Question about AMD Black Edition Overclocking Guide‏

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Yoshinat0r

Yoshinat0r

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Nov 22, 2010
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I've read through the guide on overclocking black edition processors, and it is excellent, but there is something I don't understand. In the guide it said:

"First,you need to manually set your memory speed, timings, and the required memory slot voltage, to your memory manufacturers exact requirements"

but I'm not sure exactly how to find my memory manufacturer's exact requirements for those settings. Same thing with this line as well:

"All your specification speeds like Memory, Hyper Transport, or North Bridge need to all be set to their default settings"

How do I figure out the default settings for those specification speeds? Does it just mean to set them to auto?

I know these are probably really simple questions but I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right before I start overclocking.
 
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You mean what timings do I have set right now? Right now I'm running it at 8-8-8-24 @ 800 MHz DDR3 1600

I think the cpu frequency might be what's failing prime, because I tried lowering it to 3.9 GHz and I was able to run prime for about 10 mins before I crashed. Compare that to crashing after 10 seconds at 4 GHz. That would suck though, because I'd probably have to lower it to 3.8 GHz to get it completely stable under prime, possibly even lower. Should I try raising the CPU North Bridge voltage and see if that'll do the trick? Right now it's at 1.1v, not sure how high I should try to go with it.

 
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Backing it back down would be a good idea, maybe even stock and see if you can get a couple hours of prime off as a basis for stability.

How does it do if you use those timings and set it to 1333 ? Have you tried 9-9-9-24 @1600?

You could try bumping the nb voltage one notch, not sure that's your answer yet.

If you want to run 1600 I would try raising the NB Freq. to 2400 or just above CPU_NB voltage on auto or 1.25v to 1.35v., should not need 1.4v.(low as possible)

 
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I have tried using many different looser timings and slower speeds, including 1333 MHz, as well as 9-9-9-24 @ 1600, and the results are the same. 4 GHz in prime will blue screen in about 10 seconds.

So I tried lowering the cpu frequency to 3.8 GHz, ran prime for 30 minutes successfully, have not tried to go longer. I left the voltage the same though, 1.46v, which is probably pretty high for running 3.8 GHz. It's funny though, on newegg there was a review on the 965 BE cpu from a guy who said he couldn't get his cpu to run stable at anything higher than 3.8 GHz on windows 7. He said on XP he was able to easily hit 4.3. I'm wondering now if the OS might be at fault here.
 
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Good, you have been trying...


My understanding is 3.8@1.4ish is kind of the common for C3.

That is what 4ryan6 suggested earlier. But hitting a freq. and being stable are 2 different things. Lots of folks are claiming 4.0+ with W7/64. You could do a dual boot to a stripped down 32bit just for stressing and benchmarking, but you would still want to be stable in your 24/7 os...

If your temps are all still good, do try running your NB at 2400 to 2600 just for giggles.

"In general the CPU NB clock should be at least three times the Memory
clock (example in case of DDR3-1600: 3 x 800MHz = 2400MHz NB clock)."

p.12 http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/pdf/AMD_Dragon_AM3_AM2_Performance_Tuning_Guide.pdf
 
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Ok well I can get the CPU NB Freq. at 2400mhz with no voltage increase and pass 3dmark06. I can also get it to 2600mhz and pass 3dmark06 by increasing the CPU NB voltage from its initial 1.10v to 1.13v.

Did you want me to try this to see if I could get lower timings with DDR3 1600, or to see if I could run prime successfully at 4 GHz CPU Freq.?
 
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Hmm, I was curious so I ran WEI with the increased CPU NB freq. and my score went up .1 for memory, that's cool, would it hurt to just leave the freq. where it is? How do I find out how hot the CPU NB is getting?
 
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Ok, well this is interesting. With the increased CPU NB Freq, I tried 7-9-7-24 @ DDR3 1600, and it didn't hang on a black screen when restarting. It still automatically changed it down to DDR3 1333, however. When I tried 6-9-6-24, it hung on a black screen like it did before, and after manually switching off the power and turning it back on twice, it successfully posted, but the speed and timings were changed to 6-6-6-15 @ DDR3 800, just like before.

Do you think maybe I just need to give the RAM a little more volts? It's already at 1.65v
 
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I would try the safe 1600 timings of 9-9-9-24-2t that 4ryan6 suggested first. Where intel systems are often able to run memory at their rated voltages, amd systems often need a slight voltage increase to run at the same rated speeds.

I would try bumping memory voltage 1.66,1.67,1.68 as well as cpu_nb (not nb) voltage...
 
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Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I upped the memory voltage by just 1 increment, 1.67v, and prime no longer gives a bsod, instead it gives fatal errors on random cores and stops them.

Also I'm not sure how high I should try going with the CPU NB voltage. It was originally at 1.10v, I have it increased to 1.13v to run 2600mhz on the CPU NB, should I increase it further to see if that's the reason prime is not running stable?
 
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Nevermind, the reason prime is giving me fatal errors is because the CPU NB is clocked to 2600 MHz, when I clock it down to 2400, I don't get them anymore, but prime will still give instant bsod on 4 GHz, and bsod after 20 minutes on 3.9 GHz.

One weird thing is if I increase the RAM voltage by one notch, prime won't give a bsod on 4 GHz, but will instead just go black and restart the computer.
 
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@yoshinat0r

These guys have given you some good advice.

Have you tried running memory diagnostic tests, to see if your memory modules are producing any errors?

You need to completely eliminate the possibility of of having bad modules, or you'll still be trying to figure this out this time next month.

Think about this logically, you said the OCZ tech told you to run the spec'd timings, personally I think you got a paper tech!

What I mean by that is one that gave you an answer from a pre-prepared response list, because I was confident he was going to tell you to relax the timings, and was rather shocked when he told you different.

When you tried his suggestion you got nowhere, just maybe there is a hardware reason this is happening run memtest86 with both modules, if any errors at all, run the modules individually.

Do this not overclocked at all, and see what you get.

Now if you get errors with both modules set to the OCZ techs suggestion, relax the timings and see if the errors continue, if you get all the way to the cas 9 setting I suggested, and you still get errors, you got at least one bad memory module for sure.

With the lower voltage modules don't increase the voltage past 1.67v, you really should leave it at 1.65v, they were pretested to run 1600mhz @ 1.65v, the problem is more than likely for sure either the timings aren't right or a bad module.

By the way? You are running your memory modules in the white slots right?

Quote from your manual:
If you adopt DDR3 1800/1600 memory modules on this motherboard,
it is recommended to install them on DDR3_A2 and DDR3_B2 slots.
Click to expand...

That is the white slots on your motherboard.

 
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Ok, just to make sure this was not overlooked, this is what I said earlier regarding the timing issue with my motherboard:

"My motherboard seems to follow a strict pattern.

It won't accept CAS Latency of 6 at any speed higher than 535 MHz
It won't accept CAS Latency of 7 at any speed higher than 666 MHz
It will accept CAS Latency of 8 at all speeds up to 800 MHz

If I try to set the speed of the RAM any higher than the speeds I listed above for the 6 and 7 CAS Latencys, my motherboard will follow another strict pattern.

After the settings are saved in the BIOS, the system will restart and hang on a black screen. After I manually switch the power off and switch it back on, the system will hang on a black screen again. After manually switching the power off and switching it back on again, the system will finally post, but the memory timing and speed will be changed to 6-6-6-15 @ 400 MHz DDR3 800. It will always hang two times, and successfully post on the third try."

So basically, I can't even "test" 6-9-6-30 @ 800 MHz DDR3 1600 because when the system restarts after saving the settings in the BIOS, my motherboard resets the memory to 6-6-6-15 @ 400 MHz DDR3 800 (which I confirm by booting into memtest). It does this with no overclocking going on at all.

Now I have ran memtest many times with many different timings and speeds, and I have never once gotten an error. I think that by now a bad memory module would have shown itself.

And yes the memory is together in the white slots.

All that aside, I think I have found a stable overclock for my cpu freq. Honestly I have tried so many different things, and it all just ended up boiling down to the cpu multiplier, 3.9 GHz is not completely stable in prime and will bsod in a time period of about 15 minutes, 4.0 GHz isn't stable at all in prime even for a few seconds, but 3.8 GHz seems rock solid, so far I ran prime for 45 minutes with no errors or crashes, I know I should go a few hours to make sure. But anything higher than 3.8 GHz is not completely stable under prime, I don't know what it is, could be the OS, who knows. I have tried going as high as 1.5v with the CPU Vcore, didn't even help at all with 4.0 GHz, but even if it did, I would not want to run my CPU VCore that high 24/7. 3.9 GHz I have set it to 1.46v and can still only get like 15 minutes in prime before it crashes. Compare that to what I can run 3.8 GHz stable at, 1.41v and so far rock-solid under prime. I can probably under-voltage it even more, as I have not tried yet. But that difference in voltage between 4.0 GHz @ 1.46v (not stable at all in prime), and 3.8 GHz @ 1.41v (so far completely stable in prime), makes like an 8 degree Celsius difference in temps under full load. That is not even worth the extra MHz.

I can do 3.9 and 4.0 GHz perfectly stable in the OS, gaming, and what-not, and I can pass 3dmark, but it bothers me that they can't pass prime, and I have no idea why. Raising the CPU VCore for those two CPU Frequencies doesn't seem to make any difference at all in prime, which makes me think it is not an issue with the CPU VCore, but something else that is not liking the cpu running that fast, and is causing me to crash in prime.

Now as far as these memory timing issues go, I would like to figure this out, but I can't see anything left to try, it seems like I have pretty much tried everything. It's like my motherboard is programmed to instantly reject certain timings at certain speeds and there's nothing I can do about it.
 
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You've definitely given a 100% effort, 3.8G in Win7 64bit may not be as high as you would have liked to be but is a perfectly acceptable solid overclock.

You know for sure from everything you've tried where your stability is and you can depend on that.

The operating system you're running is a factor in how high the stable overclock can get in my own tests WinXP Pro 32bit clocks higher than WinVista 64bit does which is a problem for me dual booting, as I have to run the clock that Vista 64 accepts or have problems with stability.

In my setup both operating systems are each installed on their own HDD, the HDDs themselves are the same brand, model, and size, the common feature they share is the rest of the system hardware.

If I set my overclock to what is stable in Win32 and try to boot and run that same clock in Vista64, it's no joy every time, I've even mentioned that in the guide.

So even though Win32 allows a higher stable clock, to be able to dual boot problem free requires running the clock Vista64 will accept.

I have to say I'm proud of your efforts, you've attacked this issue with diligence and haven't thrown your computer out the window, which becomes a tempting factor sometimes for sure. Ryan
 
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Honestly I was having a lot of fun with it :na: mainly because it is a very valuable experience to me. I have been wanting to get familiar with overclocking for a long time now, and now that I have troubleshooted many different things and have seen how different settings affect different things, I feel much more knowledgable about the whole thing.

3.8 GHz is fine with me, I don't think I'm going to miss the extra 200 MHz. Also 4.0 GHz needs about 1.46v just to pass 3dmark, that voltage was causing the temperature to go as high as 60'C under full load, I read somewhere that processors cannot perform any faster than their speed at 55'C. I forget how they worded it, but I imagine my initial goal would be to get an overclock that does not exceed 55'C, also for stability's sake. 3.8 GHz running at 1.38v (have managed to undervolt it quite a bit and still stable in prime) peaks at like 53'C, which is ideal I'd imagine. Also have to take into consideration that it's December where I live it's very cold right now, what are those temperatures going to be like in the summer? There's no way I would be able to run 4.0 GHz when that time comes along, it would probably easily hit 65'C.

Thanks everybody for the much needed assistance, and I know I asked a lot of questions and probably seemed like a pain at times, but I have certainly learned a lot, that's for sure :lol:
 
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I think your RAMs are holding you back. What does CPUz say under the SPD tab?

16x240MHz should work great if you get your voltages right - drop the memory ratio in the BIOS to 667MHz (x240MHz will bring your memory back to spec).

I'd work the voltage back -.0125v, and keep working it back until you lose stability. The lower you can run the volts the better. Manually set where you can as *Auto* tends to over-volt.

You might find 16x240 at 1.3375v is a sweet spot and you can work the cpu multi and vcore from there. It's pretty easy to find the wall - both ways. At the high end volt-wall when you stress your temps will simply keep climbing and climbing (better cooling helps here, of course).

And if you are still with me - LOL - when RAMs go wacky with a Phenom II the IMC wants to default to 1333. You have to find a combination of clock speed and memory ratio which suits that nicely - like 250MHz with the 533 ratio. You drop from 1600 to 1333 but your IMC is running 2500MHz (which should increase bandwidth 10% and reduce latency the same).

and GENERALLY your timings should reflect the reported SPD tab from CPUz at that ratio.

16x250MHz = 4GHZ [:jaydeejohn:5] at 1.35v ? 😀

Good luck with that!
 
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I think you will find a more stable, higher over-clock using a combination of the clock and the multi - possibly at less volts with good cooling.

What are the SPD readings? Until we smooth that over you will be limited.
 
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cpuzspdtab.jpg
 
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Looks like 7-7-7-16@1333 is where it wants to be. Once again, I think because of the memory issue the IMC wants to run at 1333.

Start with 14x250MHz with the 533 ratio. Keep nudging the volts back until you find the minimum. From that point work your way upward with the CPU multi and nudging the volts back up.

You've hit the volt wall at 1.46v and your temps simply rise too high at load. You need this down below 1.4v if possible to give you some working room.

*19* is probably as far as you will go with the CPU multi. 15x240 with lower volts gives you room to use the cpu multiplier to your advantage.

Onward and upward - LOL
 
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Ok setting the FSB to 250 MHz caused bsod upon boot so I tried 240, works perfectly. I suppose my max FSB is somewhere in the 240 range then? Here is what I have right now:

15x240 3.6 GHz CPU
1280 MHz RAM

Man, so far I've gotten as low as 1.26v on the CPU at 3.6 GHz, 40 minutes stable under prime. Should I just stop here and try to raise the cpu mult now, bumping up the volts slightly as I go?
 
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Upon raising the cpu mult to 16 (bringing the freq to 3840 MHz) I had to increases the vcore to 1.40v to get stable in prime. It makes sense, because previously I was running 3800 MHz at 1.37v stable, so I guess the additional 40 MHz really required a bit of extra juice. At this point it is pointless to even try to shoot for any higher cpu freq. since there is hardly any headroom left. I tried loosening the memory timings to 9-9-9-24 as well, cpu still needed 1.40v @ 3840 MHz to be stable in prime.
 
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