Ok, I am at my wits end. I OC'd to 3.7 and I ran Prime. It ran for 3 minutes and then said there was a hardware failure. So I backed everything back down to stock. I ran Prime again last night and everything is running fine. Actually prime is still running...so thats +13 hours. So my question is how do I OC and still be able to pass Prime/orthos? Check previous post for my settings.
Prime will definitely run at stock. There could be a number of reasons why it fails at your overclocked settings. Like I said, the ram may not be able to run at the speeds you're pushing them to. Or the CPU may not like the temperature its at, or the vcore may not be sufficient? This is the fun of OCing. OCing is very involved. It is not a 5 minute thing. Run prime, if it fails, try something else and see what happens.
Overclocking is a process where you find out the limits of your hardware and then adjust your settings so that you maximize their potential and yet ensure the whole system is completely stable (by testing with Prime95 and/or Orthos).
I see that this is very involved. I guess Ill try some other settings and see if I can get prime to run properly. Thanks...I guess I will be at this for a good while.
Latest update...I OC'd the system to 3.65 and so far so good. Prime has been running for close to an hour Thanks to the weather being a little cooler now, the system temp was at 60-61c. I opened the window right near the pc and it actually help to drop the temp to 50-53c!! So far so good! I think Ill save these settings and try to up the clock a little more. I did bump the cpu volts up and I think that was probably the problem before. So now Prime is running and it doesnt appear to have any issue. Ill let you guys know more in the morning!! Thanks again
Ok some good news and some bad. I was able to run Prime successfully at 3.65. Unfortunately when I tried to up the vcore anymore the system fails. Is there anything else I can try to reach a higher clock speed?
I think your processor has insufficient cooling, when you increase vcore the heat load increases too.
Better cooling?? What are your ambient and CPU temperatures like? Yeah, like Max said, increasing the vcore (and even the clock speed) will increase the CPU temperature.
Right now my cpu is at 28-29c at idle and 60-61c running prime. Do you have a suggestion for a watercoolering system for video and cpu?
My setup. But watercooling is a big step from air cooling (both monetary and level of involvement). But I really love my temps. CPU @ 3.95 @ full load is at low 40s and my 8800GTS is from mid to high 30s.
I suggest you try find out whether the instability is actually caused by temperature first before you actually go and invest on better aircooling/watercooling. Each processors are unique, some might be more temperature sensitive, while some might not have any problem at all running at high temperature without stability issues. Try turn on the air conditioner or use any other way to drop your ambient temperature say 5-10c and run prime95 again, see if it crashes.
I made a little discovery the other day. I was playing with the cpu fan and realized that it was turn down. The Zalmans 9700 comes with this little knob that turns the fan up and down. I dont know why but mine was turned down. So I reran prime and it did better but it looked like one of the cores failed the test but the other one kept running. So now I am a little confused. Maybe I should try liquid cooling. What cooling device do you guy recommend?
What's the maximum temperature for 24/7 usage when the CPU is on load? Is 75 degrees load, 50s idle, running on RM100+ cooler, overclocked to only 3240Ghz @360x9 any good? Should it go higher? Or a better cooler? Suggestion?
Maximum temperature? As long as it doesn't throttle then it's fine. Seriously, I wouldn't bother about it unless my CPU becomes unstable, or I can get better overclocks with lower temperature.
Well, yours is over 3.8Ghz. Mine just 3.2Ghz already 75 degrees... I want to go higher but scared le. Coz now the PC is in the living room, so ventilation is better. If I were to get it up to my room and when there's no aircon in the afternoon or evening. I think it'll die. Eh... but it'll be idle at 50s degrees. Hmm... I think I should go higher as I don't think it will be running at 100% that often. Btw, I found it weird when I use Intel TAT, it's reporting load temp at 60s. Core Temp also same. When idle, only 30-40. BIOS is the latest if you're wondering. Stupid ASUS mobo. Had to use ASUS Probe to show real temp. Btw, what is throttle?
