Need advice

[steelninja]

I just built a new budget gaming rig and decided to go for a

AMD Phenom ii x6 1100t

ASUS M5A78L AM3+

PATRIOT 4 x 1gb DDR3 1333mhz (I THINK)

EVO LABS 700w PSU

RADEON HD 6770 (Lame i know)

ARCTIC COOLING FREEZER 7 PRO

with a cheap case which i forget the make of

I have tried to overclock it in the bios and with AMD overdrive and can't get stable with prime over 3.6 ghz without prime cutting out or BSOD's as it is 3.3 ghz at stock and i read about people reaching 4 ghz and above (some on the stock heatsink). I don't know why i can't get stable even at 3.7 ghz. I bought the arctic freezer 7 pro which i know isn't great but should be able to get to 4 ghz surely on an 1100t, i am at a loss as for what to do. my temps are at 49 degrees celsius (don't know the degrees button lol) on full load with prime at 3.6ghz so i know i have some headroom for more overclocking. I gave up trying in the bios co's nothing really worked but had more luck with AMD overdrive. I tried tweaking the voltages but didn't want to risk blowing the whole thing up. Can anyone advise me as to how i can get a stable 4 ghz overclock or even 3.8 - 3.9 ghz but preferably 4 lol

also I would appreciate any input on if i built a good system for the £500 -600 it cost me to build it
I will be upgradeing the Ram and GPU (i did order 2 x 4gb DDR3 2000mhz which went missing in the post so all i got was a refund back,lol) but as it is it runs Battlefield 3 on high settings anyway and Skyrim on ultra (with lots of patches and updates for skyrim)
so I am more than happy with it but any advise will be greatly appreciated
thanks and sorry about Punctuation etc

 

[residentdean]

Tomshardware has an overclocking guide in the forum under overclocking. All over clocking should be done in the bios. Read that guide and download real temp so you can monitor your temps. In order to overclock you should read plenty before you attempt to overclock.

 

[steelninja]

Tomshardware has an overclocking guide in the forum under overclocking. All over clocking should be done in the bios. Read that guide and download real temp so you can monitor your temps. In order to overclock you should read plenty before you attempt to overclock.

thanks for your prompt reply and i will take your advice but anything i have tried in the bios however small either hasn't booted or has been unstable but I will read the guide and hope it's not too complicated I was thinking there might be something wrong as i built it myself with minimal experience

 

[PCgamer81]

also I would appreciate any input on if i built a good system for the £500 -600 it cost me to build it

Nothing lame about that setup.

You got a good mid-range gaming rig that should handle most current games at high visual quality, and be fine playing games for another 2 years, if not more, just like it is.

You have a good AM3+ socket motherboard that will work great when you do upgrade, the best AMD CPU on the market for gaming - along with an excellent cooler for overclocking, and a decent PSU that should work well when you do upgrade to a faster GPU (such as the 6970/7870/570).

Nothing shabby about that build, at all. You focused in on the short term, and left yourself plenty of wiggle room for the future.

You obviously put a lot of thought into your rig, respective of your budget. You did a fine job.

Enjoy.

 

[steelninja]

Nothing lame about that setup.

You got a good mid-range gaming rig that should handle most current games at high visual quality, and be fine playing games for another 2 years, if not more, just like it is.

You have a good AM3+ socket motherboard that will work great when you do upgrade, the best AMD CPU on the market for gaming - along with an excellent cooler for overclocking, and a decent PSU that should work well when you do upgrade to a faster GPU (such as the 6970/7870/570).

Nothing shabby about that build, at all. You focused in on the short term, and left yourself plenty of wiggle room for the future.

You obviously put a lot of thought into your rig, respective of your budget. You did a fine job.

Enjoy.

Thanks for your input and that was the best i could get for the money and I'm glad you approve, Not bad for my first build with minimal knowledge about the latest hardware etc ey? I just knew what i needed to play Battlefield 3 lol.

which is what I built it for

 

[steelninja]

Oh and the six core's kinda sold it co's i figured that the extra cores'd come in handy for futreproofing and wotnot

 

[PCgamer81]

The blend test failure indicates that you have problems with your memory settings. http://www.depin.info/g.gif

+1

Yes, I just got through telling someone on another thread that ram plays a bigger role in overclocking a CPU than they would think...

OP: Filling all of your slots up with ram will require a lot more voltage from the memory controller, which is going to inadvertently heat up your CPU and can sabotage your overclock.

It has a lot to do with other things, as well.

There is one thing I would do different. Go with 2x2GB sticks of DDR3 instead. That is ideal for your motherboard (DCMA). Leave those other two slots free.

That's a start.

 

[CaedenV]

I agree with gamer81, the fewer ram sticks (though you do want 2) the better luck you will have with OCing. I would suggest a pair of 2GB or 4GB sticks (preferably 4GB as they are cheap and will future proof you a little), and the higher mhz it is rated for the more tolerance it will have for OCing as well.
You could have a fluke of a bad mobo, I know my first ex3gen3 board had some bad power issues, which a simple RMA fixed right up. That may be worth a shot, other than that I agree with the others here; It looks like a sweet build (even if it is only an AMD ;P ), and it should run things at fairly high quality for a good long time, it really is too bad that it is not working as well as you had hoped, but without other symptoms it is difficult to tell if anything in specific is wrong.

 

[steelninja]

+1

Yes, I just got through telling someone on another thread that ram plays a bigger role in overclocking a CPU than they would think...

OP: Filling all of your slots up with ram will require a lot more voltage from the memory controller, which is going to inadvertently heat up your CPU and can sabotage your overclock.

It has a lot to do with other things, as well.

There is one thing I would do different. Go with 2x2GB sticks of DDR3 instead. That is ideal for your motherboard (DCMA). Leave those other two slots free.

That's a start.

I did order 2 x 4gb DDR3 2000mhz when i ordered the mobo and cpu but as is just my luck lately the ram went missing in the post compliments to royal mail for that one .So i bought the patriot 1gb dimms (second hand) which was my only option as i was keen to do the build. I was somewhat peeved to put it lightly
Do you think the secondhand ram could be the culprit? I really do hope it's not a bad mobo even tho it will be covered by amazon (I think)
But it would be a right pain in the arse. as for other symptoms there aren't any really, i only have issues when trying to overclock.
So i will try again to get some 4gb dimms x2 would you recommend 2000mhz or 1600mhz? and then i can try again hopefully with better luck but to be honest i built the machine but am really a newcomer to all this so would'nt be surprised if it was just my being too impatient and not thinking things through properly so i might try again tommorow or would you recommend not to bother while i have all 4 slots filled?
I appreciate your time and effort in helping me with this oh and what is DCMA

 

[steelninja]

+1

Yes, I just got through telling someone on another thread that ram plays a bigger role in overclocking a CPU than they would think...

OP: Filling all of your slots up with ram will require a lot more voltage from the memory controller, which is going to inadvertently heat up your CPU and can sabotage your overclock.

It has a lot to do with other things, as well.

There is one thing I would do different. Go with 2x2GB sticks of DDR3 instead. That is ideal for your motherboard (DCMA). Leave those other two slots free.

That's a start.

Ignore this one mistake on my part

 

[steelninja]

I agree with gamer81, the fewer ram sticks (though you do want 2) the better luck you will have with OCing. I would suggest a pair of 2GB or 4GB sticks (preferably 4GB as they are cheap and will future proof you a little), and the higher mhz it is rated for the more tolerance it will have for OCing as well.
You could have a fluke of a bad mobo, I know my first ex3gen3 board had some bad power issues, which a simple RMA fixed right up. That may be worth a shot, other than that I agree with the others here; It looks like a sweet build (even if it is only an AMD ;P ), and it should run things at fairly high quality for a good long time, it really is too bad that it is not working as well as you had hoped, but without other symptoms it is difficult to tell if anything in specific is wrong.

Thanks for your input mate and sounds like good advice see the reply i left gamer81 for more details co's i sort of answered you both in his (I'm new to forums too.lol)

 

[PCgamer81]

Ignore this one mistake on my part

It's a small, correctable mistake.

It's probably not your motherboard.

Experience tells me that when you remove those 4 sticks of 1GB and pop in your 2 sticks of 2GB/4GB (I agree with CaedenV that you should go 2x4GB) it should solve your problem (although there is a chance it could be a faulty MB). Never want to overclock too much with all your memory slots filled up. Not stable. I know, I have all my slots filled and it's hard enough just to keep my OC stable at a measly 4.2GHz (Unfortunately, I need the RAM for other things).

DCMA is Dual-Channel-Memory-Architecture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architecture#Dual-channel_architecture

 

[steelninja]

I agree with gamer81, the fewer ram sticks (though you do want 2) the better luck you will have with OCing. I would suggest a pair of 2GB or 4GB sticks (preferably 4GB as they are cheap and will future proof you a little), and the higher mhz it is rated for the more tolerance it will have for OCing as well.
You could have a fluke of a bad mobo, I know my first ex3gen3 board had some bad power issues, which a simple RMA fixed right up. That may be worth a shot, other than that I agree with the others here; It looks like a sweet build (even if it is only an AMD ;P ), and it should run things at fairly high quality for a good long time, it really is too bad that it is not working as well as you had hoped, but without other symptoms it is difficult to tell if anything in specific is wrong.

I do get one more problem which is quite often when i restart or leave the bios it won't come back on my tv and i can hear it has booted up but no picture and i'll have to do a hard reset (Whatever it's called) a number of times till it will come back on i have read it could be a dodgy graphics card but was hopeing it would be something simpler i am having a lot of trouble with that this last few days so i was gonna get an old vga cable sometime and see if it still does it thru the vga it does it through HDMI and DVI which is why i think it's probably not the Graphics card. I also read that LG tv's are notorious for it so that's probably my answer the TV. But I don't really want to have to return anything as I won't have my PC so hopefully when i do get 2 x 4gb Dimms it will fix the issue with the lame overclocking abilities what do you think about the monitor/TV issue

 

[steelninja]

It's a small, correctable mistake.

It's probably not your motherboard.

Experience tells me that when you remove those 4 sticks of 1GB and pop in your 2 sticks of 2GB/4GB (I agree with CaedenV that you should go 2x4GB) it should solve your problem (although there is a chance it could be a faulty MB). Never want to overclock too much with all your memory slots filled up. Not stable. I know, I have all my slots filled and it's hard enough just to keep my OC stable at a measly 4.2GHz (Unfortunately, I need the RAM for other things).

DCMA is Dual-Channel-Memory-Architecture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architecture#Dual-channel_architecture

I do get one more problem which is quite often when i restart or leave the bios it won't come back on my tv and i can hear it has booted up but no picture and i'll have to do a hard reset (Whatever it's called) a number of times till it will come back on i have read it could be a dodgy graphics card but was hopeing it would be something simpler i am having a lot of trouble with that this last few days so i was gonna get an old vga cable sometime and see if it still does it thru the onboard vga it does it through HDMI and DVI which is why i think it's probably not the Graphics card. I also read that LG tv's are notorious for it so that's probably my answer the TV. But I don't really want to have to return anything as I won't have my PC so hopefully when i do get 2 x 4gb Dimms it will fix the issue with the lame overclocking abilities what do you think about the monitor/TV issue

Sorry to be a pain
just thought of something else to ask you about, When i do try overclock or do other stuff in the bios it sometimes cuts straight out when i push f10 and ok then a couple seconds later it will come back on and do a long beep followed by 3 or 4 other short beeps then a long pause and then the beep you always get when you restart but sometimes it just hangs and i'll have to manually restart it's hard to know whats going on when the TV doesn't respond half the time ,any ideas on why it does this or if it's anything to worry about
Oh and thanks again

 

[PCgamer81]

I do get one more problem which is quite often when i restart or leave the bios it won't come back on my tv and i can hear it has booted up but no picture and i'll have to do a hard reset (Whatever it's called) a number of times till it will come back on i have read it could be a dodgy graphics card but was hopeing it would be something simpler i am having a lot of trouble with that this last few days so i was gonna get an old vga cable sometime and see if it still does it thru the onboard vga it does it through HDMI and DVI which is why i think it's probably not the Graphics card. I also read that LG tv's are notorious for it so that's probably my answer the TV. But I don't really want to have to return anything as I won't have my PC so hopefully when i do get 2 x 4gb Dimms it will fix the issue with the lame overclocking abilities what do you think about the monitor/TV issue

Sorry to be a pain
just thought of something else to ask you about, When i do try overclock or do other stuff in the bios it sometimes cuts straight out when i push f10 and ok then a couple seconds later it will come back on and do a long beep followed by 3 or 4 other short beeps then a long pause and then the beep you always get when you restart but sometimes it just hangs and i'll have to manually restart it's hard to know whats going on when the TV doesn't respond half the time ,any ideas on why it does this or if it's anything to worry about
Oh and thanks again

My PC does a lot of flashing and sometimes shutting on and off when I boot - which is why I always leave it on. Sorry that's the best I can come up with, lol. Maybe you should reset your bios settings and do a fresh install of Windows - I really don't know. Sorry.

As for your connection, try DVI or VGA. That is what I use, I never could get HDMI to work with my cards, either.

Good luck.

 

[steelninja]

My PC does a lot of flashing and sometimes shutting on and off when I boot - which is why I always leave it on. Sorry that's the best I can come up with, lol. Maybe you should reset your bios settings and do a fresh install of Windows - I really don't know. Sorry.

As for your connection, try DVI or VGA. That is what I use, I never could get HDMI to work with my cards, either.

Good luck.

Thanks mate and I'm gonna try the less Ram slots fix etc soon
Oh and It is a fresh install of windows 7 ultimate so it should be fine but I have given up on overclocking anyway until I get the two sticks of 4 Gb DDR3 Thanks 4 your help and laters

 

[steelninja]

Oh and It is a fresh install of windows 7 ultimate so it should be fine but I have given up on overclocking anyway until I get the two sticks of 4 Gb DDR3 Thanks 4 your help and laters

 

[steelninja]

My PC does a lot of flashing and sometimes shutting on and off when I boot - which is why I always leave it on. Sorry that's the best I can come up with, lol. Maybe you should reset your bios settings and do a fresh install of Windows - I really don't know. Sorry.

As for your connection, try DVI or VGA. That is what I use, I never could get HDMI to work with my cards, either.

Good luck.

Back again I found out I'd been undervolting it massively by not understanding how the cpu overvoltage worked I thought it was all overvoltage but then found out you had to set it all the way up to your stock voltage first 'Doh' I now have it at 3.7 Ghz and running fine not much of an OC but it's a good starting point and a lot better than what I was getting couldn't go above 3.5 Ghz without issues b4 any Idea what temps I need to keep my phenom ii 1100t x6 (Core temps & CPU temp) for safe 24/7 use co's at the moment worried about going over 55 o core temps and am a bit unsure of how good a cooler the freezer 7 pro (Arctic cooling) is
any more advice
And do I need to run prime that program seems a bit of a CPU health hazard to me