4ghz unstable w/ HT on... Why?

If I had to guess I'd say speedstep and HT aren't playing nice at that setting.

This sounds almost exactly what I am seeing on my Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard at the same speeds with the same amount of ram.

On mine I need about .06 more vcore for HT on compared to off with all other voltages staying the same. It also looks like you have quite a bit of vtt for only a bclk of 191 and 8x mem multi.

Def Disable Speedstep.. lol, what are your other "Power Saving Options" ?

Overclocking Power Saving Options -

CIE Support- Disabled (Manual)
Hardware Prefetcher- Enabled (Auto)
Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch- Enabled (Auto)
Intel Virtualization Tech- Enabled (Auto)
CPU TM Functiton- Enabled (Auto)
Execute Disable Bit- Enabled (Auto)
Intel HT Tech- Disabled (Manual)
Active Processor Cores- All (Auto)
A20M- Disabed (Manual)
Speedstep- Disabled (Manual)
C-State- Disabled (Manual)

MMm...What are you running as your QPI Speed? *In BIOS*

I'm the same as Ancient.

4ghz HT off 1.20000Vcore max temp (OCCT) 61, 60, 60, 59
4ghz HT on 1.265xxVcore max temp (OCCT) 69, 68, 68, 66

Take off speedstep and raise BCLK to 200 and youll need more Vcore aswell ( my guess)

I have mine just set to auto which gives it a 18x multi.
Depending on motherboard each can have very different labels and setting in bios.

Here is a link to all my bios settings.

Mmmm I see.

Ancient_1 out of curiosity what are your temps like in Smart Guardian on that board?

Compared to my LP UT X48-T2R board I find the "System" temp in Smart Guardian quite toasty with case and peripherals as well as cooling fans all identical.

You can see my temps listed in the Everest display in my screenshot. what Everest lists as CPU is the same as SG CPU what Everest Lists as PWM is what SG says is system and chipset is the same on both.

The Volterra digital pwm on the DFI boards do run quite warm (just like they do on both ATI and Nvidia video cards) but can stand a lot of heat well past 100°. The warmest I have seen mine is 75 but normally even under Linx it usually tops out in the mid to upper 60's.

The main reason the System/PWM on your x48 was cooler is mainly the CPU was probably drawing much less current. On my LP LT P35 I very seldom was in the 40's but I was only running a 8400 Wolfdale.



Here is a screen shot I just took and you can see that Everest and SG both report the exact same (other than when they fluctuate slightly one can be behind the other)as long as you know which each correspond to.

Thanks Ancient_1.

Actually my X48 contains a Q9550 @ 3.5GHz which needs 1.31V to run stable whereas my x58 contains an i7 920 (D0) @ 3.6GHz using 1.15V and the System temp showing in Smart Guardian is always at 60C.

I actually just received a few 40mm silent fans today and I was going to experiment with having them blow either on the NB or the rear heatsinks by the LAN ports and see if it helps any.

Did you install the flame freezer? It is good for a few degrees nothing drastic tho. One advantage I have is the Fortress has one of it's intake fans on top which blows cool air directly onto the HS, PWM area and the memory which does a pretty good job of keeping the hottest areas of the MB fairly cool.

Good to know that encourages me to move to my next experiment which is a different case and also moves the PSU to the bottom similar to what you are displaying.

I have two of the units and one the flame freezer is on the outside as you show and on the other inside as instructions recommended but neither seems to do much and I even went so far as to apply TIM to the heatpipe where it contacts the NB.

I've come to the conclusion i7's simply need better cases and if I can bring those temps down a bit I'll likely be able to crank it up a bit more safely.