Stable prime95 small FFT and Memtest but crashes on Prime95 Blend

[VinceKnight]

Hello,
I'm new to the Overclocking and PC building world in general. I built my PC a couple of months ago and have been running at stock speeds until recently when I decided to attempt overclocking, after watching several videos as well as reading many articles and posts.

The Problem that I am currently Running into is this:

After overclocking my AMD FX-6300 to 4.3GHz @ 1.3750v I am able to run Prime95 Small FFT for 10hrs+ (Quit at that point figuring I had a stable overclock).
I then attempted to run the Prime95 Blend test and at some point within an hour and a half the system jammed up, no BSOD or restart just locked up to where mouse wouldn't move and PC wouldn't respond except to a hard restart)
Because of this I ran a Memtest (The windows version that is built in) it ran through 2 cycles and never returned an error.
The only adjustments I made while overclocking, besides turning off some features like Cool n Quiet and C6 state, were to the Core clock Multiplier and the Core Voltage. At this point I'm wondering where I possibly went wrong with my overclock or if it occurred because I didn't make ANY changes to the RAM settings.

In CPUID HWMonitor the temps are as follows in Celsius (After Running Prime95 Small for 10 min):
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0:
SYSTIN: 30 29 30
CPUTIN: 47 37 57
AUXTIN: 33 29 35
TMPIN3: 40 40 40

AMD FX-6300:
Package: 18 15 38

Also the CPU is being cooled by a Corsair H60 water cooler and I have 5 x 120mm intakes and 2 x 120mm exhausts.

Any help would be appreciated

Edit: Just got done running Memtest86+ v. 5.01 for 4 full passes taking about 6hrs. 24min. with 0 errors. Will try P95 blend test again to see if there is any change.

Edit: Ran Prime95 blend test and had system freeze at 22 min. which is about the same amount of time that passed before freeze up the last time I ran it. Really lost at this point...

 

[Ellis_D]

Do you know if you're crashing during a test or if the crash happens at the start/end of a test?

 

[VinceKnight]

Do you know if you're crashing during a test or if the crash happens at the start/end of a test?

Unsure but will run it again and try to find out

 

[Ellis_D]

Right now, I'm thinking the issue might be when Prime95 transitions from a less-intensive test to a more intensive test and you're experiencing vdroop, which would explain why this problem is only in blend and not in SmallFFTs. You can try adjusting your Load Line Calibration (LLC) options to prevent this. I'd recommend using the medium settings or lower to test this. Be very careful, using the more aggressive settings can overvolt your CPU and cause your system to fry. Also, make sure you look up how its implemented on your motherboard. There's really no standard for LLC and some manufacturers list the different options in backwards ways, such as "level 1" being the most aggressive while others will use confusing terms like "turbo" and "extreme" instead of actually describing what its doing to your system.

 

[VinceKnight]

Right now, I'm thinking the issue might be when Prime95 transitions from a less-intensive test to a more intensive test and you're experiencing vdroop, which would explain why this problem is only in blend and not in SmallFFTs. You can try adjusting your Load Line Calibration (LLC) options to prevent this. I'd recommend using the medium settings or lower to test this. Be very careful, using the more aggressive settings can overvolt your CPU and cause your system to fry

Will have to check that out. This last run of p95 blend only lasted 18 min. instead of 22 here is all of the information I could collect between HWMonitor and the P95 screen:
HWMonitor
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0
Voltages Value Min Max
CPUVCore 1.288v 0.824 1.344
VIN1 1.760 1.752 1.808
AVCC 3.344 3.328 3.376
3VCC 3.328 3.312 3.360
VIN4 1.432 1.416 1.440
VIN5 1.680 1.680 1.688
VIN6 0.672 0.664 0.680
Temps
SYSTIN 29C 28 29
CPUTIN 55 34 57
AUXTIN 32 30 37
TMPIN3 40 40 40
AMD FX-6300
Package 36C 12 38
R7 260X
TMPIN0 30C 30 32

Prime95
(23:17) Test 1, 26000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M12451841 using AMD K10 type-2 FFT length 640K, Pass1=640, Pass2=1K
(23:23) Self-test 640K passed!
(23:23) Test 1, 3200000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M172031 using AMD K10 type-1 FFT length 8K, Pass1=32, Pass2=256
(23:30) Self-test 8K passed!
(23:30) Test 1, 21000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M14155777 using AMD K10 type-2 FFT length 720K, Pass1=320, Pass2=2304

Screen froze at 23:35 presumably before this last test was finished

 

[VinceKnight]

So went into the BIOS for Load line calibration and found that I have all of 3 settings to choose from.

Enabled (For AM3) this is what it was set on previously

Disabled (For AM3+)

Auto

I changed the setting from 'Enabled' to 'Auto' hoping perhaps that would solve the issue. No such luck in that direction. After changing the setting I lasted 36min. in p95 blend. This time it cut out within 2 min of starting the last logged test rather than 5 min.

 

[Ellis_D]

If that's not the issue then I'm stumped. I'm also not 100% familiar with AMD hardware so I don't know whether or not the turbo features could come into play in this situation. Also have you considered that the overclock is just plain unstable? If your cooling can handle it, try increasing the voltage. If your cooling can't, then maybe consider lowering the overclock to find something more stable.

 

[4Ryan6]

Sounds like you're stumbling around in the dark making mostly the same mistakes a lot do new to overclocking, you get excited and start overclocking before you actually know what you're doing!

Overclocking an unlocked multiplier AMD CPU is as simple as overclocking gets!

It is a matter of supplying enough CPU voltage to support the multiplier you are trying to run, but if the rest of the manual BIOS settings are not set in your favor, and you're trying to run too high of memory speed, it keeps crashing? Oh My!

Learn how to overclock first and then do it!

And do not disregard heat, you have to have good cooling to reach high overclocks, and high overclocks defined; is what your knowledge and cooling system will allow!

Once you learn what you are doing the link below will help you get 100% rock solid 24/7 stable.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2345618/reaching-cpu-overclocking-stability.html

 

[4Ryan6]

I watched this to see if his information is correct and it is! Good Luck!

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb1QDpRnOvw"][/video]

 

[VinceKnight]

Sounds like you're stumbling around in the dark making mostly the same mistakes a lot do new to overclocking, you get excited and start overclocking before you actually know what you're doing!

Overclocking an unlocked multiplier AMD CPU is as simple as overclocking gets!

It is a matter of supplying enough CPU voltage to support the multiplier you are trying to run, but if the rest of the manual BIOS settings are not set in your favor, and you're trying to run too high of memory speed, it keeps crashing? Oh My!

Learn how to overclock first and then do it!

And do not disregard heat, you have to have good cooling to reach high overclocks, and high overclocks defined; is what your knowledge and cooling system will allow!

Once you learn what you are doing the link below will help you get 100% rock solid 24/7 stable.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2345618/reaching-cpu-overclocking-stability.html

1. I am having no crashing in any games, or benchmarking utilities whatsoever. The only time I get a system freeze is during the Prime95 Blend test. All other test come back clear no problem and games and benchmarks run wonderfully.
2. I was under the impression that Vcore has no effect on RAM. Are you saying that it does indeed affect the RAM?
3. The only changes I have made to my RAM settings is taking them from the default (Which Blend was failing on) and setting them to Manufacturer's specs (Which Blend is still failing on)
4. From everything I've been able to find my temperatures are just fine all around with a bit of room to spare.

I had attempted the overclock after reading numerous guides and tips and figured I would give it a shot. I was not arrogant enough to think that I would get it completely right on the first try. And I unfortunately do not have someone sitting here next to me able to walk me through it. When I ran into a problem I was told this was the best place to go for answers and help.
If I was misinformed please direct me, if you could, to somewhere that will be able to help me solve this issue.

 

[VinceKnight]

I watched this to see if his information is correct and it is! Good Luck!

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb1QDpRnOvw"][/video]

lol at least I picked a good one to watch. That is one of a couple of videos that I watched before I attempted the overclock. I also read through the AMD FX-overclock guide (Produced by AMD)

 

[VinceKnight]

Well 4Ryan6 it appears that your intuition was correct. I bumped the Vcore up one more notch taking it to 1.3875v and now Prime95 Blend runs over night no problems. Thank you for the suggestion and thank you as well Ellis_D. You both we a wonderful help. Time to go game