OC on an ASUS Striker II Formula

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Alright, so I am trying to OC my system and it's got a 780i chipset motherboard. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131255

I'm not familiar with overclocking Nvidia chipsets. Right now I've managed to get it to 3.5GHZ. It runs stable for about 15 minutes running PRime95 on all 4 cores, but then locks up. CPU voltage is 1.28 / NB voltage is 1.58 / Mem voltage is 2.2

Are there any other settings that anyone can think of that I should tweak. So far all I've don is up the FSB and tweak the three voltages.

Oh, I also took out 4GB of ram. The system is only using 4GB now in two DIMM slots. I read that putting memory in all 4 slots taxes the 780 chipsets and makes them hard to OC.

So, any advice anyone? I'm tying on the OC'd rig right now as it runs prime95... I'm at the 15 minute point so I better submit before I lose everything.

OK post submitted, now I'll edit to add that temps are 56, 45, 43, 43 according to CoreTemp. Still running for 16 minutes now. woohoo!!!

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

GAHH!!!

BSOD at the 21 minute mark. P95 didn't error out, the rig just locked up and then got a BSOD.

I've lowered the clock to 3.4GHZ and am running P95 again. 4 minutes into it right now. All voltages are the same as they were. If I can get this stable I may try 3.5 again.

[ReAp3r-G]

My CPU might be at the bottom of the bin when it comes to overclocking, because I need to bump the Voltage way way up to get a decent overclock...

Yours might need more juice...just a tad bit maybe?

[mortifiedPenguin]

Try giving it another .05 of a volt or so. My Q9450 seems to like 1.35 for 3.6 and 1.48 at 4 (still not quite stable though, and that's a bit high for my taste).

edit: oh yeah, and my temps seem to match yours with a TRUE (Scythe S-Flex F) +/- some since its OC'd slightly higher

[bittermann]

Try giving it another .05 of a volt or so. My Q9450 seems to like 1.35 for 3.6 and 1.48 at 4 (still not quite stable though, and that's a bit high for my taste).

Agreed. I think your other voltages are fine. Try your cpu voltage at 1.35v then if that' stable you can back it down until you find the lowest stable voltage. Kinda like working backwards! I had to do that with my 650i sli mobo as well.

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Thanks guys, I will add some heat to the CPU.

I have over a half hour of prime95 stability at 3.4. I will add .05 and then try for 3.5

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Allright running P95 at 1.33 volts and 3.5GHZ

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

31 Minutes P95 stable at 3.5

Bumped voltage to 1.35 and clock to 3.6GHZ and now running P95

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Try giving it another .05 of a volt or so. My Q9450 seems to like 1.35 for 3.6 and 1.48 at 4 (still not quite stable though, and that's a bit high for my taste).

edit: oh yeah, and my temps seem to match yours with a TRUE (Scythe S-Flex F) +/- some since its OC'd slightly higher

So you also have a 13C spread between your low and high temps? Any idea why it's such a big swing?

15 mins stable at 3.6... Bumped to 3.7.

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Darn, BSOD.

Rebooting with a volt bump to 1.3625. Still at 3.7.. and a BSOD even before it gets to Windows, shoot

Going to try the 1.35 volts and 3.6GHZ values again

Turns out the BIOS got some queertrons in it. I cleared the CMOS and things are working again.

I have my rig at 3.5GHZ for now. I may try OC'ing some more tomorrow. In the meantime, my folding PPD is WAY up on my SMP client. It's went from 11:23 per step to 8:52.

Thanks for the tips guys

[Flying Fox]

Just don't report back until after at least a few hours.

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Just don't report back until after at least a few hours.

Yeah, I've already had to revert to stock. Had a lockup while it was running at 3.5. I'll try again tomorrow.

[mjallan123]

Instead of using P95, use Intel Burn Test. That's what I use now: it's much quicker at stressing than P95.

Oh and looking around, it looks like you shouldn't need more than 1.3v to reach 3.6Ghz.

[mortifiedPenguin]

So you also have a 13C spread between your low and high temps? Any idea why it's such a big swing?

Not a clue. My best guess would have to do with how the chip is laid out (transistor-wise), but nothing more specific.

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Back at it this morning. The PC had crashed again last night while I slept. Weird cause it was running stock. I cleared the BIOS and set it to 3.4GHZ. Running Intel Burn Test at the moment. OK it passed one iteration. I'll try running 5.

Moments later... OK passed 5 iterations... I wonder why it's locking up on me while I'm AFK... Back to the BIOS for some more tweaking.

Here is a website that shows my BIOS options in case you guys would like to take a look: http://hothardware.com/Articles/Asus-St ... rd/?page=3

Any advice on how to tweak the settings is much appreciated.

[mjallan123]

It would be good if you could post temps as well. How well ventilated is your case?

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

It would be good if you could post temps as well. How well ventilated is your case?

Case is a coolermaster cosmos. It has 4 120MM fans. The CPU is cooled by TRUE with 120MM fan. There is an Antec spot cooler aimed at the northbridge. It's pretty well ventilated.

At 100% load I am currently showing 64, 58, 51, 51 on the temps. OC is at 3.5GHZ with 1.3624 volts to the CPU.

[mortifiedPenguin]

So a day later, I hope it's still running stable?

[Forge]

At 100% load I am currently showing 64, 58, 51, 51 on the temps. OC is at 3.5GHZ with 1.3624 volts to the CPU.

Just a semi-OT note here, but what you're seeing with those temps is one die being non-flush. C2Qs do this because they are two dies on a plastic substrate, so there's a pretty large amount of flex. Some chips lay out nice and flat, and you'll get near-identical temps across all four cores. Some chips have one die ever-so-slightly higher, which will give you temps like 55-55-50-50 or even 60-60-40-40 if they're really out of true. Yours shows one die flat and flush, and the other tilted. Your 51 cores are flat and flush, your 58 is the side of die touching the IHS, and the 64 is the lower side of that die.

Pictures would help, but I think you get what I mean.

FWIW, I was able to get my core/core temp deltas to shift slightly by removing and reseating the CPU a few times. Nothing will make both dies flat and flush if they're really cranked out of true, but you can sometimes get a better alignment with a reseat.

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Thanks for the info Forge. I should also add it's core1(or zero depending on numbering convention) and the temps have been this way in two motherboards. The CPU was reseated and fresh thermalpaste was applied when I swapped mobos. I wonder if my heatsink needs lapping. I suppose I could put the stock heatsink on to see if it gets more even temps. Of course, if it's the CPU that is warped that won't help much, but it might be worth a bit of troubleshooting to find out.

Right now she's purring along at 3.4GHZ. Ran all day while I was out and about. Load on the CPU was in the 30 to 40% range. I have three GPU2 folding clients on this rig. They're responsible for the load on the CPU.

I'll probably trying pushing it higher in a few days. It seems plenty fast at 3.4, even runs Crysis Warhead fairly smoothly (1920x1200, Enthusiast settings, 4xAA, Vsync on). Having said that, I'm happy to try and push it further just for the fun of it. I now need a new videogame to justify all the GPU goodness in this computer. I think FEAR2 may be my next purchase.

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

FWIW, I was able to get my core/core temp deltas to shift slightly by removing and reseating the CPU a few times. Nothing will make both dies flat and flush if they're really cranked out of true, but you can sometimes get a better alignment with a reseat.

My heatsink currently vents toward the back of my case. You think it might be a worthwhile effort to rotate it 90 degrees so that it vents up? Maybe rotating the base of the heatsink would cause it to have better contact with the CPU. There are two 120mm fans in the top of my case so the heat will go straight out the top.

[Gerbil Jedidiah]

Ripped out the Striker II and put my ASUS P5Q-E back in with P45 chipset. She's currently running at 3.8GHZ and has passed the intel burn test.

[Forge]

Temps changed any?