Which voltage should I up first when instability occurs?

[GeneralOreo]

So many options... is there an order for this stuff?

My motherboard is a Gigabyte P35-DS4 Rev 2.0.

 

[ShadeZeRO]

It really depends on your configuration.

Depends on if your Ram is running at full speed or not, generally people go with CPU.
Northbridge is only when (IMO) you start doing insanely high FSB's.

 

[JustaGeek]

I would say VCore and then NB.

Leave RAM alone if it works fine, same with the SB.

 

[GeneralOreo]

What about the FSB voltage? There's nothing about it in any guide, they just talk about the Northbridge. Was this considered part of the Northbridge and Gigabyte just gave the users more control or something?

 

[JustaGeek]

On my MB I can only control the VCore, NB voltage and RAM voltage.

FSB voltage might be useful when overclocking the memory, and SB voltage perhaps when you have problems with you IDE or SATA, NIC or on-board sound.

 

[GeneralOreo]

Cool, thanks. Last question...

is it safe to give the PCI-Express slot with the video card more voltage to get the video card overclock more stable, or should that stuff be restricted to volt/bios mods or whatever they're called (I'm new to this stuff..)?

 

[JustaGeek]

Generally speaking, it is better to leave the PCIe slot alone, with the 100MHz frequency.

Some people would increase it to 105-110MHz, yielding supposedly better overclocking results, but it is a rather risky procedure leading to overall instability of the system.

I do not know the MB with the PCIe voltage adjustment, so it is hard to comment on this. I ran the AGP card with the voltage on "High" on 775Dual-VSTA, and it helped. Not the PCIe though, so perhaps others can help here.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Always test RAMs using Memtest86, test #5 for 50 loops.

1. Vcore
2. Northbridge
3. VTT
4. GTLREF

 

[GeneralOreo]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Always test RAMs using Memtest86, test #5 for 50 loops.

1. Vcore
2. Northbridge
3. VTT
4. GTLREF

What do VTT and GTLREF stand for? Sorry I'm new at this stuff...

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

I overclock my pci-e. The frames are a bit better- nothing runs particularily hotter- worth it. And if you don't experience better frames, you'll probably get steadier frames. Don't monkey with pci-e voltages. If your card needed more juice it'd have a 4 or 6-pin adapter on it... Out of curiosity, what kind of graphics card do you have? There are pretty cool pencil mods out there for a few (I just have to sharpen a pencil and color in the heads to some parts of my 7600, and i got 80 extra mhz on my core...

 

[BonzaiDuck]

There's already plenty of material on these forums to suggest a rigorous procedure for developing a list of stable over-clocks. You can hunt them down.

I'd recommend a small toolbox of software stress-test programs. But take just the example of ORTHOS -- assume a dual-core configuration and one instance of the program.

I recommend setting memory VDIMM voltage to less than a tenth of a volt below the maximum retail spec. You're going to want to push the memory as far as it goes-- either with tighter latencies or higher megahertz, so for instance, if your warranty-limit is 2.2V, set it at between 2.0 and 2.1V. You can still edge it up a tad more later.

Then, start running ORTHOS at a fixed voltage setting close to or equal to the BIOS monitor "real-time" reading when the board is set to VCORE = "Auto."

IF you find an over-clock setting that's stable under ORTHOS "small-FFTs" test, you also want to stress the RAM separately, so run the large FFTs for an hour or more.

The blend test may suggest edging up some other voltages, like the Northbridge, CPU_VTT or 1.2VHT value.

Now, without any further insight as to what to change first, just keep good records so that you can reset a voltage to its previous value if it doesn't stabilize things, and try one after another.

 

[GeneralOreo]

Originally posted by: ComdrpopnfreshOut of curiosity, what kind of graphics card do you have?

8800GT.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek
On my MB I can only control the VCore, NB voltage and RAM voltage.

FSB voltage might be useful when overclocking the memory, and SB voltage perhaps when you have problems with you IDE or SATA, NIC or on-board sound.

soo up the Vcore a step, then up the NB a step, then back to vcore? if your cpu is not prime95 stable

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS

Originally posted by: JustaGeek
On my MB I can only control the VCore, NB voltage and RAM voltage.

FSB voltage might be useful when overclocking the memory, and SB voltage perhaps when you have problems with you IDE or SATA, NIC or on-board sound.

soo up the Vcore a step, then up the NB a step, then back to vcore? if your cpu is not prime95 stable

I am stable at my 2.925GHz at 1.3V VCore, and have no interest in going higher atm.

Just got my 8800GT - the difference between now and 7950GT is incredible, as you can imagine.