Windows 7: Little bit of more specific OC information/guidance please? :)

There are so many overclocking tutorials out there, I know many people look upon posts such as this with a sense of scorn, then quickly link the person to a tutorial and go on their merry way.

This is ok, I feel similarly sometimes with other computer related issues, but I find that personally, I really like the reassurance of talking my issue over personally with other people, and being able to ask specific questions to get what and where I want to be.



I have got my 3770k running stable on a 4.5ghz overclock using the TurboV EVO utility on my Asus p8z77-V Deluxe board, but "A Guy" pointed out to me the generous voltages often provided by these software overclocks can often cause higher than necessary temperatures. Currently my OC will run at about 75 degrees, but with an h100 on the system, I would like it if that could be a bit lower. Because of this I would like to try my hand at manual overclocking.

I understand how helpful tutorials can be, however after reading many I have never felt sufficiently prepared to try it myself. It's just lots of little things often assumed or left out by accident. So first off, if anyone knows of an especially helpful tutorial, please feel free to link it here, just know that is not problem solved in my mind.

Question Time:

-Tutorials always speak like "adjust the voltage accordingly", how do I know what voltage changes I should be making? What happens if there isn't enough? how do I know? What happens if there is too much? how do I know? Are there dangers in too much/not enough volts?

-When I am just going through testing my voltages and such, how do I know when I should stop and start testing more extensively or button back? Say I went 1 multiplier too high for stability, will I know because the system will crash on start up? Do I have to run Prime95 at every step?

-There is base clock and multiplier, TurboV EVO adjusts both, is that what one normally does in a manual OC? Which one first? At what intervals?

I don't really expect someone to come along and answer all those questions, I am just showing my view that there still seems to be a lot unknown, too much for me to feel confident starting myself. If someone could just start by pointing me in the right direction, what is the first step and exactly how might I go about that with my hardware, then we can work from there.

Many thanks,
Tomha

From the tutorials I have been reading 1 must set all bios settings to manual so you know what setting is at what, if you leave it at auto and you run Prime95 your bios will increase vcore even if its not really needed. Put everything at default and before you start increasing the multiplier run prime95 to try find out the lowest voltage needed for a stable system at default settings, and if your system is not stable increase it with 1 incline intill system is stable.

OCCT is also a very good stress test

If you have to low voltage you will most likely be met with a BSOD, there is a list of codes that someone made that correspond to what that code most likely mean, I think someone posted link to those codes here if not try google, I will try also to see if I can remember what I searched to find it.

And easiest O.C on a unlocked cpu is to leave your BLCK at 100 mhz and then just increase the multiplier intill your happy with the speeds or can't go further no matter how high you set your settings. And most people say that you should not go over 70c when overclocking

Others are free to fill in if I forgott something but this is how I started with my O.C testings

I know what you mean about some OC tut's leaving you still unsure if your going to fry your system or not. Not that the writer is doing a poor job, it just comes out that way. The link I supplied was the best one, and easiest for me to follow. I hope that it can be some help to you.

Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 – 3 Step Overclocking Guides | TechREACTION

Ideally you would start off with no adjustment to any of the voltages to find the limit before such is necessary; take the multiplier up anywhere from 3-5x at a time and then stress test that clock using Prime95 or AIDA 64. Just know that with every new multiplier there's an internal voltage attached to it and eventually you'll have to compensate for that increase by upping the VTT and/or PLL, but more on that later.

As for when you'll know... to be perfectly honest it's instinctive, or at least it is for me.

If there isn't enough voltage the entire system will either freeze (forcing a manual restart) or will forcefully restart itself for any number of reasons. And then there are the stop screens which can be readily diagnosed if you read the stop codes underneath technical information. Here are a few I'm familiar with and have found out about over the internet:

0x124 = add/remove vcore or QPI/VTT (vcore in your case)
0x101 = add more vcore
0x50 = RAM (either the timings or the frequency) add more voltage (DDR3)
0x1E = add more vcore (a common one I've run into)
0x3B = add more vcore (another common one)
0x109 = RAM voltage (DDR3 I think)

I've left out a couple as they're mostly to due with QPI and VTT but that's the gist of it and I'm sure there are more out there. As for too much you'll see that effect during heat up, especially with Ivy as it already runs hot as is. One of the many end results is the same as having too little voltage - lock ups, forced restarts, or lock ups leading into a forced restart. There is danger is running too many volts through the CPU but that can be circumvented with improved cooling to both the board and the CPU. For the sake of this the absolute maximum Intel recommends for Ivy is, I believe, 1.52v.


Answered above for the most part, and yes you will have to Prime95 at every step of the way for anywhere from 8-24 hours. Remember that while Prime95 may get your temperatures up fairly high you'll never see those same temperatures in everyday real world usage, not even when gaming.

I don't mess around with the base clock because it's far too finicky for my liking but it's a great way to etch out a higher frequency from the applied multiplier without going one higher. Just like the old FSB's. The highest normal BC I've seen reported at almost every review I've read or forum I've visited is 103, the absolute highest is 107.

As I said, too finicky. I'm far more comfortable just upping the multiplier.

And I totally forgot to mention more on PLL and the likes, but digest this first.

Sounds good. I will give it a go in a day or so, I am currently trying to push my graphics card a bit further, getting used to the process. The testing process is certainly...inconvenient :P With up coming events it may be difficult to find 8+ hours where I can just let the test run. I would do it at night, but my H100 has some noise issue and its too loud for me to sleep with it in the room :P Im hoping to get an RMA on it in the next few days though.

And thanks for all the advice guys, its really helpful and much appreciated

To correct something I've said: knowing when to increase voltage and what to increase isn't instinctive (although it still is for me, somewhat) but eventually you'll hit a window where no matter how much more voltage you apply the overclock will not stabilize. So at the point you'd return to your last stable voltage recording (do keep mental tabs or take notes!) and move down to PLL, VCCIO or VCCSA.

As you can see I also have an Asus board so I can pretty much help you directly.

And a very similar cpu :P

Side note, I have reached a point in my graphics card overclock where at 1040mhz core clock or above I can't get it to work, regardless of voltage and such, is this an example of that point where I need to accept it and go to my highest stable result?

That or you could decrease the clock until it stabilizes.

I'd tested 1030mhz and that was stable, so same difference really :P, thanks

By best advice is to log all of your changes and the results because OC is a lot of trial and error and if you don't log you will get lost.