[SOLVED] Gigabyte 970a-DS3P FX83250

[Mr Men]

I have been given a system that was bought many years ago and put into storage with little use after returned to manufacturer And the version 1 board swapped for a V2 with VRM heatsink.

I received it with an old bios version and after updating saw that board reported core Auto voltages are low and caused instability I have manually edited to stock voltages and intel burn test standard pass.

I replaced power supply with 680w and a 1tb Samsung SSD on Windows home.

the cpu is a FX8320 black edition and the stock cooler is useles, I suspect the complaints were previously due to bios compatibility, vcore voltage and lastly in a cool room the stock cooler and low max cpu temp 61c made it useless in a hot room.

Now my questions
1) I have a huge cooler Allegedly 320w capable with 120mm fan to replace the stock item, so hopefully some air over VRM heatsink- what would be safe temp on VRM as mid 60c.
I read 90-105c max

2) The board has a bad rap, I believe it is the prior lack of VRM cooler, bios compatibility and lastly VRM size The 4pin ATU plug on board worries me as the gaming models all 8 pin and 125w TDP. is an overclock a really bad idea on this board Or is 4.3ghz mild enough not to kill VRM.

3) corsair vengeance Ram oc with 16GB but refuses to with 32GB, is this limitation of board or am I missing something.

make do and mend as work has been ridiculously slow so spending limited.

thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

You can't really know what "temp" that CPU is at by looking at any monitoring software that reads traditional thermal values. Those older AMD CPUs did not work that way. You MUST read temps as "distance to TJ max", which is the only way you'll get any kind of accurate depiction of whether you are thermally compliant or not. I agree, the stock cooler sucks and is not sufficient for those 8 core FX CPUs, but the numbers you are seeing are not actually the numbers you are seeing, because the thermal sensors on those AMD motherboards were not designed to be read or used in that way.

Reading this will help to understand how this works.

How To - An Understanding of Temperature on AMD CPUs and APUs

Does HWMonitor say your CPU/APU temp is 70C when idling but your CPU socket feels cool to the touch? Is Core Temp only reading 10C but it's not possible because your room is 28C? The reason is that these and other 3rd party programs are not interpreting the AMD TCTL signal correctly, although...

forums.tomshardware.com

Also, this one.

How to Understand AMD CPU Temperatures | Daves Computer Tips

Over the years I've used both Intel and AMD processors and whichever monitoring utility I've used, it has always reported the real temperatures at core and socket. Since upgrading one of my PCs from…

davescomputertips.com

Couple of things I disagree with there though. One is, I don't believe it is ok to operate in the full envelope of thermal margin for those AMD CPUs. I've seen too many of them become permanently thermally damaged when riding the knife for too long. I prefer to NOT see them drop below ten degrees remaining to TJmax rather than allowing it to actually GET to TJmax so that throttling is the only thing that remains to save your CPU from damage. Giving it a ten degree buffer will help in that regard and if you are that close you had thermal issues anyhow that needed to be addressed.

Also, AMD Overdrive is no longer available through AMD on the link posted in that guide. You can get it here:

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/downloadnow/4645/?evp=2bc137b9206e4001fbe10993002f0fb0&file=1

Not only is an overclock a bad idea on that board, that board itself is a bad idea with ANY of the 8 core FX processors. Heatsinks don't really change the fact that a given board was not designed to be useful when paired with certain processors that exceed the stable power delivery capabilities of the motherboard AS WELL AS the ability of the motherboard VRMs to keep themselves cool when used with configurations that exceed the thermal design power level they were intended to be used with. This is especially prevalent on these older AMD motherboards. You don't see this nearly as much these days, although it does still exist as a consideration.

You will likely never get four DIMMs to work with that board and I'm assuming you have four 8GB DIMMs you are trying to run. This older AMD platform was notoriously bad for memory configurations that exceeded 1600mhz (1866mhz WOULD run on many of them if they were quality DIMMs) or used four DIMMs, or both. It's possible, but it often requires many hours of manual configuration attempts and in the end the AM3+ platforms simply don't want to work well in a lot of cases with more than two DIMMs installed. And when they do, practically 100% of the time an overclock of the CPU would be required because the memory controller on these platforms is relatively weak and needs to be bolstered to have any chance of running memory that is faster than 1600mhz or when four DIMMs are used.

Certainly there will be exceptions to this, but they will be exceptions noted by those running much better motherboards, with higher quality memory that have overclocked CPU configurations to give the IMC a kick in the arse.

The first thing you should do if you really want to get this system to work better is to get a better CPU cooler. While I don't feel like it's worth spending much money on, something like the Deepcool Gammaxx 400 v2 is around 20-30 bucks and will do a fairly decent job. Better than the Hyper 212 EVO for certain. If you have any desires to overclock you will absolutely need a better board AND some flavor of 140mm CPU air cooler.

 

[Mr Men]

Thank you for the advice I have a replacement cooler second hand arctic A30 Extreme to fit when thermal paste arrives if it will fit.
& I agree the board may say 8 core compatible-bad idea from inception as VRM design fires on v1.

When funds allow what would be a suitable board that is worth a chance second hand or possibly new I have seen some MSI 970 gaming boards or Fx990 £50-100 or save for a later Ryzen CPU and motherboard combo?

Thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

(Be sure to check when looking for a motherboard that any of the models shown below are either 990fx, 990 or 970 chipsets. A Z170 Extreme6 for example, is not going to work with your FX processor, so, in this example, you want to look for the 990/990fx Extreme6.)

GA-990FXA-UD7
Extreme6
Extreme9
Fatal1ty 990FX Professional
Crosshair V Formula-Z
Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
GA-99FXA-UD5
MSI GD80V2
M5A99FX PRO R2.0
GA-99FXA-UD3
MSI GD65V2
990FX Killer
Extreme4
M5A99X EVO (R2.0 as well)
GA-990XA-UD3
990XA-GD55
GA-970A-UD3P
M5A97 or EVO or PRO (R.2 as well)
GA-970A-UD3
970 GAMING
970A SLI Krait (USB 3.1 supported)

 

[Mr Men]

Excellent I will look round for a board I can afford, I have 29 degree thermal margin now with bigger heatsink and am grateful for all your help.

 

[Darkbreeze]

👍