Overclocking a new Pentium D 920

[jph1589]

I did a little more testing and yes it is stable at 1042fsb .....3.6ghz.....memory is at 566 or thereabouts. The vcore is fine on auto and shows about 1.24 most of the time. Temps are still the same. I do get about a 12c increase when I load up both cores to 100 percent. So even if the idle temp were off by as much 20 degrees, I would still be ok. Since I'm not having to raise vcore, I'm not worried .......yet.

Now here is my question. I can get it to boot all the way up to 3.8 ghz. It runs for a while and randomly reboots. That is with the vcore still on auto. Raising the vcore doesn't make a difference with the rebooting thing. I did some calculations and my power supply shouldn't even be close to topping out.

Is this telling me that with a better motherboard and memory and maybe some water cooling just for good measure, this thing would probably take off even higher?

[gvblake22]

If you can boot and get some minor, basic stability, then I think it is more a matter of getting the tweaks right. Sounds like a slight bump in voltage is what would do the trick if you wanted to get 3.8Ghz stable. You could always just try it and see what happens (monitor your temps). If you hit the max voltage you are comfortable giving or the max temps you are comfortable running at and you still are not stable, then you can consider yourself at "the wall".

You could also try taking it off of "Auto" voltage and just setting it to what the default should be. That way you KNOW how much voltage you are using.

[polobunny]

Maybe it's the memory. Try a lower mem clock by changing the ratio and see how it goes.

[jph1589]

I tried every voltage between 1.3 and 1.4v. From what I have heard about the 9xx series, that should have been enough voltage.

I also tried putting the memory on an exact 1:1. 1082 mhz FSb and 540 mhz memory. Also tried 2.0 v on the memory. Timings were set to optimal which put them at 4..5..5..13..18. I also tried 5..5..5..15..18.

It doesn't seem to matter which combinations of the above I try, it just randomly reboots. Sometimes after a minute....sometimes after 10 minutes. Also, sometimes it is idle and sometimes i'm running something.

I would think the 920 would be happy with a 1:1 with the memory. Right now it is on some crazy 11:12, but the bios controls that I don't. It must have certain built in dividers it uses. So it humors me and let's me think I'm in control of the memory speed, when in reality it is tweaking it to match some predetermined divider.


So, would we say that this is a symptom of being at the wall for the cpu? Or is it the motherboard and memory? Keeping in mind I have no ability to change the NB or FSB voltage. Would either of those two adjustments make a difference with what I am seeing?

[gvblake22]

I've never really seen much (if any) worth while improvement in overclocks due to increasing the chipset voltage, so I wouldn't consider that as a limiting factor. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I would point my finger at the processor as being your limit. Mostly because you were able to achieve a higher FSB on the same board and RAM with a different processor.

[jph1589]

Now I am above the top limit of the other cpu. That one never posted above 1000 and I'm stable at 1042 with the 920 now. I understand where you got that though. It was when we were talking earlier in this thread about being stuck at 900.

That is good know about the NB voltage. I may just be at the top.

So I got a $90 Pentium D 920 at 3.64ghz. That is a darn nice overclock. And although the super pi scores suck compared to conroes. You sure couldn't tell it.

I just got done running 3 copies of a video editing software (VideoRedo) simultaneously. They were each editing full length mpeg2 movie files to remove the commercials. Meanwhile I was watching TV in another window and typing this response in IE 7 beta. I couldn't see any lag anywhere. Both cores were at about 90 percent. Every click was instantly responded to. No memory hang ups either. And it didn't look like anything was being paged. LOL....oh that is right.......I don't have a pagefile. I got rid of it. Darn things just make everything slower.

So I think I am done for a while. ...........what did I just say?........oh no!!.....nothing to overclock?..........arghhhhhhhhhh.........I've got it really bad.

Oh yeah..........I could buy that temperature sensor so that I can get some more acurate temp readings. Then maybe water cool it just for fun.

I guess I have enough to keep me obsessed for another few weeks.

Thanks everyone for all your input.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by jph1589

I just got done running 3 copies of a video editing software (VideoRedo) simultaneously. They were each editing full length mpeg2 movie files to remove the commercials. Meanwhile I was watching TV in another window and typing this response in IE 7 beta. I couldn't see any lag anywhere. Both cores were at about 90 percent. Every click was instantly responded to. No memory hang ups either. And it didn't look like anything was being paged. LOL....oh that is right.......I don't have a pagefile. I got rid of it. Darn things just make everything slower.

That's awesome man. I just bought myself an AM2 3800 X2 (it will be my first dual core processor) and I am excited to see what this dual core stuff is like!

Originally Posted by jph1589

So I think I am done for a while. ...........what did I just say?........oh no!!.....nothing to overclock?..........arghhhhhhhhhh.........I've got it really bad.

Oh yeah..........I could buy that temperature sensor so that I can get some more acurate temp readings. Then maybe water cool it just for fun.

I guess I have enough to keep me obsessed for another few weeks.

HAHA, you've got the sickness! :twisted:
You'd be suprised at how much tinkering you can find to do with a system. And by the time you are about done tinkering with everything you can, you are either so sick of it that you just want to leave your system the way it is or it is time for a hardware upgrade! 8)
You could always think about doing some case modding too. I found that that really helps take the edge off :thup:

[jph1589]

I'm really not trying to beat a dead horse but now I'm really impressed with this ECS board. I guess maybe I beat them up so bad in the beginning over their PCIE x8 issue, that maybe I feel the need to make it up to them LOL.....NOT!!!

I managed to sneak the FSB up to 1066mhz with some voltage tweaking on the cpu and memory. Had to be very careful and just keep trying combinations of volts and speeds and timings.

So the cpu ended up at 3.73 ghz at 1.324v. The memory ended up at 568mhz and 2.0v with loosey timings but I just wanted the GHZ anyway. Seeing that clock speed go up is like a FIX!!

So now let's see.....we can shut down that rumor that nforce4 for intel can't even get to 1000mhz FSB. Cause this is one of the cheaper ones and it seems fine at 1066. I really think if I buy some better memory, it will make it up to 4ghz easily. Even if it doesn't, the memory is on my list of things to get before a new motherboard and conroe anyway.

Also, another big note.......TURN OFF THE VANDERPOOL TECHNOLOGY in the cpu. That is the VIIV crap that is probably not going to be useful to anyone for years anyway. I think that was a lot of my earlier problem.

So for those who like pictures, I've added in a few of super pi on each core with temps and fand speeds. and then anther of my video processing going to town on a couple of good movies while live TV is playing.

The last one is my favorite desktop in case anyone is interested.

When I tried to upload the images, it said invalid image file. They are bmp files and are less the 2mg. Can anyone help me with that so I can post them?

[gvblake22]

Nice job on the OC breakthrough! :thup:

As for posting pics, don't use bmp! Infact, DON'T EVER USE BMP's!
Just save it as a JPG and you should be able to upload it just fine.

[jph1589]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

Nice job on the OC breakthrough! :thup:

As for posting pics, don't use bmp! Infact, DON'T EVER USE BMP's!
Just save it as a JPG and you should be able to upload it just fine.

Here are the pics i mentioned above.