Overclocking Asus Rampage Formula+E8500

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kad

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Feb 29, 2008
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Hi all
My gaming rig
Lian Li PC-A70 case (6X120MM) Cooling Fans
Enermax Galaxy 1000W PSU
Asus Rampage Formula
E8500 Wolfdale(Birthday Gift)
Ultra 120 Extreme HS lapped + Scythe S-Flex SFF21F+Arctic Silver 5
Crucial Ballistic Red Line DDR2 800(2X2GB) 4-4-4-12@2.2V
2X150 WD Raptor HDD
Win XP Pro 32bit
Ready for Dual boot with Vista Ultimate 64bit

Booting with all at default
CPU Temp 40 C
North bridge: More than 40C
South bridge: More than 40C
At full load (Prime95) temps 50C

Overclocked to 3.8 GHz (multiplier 9.5)
FSB Strap 400
FSB Frequency 400
Dram:FSB 1:1
Setting all voltage to Auto
I found the following voltages in bios (With no load)
I'll put between brackets the voltages before overclocking
CPU: 1.232(1.184)
CPU PLL:1.6(1.584)
FSB Termination: 1.344(1.2)
DRAM: 2.048(1.952)
S.Bridge:1.072(1.072) Yes no change!!
N.Bridge: 1.648(1.360)

I lowered N.B voltage only to 1.45V
and kept all other to auto

At full load (prime 95) stable all night but heat !!
Vcore measuring Max. Temp of the cores 62 C (No more)

Did not try 4GHz of course

Loosed Ram timing to 5-5-5-15 but no change
Applied AS5 twice and reseated HS and no change

Do you think it is safe to run at these setting ??
Also amazing not only proc is hot but also N.B and S.B

What do you think of SpeedFan ?? Is it reliable ??
When Vcore is showing 50 C Speedfan is showing 112!!!

Any good Ideas ??


 
You need to calibrate Speedfan I think.
Try CoreTemp : http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
And HWMonitor : http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

When overclocking you should never have voltage control on AUTO.
The AI features overvolt heavily. Start at Vcore == VID and test until it's stable (1 notch at a time).
 
Andrius: If you notice no big difference in voltages
CPU from 1.184 to 1.232
SB: The same
N.B I lowered already

I opened Both sides of the case and noticed Cores Temps will go down to 57-58 C ( Not too much)
 
My Asus P5E x38 only needs 1.39 NB voltage for up to 485 stable FSB. 4ghz is easy to achieve CPU only needs about 1.36volts for it to be stable :).

I'm sure your RAM would handle a small 20Mhz increase with timings at about the same C4 rating. At 400mhz you should leave it at C4 not C5.
 
closed_deal:

True, my RAM can work perfectly @ 4-4-4-12
I just loosened timing to decrease the stress in an attempt to reduce temps

Need some advice gents

Forgot to say In bios always temps of NB and SB are always 7 degrees more than CPU temp
 
My intentions when I picked up a Rampage Formula were to use Crucial Ballistic 1066 memory.
However, after much research I discovered that the Crucial sticks don't work properly
with this board. Quite a few had good results with either Geil, or GSkill on this board.
I'm currently having excellent results with OCZ Reaper 1066 on this board - can
overclock the memory to 1133 stable @ 3.8GHz. on an X3350.

For proper temp measurements with 45nm processors, look into a program called "Real Temp".
You can find it over at the XStreme forums.
 
chicagosof tplan:

I have no problem with RAM
My DDR2 800 is working fine
The only problem I have is temps of processor, NB, and SB
 
My friend's Rampage and Q9300 (7.5x466MHz under an unlapped TRUE and Scythe SFF21F) idle with everything below 40°C load temps under Prime95 (1hour) reach 65°C for the CPU. The other temperatures HWMonitor reports are close to but under 40°C. Everything is at stock voltage except Vcore (2 or 3 notches below VID) and RAM (Dominator 1066 in 1:1 CL4 at 2.05V). It's inside a RC-690 with just the stock fans.

Either the side mounted 120mm makes all the difference (that I doubt) or your board is overheating due to being overvolted. I don't own a RAMPAGE myself but if you check the manual for ExtremeTweaker I'm sure you can figure out which voltage is too high. I'm sure the voltages don't change much but 0.1V makes all the differcence.

My Q6600 has a VID of 1.3V and at stock it runs stable at 1.075V (and 20°C cooler under Prime load). At 3.300GHz (9x367MHz it needs VID) and still runs below 60°C (under an unlapped TRUE with SFF21F).

You're either being overvolted or your board has a buggy temperature readout.

@closed_deal
The HSF on a RAMPAGE sits quite snuggly. It's almost impossible to move it. There's at least 10 pins holding it down. I was trying to route an audio cable by sliding it below the main HSF block and it didn't even budge.
 
closed_deal... that fan is for use with water, or passive cooling only.
Using it on a normal aircooled system will interfere with cooling of the CPU.
I have seen some use a small fan attatched directly to the stock Rampage Formula NB heatsink with good results. However, I agree that too high voltages are mostly the cause for hot NB and SB.
 
I 'would' have said too higher voltage however the Op has already posted the NB voltages:

'CPU: 1.232(1.184)
CPU PLL:1.6(1.584)
FSB Termination: 1.344(1.2)
DRAM: 2.048(1.952)
S.Bridge:1.072(1.072) Yes no change!!
N.Bridge: 1.648(1.360) '

I just thought if it's 'still' overheating on the stock Voltages it must be heatsink coming slightly loose or bad airflow, also I know the board can do up to 485 FSB on only 1.39v NB, as i have the basic X38 verison so surely the X48 would be better or at least the same? His RAM is also running at 1:1 not 5:6 where the latter would have more of a demand on the NB.

Another thing is, that fan doesn't interfere with my 120 TRUE. Even at 1.6V to get over 500 FSB stable on the NB it never gets over 35C Load.

*Edit* The BIOS it's self says the it can handle up to 1.65v on the NB, but anything after 1.7v NB requires 'better cooling'.
 

What is the VID for your E8500 ? 1.15V - 1.2V ?
FSB Termination seems high.
The NB (northbridge) seems high even at 1.45V
The SB (south bridge) handles CrossFire and SATA/USB ... It's probably as cool as it gets.

@closed_deal
The fan doesn't interfere with the TRUE when mounted FRONT to BACK.
Turn it by 90 degrees and it might interfere (I never tried that).
The VREG fan was too close to the rear exhaust fan of the RC-690.
It mounted but it made a high pitched noise when running so it had to go.
 
I've always thought FSB termination and CPU PLL voltages were to be left well alone. I read this extract when first starting on intel boards not seen it yet on AM2?:

'FSB Termination voltage, which is the termination voltage of the host bus but, more importantly, also the bus supply voltage. Intel’s specifications allow voltage levels between 0.83 and 1.65 on the termination buffers, however, keep in mind that the voltage is the same as the bus supply voltage, which is limited to a maximum of 1.29 according to Intel’s specifications. We did find that increasing the FSB termination voltage caused the CPU temperature to increase, at least compared to the “Auto” setting. Consequently, also the CPU throttling kicked in earlier and, particularly in graphics applications, the system had a tendency to freeze, followed by ATI’s VPU recovery message blaming ATI’s drivers.

Keep in mind here that the only thing changed was the manual setting of the FSB termination voltage, while all other system parameters remained identical. On the other hand, the strange behavior of misreporting benchmark results could be completely eliminated, with the caveat that higher bus frequencies required higher termination … er, bus supply voltages. In so far, all of this makes sense now. The Prescott with its much better utilization of the bus puts more strain on the bus itself including the clock domains – which, therefore heat up faster and consequently, need more voltage. On the other hand, a higher bus supply voltage also causes the bus to run hotter and, in addition, may cause more passive power drain from the CPU- which consequently will run hotter and throttle earlier.'

Could be another cause, however he's still running at default 1.2v and 1.584. The second is slightly higher than normal 1.55v.
 
Ah yes, read that over the weekend. Concerned on giving my chip too much voltage now till case arrives :). Damned UK being slow releasing Antec 1200 arggh. Well nuff reading for me today, i'm off to work.

P.S if you come across some more detailed info on it, i'd appreciate a link 😀. Thankyou.
 
Thanks for the comments

Inoticed few strange things
If I set CPU Voltage in Extreme tweaker (Bios)to 1.25V Harware monitor will report 1.20V only
And it is always less 0.05V
I set FSB Termination Voltage to 1.28V and again Hardware Monitor(Bios) is reporting 1.21V
Set NB Voltage to 1.39V and Hardware Monitor is reporting 1.42V
BY the way Real Temp 2.5 always reporting temps 10 degrees less than CoreTemp 0.98.1
CoreTemp 0.98.1 considers Tjmax 105 but Real Temp 2.5 consider it 95
Which one is correct ???


 
By the way both Real Temp 2.5 and CoreTemp 0.98.1 are reporting the same Distance to TJ Max (41 Degrees)
Today my Core Temps under Prime95 are 55in (RealTemp 2.5) and 65 in (CoreTemp 0.98.1)
Also CoreTemp 0.98.1 is reporting VID 1.1125V
I have to say Ambient temp is 25 degrees Cel.
 


I can assure you that I touched NB heatsink but I'm fully aware of static charge danger and I'm used to touch the case before touching any electronic part: mobo, ram, graphic card,...........etc

NB heatsink fan can not be installed with Ultra 120 Extreme
 
The static discharge wasn't an issue. If you had one the board would likely not even power up.
Check if the motherboard cooler is mounted firmly over the northbridge.
If it moves around freely by about 3mm or more that could be the issue but your CPU is still quite hot. Have you tried the stock thermalright thermal paste? It could be the AS paste is bad(from a bad batch).

I think CoreTemp is safer as it reports higher values(always good to be on the safe side unless you can afford to buy a new chip).
Have you checked HWMonitor from CPUID?
It also monitors the cputin and systin values from the boards. If your disks are above 35 it could indicate bad airflow and so on.
 
Thanks Andrius

Im sure that NB cooler is not even 0.3MM far from chip
I did not try thermalright thermal paste cause I've been told it hardens more than AS5 and wil be hard to remove to clean and re-apply after 6-12month
I thought also about air flow so I opened both sides of the case and noticed temp drop of 5 degrees
HWMonitor from CPUID is giving the same high temps of CoreTemp
HDD temps never go more than 35
my last shot will be trying to play with Load Line Calibration in bios which only can compensate Vdroop

Ihave another issue
I installed first 1 HDD WD Raptor 150 GB and installed Win XP
Then added another same HDD
In bios and device manager I can see both
Only in my computor I can see one only "C"with OS on
Do not have raid setup
How can I get the other one ??
Under Disk Manafement it is listed as Basic and Unallocated
Right click on the word Basic giving me the option to cange to dynamic
Right click on the word Unallocated giving me the option to make new partition
The C drive is listed as Basic disk why this one wants to be dynamic ??
And second I do not want the Hdd to be as partition, I want it to act as the slave HDD in EIDE Hard Disks setup
Is Raid the only way to go ??
I do not want to mirror disk C or back it up
 
You have to create a "logic disk" first(I think windows offers a wizard for that, if not right click on the unallocated space bar in Disk Management). Then you create a partition and then you format the drive. Each drive needs a partition so it can be accessed under a filesystem.
You can leave it at basic but you must create a partition (just choose maximum available size if you only want one partition IE only drive D).
I think Dynamic Disk has something to do with being removable (SATA option).
Just as a sidenote raid has nothing to do with this and you don't have to worry about it unless you want raid (but you need 2 similar if not the same disks or you are wasting space).
 
Thanks again Andrius
Ihave two identical HDD
WD Raptor 150GB
Cause I'm planning to install Vista Ultimate on the second one(Dual Boot System)
I'm fedup with OC
OC'ed only to 3.6 GHz (9X400)
Proc temp 62 under Prime 95 after 1 hour and case opened (Idle 51)
CPU Voltage 1.19
North bridge Voltage 1.45(No matter what I set in AI, Hardware Monitor will report 1.44-1.46)
I'm totally convinced that either Rampage Formula is a piece of s***t or mine is
I read some reviews in other sites about the heat of NB and SB and the recommendation of removing both and applying AS5 will bring temps down 10 degrees
Unfortunately I do not have a factory to strip a 300$ mobo and rebuild it
MAAAAAAAAAAAN
I have a furnace
I can not keep my finger on RAM,NB heatsink, SB, heat sink more 5-6 seconds with case opened and ambient temp 25
Even GPU temp 58
The only reasonable explanation is this mobo has a diesel engine
MY last shot to run it at default and see temps
I'm quite sure they'll hit 60 under Prime 95 after 1 hour

 
Two Raptors. Make sure you have the swap/pagefile for each system on the drive that does not have the OS installed.
SATA1 = WinXP Install : Vista swap/pagefile
SATA2 = Vista Install : WinXP swap/pagefile

Do you have the latest BIOS for the RAMPAGE? If you have UPS try flashing it again (maybe it's a bad flash).

My Q6600 (VID=1.30000V) : (frequency and Vcore)
All temperatures are CPUID/CoreTemp.
(it's not stable at this voltage but it's as far as I was willing to go)
3.6GHz (9x400MHz) and 1.4250V it idles below 40°C.
Prime95 load temps I can't really say as 1 core failed after about a minute(completion of first tests) but all cores were still below 50°C.

3.3GHz (9x367MHz) and 1.28750V it idles at around 35°C. Prime95 24h run leaves a maximum of 54/55/50/48°C.

3.0GHz (9x333MHz) and 1.22500V it idles at around 33°C. A Prime95 24h run leaves a maximum load of 54/54/49/47°C.

What I'm trying to say is. Your idle temperatures are way to high for a dual core. And Rampage cooling should be quite good so there's something wrong with your board ...
 
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