How to: Overclock Stability Testing (Work in process, contribute!)

Let's start an overclock stability thread. This is a place where we can teach new users how to test their overclocks! We can all share our methods on OC stability! This thread will most likely turn into a tutorial, maybe a sticky? :O


I'll have to type an intro etc. to this. Right now it's sort of a rough draft because we haven't had people contribute to it yet!

Software
CPU Stress Tests:

Temperature Monitoring:


Stability Categories:

CPU Overclocking

GPU Overclocking

DRAM Overclocking

Precautions Before Stability Testing:
 

nna2

Distinguished
(AMD Phenom II 840 non black edition)

CPU Stress Tests:prime 95, SuperPi, Cinebench

Temperature Monitoring:primarily Speedfan, but sometimes HwMonitor (i dislike it though)

CPU Overclocking

So far with my chip I hit a wall at 4GHz (16*250, 1.5V with LLC off), so i instead lowered the multiplier and raised the bus speed (14.5*276=4002MHz) and raised the HT and NB to 2.7GHz

GPU Overclocking

i could never get overvoltage to work properly.

DRAM Overclocking

It seemed the further I went past 1600MHz (which is my stock speed) the more unstable the system became no matter how much voltage, or how high i set the timings, so i lowered the speed to ~1400MHz with the timings 8.8.8.20, and increased the drive strengths

Precautions Before Stability Testing:
not sure on this one :p, but i will say that cutting corners will hurt you, i bought a cheap power supply, and it died one day when i was prime 95'ing (within a 2hr window)
 

BVKnight

Honorable
Mar 18, 2012
79
0
10,660
I am new to pc building and overclocking, but I will share my experiences so far.

Software
CPU Stress Tests: Prime95, Intel Burn Test, OCCT, Cinebench, 3dmark

Temperature Monitoring: OCCT (built-in), Real Temp, CPU-Z (for voltages, etc)


Stability Categories:

CPU Overclocking
I'm running an i5 3570k on Asrock Z77 Extreme-4 using a CM Hyper 212 EVO with MX-2 paste, inside a Rosewill Thor V2 case.

The highest clock I pushed my chip to that was able to boot Windows normally was 4.9Ghz, but it required a lot of increased voltage and the temperatures were hitting the TJmax of the chip under load. I have been able to get 4.8 and 4.7 Ghz to run stable under some tests, but temps were too high, so I'm going to keep backing it down and experiment to get it to what I think will be a safe overclock.

For me the process has been to primarily change three things: the multiplier, the Vcore, and the LLC level. Since Ivy Bridge is highly dependent on voltage for temperatures, I started by pushing my clock rate up 100Mhz at a time from stock until Windows wouldn't boot/BSOD, then I increased the voltage (using offset so that my chip could still idle at lower clocks) until I could boot to Windows. At each new clock rate (4.5-4.9) I tested using a 5 minute prime95 run to get an idea of temps, but I found out a problem with this later on. Read the last part of the post for an explanation. Since I started looking for stability, I have been running longer stress tests using prime95 and IBT to make sure the chip is stable. When it isn't, I increase the voltage by .005 volts at a time until it is. At some point I increased the LLC from Level 5 to Level 2 to add stability. I'm trying to keep temperatures below 85 C.

Precautions Before Stability Testing:
1. Double check your fans are working properly, especially your CPU fan. The CPU Fan controls of my bios only allow limited control, and take a few seconds to ramp up the fan speed when the cpu gets hot, which happens instantly when testing. So when I do stability testing I temporarily set the CPU fan to run on max for optimal cooling. I have also turned my chassis fans on max, but those don't seem to make a difference.
2. Different programs seem to stress the chip differently. My cpu has passed an Intel Burn Test (which is supposed to be really taxing) but failed a Prime95 test on the same settings.
3. Prime95 doesn't seem to really kick into high gear until ~16 minutes into the test, at least for me. Even though load was already 100% on the CPU for the first 15 minutes, at the 16 minute mark temperatures start skyrocketing--sometimes by almost 20 C. This makes makes me reconsider clocks that I thought were reasonably stable, temperature-wise.
 

callmesmorz

Honorable
Feb 25, 2012
15
0
10,510
as i am not going for insane overclocks, and since i cant stay away from my computer for ~10 HRs to stress test, i just do what i would normally do on my computer as a stress test: play demanding games, reocrd video, encode video ETC, ETC. i have my 2500k set to 4.0GHz with voltage offset by -.045 volts, and never had a problem. good enough for me lol
 

keithyuri

Honorable
Jul 9, 2012
9
0
10,510




Hi there Sir! I don't have any idea on how to overclock my i5-3570k I just wanted to add a bit performance to it and I'm thinking if you could help me out.. Many thanks in advance!