The Overclocking Misadventures of TJS :P

[TJS]

Hello, all, it's TJS with the latest FTASM (thats Faster Than A Speeding Mullet ) build. Specs of the machine will be seen below later, suffice it to say the main ingredients are an Intel i5 650, an MSI GD65 (replacing the bonked GD85, which will likely be replaced by a Fuzion or something even better in the near future), GeIL DDR3-2133 RAM and a Corsair TX750W PSU.

As some of you know I might have borked my first mobo, or if I'm lucky (read: not a tard) was borked before I got it. All other components are in good order so far, even the HD5870 I thought might have been ganked to begin with. I'm also using Windows 7 32-bit OS, wasn't able to get a copy of the 64-bit from an associate, will likely upgrade in the future though.

Overclocking the GD65 has been a load of laughs so far, with no tears as of yet. I REALLY WISH I HAD A CMOS RESET BUTTON LIKE THE GD85 HAS!! I might yet soder a DIP switch like a did a couple builds back, sure was convenient... ...but as of right now I'm pushing 3.85GHz from a stock 3.195, and if the MSI Control Center is to be believed then it isn't even breaking a sweat. Seriously, Prime 95 has only gotten it to 37C on the CPU intensive test, lasted for 22 minutes before I hit the stop button. The catch? The Control Center also says my CPU multiplier is 25, while CPUZ correctly identifies the multi as 24. You go, MSI, you go...

Of course earlier in the night I couldn't get P95 to last more than 60 seconds with a mild overclock of about 3.4 - 3.5, without manually changing the memory and voltages. Nothing drastic, mind you, but just a nudge here and there, and voila (with 3 delays to take off the side door and do the ol' manual CMOS clearing ;[ ! ) It's a crazy world, so why shouldn't computers be just as loony?

More to come...

TJS

"Whoever said God works in mysterious ways never owned a computer."-TJS

 

[siravarice]

I like the idea of the Fuzion, that you can use Green and Red corners on the same board in unison, although, I assume it's not like SLI or Crossfire? More for Folding and things like that?

Looks like a tight build there too, can't wait to see pics!

 

[TJS]

I like the idea of the Fuzion, that you can use Green and Red corners on the same board in unison, although, I assume it's not like SLI or Crossfire? More for Folding and things like that?

Looks like a tight build there too, can't wait to see pics!

I actually saw that mobo today, thought it might be a cool idea if you have one brand but you want to 'upgrade' and the other brand has something new and kickin' without kickin' in your wallet. Didn't check to see if you can cross-platform SLI or Crossfire either, I haven't given it a thought since I got tired of nVidia having SLI but only usable on one monitor. (Have they fixed that yet? I won't go dual-card again until I can have dual or triple monitor.) And thanks for the good word, I will whip out the digital camera later... not much to look at, but come #3!! or high water I'll make it fast!

Came back to the apartment this afternoon to do a little overclocking and P95 it for as long as it will go... 3.95GHz with RAM @ 7-7-7-25-60-1T, large FFTs (?) for max heat, lasted more than 5 hours (I stopped it), but the MSI 'Control Center' didn't, it wussed out and stopped working. Go figure.

I can see I'm going to have a heckuva time figuring out all the voltage tweaks and keeping a synch on the bclk/RAM/QPi, gotta read up on that while doing small increases. I'm also wondering about the RAM, its rated 2133 speed at 9-9-9-27 (IIRC), I sincerely hope the mobo doesn't limit it.speaking of the mobo, the first mobo that is, its past the Newegg RMA date and I decided I would just eat it. Honestly it might be my fault it went bad and I'm not above taking responsibility for my mistakes (as costly as this one was). With that said I may not go with the MSI GD-85 again but rather the ASUS Rampage. I figure for another $20 over the MSI that thing looks like it was REALLY made to go into the stratosphere, would be really nice if not for the garrish red and ridiculous looking cooling, but I'm not in this for the bling, only the speed.

Back to the BIOS...

TJS

PS: Goal is 4.4GHz, higher is a bonus, 4.2 is the minimum (especially for a board touted as an overclocking/gaming board. Don't let me down, MSI...)

 

[TJS]

Back at it again today, actually I was at it yesterday as well, to be honest I haven't really stopped (except for work) since Sunday night. Yep, gotta see what this thing can do...

And it's not doing bad. So far I have it up to 4.38GHz, but the RAM is really relaxed at 912MHz 11/10/10/30, so the overall speed factor is negligible. And the stability is even more suspect, past 4.15GHz I've had lots of little hiccups (Internet Explorer shutting down, WMP shuts down) and the shutdown/reboot has happened a few times, as well as the freeze. But despite all that I'm confident that even at this speed, and maybe further, I can work all those problems out.

Found one thing out... MSI 'Control Center' temperature monitor isn't worth beans. Grabbed the HWMonitor (CPUID) to go with CPUZ, found out the temps when P95'ing were a good bit more. Saw as high as 57C at one time but at a higher overclock I did stress testing with all three modes in P95 and the highest temp was 49C... not bad at all compared to my C2D E6600 @ 3.6GHz/60+C. I'm going to do some internet sniffing and see if I can find out what the high's are for this chips temps and if I'm going to blow it up or if my Tuniq is doing an outstanding job... or both.

As usual, back to the drawing board...

TJS

 

[TJS]

Looked on the web for some other overclocking i5 650 ventures and found this out there...

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16093/35/

...appears I'm doing alright, even with my slightly watered down GD-65. Dude took the volts up to 1.424, while I think I have mine at 1.38 or thereabouts. Wait, hold on... whoops, just checked out the Z and it shows 1.416V, guess I'm higher than I thought. Speed is at 4.57GHz though so I'm in the ballpark, though it seems like I'll be stopping at 4.6GHz because much higher and I get the idea (feeling, intuition) that this sucker might go up like fireworks if I keep pushing like I have.

SuperPi 1M @ 9.937... always wanted to break the 10 second barrier.

 

[FarFarAway]

Wow nice mate, reps for some awesome clocking. Keep going

 

[TJS]

Looked on the web for some other overclocking i5 650 ventures and found this out there...

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16093/35/

...appears I'm doing alright, even with my slightly watered down GD-65. Dude took the volts up to 1.424, while I think I have mine at 1.38 or thereabouts. Wait, hold on... whoops, just checked out the Z and it shows 1.416V, guess I'm higher than I thought. Speed is at 4.57GHz though so I'm in the ballpark, though it seems like I'll be stopping at 4.6GHz because much higher and I get the idea (feeling, intuition) that this sucker might go up like fireworks if I keep pushing like I have.

SuperPi 1M @ 9.937... always wanted to break the 10 second barrier.

Thanks, Kemp! But like I said I don't think I'll go much higher. The temps hit 63C last night, and while adventurous I don't want to torch my new setup after just getting it together. It fared well against the FPU stress test last night, but didn't last long against the 'blend' test that stresses RAM... think that might just be an abberation, though. Tonight I'll find MEMTEST or another program to help me make sure my RAM is stable, as well as trying to tighten the RAM while keeping it stable.

On the good side it stayed on all last night, no lock ups or freezes (I use my pc for an alarm clock, my Logitech Z5500 sub/control box plus Klipsch Pro Media satellite speakers make a really good combo, I need something loud to wake me up.

I'll go back at it tonight, though, I think 1.45V will be my max fro OC'ing, see if that makes it good and stable while praying that it doesn't take the heat to high. I'm also going to throw the case door back on, it has a couple fans that should help with the cooling. One thing I am really happy about is that my room temp isn't really cold, at best it would be 'cool', but I do need a thermometer just so I'm not fooling myself. I'd say it's around 70-73F but then again my guesses aren't worth a bucket of sand.

Coming soon... BFBC2 GAMING!! yep, gotta have fun and see how well this system can game. ;]

TJS

 

[FarFarAway]

Good to see your gonna chuck some games at it mate, have fun

 

[TJS]

Good to see your gonna chuck some games at it mate, have fun

Oh yeah, gotta give it something other than just benchies to chew on! (hey, where are the emoticons... can't seem to find them. [???])

*Don't know how that worked out, I thought I quoted your post, not mine. :\

 

[TJS]

(Got a few minutes at work...)

Up at it again last night, but with the ceiling being hit it was time to scale back and look for a good, stable overclock. As far as the cpu and ram are concerned I was able to stay above 4.5GHz/940MHz and survive SuperPi followed by the three P95 tests. Fired it up this afternoon and all was still roses.

What is a good, free download that will bench your graphics? I used to use 3DMark 05 and 06, I've seen Vantage but it says its for Vista... is this also good for Win7? I'm going to load BFBC2 tonight but want to something that will really stress the graphics along with the cpu and ram. Also, is there a program and website that lets you compare your overclocking experiences, a la 3DMark, but for cpu scores instead of graphics? Curious as to where my rig comes in among the masses... ;]

See y'all later,

TJS

 

[killablade]

I'm sure Vantage will run on W7 just fine. Try it, see what it comes up with.

 

[TJS]

Well I tried it and it locked up on the OPS(?) test, but thats probably an unstable system vs an OS issue. But PC Mark Vantage is a one-shot deal, are there any programs that you can run repeatedly?

 

[TJS]

I've decided that 4.525GHz is good to go, passes the stress tests (P95) and played BFBC2 without a hitch. (If only I could play BFBC2 without sucking. ) Cranked up the GPU to 900/1250 and used FurMark to make sure its G2G.

Got some pictures I'll post tomorrow, and a change to the sig with the new specs. See y'all then...

TJS

 

[TJS]

Little update while I have a moment... so far so good, with the exception of throttling back the video card to stock specs. I was getting some glitches overclocking the GPU, but at stock no problems. Been playing BFBC2 and every great now and then the game just shuts down and I'm back on the desktop, no idea why and no one has responded to my thread in the EA/BFBC2 forum. It seems to have passed, though it did it to me just a couple days ago. I think its the game (software), couldn't even play until running the updater with my AV off (disabled for a moment), ran it again but don't know if that has helped.

TJS

*HK416 w/M203, red dot sight, 'magnum' ammo upgrade = kick the piss out of the enemy. ;]

 

[Steve-O-]

I think with the full version of PC Mark Vantage you can run the test multiple times. You can figure out a way to get the full version.

Also how come your sig doesn't mention your overclocked CPU? Nice job btw. That's a good OC.