Need help overclocking the i7 3770k

Setsukai

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CPU - i7 3770k
Mobo - Asus P8Z77-V LK
Heat Sink - Noctua NH-D14

I've watched videos and read guides all over the internet on OCing this CPU, but the guides I've found aren't really making that much sense to me. Some say you need to do quite a bit of work, others say you hardly need to do anything to get a stable OC. It seems to depend on your motherboard how complex or simple an OC you can get, and I guess that's where the guides are failing me.
I haven't found one single guide out there that shows me how to OC the CPU I have with the motherboard I have. I can find a few videos and forum posts, but they aren't guides. They're usually posted by someone just showing off their specs without really explaining what they did to get them, or why they had to do what they did. So that's why I'm posting here.

I would like to get between a 4.5 and 4.8 OC, depending on how cool my heat sink can keep my CPU. How do I do this with the Asus P8Z77-V LK? What is the maximum safe temperature to run my CPU at? I tried OCing it earlier today and got a blue screen, then my computer got stuck in a reboot cycle without ever making it to the POST. I fixed it, but I got a little freaked out at that point, so if anyone has experience OCing this CPU with this mobo, I would greatly appreciate some guidance in the matter.
 
Solution
Yeah the color is kinda of a warning just to let you know you are overvolting. My i7-930 is oc to 4.2 and the v-core is 1.34. Start out slow and build your oc till it is stable and windows boots.. It is time consuming and you can't just set your multiplier to max and set you volt high and hope it boots. Take small steps to get you oc. Some cpu will overclock with lower volts than others all chips are not the same. I don't recommend using some one else oc values as you chip is not the same.

christop

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Just up the multiplier a step at a time until it wont post then add some volt to the cpu. You can get a nice bump going from stock clocks to a nice oc. I will guess you have a good heatsink and not the stock one..
 

Setsukai

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How do I even up the volts to my CPU? I've heard the term Vcore, and I've heard that's the thing you want to increase, but I can't find that on my motherboard at all. I don't know where to go to increase my volts.
 

Setsukai

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Nevermind my above post. I think I found it. Everyone says not to change the BCLK and leave it at 100, but on my system it's set to 103 by default. Should I leave it alone or take it down to 100?
 

Setsukai

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Like I said, most of the 'guides' I've found just list specs and values to plug in without telling you why you want to use those values. I'm not exactly comfortable just trusting someone else's OC settings on the basis that my OC will be exactly the same as theirs. That seems extremely counter-intuitive.
I've seen guides that tell me that for a 4.5 OC I want a Vcore of 1.25. When I pump my Vcore up to that, the numbers turn from white to yellow to pink and then to red. That kind of makes me uneasy (Especially when in screenshots from the 'guides' I've seen they're not red at all) and I want to make sure that I'm doing things the right way for my system, not for someone else's system. Maybe I have the wrong concept and some OC's are universal, but this is a $1,400 system and the last thing I want to do is destroy it because I'm plugging in values without understanding why I'm doing it.
 

christop

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Yeah the color is kinda of a warning just to let you know you are overvolting. My i7-930 is oc to 4.2 and the v-core is 1.34. Start out slow and build your oc till it is stable and windows boots.. It is time consuming and you can't just set your multiplier to max and set you volt high and hope it boots. Take small steps to get you oc. Some cpu will overclock with lower volts than others all chips are not the same. I don't recommend using some one else oc values as you chip is not the same.
 
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Setsukai

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What's a reasonable starting point volt-wise for a 4.5 OC? I just tried starting at 1.085 and the system booted up, but then froze while trying to load Windows. Does it need more or less?
 

christop

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It needs more. Add a little at a time till you get windows to boot all the way. Once you get it booting normal you can bump up your multiplier one more notch. You could try 1.25 for 4.5 as that is not too much. After you get to where you are happy with your oc run prime 95 and see if it bsods.
 

Setsukai

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Those red numbers still make me nervous, but I'll give it my best shot! :)

Edit: Do I need to worry about any voltage other than vcore right now?
 

christop

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I understand when I first learned how to oc I was super worried I would burn my cpu or mb and be out both pieces. I did research on the max volts for my cpu and that took allot of the worry away as I leaned what was overkill. http://www.overclock.net/ This is a good site to learn from..

 

Setsukai

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I'll check it out, it looks awesome. Thank you for all your help. This whole experience has been nerve wracking, to say the least.
 

Setsukai

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It boots windows now at 1.255 but BSOD instantly upon starting a Prime95 test. I'm really nervous to take it up any higher though.
 

Setsukai

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Sorry to keep bothering you, but I've pushed it up to 1.280 and so far Prime95 is running with no BSOD, but I've got a new problem. As soon as I start the test, Core #1 fails. The message Prime95 gives me for that core is the following;

FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file

Also, turns out that my effective OC is more like 4.6 with the 103.00 BCLK, or so I think. CPU-Z says my current frequency is 4635.80 - still not sure if I should take that BCLK down to 100.00 or leave it alone. The guides seem to offer conflicting information on that.

 

Setsukai

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I had to reset my mobo to the default. It got a little too unstable. I'll try again later this week, only this time I'll take it slower, and I won't be so skittish over the volts. Thank you for all your help.