any OC experts care to share some advice?

Specs:
AMD Phenom II x4 965 BE
Noctua nh-d14 cpu cooler (changed out 1 fan)
M4A785TD-EVO
4GB GSkill DDR3 1333
XFX 4970
Corsair 750w psu
Antec 1200 case (changed out all fans)

so i just got my new cpu and cooler, and i thought i would try OCing (first attempt at ocing a processor) and here are my results:

3.9 Ghz and stable after 3 +hours of Prime95 ( only changed the multiplier and cpu voltage )







temps after 3 Hours of Prime95:



air flow not an issue (sorry shitty cell phone camera)





now the problem: once i got 3.9 Ghz stable nothing i do will get it to go to 4Ghz stable, no change in cpu voltages or HT ref. clock, everything i try fails after a few mins in prime95.

thoughts on how i can get to 4ghz? i thought i was doing well for my first OC

I think that I would settle for what you have achieved. It is possible that you have reached the maximum stable settings for your system. Even seemingly identical systems have different limits when it comes to overclocking. It all depends on the tolerances of the components used - some are more tolerant to overclocking, and some just won't take it at all.

with my temps at 47c i thought i could push it just a little further and join the 4ghz club

also i noticed i left my NB to default, would that change the stabilty at 4ghz?

if so what should i set/start it at?

Make sure you have the latest BIOS... and take it slow and easy, generally I find a max stable and back it down approx 10% from there. But my rig is a media server so its on 24/7... reliability and speed!

Mmmmm GOOD!

Darryl Licht said:

Make sure you have the latest BIOS

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i do, had to update them for my mobo to support the 965

Holy crap that's a lot of fans. I have a very similar setup:

AMD Phenom II X4 945 @ 3.0GHz
ASUS M4A785-M
4GB A-DATA RAM (2 x 2GB)
Sparkle Nvidia GeForce 9400GT 512MB (gotta upgrade...)

Here's some more details: CPU-Z HTML report file

I only have stock cooling, meaning the a CPU fan, the GPU fan, and the exhaust in the back of the case. I'd also appreciate some recommendations as to what I can do with stock cooling. I know it won't be far, but what the hell.

I also have a big aftermarket CPU fan lying around that never fit in my old rig, but I haven't tried it in my new one yet.

Product FRED said:

Holy crap that's a lot of fans.

Click to expand...

and its still almost silent. Only time i hear my pc is when the gpu fan speeds up.

treachery said:

also i noticed i left my NB to default, would that change the stabilty at 4ghz?

Click to expand...

Seeing as you linked to this thread, I looked.

And to answer your question, yes it will. Had a quick look at the manual for your board and I would bump up both the "HT Over Voltage" and the "Chipset Over Voltage" settings one notch each, and then test. If that doesn't do it work on the Chipset voltage, one notch at a time.

To give you an idea how they can help, I had to raise all of them on mine (the two above, plus a couple of more than are in my bios but not yours) to get mine stable at stock speed, never mind overclocked. Seems my board is one of those that with everything at default settings, it just wasn't stable at any speed (stop 124 errors for no rhyme or reason). Once I bumped the extra settings up, it has been stable as a rock.

treachery said:

with my temps at 47c i thought i could push it just a little further and join the 4ghz club

also i noticed i left my NB to default, would that change the stabilty at 4ghz?

if so what should i set/start it at?

Click to expand...

You could try to bump the NB voltage up a little. It can help stabilize a temperamental overclock for some boards. I have to do that to get mine past 3.5.

Btw, this is what you modestly can do with a NON Black Edition.





This is my every day stable running system. I was able to get it to 3.65, but it got too hot for my taste.

In the second pic, Temp1 is the CPU, Temp 3 is the NB, and the Core temp is obvious.