What's causing an unstable overclock?

[Coke Robot]

Ladies and gentlemen, I come to you running an AMD Athlon 240 II at 4.004 ghz! It has been accomphlished (in theory)!

Speaking of such, my overclock isn't running stable. I can run it basically at idle, run iTunes and IE 9, but from time to time, Windows freaks out about a couple of services not responding and such. My temps are fairly good for such an overclock, 36 degrees C at idle, on air too!

I haven't stress tested it yet because I wanted to see if I can even reach the Promised Land in the first place, I have. And I want to stay there! I've done some googling and it seems like I might have to attack the RAM timings and HTT link settings too. That brings up the question, how in the h-e-double hockey sticks to I even really attempt that?

I have an ASUS M4A78LT-M LE board, so if anyone can help, many thanks in advance.

 

[DreemWarrior]

First off...OC'ing is a delicate art to say the least. How have you managed to get your OC so far? Are you clocking with software? There are MANY variables if you OC manually. Vcore, Dram. Base clock multiplier etc. But if you search this OC thread you will find tons of info.
Whatever you have done so far, back it off a bit and run prime 95. You can find more info here: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=205
Hope this helps.

 

[stormy13]

Seen this,

http://www.sevenforums.com/overcloc...2-am3-phenom-phenomii-overclocking-guide.html

 

[MadSupra354]

Um...I don't think Athlons can reach 4GHz stable. My Athlon II x4 wasn't stable at 3.6GHz. The Maximum stable clock I was able to acheive was 3.52GHz.

 

[Coke Robot]

First off...OC'ing is a delicate art to say the least. How have you managed to get your OC so far? Are you clocking with software? There are MANY variables if you OC manually. Vcore, Dram. Base clock multiplier etc. But if you search this OC thread you will find tons of info.
Whatever you have done so far, back it off a bit and run prime 95. You can find more info here: Prime95 (64bit) - 25.11 Download - EXTREME Overclocking
Hope this helps.

I'm obviously using BIOS functions to overclock since software has potential issues with it. Overclocking definitely is a delicate art, and I am the artist.

The thing that really makes me think that my RAM probably needs attacking since in my Windows Experience Rating, I have a 6.9 for my processor (that I believe was when I had it clocked in the 3.8ish arena) and a 5.9 for RAM. That's not too cool.

 

[Coke Robot]

Um...I don't think Athlons can reach 4GHz stable. My Athlon II x4 wasn't stable at 3.6GHz. The Maximum stable clock I was able to acheive was 3.52GHz.

Interesting...I have the dual core Regor Athlon, it probably just might be the different version of such. You have the quad core correct?

I've been able to take it to a stable 3.87 for a good while. But I'm not planning on keeping it running at 4 ghz all day everyday, I'm talking about running it at 4 for maybe eights of punching through some Grand Theft Automobile 4. I usually underclock it down to 800 mhz when I keep it running for long stretches of time, gotta save the planet, and my wallet when it comes to pay the power!

 

[stormy13]

I usually underclock it down to 800 mhz when I keep it running for long stretches of time,

Or you could find the max stable and then enable Cool and Quiet. Saves having to reset everything, and works very well when overclocked.

I have mine x4 630 clocked to 3.3 GHz, and idles at 940 MHz with CnQ enabled.

 

[Tomrdiedrich]

I am not very optamistic of you being able to get that CPU stable at 4.0GHz. I have an Athlon 440 and found rock solid stability at 3.51GHz. No hangs with Prime95 after 22hours. (got tired of waiting! )

Is that OC with the whole mobo OCed? Using windows experience for info on an OC is not advisable. All those scores are just based on windows functions, and not overall stability/performance.

Something that I did to help with stability of the RAM in mine just needed a touch of extra juice. (use caution this will it!) Sometime it is needed. The fact that you can boot into windows and even run some programs is great. Read the AMD overclocking guide at the beginning of this forum and follow the steps for RAM. Do those first before trying more juice. I hope my ramblings are of some help for you. Good luck in finding stability!!

 

[Coke Robot]

I am not very optamistic of you being able to get that CPU stable at 4.0GHz. I have an Athlon 440 and found rock solid stability at 3.51GHz. No hangs with Prime95 after 22hours. (got tired of waiting! )

Is that OC with the whole mobo OCed? Using windows experience for info on an OC is not advisable. All those scores are just based on windows functions, and not overall stability/performance.

Something that I did to help with stability of the RAM in mine just needed a touch of extra juice. (use caution this will it!) Sometime it is needed. The fact that you can boot into windows and even run some programs is great. Read the AMD overclocking guide at the beginning of this forum and follow the steps for RAM. Do those first before trying more juice. I hope my ramblings are of some help for you. Good luck in finding stability!!

I have the whole system overclocked, I only ran Windows Experience to see what it shoots out for a 3.92 ghz processor. I finally figured out what clock I had it on, I wasn't sure if it was a 3.8 or what!

Hmmm, I'll hit up on the RAM voltage(I'm assuming that's the juice)....

Damn it, I want that Promised Holy Land of 4ghz......

 

[boswell3782]

My Athlon 250 can max out stable at 3.55GHz but I tryed it at 3.8GHz still stable but overheating lol

 

[Coke Robot]

I can run mine at 3.8 fairly stable. But then again, I only need that much power when I'm gaming, and that isn't a long stretch of time.

 

[dvijaydev46]

Did you bump up the vcore? does your 3.8GHz OC stable when stress testing? What about the load temp?