the OC fine on memtest i guess.

 

[xSauronx]

after more memtests i found i can leave the DRAM voltage at 1.66 and set it to 1600Mhz in the BIOS and it will run fine, and pass memtest easily

if I increase the HT base speed from 200 (stock is 13 x 200 for 2.6Ghz), to much more than 210, I start to have funky errors, I cant pass memtest, sometimes it wont boot. its really weird...what the hell happened? temps are fine, I have more than enough cooling and its like my board just wont OC anymore =(

edit: i think its the mobo. ive been having problems with USB devices for the last week as well, and I just didnt put 2 and 2 together...im gonna see if Asus will RMA it (since my provantage return period was over friday)