E7200 won't OC!

john6192

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Jun 22, 2008
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I just built my first computer and wanted to try overclocking but so far all I've managed to do is waste a couple hours of my time. I've got a nice hsf and case cooling and I know both my cpu and mobo are supposed to be good for OC'ing but all I've been able to do is increase the cpu bus a few mhz before my computer won't even post! I think it might be a psu problem. I used a psu calc and it said w/ stock speeds on a generic psu I'd need 20amps on the 12v rail and my psu only has 22amps. Could this be why?

My system

E7200 w/ Arctic Cooling freezer 7 pro

Hitachi 320gb hd

2gb ocz ddr2 @1066 2.1v

XFX 8600gt xxx edition @ 680/1600

Asus dvd-rw

Gigabyte GA-P35-S3g mobo

Raidmax Smilodon extreme black case w/ 500w psu (RX-500s)

Vista home premium sp1 64-bit
 

blacksci

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Jan 25, 2008
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Replace your psu, it sux, replace the mobo, and get a better cooling solution, best your going to get from the artic is about 3.4 if you have all the fans pointing in the right direction, how do i know? i own one.
 

john6192

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Jun 22, 2008
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I'm not looking to spend thousands on this rig. I bought the parts for $600 and idc about doing any extreme oc'ing. All I want to do is hit at least 3ghz and right now thats not happening. I just want to know what I can do with what i have. If i need a new psu, thats not that big a deal, but I don't want to replace everything.
 

john6192

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Jun 22, 2008
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wow. That rly is overkill. you have any suggestions for anything cheaper. I don't need that many watts, I probably won't ever go SLI on this rig so I probably will want something 500-600w right?
 

husky mctarflash

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I like boop's reasoning, and I like his recommendation a lot--but not for you. Try this instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341010

I have it, and after much research, and reading half dozen totally positive reviews, I bought it. You can't go wrong with it at the price. You are literally getting premium 600 watt performance, no more no less. You WON'T get modular cabling, 8 pin videocard connectors, or glam/bling. But you WILL have a rock stable PSU for OCing.

Modtech's answer was borderline worthless. With a solid PSU, you will have a good system. Save your money for an 4850 videocard, you will have a maxxed out, overachieving budget system that you can be proud of. With that ACPro7, you should be able to hit 3.8 GHz if you so choose.

Good luck!
 
Well, firstly, not the best in the world, but not a crap rig. Could you please elaborate on how you're trying to OC. I really don't see a failed OC attempt at a few MHz being a PSU issue. Really guys, I've OC'd a D805 with a 250W PSU. Stable. For 2 Years.
I'm not trying to say ay PSU can do it, it's just not how they usually fail. The difference in power draw caused by a minimal frequency increase is not significant enough to draw a line between rock solid and non-booting.
 

husky mctarflash

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After more thought, I think roadrunner is onto something, re: RAM. When I first started dabbling in OCing, I eventually found that I was not giving RAM timings and voltage enough attention. Loosen them way out, and bump up the voltage, see where that takes you, then eventually tighten them again after you found stable settings.

Murissokah is right, except that there have been a bunch of articles on how poorly rated some PSUs are--meaning one company's 500 watt supply may not be as powerful as another's 250--let alone as stable. All-in-one PSU/cases are notorious for being underperformers.

But to Murissokah's other point--don't get down--you don't have a terrible rig. And with a couple upgrades, you can have an excellent rig.
 

MafiaAce

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Apr 16, 2006
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Yeah, its definitely not a PSU issue.... I have used absolute crap PSUs--- you know, the $20 ones that are supposedly ~580 watts that come with around 3 cables in several rigs which I have OC'd rather nicely.... from older Athlon 64s to newer Core2Duos, and I have never had a problem OCing with a crap PSU, in fact I've run these cheap units for years without any major problems. I'd say ram settings, or possibly other bios settings. Sometimes OCing just won't work unless certain features are turned on or off in the bios.
 

50bmg

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Nov 16, 2007
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I have an E7200 on a gigabyte board OC'd to 3.8G, 400fsb, 1.33v. It has been stable for 6 weeks. The first week i ran prime95 a couple of times and CDmark06 a few times since. No overheats or crashes. I game hard for hours at a time with no issues. You should be able to hit 3G easily.

Make sure you set your RAM voltage manually. Might as well set all other setting to manual. ex: PCIe to 100Mhz. As your FSB goes up all those default auto settings will go up. That might stress out something.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d68/50_BMG/specs.jpg
 

john6192

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Jun 22, 2008
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OK here's the deal. I've tried enabling and disabling every option in the bios, I've loosened up every timing I can and given everything a voltage boost and still the only cpu bus speeds my computer will boot at are 262-271!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any suggestions? would flashing the bios help?
 
One thing to check is if the board is overclocking that ram.

While the board does support 1066, its done by running the chipset out of spec. This may hurt your overall overclocking

Enter the bios and on the main screen hold control and hit F1 the screen should flicker. Enter the MIT menu. Look under the memory frequency and see what your ram is running at. You can also lower the speed with a memory multiplier.

Try to get it as close to 800 as you can without going over. see if you can get farther this way. Lower memory speeds sound bad, but the Core2 architecture works very well even without high speed memory(even as low as 533 at stock will not hinder performance too bad. and with the tight timings its better then higher speed with high timings). You can also tighten the timings at lower speeds.
 

shadymnms

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Jul 30, 2006
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the 500w Raidmax psu is fine, i used it in a rig much more demanding than yours w/ the same cooler and got over 3.8Ghz stable...

It's still advisable to upgrade it though, but thus far i've used it in two rigs and its holding up very well!
 

john6192

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Jun 22, 2008
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nope, still no luck even w/ the new bios, can't even underclock!!!!!! Might it have something to do with the fact that last bios update was march 25 and the e7200 came out around may? Oh well, for right now i have to be happy with the stock speed, wait for a bios update, return this proc and get a new one, or go for a different mobo.
 

mgl888

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Jun 3, 2008
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The latest bios is F4, flash with that.

I think it's still the way you're overclocking. Read this forum
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245679-29-ds3l-overclocking

It's for the p35-ds3l, but the settings are almost identical.

You have to disable a bunch of energy saving options, and lock your memory/pci-e buses.
Did you install gigabyte's Dynamic Energy Saver program in Windows? You should not install it if you want to overclock.

I've got a E7200 @1.24V on the same mobo