Trying to get AMD Phenom II X4 945 Stable at 3.8GHz

[godsnightmare21]

Okay so here's the situation. I ran Prime 95 blend test last night for 11 hours, then stopped. Then I ran small FFTs for around 2 hours or so. So I was convinced that the system is stable. However, I've gotten a couple blue screen while playing games, and even while the computer is doing nothing on just sitting at my desktop. The two blue screen errors are 0x0...50 and 0x0...D1, which apparently are both linked to RAM problems. So, Im now running Prime 95 blend test again, and thats been going to for almost 3 hours, no problems whatsoever.

Temps are not the issue, the highest my CPU temp has gone is 52C, it idles at 38C. GPU is not overheating either. While playing games it usually sits around 75C, and 50C idle.

These are my system Specs:

AMD Phenom II X4 945
EVGA GTX 295
ASUS M4N82 Deluxe Motherboard
2x2GB Corsair DDR2 Dominator RAM
ASUS Xonar DS Sound Card
Apevia Warlock 1100W PSU
AZZA Hurrican 2000 Full Tower

And these are the current settings I have in my BIOS:

CPU Multiplier: 15x (Not a BE)
FSB: 254
DRAM Frequency: 1016MHz
CPU/NB Frequency: 2286MHZ
HT Link Speed: 1.6GHz (Says 2025MHz in AIDA64 and CPU-Z)
RAM Timings: 6-6-6-18
CPU Voltage: 1.4625v (Says 1.58v in AIDA64, CPU-Z, and ASUS PC PROBE II)
CPU/NB Voltage: 1.2625v
DRAM Voltage: 2.14v (In Yellow Text BTW)
HT Voltage: 1.26v
NB Voltage:1.26v

And yes, When I set the VCORE to anything above 1.45v it jumps to 1.58+ for some reason. Same ordeal with the HT Link Speed. I don't know why it does that though.

Any help on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT

While making this thread I was running a Prime 95 Blend test. It lasted 4 and a half hours and just now restarted, no blue screen.

 

[IAreKyleW00t]

Well I tried looking up your RAM and I couldn't even find Dominators in DDR2... So if you could give my a link to them or tell me if they actually are DDr3 then that would help.

As for the Black screen issue, I would say that you either over-volted it and it shutoff due to protection (because 1.58v is the actual voltage, so you'll need to adjust accordingly). So I'd lower the Voltage because you shouldn't need over 1.5. NOTE: that even know your CPU stays cool, your MOSFETS will get VERY hot. This happened to me as my motherboard didn't come with a MOSFET heat-sink. So it would just shut off without a bluescreen to protect itself most likely. (only guessing though)

Although, your got a good Motherboard and it has a Heat sink on it, so I don't think that would be the problem. But going form 3.0 to 3.8 is a fairly large jump and that WILL generate a lot of heat so keep it in mind. As for the RAM, I am guessing (based on what I got) you overclocked it.

Now even though you upped the voltage for it doesn't mean it will be stable. Some RAM just won't go that high or even overclock at all. Corsair is a quality brand, so I believe they would give some OC abilities. I would step your RAM down one notch and that should help. That's just one of the prices you need to pay when OCing on a non-black edition.

IF you still get Bluescreens and random shutoff I would just tell you to down clock a little. Unfortunately no matter how much you want a 3.8GHz overclock, your CPU, RAM, Motherboard, etc just might not be capable of doing it. :\

But what I would try is to down the Voltage to 1.9v (I believe that stock voltage for most DDR2) AND lowering the RAM Freq.

 

[godsnightmare21]

Hello Kyle,

Yes, my RAM was overclocked barely, to 847MHz, from 800MHz, however it was upped to around 1000ish, before I lowered voltages.

I lowered the voltages of several things after I lowered the DRAM frequency to no success. The CPU/NB, DRAM Voltage, HT Link voltage, and the NB Voltage, were all lowered by one increment. Even since then, which was around 9PM last night, my computer has been sitting at the desktop (Where it used to blue screen after some time) and is still running without problems. Im now going to try and play some Bad Company or something and see if there are any problems running games.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197

You proabably couldn't find my RAM because its discontinued, its decently old RAM.

 

[IAreKyleW00t]

Hello Kyle,

Yes, my RAM was overclocked barely, to 847MHz, from 800MHz, however it was upped to around 1000ish, before I lowered voltages.

I lowered the voltages of several things after I lowered the DRAM frequency to no success. The CPU/NB, DRAM Voltage, HT Link voltage, and the NB Voltage, were all lowered by one increment. Even since then, which was around 9PM last night, my computer has been sitting at the desktop (Where it used to blue screen after some time) and is still running without problems. Im now going to try and play some Bad Company or something and see if there are any problems running games.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197

You proabably couldn't find my RAM because its discontinued, its decently old RAM.

Well based on what the Product details say on Newegg, it's said to be 100% stable at 1066MHz with 2.1v running. What I would do is set your voltage for your RAM to 2.1v and get it to as close to 1066MHz. I would try not to go over, because you had it underclocked you might have put too much volts into it, causing to to overheat and get too much electricity and it might have Bluescreened because it was protecting itself.

This just a guess I'm making but I would try and get it as close to the setting on Newegg, which would be 1066MHz and 2.1v (weather it's in the yellow, red, etc color or not).

 

[godsnightmare21]

Well I'm back already.

I got the desktop stable, but games and prime are no longer stable. So, beings I've been trying this for some time now, I decided the cut the .2GHz and drop to 3.6GHz, beings there wouldn't be any noticable improvement from the .2GHz anyway.

So, this is what I did:


Dropped FSB to 240
Increased DRAM Frequency to 960Mhz (1 step up and I'm all the way at 1280MHz)
Tightened RAM Timings to 5-5-5-15
Lowered CPU Voltage to 1.45v (1.424v in programs)
Lowered CPU/NB Voltage to 1.2250c
Lowered DRAM Voltage to 1.9v (Too low?? idk,)
Lowered HT and NB Voltages to 1.2v

Running prime blend test now, going to see how it does. Probably turn it off in like, 6 hours and run small FFT test throughout the night and into the afternoon beings I get home at 3PM. I actually never planned to get it to 3.8GHz, just was seeing if I could, so I'm not dissapointed.

 

[IAreKyleW00t]

Well I'm back already.

I got the desktop stable, but games and prime are no longer stable. So, beings I've been trying this for some time now, I decided the cut the .2GHz and drop to 3.6GHz, beings there wouldn't be any noticable improvement from the .2GHz anyway.

So, this is what I did:


Dropped FSB to 240
Increased DRAM Frequency to 960Mhz (1 step up and I'm all the way at 1280MHz)
Tightened RAM Timings to 5-5-5-15
Lowered CPU Voltage to 1.45v (1.424v in programs)
Lowered CPU/NB Voltage to 1.2250c
Lowered DRAM Voltage to 1.9v (Too low?? idk,)
Lowered HT and NB Voltages to 1.2v

Running prime blend test now, going to see how it does. Probably turn it off in like, 6 hours and run small FFT test throughout the night and into the afternoon beings I get home at 3PM. I actually never planned to get it to 3.8GHz, just was seeing if I could, so I'm not dissapointed.

Well it mostly started to crash because you lowered the voltage of everything, but 3.6GHz should be perfectly fine. Another thing you might want to try (once your CPU is stable at 3.6GHz) is to get OC the NB Freq. Increasing that will allow more data to go too and from the CPU to RAM.

I have a AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE and the stock NB is ~2000MHz. Now I have mine OC'ed to 3.6GHz, but I wanted to see what I could do with the NB. I upped it to 3000Mhz and only made my CPU/NB Voltage 1.325v. By doing do my ratings (Using 64-bit Windows 7 rating) made my RAM go from a 7.6 to a 7.8! 7.9 is the highest you can get, so I was very surprised! So later on you can give that a try if you want to get some more out of it.

 

[godsnightmare21]

Well it mostly started to crash because you lowered the voltage of everything, but 3.6GHz should be perfectly fine. Another thing you might want to try (once your CPU is stable at 3.6GHz) is to get OC the NB Freq. Increasing that will allow more data to go too and from the CPU to RAM.

I have a AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE and the stock NB is ~2000MHz. Now I have mine OC'ed to 3.6GHz, but I wanted to see what I could do with the NB. I upped it to 3000Mhz and only made my CPU/NB Voltage 1.325v. By doing do my ratings (Using 64-bit Windows 7 rating) made my RAM go from a 7.6 to a 7.8! 7.9 is the highest you can get, so I was very surprised! So later on you can give that a try if you want to get some more out of it.

My NB right now is at 2160MHz, but I'll look into that and see what happens.

First prime test failed quick, so I upped the HT Link speed to 2160Mhz and it seems to be doing better. I also lowered the CPU Voltage to 1.45v, but its only 1.42v idol, and 1.40 on load. But it still seems to be doing better than last time, unless I'm speaking to soon, which wouldnt be the first time...

 

[godsnightmare21]

Okay so I ran the test with the settings above and it failed an hour into the blend test. No blue screen, just restarted.

So, I upped the DRAM voltage to 2.1v, and upped the HT and NB voltages ack up to 1.22v, however, I failed again, on the same test, a hour in, without blue screen, just restart. Same exact way as last time. Any idea's?

If I bring my CPU voltage anything above 1.45v, it jumps all the way to 1.58 volts, and I don't really want that.

EDIT

Okay after upping my CPU Voltage to 1.4625, and having it still appear much higher in programs, I ran prime blend test and it had been going on for about 3 hours. Going to let it go through the night and see how it goes.

 

[IAreKyleW00t]

Okay so I ran the test with the settings above and it failed an hour into the blend test. No blue screen, just restarted.

So, I upped the DRAM voltage to 2.1v, and upped the HT and NB voltages ack up to 1.22v, however, I failed again, on the same test, a hour in, without blue screen, just restart. Same exact way as last time. Any idea's?

If I bring my CPU voltage anything above 1.45v, it jumps all the way to 1.58 volts, and I don't really want that.

EDIT

Okay after upping my CPU Voltage to 1.4625, and having it still appear much higher in programs, I ran prime blend test and it had been going on for about 3 hours. Going to let it go through the night and see how it goes.

Try to see that in your BIOS if there are settings called "CPU Load-Line Calibration" and/or CPU/NB Load-Line Calibration (LLC). Also look for CPU Spread Spectrum (SS). Enable The CPU and CPU/NB LLC. and disabled CPU SS.

Another thing is that if you change the CPU/NB Freq you'll need to change the CPU/NB Voltage too. I have mine set to 1.325v running 3000MHz on my NB. Funny thing is that when I set it to Auto it upped my voltage to 1.5v! Obviously that's WAY to high, so you'll need to manually set the numbers in.

 

[godsnightmare21]

Try to see that in your BIOS if there are settings called "CPU Load-Line Calibration" and/or CPU/NB Load-Line Calibration (LLC). Also look for CPU Spread Spectrum (SS). Enable The CPU and CPU/NB LLC. and disabled CPU SS.

Another thing is that if you change the CPU/NB Freq you'll need to change the CPU/NB Voltage too. I have mine set to 1.325v running 3000MHz on my NB. Funny thing is that when I set it to Auto it upped my voltage to 1.5v! Obviously that's WAY to high, so you'll need to manually set the numbers in.

Yes, I heard they caused a problem, but I looked everywhere in the BIOs and couldn't find them. Im starting to think that the programs might just have a little glitch with my system or something, because I think my temps would be higher if I really was at 1.58v.

But I'm confident the system is stable now. Havent played too much games. only and hour or so. But Blend test lasted 10 1/2 hours, and small FFTs lasted 8 hours. They could've kept going, but I stopped them myself.

 

[IAreKyleW00t]

Yes, I heard they caused a problem, but I looked everywhere in the BIOs and couldn't find them. Im starting to think that the programs might just have a little glitch with my system or something, because I think my temps would be higher if I really was at 1.58v.

But I'm confident the system is stable now. Havent played too much games. only and hour or so. But Blend test lasted 10 1/2 hours, and small FFTs lasted 8 hours. They could've kept going, but I stopped them myself.

Having lasted 10 1/2 hours that I would say is a very stable OC. Not all motherboard have the option to configure LLC, so you'll just need to adjust it accordingly.

You should be good now!

 

[pelov]

^^ I was thinking the same thing. The C2 revisions weren't as good OCing.

Are you sure it wasn't the GPU? 75C seems quite high, though I'm not too familiar with that line of GPUs and their temps.

 

[godsnightmare21]

^^ I was thinking the same thing. The C2 revisions weren't as good OCing.

Are you sure it wasn't the GPU? 75C seems quite high, though I'm not too familiar with that line of GPUs and their temps.

It is a C2.

And 75C is actually pretty good for the GTX 295 because it is a sandwich card, or dual GPU. I hear most people say theirs run around 85C, and the max temp for the card is 105C, so it can get really hot. But I have two PCI fans, one above and one below to cool it better, may get that EVGA Backplate that was made for it too eventually. If I can even find one that is for sale.

 

[PredatoryLizard]

I have a very similar rig to the original poster, and i am able to get a stable 3.81ghz oc on my 945. The trick for me was the nb and memory voltage. I have corsair dominator ddr3. ram voltage is 1.7 nb voltage is 1.28. cpu temp never goes above 45c under load. i have the cpu voltage at 1.51 which i know is a bit high but the temps are low, and i plan to minimize my voltages next. and sorry if this was mentioned or you already did it, but disable cool n quiet, c1e, and cpu spread spectrum.