My 1st overclock ever :) E4300 on Gigabyte 965P-DS3

[djhopps]

Hi all - newbie 2nd time poster

I have just completed my first succesful overclock ever! Hurrah! I've got my E4300 running at 3.15 (9x350fsb) at a slight .05v bump. My 2gb (2x1gb) Geil ULL DDR2-6400 RAM is running at a 1:1 divider at 700Mhz (its actually rated for 800mhz so no probs there) at 2.1v. Timings are 15 4 4 4 if I remember correctly. Kinda chuffed as I have never done this O/C business before - super speedy PC and a £100 CPU running at near-as-damnit X6800 performance!

I have a question though - have any users out there got the same (revision 2) Gigabyte motherboard and CPU as me *GA 965P-DS3* who can recommend some BIOS settings which will help push my E4300 further? It would be cool to get both cores running at 3.5Gig!

I'm running on a Thermalright Ultra 120 coolers, Antec P180, Hiper 580W modular PSU and XFX 7950GX2 1Gb GFX Card. I've only tried clocking the CPU so far....

Cheers, FoX

 

[mega1268]

hey man i got the same setup as you minus the ram. i have gskill ram. Can you post your current settings.

Edit. im needing help on my voltage settings i think.

 

[sarsoft]

You have it running at 3.15GHz. Do you have it stable at that speed? Did you run stress test for cpu like Orthos or dual Prime 95 or memtest86+ (for ram) to see if its stable.

 

[ox1574]

I have the DS3 and E4300 as well. Can you please tell me exactly what settings you are running on the mother board under the MIT menu. I need exact voltage increases for each option.

Thanks

 

[djhopps]

Hi, no, I haven't put it through any stress tests yet. Have you any guidelines as to how long to let these tests run? I'm not that concerned however as I've been playing games constantly for the last week or so and not a sign of any problems!

I will do some digging and see if I can find the correct benchmark programs so give it a run in!

Ox1574 - all I did was to set the 'host' frequency to manual, set it to 350mhz, multiplier to 9, then ram timings to manual (15-4-4-4 in my case), then set the system voltage settings to manual which will allow you to bump up the CPU voltage ...i used 1.37v from the default 1.325. Works fine for me! haven't really tried nailing the highest overclock yet until i fully understand what bumping up the north bridge & pci-ex/fsb voltages would entail

Oh, and make sure you press Control-F1 after you see the BIOS screen which opens up more menu options in the Ga-965p-DS3 bios.

Cheers, FoX

 

[NotAPimecone]

Most people recommend 10 passes of memtest86+, then 10+ hours of dual-orthos and/or 10+ hours of dual-prime95.

For starters, anyway.

 

[Gundam1s]

Nice overclock man, congrats on passing 3Ghz.

I also have the same CPU and a DS3 (REV3.3) and would like to know what
the MCH and FSB volts do and help with ocing.

 

[djhopps]

Thanks fella - yeah, I am pretty amazed at exactly how easy it was to get to 350fsb. I tried 333 first, then jumped straight to 350. I HAVE tried going a little further , but i'm not sure how much extra voltage you can whack thru this board or chip and still be within reasonably 'no explosive' results!

Have you had much joy with your CPU? I know people are getting varied results

 

[foz]

I have the same mobo and cpu on the way in the mail, I cant wait to try them out. My current rig is showing its age. What kind of temps are you seeing with your setup?

 

[djhopps]

I'm getting around 25-28C idle and 50-55C load. I'm never sure which s/w is more accurate - i have used Coretemp, Intel TAT and the Gigabyte utility. All show slightly different temps - however, thru reading forums I believe that the most accurate is coretemp so the above temps are from that.

Good luck with your overclock - I am just about to ebay my 7950GX2 card in favour of a spanky new 8800GTX. That should do me for a year or so!

Cheers, FoX

 

[euro]

I got E4300 and Gigabyte-DS3 too, running it @3 Ghz with Corsair DX2 800 memory 1:1, no other setting changed. Zelman keeps it at like 19 idle and 20+ hot.

That is till it died this morning! I need your help what to do.

What happened while I was still sleeping my son wanted to play, turned it on, nothing came up on screen and he left it on (30 min)? Zelman was not running. It runs now when I disconnect the stupid manual speed control.

I tried shorting the CMOS reset switch (hold a screew driver on it for few seconds?) and still when I power the system up, I see PSU fan, Case fans, Zelman, GPU Fan, hear DVD and HD spin - and nothing gets posted, monitir stays on check cable and no beep/alarm from Gigabyte...

What should I do? Send CPU back to Newegg and try to get it replaced? Buy a new one if I have to - that has to be what broke, right?

Any consutructive feedback and advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

[NotAPimecone]

I got E4300 and Gigabyte-DS3 too, running it @3 Ghz with Corsair DX2 800 memory 1:1, no other setting changed. Zelman keeps it at like 19 idle and 20+ hot.

Those temps don't sound right.

when I power the system up, I see PSU fan, Case fans, Zelman, GPU Fan, hear DVD and HD spin - and nothing gets posted, monitir stays on check cable and no beep/alarm from Gigabyte...

I had this happen, I had to RMA the motherboard. My CPU was fine, though.

 

[djhopps]

Hey Euro, bad luck with your motherboard. Seems something has gone amiss there! but I had something similar when I 1st put this PC together - i linked up everything, cpu, ram, gfx, case etc and it was all ready to go... turn the power on and everything would spin up but I wouldn't get anything on the screen.....and no beeps etc, just lots of spinning fans. I thought my mobo/cpu was fubared, but before returning I disconnected everything and tried running the mobo, cpu (which i reseated), ram and gfx only and out of the case (on non-conducting material) - success!

So I don't know whether I hadn't connected something properly or if something wasnt seated correctly, but perhaps you should try the same before sending your mobo back.

Good luck!

PS> Your temps dont sound at all right - I wouldn't trust the Gigabyte s/w, download and use coretemp beta instead.

 

[euro]

Thanks. Difference is that my system ran fine for two weeks, so it's not installation... You're right, my Sensor something and BIOS show CPU temp core 32C and 19C (differenct sensor that measures)? I posted the second and the first value is thu core temp?

In any case, I think I fried CPU, not Mobo...? Should I RMA evrything, just CPU or what? If I send CPU (I shiver just from thinking about what pain was to install Zelman), and wait for new one, than if it's not it it will be 30 days over for returns for the rest of the stuff...?

 

[NotAPimecone]

Thanks. Difference is that my system ran fine for two weeks, so it's not installation... You're right, my Sensor something and BIOS show CPU temp core 32C and 19C (differenct sensor that measures)? I posted the second and the first value is thu core temp?

In any case, I think I fried CPU, not Mobo...? Should I RMA evrything, just CPU or what? If I send CPU (I shiver just from thinking about what pain was to install Zelman), and wait for new one, than if it's not it it will be 30 days over for returns for the rest of the stuff...?

Maybe. Your situation sounds very similar to what happened to me about a month ago. It ran fine for several weeks, then I replaced a few parts, and ran fine for a while longer, and suddenly experienced the exact same thing as you. Well, it died right in the middle of a stress test, and upon trying to reboot, I had the same problem as you.

My problem was the motherboard, I got it replaced and everything's fine again. I would think you'd get some sort of beep code if the motherboard was ok and something else was not.

 

[djhopps]

I guess unless you have another CPU or motherboard to try out, you won't be 100% sure as to what is busted. It's a bummer that - one small disadvantage of building your own pc ey?

If you think it's the mobo I would start with that - hell, maybe do both at the same time. Chances are that one's broken

 

[euro]

It's back!!! I was trying to clear CMOS while PC was powered on!

So now when it came up fine at stock 1.8 Ghz speed - I have some very intereasting questions!

For one, I have System Log enries trough out the morning (when I kept trying to boot), so system was actually booting, with mobo never posting or beeping, nothing on monitor?!?!

What should I do now - OC to 2.8 or go straing to 3Hz again?
I feel it was Zelman - but maybe its Gigabyte DS3 that acted up here - I had a setting in BIOS for it not to limit the speed of CPU Fan ....

 

[NotAPimecone]

It's back!!! I was trying to clear CMOS while PC was powered on!

8O

 

[sarsoft]

Hi, no, I haven't put it through any stress tests yet. Have you any guidelines as to how long to let these tests run? I'm not that concerned however as I've been playing games constantly for the last week or so and not a sign of any problems!

I will do some digging and see if I can find the correct benchmark programs so give it a run in!

Ox1574 - all I did was to set the 'host' frequency to manual, set it to 350mhz, multiplier to 9, then ram timings to manual (15-4-4-4 in my case), then set the system voltage settings to manual which will allow you to bump up the CPU voltage ...i used 1.37v from the default 1.325. Works fine for me! haven't really tried nailing the highest overclock yet until i fully understand what bumping up the north bridge & pci-ex/fsb voltages would entail

Oh, and make sure you press Control-F1 after you see the BIOS screen which opens up more menu options in the Ga-965p-DS3 bios.

Cheers, FoX

Run Orthos or dual Prime95 for 10hrs that will be enough. Watch the temps with Coretemp or Everest. In Orthos run a Test - Blend - stress CPU and RAM and set the Priority to 9. Run memtest86+ for 2-3hrs to be sure that your run is runing stable and that no errors apear.

 

[sarsoft]

It's back!!! I was trying to clear CMOS while PC was powered on!

Thats a big NO. WOW 8O

Have you ever though about the PSU. Maybe your PSU is not cracking enough power to power you system when its oc and under load. Your PSU might be going bad causing your problems. Other then that it could be your motherboard.

 

[euro]

I must sound like such a noob, in 25 years of playing with home PCs I never had to use it
I also left from my Sig my PSU - I heard it's good, I spent twice as much on it as I planned to spend...

ENERMAX EG495AX-VE FMA ATX12V Ver 2.2 485W Power Supply

Still no explanation how was the system booting with no post and nothing on screen?

 

[sarsoft]

Your PSU is a good quality PSU and is enough to power your system. Usually when you oc and it is unsuccesful oc. You have to reset your CMOS and make sure when you are reseitng CMOS that power cable is pluged out of the PSU.

Thats good that you have it runing now.

 

[NotAPimecone]

Hmm, the DS3 usually automatically resets to defaults after unsuccessful OC attempts. Once in a while I've had to hold down the INS key while rebooting.

 

[sarsoft]

Yes usually but not all the time. The best thing to do is the old fashion way of reseting the CMOS with the jumper or taking out the battery. Yes you can hold the INS botton.