Having trouble OCing E8500

yeah ouch.. I just got 13875 in 3dmark.. should be way higher than that =/

Probably your CPU Vcore is too low. Set it to 1.4V in the bios. You may need less voltage, and you can always lower it later. Also try enabling "Load line Calibration". This will reduce the vdroop. I have the UD3P, and for me to get my e7200 stable at 3.8ghz, I also needed to set CPU Termination = 1.3V and MCH Core to 1.3V. Set your ram to the manufacturer specs voltage and timings. Leave the rest on auto. Make sure you have a good heatsink to keep it cool.

1.4 vcore? my e8500 only need 1.35 to hit 4.3! 1.3625 is the recommended limit. Set it there and see what happens

did what he said and 3dmark score didn't change (I'm getting less than 1fps for the cpu test part)

and prime95 still crashing

=/

What speed, timings and voltage is your ram at? Your 3dmak06 score seems about right. Your cpu will not bottleneck the hd4870 and overclocking it will only have a small effect on the score.

my rams at 1066 5-5-5-15 running at 2.1v

I've heard of people with the same specs as mine getting 18k-19k in 3dmark o.O

As homeboy2 stated, I wouldn't set the vcore above 1.4v. I've heard alot of "sudden death" stories when people set 45nm cpu's above 1.4v-1.5v.

A Vcore of 1.4V is the maximum, safe 24/7 voltage for a 45nm wolfdale. This is what's widely accepted. Google it if you don't believe me. People who damaged their chips were using well over 1.4V.

lol lets not turn this into a debate =p I just put this computer together recently

what would really help me is if someone knowledgable with my setup could do a 1 on 1 with me to help get my system running without any hitches.. still getting prime95 errors at like 3.6 ghz =/ so somethings wrong, but I'm brand new to this so I wouldn't know what to look for.

Post some CPU-Z screenshots, specifically the ram timings and speed. Or jot them down from the BIOS.

This is with Prime95 blend running, consequently, it crashed again right after I took the screenshots. lol =/

Run memtest86+ to test your ram. Also, what cpu cooler are you using? If that 49C temp is idle, then it is high.

above the pics I posted, I said it was during a prime95 test.. so no it was full load

I looked up the vcore for 45nm cpu's, and it will accept 1.4v contrary to my belief   . I should have done more research before posting. My apologies alex.

Sigh, more problems.. I underclocked my ram and ran memtest, hundreds of errors within 5 minutes, what am I doing wrong? ><!! bad timings, voltages? or should I RMA -_-

if your getting errors with memtest, then RMA it.

if you're going for a 3.8ghz range, that's only 400fsb, you DON'T need 1.4v to up the fsb from 333 to 400.

get some new ram and lower your vcore a bit. if it doesn't post, up the vcore a little bit more but not to 1.4v. if you're still getting errors, then you know the vcore is not the problem.

You should have a clarification regarding your memory.
If you get memtest errors when your memory is set to the specs that it was sold to you as, then yes RMA it.

So I guess that explains the prime95 errors, it wasnt my proc after all.

I guess it could be worse =p

thanks for the help guys.

ok well I ran memtest for a few passes again, and I got no errors (after raising the voltage back up to 2.1) but I'm still getting prime95 errors at 400 fsb, is there some voltage setting I have wrong? mch core, ich I/O, ich core, CPU pll? I dont really understand any of those.. and I cant find much info regarding my specific components. =/

Prime95 just crashed again at 400x9 fsb(only 3.6ghz) and ram at 1066..I dont get it! and I still want to get 3.8-4.0ghz stable..I'm getting more and more weary now thinking that I'm gonna melt something or other messing with these voltages I know nothing about lol ><

I am also new to overclocking so I am not an authority on the subject. I think that when you OCing to start you should test your system to be stable at stock settings then OC the processor first then the ram if you want. If you try to fiddle with both at once you don't know which one is giving you the errors. For daily use I have mine at 4.16GHz Prime95 stopped after 14Hrs no errors. My BIOS setting just to give you some reference are Vcore 1.40625 (CPUZ says 1.368V) stock setting was 1.18V. FSB 1.35V stock setting was 1.1V, Memory is set to the stock setting of 1.7V(my memory is not OCed) Nforce spp is set to auto at 1.4V, and nforce MCP is set to auto at 1.5V I did read somewhere that you have to make sure your video cards are not also being overclocked by setting your PCIE bus speed. Mine was at 100 before OC so I set it at that. I was able to get the highest 3Dmark Vantage performance score for an E8500 (30245) I had it set to 4.6 GHz for that benchmark. Good luck!