Advice for a novice on Overclocking my new computer

[bryanb58]

Good day everyone,

I am an avid pc gamer and have just recently taken an interest in overclocking, as my new pc came with a pretty hefty cpu cooler (coolermaster V6).

My specs are as follows:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T w/ coolermaster v6
12 GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance RAM
Cooler Master eXtreme Plus 700W PSU
ATI Radeon 6850 HD running at 830/1075

Now with regards to temps... I am kind of unsure which reading is correct. When I look in AMD overdrive at the status page of cpu Ive never seen it go above 25C...but for some reason I dont think that is the right reading...as most people seem to report higher then that. There is another reading in the extras sensors that will show around 40C I think that one might be a little more realistic?

What I am looking to find out is what the best way would be to overclock the processor. I have seen/heard that windows based tuners are no good, and that doing it from the BIOS is the best way. I also see that most people say you just slowly bump the base clock (200mhz) up 5 mhz at a time and I guess if it doesnt crash go until it does and then up the voltage a notch and then try again, etc. Is this exactly what I want to do? Are there any other considerations I should be aware of?

While Im here starting a post about overclocking, I also have a question about my video card. I am using msi afterburner to OC my card and right now I have it at 830/1075 and it seems that my games are running fine. I have experienced something weird though. When I stability test it with furmark and kombustor, I can put the card to the max allowable levels (850/1200) and it doesnt go above 70C which as far as I know is a perfectly acceptable temp. I ran it for 2 hours one night and it just stayed constant. I am using a custom fan profile too. However, when I load crysis 2 or black ops, the computer crashes. I'll be playing and out of nowhere, at a random point (ranged from 5 min to 20 min) the TV goes black saying no signal, I hear sound for 5 seconds and then it crashes and I hear the sound loop and I have to hard reset. Does anyone know for any reason why I can stability test it so well but then boom games crash like that? I have reinstalled the drivers (using driver sweep to rid everything) and I updated the VGA bios too.

Sorry for the long post, I am just eager to get this squared away and I hope some experts out there can give me some good input as the video card especially kind of bothers me.

Thanks a lot in advance everyone.

Bryan

 

[saint19]

Set NB voltage to 1.2V and CPU NB VID to 1.3V, HT voltage to Auto.

 

[bryanb58]

Ok ill give that a go and test it.

Thanks Saint19!

 

[bryanb58]

Actually just to confirm the NB vid voltage I bumped back up to 1.3, but the NB control voltage is default at 1.3 so do I want to decrease this to 1.2?

 

[saint19]

uhm nop, leave the NB voltage at 1.3V too, but I think that is a little high.

 

[bryanb58]

Really eh yea that's the "normal" or default setting. Anyways good stuff I'll try this out!

 

[bryanb58]

Well it worked out quite well this time. I ran prime95 overnight, it ran for 8 hours and was still going when I woke up. I am satisfied now that in terms of what I am using my comp for that it is stable now. I am going to let it go until it fails at some other point soon, just to see, but for now I am happy with where its at.

Thanks for all your help Saint19, It is much appreciated.

 

[saint19]

Glad to hear that and that my help was good for you. As we said some threads above, you will never use the CPU at the same stress that prime95 use it.

 

[Karch_32]

Thanks for providing this information, it was educational to follow.

 

[bryanb58]

I figured that, I even watched as I played Crysis 2 last night and max cpu load is just over 30 while I play, Temps are nowhere near what they are in Prime either, and I have 5 120mm fans in my case now so cooling is great!

My next big venture will be figuring out what my optimal RAM settings will be, as I know this corsair vengeance ram should be decent for ocing.

I actually have a question Saint19, would you care to explain why increasing the NB VID voltage allows for greater stability? even when I am not really uping the NB frequency.

Once again Thank you so much for getting my comp to where it is now.

 

[saint19]

I'm finishing my work date now and going to the University, but I will come back to you soon for solve that question.

 

[bryanb58]

cool thanks!