Overclocking AMD Overdrive issue

[thesupermedium]

Hi,

Earlier today I tried my first hand at overclocking my 955BE and ran into an issue.

Recently I started researching overclocking in general, and have found it to be pretty overwhelming, and been halfhearted when confronted with the BIOS menu. In lieu of my apprehension I decided to give AMD Overdrive a try, and found it's interface to be very novice and intuitive. It was upon further advanced tweaking of multipliers, HT clocks etc. that I inched my way up to 3.6 Ghx from the stock 3.2Ghz, when my system bluescreened and restarted. Right now I'm running at the stock speed, and experience no problems, but I'm curious as to why my computer shut off on me.

For clarification on my system and possible issue I have ruled out, here are my specs:

AMD Pheon II 955

ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO/U3S6 AM3 AMD 785G Motherboard

ATI Radeon 5850

Corsair Dominator DDR3 4GB RAM

Cooler Master 600watt modular PSU

WD 640GB HDD

Corsair H50

I have ruled out cooling issues for reasons obvious to some. I installed a Corsair H50 three days ago, and my temperatures went from a max of 60c, down to a max of 32-34c. When I got to 3.6Ghz my cpu was at 40c, which is well withing the safe zone.

I need either a straightforward answer, or (if willing) a link to or an explanation of a step by step way of overclocking my processor, with or without AMD Overdrive. Thank you.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Fast answer, your pc shut down to protect itself from severe damage, dont worry too much, I've used overdrive myself and although people knock it, it can be a nice way to get into clocking, but it wont give you massive oc gains, it will err on the side of caution, your best bet to be honest ( as I found out) is read some general overclocking guides on here,
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/257700-11-read-first
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/258573-11-overclocking-black-edition-guide

I found these links in less than one minute on here, and one is specifically aimed at B.E.'s Cant do better than that for you I'm afraid, but one thing I would say is get realtemp or another temp monitor program, cause the one on Overdrive lies, I apparently have -269' on all four cores,knowing this to be wrong I got speedfan and it tells me I'm at 17' on all cores, which is far more likely than absolute zero happy clocking man

 

[isamuelson]

Welcome to the world of overclocking.

As moto stated, the blue screen is something everyone will encounter sooner or later when overclocking. There are ways to try and fix that, such as increase the core voltage of your CPU to help stabilize your system, but that doesn't always help. Eventually, you get to a point where you can't push the CPU any longer and you've probably found the max overclock point of your system.

There is also another guide by Tom's Hardware that really goes indepth into overclocking a phenom. It is at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161.html

Again, don't worry too much about the blue screen. That's normal when overclocking. Overclocking definitely takes patience as you must reboot, set the parameters in the BIOS and then test. Last night, I finally found the max overclock for my Phenom II X3 720 BE (now an X4 after unlocking the 4th core) which is at 3.51 ghz (from 2.8). I tried increasing the multiplier to x18, but even setting my vcore to 1.425 (which is the max safest for this chip), I still blue screened. I tested using 3dMarkVantage, and it made it all the way through without a hitch. But, I then tested playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and it blue screened within 5 minutes of play. So, I throttled back to a vcore of 1.325 and a multiplier of x17.5 and it's been stable since. I do know if I have it set to 3 cores, I can get to a multiplier of x18.5 without adjusting the vcore and still be stable. I should try and see what I can get to when I do adjust the vcore.

Good luck!

 

[saint19]

Hi.

1st advice, if you want get a good OC, don't use AOD and don't OC from windows, this process is always do it from the BIOS.

Now, some x4 955 can touch the 3.6GHz without problems, but that depends of the mobo an CPU revision. You can read the following guide, is very good and is for the X4 955.

1- Guide: Overclocking AMD And Intel CPUs On A Budget

Also, you can find here some OC settings for your mobo.

 

[thesupermedium]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I've been, and am going to be quite busy this week so trying out your suggestions will probably be put off until the weekend. I have looked at all of the reviews and threads posted, and I can say I am more confident, though not entirely sure of what I'm doing. I think I'll just look through the BIOS, find every setting I need and remember where they are so the whole process will be smoother when overclock time comes.

Also, I was wondering if increasing my voltage would overdraw my PSU. I think this was my problem last time because of the lack of temperature issues (to clarify my temperatures I used HW Monitor by CPUID in addition to overdrive). Any thoughts?

 

[saint19]

Hi again.

U OC in little voltages rises, so, you won't see a big difference on your PSU with OC or whitout OC.

 

[amnotanoobie]

Also, I was wondering if increasing my voltage would overdraw my PSU. I think this was my problem last time because of the lack of temperature issues (to clarify my temperatures I used HW Monitor by CPUID in addition to overdrive). Any thoughts?

With your setup, you probably wouldn't hit 600W anytime soon.

The BSOD most likely would be because of lacking core voltage or your board simply cannot go that high of a frequency.