Overclocking

[hicks]

Ok so I am new to overclocking. I never saw the reason to do it so I never have. But I been having an urge to overclock but have no clue. I have a Foxconn Flame Blade Motherboard, 6gb of Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 1.65v ram, Intel i7 930 2.8ghz CPU, 900w Single Rail PSU, and water cooling. So i can handle water clocking but I just dont get how to do it.

EVGA bios looks nothing like foxconn's and foxconn has no forum so I cant get help there. If any1 know what to do it in lamens term much will be appreciated. I want to push my CPU to 4.0 if I can.

Here is what I will try if I get the go ahead by you guys.

vCore - 1.32v
Multiplier - x21
Bclock - 190 or 211
Hyper Threading - On
QPI and Memory Multipliers on lowest ? <--i dont get this
CPU Turbo - always on

[Trace]

Short Version: Increase bclock.

Long version, IM me, and I can try to help. I'll sign into Yahoo and MSN right now

[Trace]

I tried, and failed to help. He has this motherboard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf2foO6lHYA

I tried having him raise bclock, vcore, and it wouldnt post

[hicks]

bump

[billygoat333]

bum chip perhaps? adequate cooling?

[hicks]

I have water cooling on CPU and voltage regulator. How do u tell if a chip or bum chip? I can use computer just fine at default clocks

[billygoat333]

well not so much bum chip but one that was good enough for stock speeds but might have had a minor enough defect to cause it to be not overclockable? lol I have no idea just throwing stuff out there.

[mDust]

I don't have an i7 to play with and I've never had the opportunity to play with one. All I know about the new on-board memory-controller architecture has been gained in the form of random tidbits that I've read online. With that said, I'd recommend lowering the multiplier either as low as it will go or fairly low and then trying to increase the bclock and voltage. If this still doesn't work, you may have been unlucky enough to get a bottom-bin chip...which means it isn't going to overclock.
If it does work, then keep increasing the bclock while leaving the multiplier alone. Each time let the OS boot and run prime95 or something similar for a few minutes to gauge the stability of the OC. See how high you can get just the bclock so you know where the upper ceiling is with that. Once you can't get it any higher do the following:
1. Set an effective clockspeed (ECS...because I'm lazy:D) goal just a tad more then the current ECS...say 2900 to start. Take baby steps...you can't just shoot for 4000!
2. Divide that goal by the current multiplier to get a new bclock.
3. Set the new bclock and confirm it.
4. Boot the OS and check the ECS with cpu-z or your favorite CPU monitoring program. If it doesn't boot, try increasing the voltage a bit...the limit for your chip is 1.375v...your motherboard should prevent you from over-volting, but some boards don't, so I'm warning you just in case.
5. If prime95 runs without errors for 5 minutes or so, it's likely you can go a bit higher.
6. If you get stuck, try bumping up the multiplier by doing the following: divide your current ECS by an increased multiplier. This will give you a lower bclock which means more room to OC.
7. If you want to OC more and the chip is willing, repeat from step #1. If you or your chip are done, then run prime95 for say 10 hours or so on torture mode. Keep an eye on temperatures for the first hour...if it gets too hot, then abort and get a bigger rad or wimp out and lower the OC. If there are errors then the OC is not stable and needs to be lowered a bit...or if you're not at the voltage cap, try increasing the voltage a bit more to stabilize it. There's nothing worse than a bluescreen between the downing of that really hard boss and the next checkpoint or in the middle of an unsaved school/work project.

Just some things to consider: increasing the bclock increases the performance of both the CPU and your RAM, while the multiplier only affects your CPU. It's more beneficial to keep the bclock as high as possible rather than max out your multiplier.

[Trace]

The limit is actually about 1.4 24/7 1.55 for benching

[mDust]

The limit is actually about 1.4 24/7 1.55 for benching


VID Voltage Range 0.800V-1.375V
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41447

The chip might be able to handle >1.375v but it may not be safe and is likely not good for it at all. I'll recommend what Intel says, but if anyone wants to push their chip harder, they are free to do so.

[hicks]

Well I been on another forum too and this is what I was told about my motherboard:

Ballistix works best at 1.72v. This means you cannot ever have your vtt below +200mv (flaming blade undervolts vtt).

Vioh varies depending on heat and board. 1.24v should be fine for anything up to 200bclk. Reduce it when you get to your overclock if you can as you probably wont need that much voltage.

CPU will need 1.3v+ most likely.

Overall I would try +250mv cpu, +240mv vtt, 1.72vddr, 1.24vioh, qpi @ auto, cpu @ 20x, uncore at 16x, memory at 8x, turbo off, multithreading off, memory timings "By spd". Save and exit bios, start at 20x175 to make sure you boot to a stable overclock. Then try for 200bclk for your 4ghz overclock.


Now when he says to do memory timing by spd? it is at 8-8-8-19 right now. but it shows that it is supposed to be 8-8-8-24. I am guessing I can set that manually? if so where?

[mDust]

Now when he says to do memory timing by spd? it is at 8-8-8-19 right now. but it shows that it is supposed to be 8-8-8-24. I am guessing I can set that manually? if so where?

The SPD setting is just an auto detect setting. It may be called 'auto', 'auto detect', 'spd', or anything similar. I don't have your mobo so I can't say exactly where, but unless there is a separate 'memory' screen in your bios, it should be on the same screen as all your other timings. Just look for any DRAM settings and it will probably be the very first setting.

EDIT: Also, I'm not sure why multithreading should be turned off...but go ahead and do it in case it does affect stability somehow. It never bothered my pentium 4 back in the day but who knows. Once you get your OC finalized though, try turning it back on as it will increase performance a bit more.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Best bet is to have a look at the BIOS section of your mobo manuel, if it was designed in any way to perform overclocking the mobo will list exactly where you can access these features and exactly what they can do.

First off you need to set yourself a (realistic) target for your clock speed. an i7 930 should easily be able to hit 4.5GHz on water but aiming at 4GHz gives you some room to play with once you get everything stable.

From my experience you just keep increasing the core clock until PC wont boot or BSOD's while booting. Once you get a crash just increase the voltage slightly and try to boot again. If it boots successfully run some benchmarks, whether it be Prime95 or 3DMark, you just need something to stress the CPU a bit. If it's fine after 30 mins re-boot and try some more core clock and rinse and repeat. I try to stress test for a few hours after every 500MHz successful increase.

Once you hit your target clock give it a good stress testing over night. If you find it crashes bump the voltage up a little bit until it becomes stable. However if you find that it is stable straight away start to drop your voltage slightly and stress test until you find faults, then bump the voltage up slightly to maintain stability. It is best to get the voltage right, to much extra power going to the CPU could burn it our prematurely.

I hope that helps you out a bit.

[hicks]

Ok so I tried out everything tonight and it worked. I got to 4.0 no problem, but I cant tell the temps of my cpu or vreg. Any1 know of any programs?

Also Here is what I did to get the 4.0

CPU - +250mv
vtt - + 240mv
qpi - auto
CPU multiplier - 20x
Unicore - x16
Memory - x8
CPU Turbo - off
Vcore - 175

Now should I just start lower in the mv till I dont get a post then bump it up to previous mv? Also on the vtt I put it to default because it was highlighted red and that scared me lol. Can I also turn on CPU turbo to always on and have CPU multiplier as x21. With CPU multiplier it will make it x22 but does CPU turbo make a big difference? if not Ill leave CPU turbo off and just leave the CPU multiplier at x21.

Thanks for all the help. :D

[The boy 4rm oz]

Personally I use CoreTemp to monitor my CPU temps, it gives a temp for all cores individually as well as the Delta-T.

As for dropping the voltages personally I would, just to preserve the chip a little bit longer but if your voltage is close to what others are using I wouldn't bother.

With the turbo boost feature on the i5 and i7 as far as I know it does make for a more stable overclock with them disabled but I can't see why not you couldn't have it active.

[mDust]

Congrats getting to 4.0...Now shoot for 5! :D
CoreTemp or RealTemp will work fine for monitoring your CPU temp.
Run prime95 for about 10 hours or so on torture mode (if you haven't already) the first time to make sure the current OC is 100% stable. If there are no errors, then your OC is stable and you might get away with lowering the voltage a bit. You'll have to run prime95 for a few hours each time you lower it to make sure it's still stable. If you don't ensure the stability, your CPU could be making errors. Many of these errors may not be mission critical or even noticed, but the computer could randomly crash at any moment.

[Trace]

Also, odd multipliers (19, 21) overclock better then even multipliers(20)