Post Your Overclock!

[Lava King]

When it comes to Overclocking and stability tests, personal experience and majority opinion will always trump 'the pointless crowd'.

As a member of the Pointless Crowd, I drone on and on, never letting anyone get a word in edgewise until I start foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards.

 

[smarteyeball]

Thanks Patrick

A Guy

Any time mate

Quite true as Patrick said. I think even the lightest stress test does more work than about 90% of day-to-day usage will do.

Very true. Browsing, Word, e-mail doesn't care an iota for OCing. A few apps will but on the whole most light everyday tasks won't.

Personally I've not seen any real world increase in performance with any overclock in CPU clocks or RAM fiddling. These things will get better scores in bench tests though.

Since I game - I do notice a difference in some of them. But on the whole, like pretty much everyone else - it's only done for the fun/hobby aspect.

RAM and BCLK fiddling however - essentially none at all. Benchmark increases are nice, but ultimately they are just for fun and shouldn't be taken to seriously.

As a member of the Pointless Crowd, I drone on and on, never letting anyone get a word in edgewise until I start foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards.

:roflmao:

* Just to clarify - that comment was not directed at anybody in particular

At the end of the day our PC's are just that - Personal Computers.

There is no one 'true' method or answer when it comes to testing.

I personally advocate my methods because I've found it's what works for me.

It also can depend on the OC you are aiming for. 'Light OC's' don't need as much testing. But higher OC's where more variables and potential weak spots are introduced do make it easier to narrow down culprits.


Case in point for the pro overkill testing - when I failed the 8hr prime the other night, I knew I was on the right track with my target - but not quite there.

I adjusted settings (more vcore basically and lowering BCLK), did a 10 pass IBT max run. Passed. Even did a 7 pass memtest run to make sure it wasn't the extra mhz on the RAM. passed.

Did a 99 pass Crysis harbour benchmark run (to simulate a more 'realistic load scenario) passed.

I'm now at 10 or so hours into another Prime run. The two cores that failed on two runs are now still going strong.

By rights, the machine is now more 'stable' than it was before. And unless it is a b*stard and x124's randomly, then I'll use the machine as is and 'real world' test it.


By overkill testing, I've narrowed down the weak point - voltage.

It's a method I've been using for years and have personally found works for me for the most part compared to quick and dirty testing.

 

[smarteyeball]

Extended testing nailed the 'round off' bug.

11hrs - max vcore, temps seen


No errors


Now to sit back and 'real world' it


One thing I've learnt from this exercise - BCLK OCing is not really worth it.

The fact that PCI-E lanes (GPUs affected and other devices on PCI-e slots), sata, (possible odd drive flap ups) and Potential memory problems reinforce the idea the sticking to a BCLK of 100.00 and mainly adjusting via multis with SB is valid.




Decent score - but real world notice? Zilch


But overall, as long you keep it as hobby - go nuts!

(of course now that it's done - I want to try for higher simply because I can :roflmao: Plenty of temp /vcore headroom... )

 

[A Guy]

Your minimum temperatures are too low...

A Guy

 

[Dave76]

I'll bet he put his rig in the ref

 

[smarteyeball]

It's the one advantage to winter

 

[smarteyeball]

One thing I've noticed since adjusting the BCLK is the infamous Asus POST turn on/turn off/ turn back on normal start.

Never occurred when I solely used the multi :huh:

 

[jeepmann4x4]

One thing I've noticed since adjusting the BCLK is the infamous Asus POST turn on/turn off/ turn back on normal start.

Never occurred when I solely used the multi :huh:

I only use the multi and mine has always done that dance, not all the time but once or twice every few weeks.

 

[Britton30]

One thing I've noticed since adjusting the BCLK is the infamous Asus POST turn on/turn off/ turn back on normal start.

Never occurred when I solely used the multi :huh:

Yup my two ASUS boards do the same thing, but usually after some frequency change, other wise the board stays on with a reboot. POST is so slow though that my monitor turns off everytime.

 

[smarteyeball]

I only use the multi and mine has always done that dance, not all the time but once or twice every few weeks.

Hmm, now that you mention it - mine has done it a few times, but it was very irregular. Certainly not regular enough to be noticeable. I noticed it most on cold boots after the power had been disconnected.

Now it's every cold boot, or restart.

Yup my two ASUS boards do the same thing, but usually after some frequency change, other wise the board stays on with a reboot. POST is so slow though that my monitor turns off everytime.

My previous my P5Q PRO did it all the time. I don't recall my P6X58D doing it though. Initializing/ Pre-Post time has always been long with Asus.

They always fiddle and fart and multiple restart after certain changes. (Multi, volts and RAM especially). However sometimes they don't.

When I finish adding my new drives etc - I might reset the bclk back to 100.00 to see if changes anything.

It's not like there's any noticeable difference with 40 odd extra mhz anyway. I'd rather lose the minute mhz increase than double power on every single time


It just makes me curious as to what it's polling/prepping for the 2nd reboot - if that's what it's doing.






***EDIT***

Reset BCLK back to 100.00 and it appears to back normal.

So while you can 'safely' adjust SB using the BCLK with small increments - overall it's simply not worth it.

 

[Britton30]

My *stupid* Gigabyte AMD board does the two-step boot dance after almost any BIOS adjustments. Usually it won't boot at all then and tells me overclocking had failed and it resets to defaults. Real bad form I think.

 

[Dave76]

Never had that issue with my Gigabyte Intel board.

 

[Britton30]

Finally a stable 4.6GHz. BIOS updates and it works now, old BIOS would BSOD at boot. WEI even went up .1 on CPU score. Vcore bounce 1.320-1.336 with IBT on maximum.

 

[essenbe]

Finally a stable 4.6GHz. BIOS updates and it works now, old BIOS would BSOD at boot. WEI even went up .1 on CPU score. Vcore bounce 1.320-1.336 with IBT on maximum.
View attachment 213686View attachment 213685

Nice job, Gary. Getting kind of warm though. IBT always does that.

 

[Britton30]

Nice job, Gary. Getting kind of warm though. IBT always does that.

Thanks, I'm still fiddling with off set volts, this was at -0.04 and I did hit 90C a bit before this. :shock:

 

[essenbe]

Nice job, Gary. Getting kind of warm though. IBT always does that.

Thanks, I'm still fiddling with off set volts, this was at -0.04 and I did hit 90C a bit before this. :shock:

I've learned that heat won't bother you if you quit running IBT and Prime.

 

[A Guy]

Good one Gary

A Guy

 

[smarteyeball]

Finally a stable 4.6GHz. BIOS updates and it works now, old BIOS would BSOD at boot.

lol, I'm still on the original BIOS for my board. The old 'if it ain't broke...' - I might update and be even more surprised.

If you'd like (or have the inclination) do you want to take some screenies of your BIOS for us to look at?

WEI even went up .1 on CPU score.

That's about right. I can't recall the 7.6 to 7.7 ghz point difference - but's that's as high you'll get her. Even low 5Ghz+ stays at 7.7

Vcore bounce 1.320-1.336 with IBT on maximum.

Perfectly normal vdroop there. Are you using any LLC?

(probably easier to post screenies )

At any rate, kudos and you're in the ballpark

I've learned that heat won't bother you if you quit running IBT and Prime.

Yep

Personally with my own regular usage, encompassing EVERY THING I do, be it app or game - I'd be very hard pressed to break 60c on a core.


Winter helps, but when summer returns even if it sits around 60-65c, I'm laughing.

 

[Britton30]

Thanks Patrick, Bill, and Steve. Here's some screens of my UEFI, 3304 BIOS. I have no onboard graphics with this chip (i5-2550K) so there are no IGPU settings shown.

 

[Trinty]

Thanks Patrick, Bill, and Steve. Here's some screens of my UEFI, 3304 BIOS. I have no onboard graphics with this chip (i5-2550K) so there are no IGPU settings shown.
View attachment 213827View attachment 213828

View attachment 213829View attachment 213830

View attachment 213831View attachment 213832

One small offtopic for Britton30 :
How you have that options in ASUS EFI BIOS Tool ???
I have ASUS EFI BIOS Tool 2.00.1201 and only have some options not all this.
And you have PRTScreen , I dont have this.

Sorry for offtopic but I must ask.
Trinty