Q8200 Stability Problems

[CrustyComputer]

I know the Q8200 isnt exactly a great CPU for overclocking but I got one for almost free and I pluged it into a P5Q SE Plus motherboard With G Skill Ripjaws DDR2 800 RAM and decided to see what I could do with it. I am also using an HD 4670 at the moment and might upgrade to something better but for right now the 4670 is plenty for me.

The Problem is I have it stable at 3GHZ with little trouble it can do that fine with 1.27 VCORE but my target frequency was 3.2GHZ or at least 3.1GHZ but anything above 3GHZ will not pass Prime95 for more then 10 minutes. My question is can a power supply from a Dell I cannibalized for parts cause instability or is it just that I have hit a wall and wont be able to get any higher I am willing to buy a good corsair or Antec PSU if it will help but I am not gonna buy it for no reason. It is a 375 watt power supply out of a Dell Studio desktop which is where this processor came from the motherboard on the dell stoped working so my neighbor sold it to me for $50 I figured it would make a decent encodeing rig and maybe game pretty good if I can get a decent overclock on it.

Also wanted to Add that I am using an Hyper 212+ cooler and my temps barely get above 57c on core 0

 

[mattidallama]

ya the psu could cause some problem because most of those things are basicly garbage and dont have any extra amps that you need when ocing so it makes your cpu unstable. you might want to invest in a better psu or stick to 3.0 but you need to check if you have enough watts to even run all the stuff you have at full load cause you could be putting your parts in danger ocing and not having enough watts to power everything fully. hoped i helped some

 

[CrustyComputer]

Well the PSU from the dell is not really all that bad It has 2 12 volt rails with 18 Amps per rail it has a max output of 375 watts. It should be more then enough to run this system I did a couple power supply calculators for my system and all of them were under 300 watts now I know it will draw more power when overclocking but I know it wont exceed the output of this unit. My concern is more towards how clean the power is I know if the power is a little dirty that it could cause problems. I do notice that when running OCCT that when I look at the graphs it shows little drop in my VCORE but I dont know how accurate that is since all my other monitioring programs dont show it.

I see little dips in the Vcore could that be PSU and could that cause instability. I have noticed that it gives error when it drops I was wondering if a new PSU will fix this or should I live with 3GHZ.

 

[jsc]

Your PSU is , more than likely OK. A significant drop in the 12 volt rail should lead to a seemingly random reset/reboot cycle.

Those .01 volt dips in vcore are probably insignificant. To find out, raise your vcore to, say, 1.34 volts. Any small dips would then be about the 1.32 volt threshold that seems to indicate stability. A significant vcore drop should result in more than just Core1 errors.

Keep in mind that as long as the temps stay under 70 C, you can safely increase the core voltage to 1.3625 volts. At 57 C and 1.32 volts, you have plenty of room left.

Next, what does Prime95 do?

Next (2), what are your memory settings? If your settings are on Auto, there's a good chance that you are overclocking your memory, and that is killing your CPU overclock.

 

[CrustyComputer]

This is not my first overclock I have overclocked many other processors. My Ram is set 1:1 so that is definately not the problem I have run Memtest on those dimms for almost 10 hours and came up fine with no errors so its defitnately not the ram. My 12 volt sticks right at 11.98 11.99 steady and I have tested that with a multimeter so that is perfect.

Prime 95 does the same thing will give an Error in core 1 or 2 while the other cores will run fine for hours which is why I thought maybe its a power problem. I have tried up to 1.38 volts on the Vcore and still will not pass without errors this dam CPU is bugging me I thought for sure I would atleast be able to get 3.2 ghz but I guess not. Its crazy that its stable as a rock at a little over 3ghz on 1.27 but I go to 3.1 and it just wont do it I am about to just say uncle and leave it be.

 

[jsc]

At 3.0 GHz, you are already doing better than average with a Q8200.

I have an E5200 that way. It quits at just over 3.75 GHz. I have plenty of room in the 1.3625 volt/70 C envelop. It just quits. I even ran the core voltage up to 1.6 volts. No go.

 

[CrustyComputer]

Well I guess I cant complain to much I got the processor for $50 and the motherboard was from an old build so I spent all in all about $140 on this rig. I will probably stick with my E8600 for a little longer as my gaming rig and use this for encodeing and crap like that. I'm waiting on Sandy Bridge to do a real upgrade.


Thanks for your time

 

[CrustyComputer]

Best answer selected by CrustyComputer.