Overclocking Errors and Prime95

[Kaos Kid]

I've got some questions about errors while overclocking. I've been playing with my Q9450 on two separate Gigabyte boards (G31M-ES2L & GA-P35-DS3L) and both of them will give me errors if I go much above 425fsb. I've noticed that when I had my RAM overclocked too much (OCZ Reapers DDR2-800@1020Mhz) that all 4 cores kicked off in Prime95 fairly quickly and at about the same time, and if I used a gentler memory overclock (850Mhz) things would seem to be going smoothly except that after a while I would notice that the screen had frozen even though core temps were in a reasonable range (no higher than 60C, and CPU temp showing about 50C). I wasn't getting BSODs, nor was Prime95 kicking off. I'm guessing that with the video freezing like that that maybe north or southbridge temps were the culprit. I did notice that at 435fsb I would lose LAN completely and audio would be quirky at boot, even without any stress testing. Can I assume that short of rigging some bridge cooling that I've taken these boards as far as they can go? The Q9450 on ark.intel.com shows a voltage range up to 1.3625v, and I've only gone up to 1.35v once in the bios and didn't have good results so I backed it down. AIDA shows an appreciable amount of Vdroop, so much so that in the bios it can be set to 1.3v and yet show in AIDA down as low as 1.25v (a .05v drop). I have all energy saving settings off in the bios including EIST and Thermal monitor so the board itself shouldn't be dropping volts on purpose, especially since the Arctic Freezer Pro 13 that I'm using is keeping temps in an acceptable range. I am only using a cheapo Rosewill 400W PSU but in AIDA the rails are showing proper volts and I don't have any peripherals hooked up (only a HD4350 powered solely on the PCIEx16 slot on the P35, and none at all on the G31 since it has onboard video)

Thoughts?

[DragonFury]

it could be low power, and or the board gotten worn out.

[Kaos Kid]

It looks like with both boards that FSB maxes stable between 420-425 x 8, any higher and it starts showing errors. Even with the AC Freezer 13 Pro on teh G31 board keeping CPU and cores cool (<60C on the cores) I still had errors. What I did notice with both boards is that the northbridge heatsinks are hot hot HOT. On the P35 board I had a small fan bracketed onto the heatsink since the mobo had a 3rd fan header but it was only using a small footprint Foxconn CPU cooler (one tiny step up from a stock Intel). The G31 had what appeared to be a better northbridge heatsink but still very hot. To use the Freezer Pro on the P35 board I would have to cut down some fins on the chipset heatsink due to clearance issues, and still could not use a fan on it. Something tells me that to get any higher clock I would have to watercool the bridges on either board, and I doubt that it would be worth it. As it is it seems that the Q9450 clocked to about 3.3Ghz on the either of the Gigabyte DDR2 boards is roughly equivalent or a little better than what I'm getting out of my 555 Black unlocked to 4 cores (shows as a B55) on an ASUS 785chipped DDR3 board clocked at 3.6Ghz.

So these are my options...

1) Sell the Q9450 and LGA 775 boards and try to get some money back for a future build.

2) Use the Q9450 and one of the 775 Boards as my general purpose rig and move the B55 and ASUS board over to my HTPC since it has onboard HD4200 HDMI, and take out my ASROCK 790 DDR2 board w/550 unlocked to 3 cores to sell to get some money for a future build (it has been a great HTPC up to now with HD3300 HDMI).

I just don't know if it is worth it to do all the switching around between cases for the slight performance bump that the Q9450 may bring, I had thought it would be head and shoulders above the AMD setup but is only slightly better (10% or less).

Although I am fond of my AMD rigs my next newer build (if and when, lol) will be Intel since the latest AMD offerings have been disappointments according to most reviews (supposedly not even any better than my 1100T in my ASUS 890 board).

Thoughts?

[DragonFury]

nb do get fairly hot, but never hear of a sb getting hot unless you have low powering issues. and since you are having a system wide overheating i will say it could be a PSU issue. As for what machine to use what to sell, I could not tell you what to do there. I typically use the fastest as my main and the slowest as a htpc. in your case they are about even so you got a tough choice there.but before any switching round takes place we need to figure out why you having problems.

[Kaos Kid]

I pulled out my multimeter and found that at least the 5v (5.13-5.15v) and 12v (12.15-12.20v) rails are within range even under full load. In AIDA64 CPU volts show a significant drop under load (set in bios at 1.35 can still show in AIDA as far down as 1.264v). I'm guessing that any power problems above 420fsb (for quads anyway) are inherent in the boards since they are both considered budget boards anyway. I did notice being able to set higher volts on the G31 before screen freezeup by using a discrete card rather than onboard but would still get errors later on after a couple of hours or more which makes me think that it is a chipset heat issue or board limitation rather than a CPU heat problem. Short of getting a Rampage or 790 SLI board just to see if I can squeeze out more FSBs (I've seen reports up to 450-465fsb out of the Q9450 on those) I will just call it a day, I really don't want to sink anymore money into it. Thanks to a special friend for the use of the Freezer13 Pro, at least I didn't have to waste money on it to eliminate CPU temps as the cause. I still may try test the G31 board one more time using the PSU from my general rig, it is also only 400W but it is a Corsair CMPSU-400CX that I bought 2 years ago from the Egg, the one in the G31 rig is a Rosewill that could be older and that I bought used. I'm due to line up all the rigs for a good dust-blowing anyway, I'll try it then--I've just been waiting for a respite of outside temps so I can pull them out into my hot garage for the dusting party, lol.

[DragonFury]

LOOL, good luck to your dusting party.. If you can purchase a 750watt PSU, (as it will also carry over to a newer system) then crank till you are happy, 400 Watters are for granny machines that just sit there and surf the internet not for overclocking.

[Kaos Kid]

I see lots of PSUs on the Egg but reputable brands are starting around $80 so I may have to compromise. I see PSUs with multiple 12v rails and some with one large 12V rail. What works best, multiple small or one large? Would you recommend a minimum amperage total (say at least 50amps whether in one large rail or spread out into multiple smaller rails)?

I see a person in my area is advertising a Silencer 610EPS12V w/ 49amps on one rail, and 670 peak watts for under $50. Could that possibly be adequate for OCing this 4 1/2 year old Q9450 (or even my AMDs 555BE & 1100T), or do I definitely have to move up to a 750w?

The Corsair CMPSU-400CX only has 30Amps on the 12v rail yet seems to have no problem OCing my 555BE with 4 unlocked cores to 3.6Ghz on a Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H , is the Intel such a power hog that it needs so much more raw power?

Thanks for the help and letting me pick your brain a bit

[DragonFury]

if you can get a 610 for 50 bones go for it, I like to start with 750 but that is not etched in stone there is room for flexibility. I prefer single rails, but i seen multiple rails do quite well as well.

Your computer is showing signs of under power issues, and when i see a system that is being powered by a 400 Watt PSU and being overclocked on top of that is typcially not a good idea because you will reach the max power usage quite quickly. that CPU can break up to almost 200 WATTs usage by itself, leaving you with 200 watts total for the rest of the system video card uses 75 watts, leaving you 125 watts left, and then count in motherboard hdd's and other items it adds up real fast. Why i like giving myself a bit more head room from the PSU.

Am I saying it is 100% your problem is with the PSU, no. but your computer is showing signs that point in that direction. Ie not just one part getting hot multiple areas of the computer is, CPU HB, SB, Video card and also failing prime 95 during heavy CPU usage at the same time, these typically point to a under powered system. But like with any trouble shooting we need to start somewhere an then work our way up. And I do not mind if you pick my brain, that is how we learn and move on, I just hope your computer gets fixed in the long run.

[Kaos Kid]

Now I'm getting cold feet about that PCP&C PSU on CL, it has been for sale for a month, I gotta wonder what is wrong with it. I also saw an Antec 650 Blue for sale for only $20, that one really sends up some warning flags, lol. I'm gonna cool my jets for a little while and see if any good deals pop up on reputable sales sites, or at least see if any good reputable traders here have anything to offer. I just need to dig through my old stuff to see if I can find something to sell to offset the price of buying a new one that comes with a warranty. I still have that Fractal case that I won that it turns out I will not be able to use, maybe I'll get lucky and find someone that will trade a nice strong PSU for it

[DragonFury]

good luck to ya i hope it works out for you in the end

[kenc51]

Apologise it's the end of a long/day week and i haven't read all posts fully.

I concur on getting a new psu, but

There's a few simple things you can do to find out where your limitation is with the CPU & or chip set.
Have you tried to test your max FSB?
In the BIOS lower the cpu multiplier by 2 or 3 notches, add ~0.2V to the chip set voltage and lower the memory divider to ~667MHz.
Then start raising the FSB till as far as it can go.
When it craps out, the culprit is likely the max fsb the cpu/chipset can do.
This way you have an idea what's holding you back and also what you can expect when you set the cpu multiplier back to default.

Ken