First Time Overclocking, FX-6300 On Stock Cooler

[realchaos]

Hey guys. Today I attempted to overclock my AMD FX-6300 stock cooler on an Asus M5A97 R2.0 motherboard. I disabled LLC and CPU/NB LLC, manually set ram timings to 9-9-9-24 and just raised the multiplier. I left all the cool n quiet stuff on. I'm running at 4118.1 mhz and under load it goes up to 70C (I know that's pretty hot), but while gaming I only go to about 50C. When using Prime95, worker #6 stopped working. I got this message :
[Sun Mar 17 16:34:42 2013]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.4653320313, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
The other 5workers are fine, is this something I be worried about?

 

[chrisafp07]

Yeah, you definitely don't want to be overclocking that cpu with a stock cooler getting 70c temps, you are going to fry your cpu bro. Get a cheap Heatsink like a Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO, then come back and we'll get you rolling. You really are risking your system overclocking under a stock heatsink and fan.

Just an FYI the max temp on that cpu is 62c, after that you can and probably are doing some sort of thermal damage.

 

[realchaos]

Thanks for the reply. 62c is the max temp? I remember when I was stress testing the stock clock and I went up to 65c.

 

[chrisafp07]

Wow, that is weird. Yeah, I looked it up for you, says 62c, and its FX line and mine is 62c max as well, mine has also seen alittle higher than 62c on one or two odd occasions.

If you do end up looking into CPU coolers grab a Noctua D or C-14 if you have a higher budget, and grab a Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO if you wanna stay cheaper. I have owned both and they both did the job with the Noctua performing almost as well as my now Antec h2O 920.

 

[realchaos]

I'm planning on the Hyper 212 EVO. How much do you think I'll be able to get with it?

 

[chrisafp07]

Well I did abit more research and apparently the FX6000 series has max ceiling temp of 71c. So that at least clears up some confusion and you don't have to worry about having done any dmg , as far as the cooler, you should be able to get a very good overclock with it. I don't own a 6000series but it will overclock using roughly the same bios settings as my FX. Basically you'll just have to start by upping multiplier until you can't boot and then slowly up voltage. Once you can boot Windows run Prime, if a core drops or you get BSOD then up Vcore one more tick and retry. rinse and repeat and watch those temps closely.

Make sure you disable CoolnQuiet and all other power saving features, Turbocore should be disabled, and you can run LLC in Disabled or try Auto if you have Vcore stability issues. You are on to the right start with your ram timings manual as well.

 

[realchaos]

The cool n quiet and power saving stuff increases temps but makes it more stable right? I think I have my voltage on auto lol. I set my clock speeds to stock for now though.

 

[chrisafp07]

Exactly, disabling coolnquiet and other power saving settings including thermal throttling will help to ensure your cpu gets the voltage it needs and when. It increases stability in other ways too im sure.

 

[realchaos]

Based on my build in my signature, with the antec neo ec 520, how much do you think I'll be able to overclock once i get the hyper 212?
I know the fx takes a lot of power so I'm not sure if i'll be able to overclock much. I also have my gpu overclocked to 1050/1400.

 

[chrisafp07]

Well to be honest, I really have no clue, I had issues overclocking my 8350 on a 970 board but the 6000series is different. It is a good board for its model, you should be able to get stable at 4.4 or higher. Once you get it you can message me and I'll help in any way I can.

Considering the turbo option on the cpu can rev it up to what, 4.1ghz? Should get at least 4.4-4.6 I would presume.