Asus P6T overclock voltage settings

[chrisk]

Hey all;
Got my folding rig up to 3.6GHZ on mostly 'Auto' settings in the P6T bios. I have set the vdimm to 1.64v, and the vcore (called 'CPU Voltage) below to 1.21v. I disabled any speedstep, C1E, turbo, etc. but left the load-line calibration on.

My concern is that the Asus boards tend to overvolt when overclocking on 'auto.'

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what are good values to change in the picture below:

Running 1600MHZ ram, and a i7 920 D0 chip. Temps with most of these settings are ~50c while doing 3.6GHZ on mostly auto. Chip is water-cooled, but the motherboard is not.

Thanks for any suggestions guys! I am just trying to find some conservative settings to get 4.0GHZ from trustworthy sources.

 

[chrisk]

I have about a dozen sites bookmarked but I think I am missing something with my OC. From the various sites and guides I have seen I have tried the following settings and these are the results using prime95 medium fft:

I am currently trying the 1.28125 vcore.

This is what the corresponding bios screen looks like:

I am also running my ram at 1.64v.

The computer freezes almost every single time around the 50 min mark of prime. Highest temp I have seen was 61c (on water). Using 190 bclk and 21 multi, since I have read a few times that there are often issues at 200x20.

Am I missing an obvious bios setting here?

Help me get this thing folding stable (I am looking for a 24/7 clock, as it will be folding constantly).

 

[stoanee]

My P6TSE@ 4ghz (now@4.1 ghz) with newest bios
21x191 (now 21x196)
Dram freq 1149 (now 1571)
UCLK freq 2298 (now 3142)
QPI link rate 6893 (now 7074)
CPU volts 1.28125 (now 1.3)
CPU PLLv 1.82
QPI/Dram volts 1.35
IOH volts 1.2
ICH volts 1.2
Dram volts 1.64

I set all the "auto" voltage settings for everything else to whatever the corresponding normal manual setting is.

 

[Sagath]

Freezing is almost always memory related. Which on an i7 means ram/cpu really, since the memory controller can cause the freezing. This leaves us with alot of variables. My first guess is it could be your Uncore frequency. What divider do you have your ram on? 2:8 probably judging from the screenshots. And your Uncore divider should be 16 or 17 then. If its 16 (or 3046mhz), change it to 17 (1 setting above 3046mhz) and see if that gets you past 50 min. It may even get you 100% stable with just that change.

If that doesnt work, I would think its the VTT. I dont know what VTT is called on your board from the screenshots. You'll have to research that, Chris. Problem with VTT is every i7 chip is different, some like lots of VTT, others like none at all, and yet others are very picky and want a little bit, or almost all, or maybe in the middle. My suggestion would be to set it to stock: 1.20v, and try testing it from there. See if it bluescreens/locks up. My particular C0 hates any VTT, and I'm running it at 1.1875 actually.

You'll just have to fiddle with it. If you change the VTT (say higher) and it goes longer before freezing, raise it again and see. If after doing this two times it is still locking up, raise your core a notch and lower the VTT back down to 1.2v and start again, see again if it is taking longer before locking up. If thats not it, then you'll have to fiddle with a couple other settings, most likely your QPI PLL voltage.

If that fails, you can always go for the 'high end' specs of overclocking, and do the max 'safe' volts on ALL the settings, and see what you can reach. Even doing it this way, you can still run into issues with Uncore frequency or VTT voltages. Or maybe its just a bum chip like mine. :thumb:

 

[chrisk]

Freezing is almost always memory related. Which on an i7 means ram/cpu really, since the memory controller can cause the freezing. This leaves us with alot of variables. My first guess is it could be your Uncore frequency. What divider do you have your ram on? 2:8 probably judging from the screenshots. And your Uncore divider should be 16 or 17 then. If its 16 (or 3046mhz), change it to 17 (1 setting above 3046mhz) and see if that gets you past 50 min. It may even get you 100% stable with just that change.

If that doesnt work, I would think its the VTT. I dont know what VTT is called on your board from the screenshots. You'll have to research that, Chris. Problem with VTT is every i7 chip is different, some like lots of VTT, others like none at all, and yet others are very picky and want a little bit, or almost all, or maybe in the middle. My suggestion would be to set it to stock: 1.20v, and try testing it from there. See if it bluescreens/locks up. My particular C0 hates any VTT, and I'm running it at 1.1875 actually.

You'll just have to fiddle with it. If you change the VTT (say higher) and it goes longer before freezing, raise it again and see. If after doing this two times it is still locking up, raise your core a notch and lower the VTT back down to 1.2v and start again, see again if it is taking longer before locking up. If thats not it, then you'll have to fiddle with a couple other settings, most likely your QPI PLL voltage.

If that fails, you can always go for the 'high end' specs of overclocking, and do the max 'safe' volts on ALL the settings, and see what you can reach. Even doing it this way, you can still run into issues with Uncore frequency or VTT voltages. Or maybe its just a bum chip like mine. :thumb:

Thanks Sagath. Looks like the VTT on Evga boards which you are familiar with is the 'qpi dram' volts that I had set to 1.3v. I also ran one pass on memtest today to see if the ram likes running at ~1500ghz.

Is that uncore speed you are talking about the "QPI Link" in the CPU-Z screenshots? If so mine is set to 3420mhz, according to Cpu-Z.

Temps don't seem to be holding me back though. The highest I have seen so far is 63c after 50mins of prime, and the room ambient is pretty warm.

 

[Sagath]

QPI link is probably it, yes. 3420 would be 18x...which is -very- wierd, and bad to be honest, it could damage stuff. Change it down to 3046 or 3230 and try that.

If temps arnt a concern yet, jack your core to 1.38-1.4, turn OFF load-line (you shouldnt need it at these voltages) and shoot for 200x20 or x21 to see what happens. Watch your temps, but they shouldnt be an issue at those voltages. But make that Uncore change first!!!

I have company over for the night. I'll try to stop back in on this thread and see how your making out and give advice.

 

[chrisk]

QPI link is probably it, yes. 3420 would be 18x...which is -very- wierd, and bad to be honest, it could damage stuff. Change it down to 3046 or 3230 and try that.

If temps arnt a concern yet, jack your core to 1.38-1.4, turn OFF load-line (you shouldnt need it at these voltages) and shoot for 200x20 or x21 to see what happens. Watch your temps, but they shouldnt be an issue at those voltages. But make that Uncore change first!!!

I have company over for the night. I'll try to stop back in on this thread and see how your making out and give advice.

Thanks. Still freezing. In the bios the only thing that matches the uncore freq you mentioned is the 'uclk frequesncy' (its the only bios option that mentions 3047mhz). I'll manually set it to 3047mhz (nothing there about 16x, 17x, etc) and see if that helps.

Thanks! I don't have too much more time for this as we have folks coming over too.

 

[stoanee]

Thanks. Still freezing. In the bios the only thing that matches the uncore freq you mentioned is the 'uclk frequesncy' (its the only bios option that mentions 3047mhz). I'll manually set it to 3047mhz (nothing there about 16x, 17x, etc) and see if that helps.

Thanks! I don't have too much more time for this as we have folks coming over too.

In my SE I set UCLK to lowest possible and the QPI link rate set itself to roughly double plus a bit.

 

[chrisk]

My P6TSE@ 4ghz (now@4.1 ghz) with newest bios
21x191 (now 21x196)
Dram freq 1149 (now 1571)
UCLK freq 2298 (now 3142)
QPI link rate 6893 (now 7074)
CPU volts 1.28125 (now 1.3)
CPU PLLv 1.82
QPI/Dram volts 1.35
IOH volts 1.2
ICH volts 1.2
Dram volts 1.64

I set all the "auto" voltage settings for everything else to whatever the corresponding normal manual setting is.

I had tried these settings, except I went with 200x20 and dram at around 1600mhz and it did freeze in an hour.

Went with these settings again, but also used 21x191 and 1149 for the ram, and it was stable for about 5 hours (61c temps max on one core...high 50s on the rest). I had to shut it down so our guests could sleep in the computer room.

Running it again for a couple of hours, and if it works, I'll throw a bigadv at it and see how it goes.

 

[chrisk]

Alright. I went with stoanee's settings exactly (except one step higher on the vcore). Seems really stable (I ran two 6hr runs of prime, and now folding a bigadv for 24 hours straight. 60c was the top temp I saw). Thanks stoanee and sagath!

Here they are again:
21x191
Dram freq 1149
UCLK freq 2298
QPI link rate 6893
CPU volts 1.28125
CPU PLLv 1.82
QPI/Dram volts 1.35
IOH volts 1.2
ICH volts 1.2
Dram volts 1.64

I highlighted the three settings I had questions about;
- is that dram freq optimal? seems like a pretty big underclock on my Corsair 1600MHZ stuff. I tried a 200x20 to get 4.0 on a larger bus, but it was not go. Is it worth it to mess with this?

- I went with one step higher on the cpu volts. Should be OK I think.

- Is that QPI-Dram setting OK? The bios puts this in the 'red' range of acceptable voltages. I am folding with this chip 24/7.