Phenom II 965 OC 4.2

KJamesJR

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So I took apart the old work horse today and gave it a thorough cleaning. Almost 2 years old dust build up lead to a stack of qtips large enough to build a small log cabin. After putting it all back together I decided to push it a bit further.

I was able to achieve an overclock of 4.2 GHz using the hyper 212. Normally im clocked at 3.9. However my temps, even at idle have jumped 10c. Normally I would be running steady at 33c, now its been hanging around 43c. And thats just doing mundane internet surfing. I haven't had the chance to stress it yet. As soon as I finished my tweaking the wife had to jump on for a few hours for research. So far its been very stable.

I didn't get a chance to jot down what I set the voltage at. I believe its at 1.68v. My question is; is it running too hot? I was also inquiring about how to boost my RAM latency and fsb. Im kinda a rookie in this overclocking world.

My specs:

AMD Phenom II 965
M4A785TD M EVO MOBO
G Skill Ripjaws
Modxtreme pro 600w

Please excuse any mistypes im on a mobile device.
 
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1.68v is entirely way too much for that chip. Most 965s wall at 4 or 4.1GHz so actually getting it to post and boot at 4.2 is pretty lucky, but with volts like that I'm surprised it isn't cooking itself under that tiny heatsink.

I would leave it at 3.9 and don't go any higher than 1.55v or else your chip won't last that long compared to others (comparable to 5 years vs 10 or longer).

If your RAM is native 1600 then don't worry about boosting your FSB. Messing with the FSB also messes with your core clock, HT, and NB frequencies.
 
Well it definitely posted and is being used... CPUZ is only reading 1.26v and will occasionally jump to 1.58v to 1.60v. The core clock is reading 4.2GHz @ 45c. Although I have the voltage set high, it doesn't appear to be using it all.

My RAM is 1333.
 
Good motherboards have a thing called VRM protection where if the current is too high it will throttle so your power section literally doesn't blow up. That could be the up and down, or it could be another form of throttle.

45c idle is high. That is what I got with my i5 750 @ 4.2GHz under a TRUE 120, but only at 1.45v (which is Intels "max" like AMD has 1.55). Try running Prime95 under it and use Coretemp to record max temps.

Good ICs can clock. Just try setting the divider to 1600 and the RAM voltage to 1.65v. Although I wouldn't do this, the Phenom 2 chips can handle RAM voltage over 1.65v to attain overclocks but try to remember that AMD has weak IMCs. They don't handle high clocks well, and it's diminishing gains as AMD has low memory bandwidth as it is.
 
Lol ICs dividers and IMC is New lingo for me, so ill have to look those up. What I don't get is I've boosted the voltage pretty high like this before and my idle temps remained 33c @ 4.0GHz, yet I turn up the multiplier to yield 4.2GHz and my temps shoot up 10 degrees... I'll run prime95 to see just how stable it is and report back. I will say I was rather impressed with my achieved clock. I'll give credit to a good cleaning and new thermal grease.
 
Integrated circuit, or memory chip.
Internal memory controller.
Divider is ratio divider splitting the speed between RAM and CPU when raising FSB.

On older motherboards it would be like 1:1 or 5:3. These days it's 1-10. Memory multiplier of 10 x 200 fsb = 2000 RAM.

Idle temps aren't really relevant. All that matters really is load when you OC. If you hit over 75c at 100% load during Prime95 then you're running too hot.
 
Im jumping on it now to see what I can do. How long should I run prime95 at? Until it crashes? Im pretty sure its going to crash after what you've told me. Now however, im curious.
 
If it doesn't crash and goes to 75c or over turn it off. If it stays under 75c and doesn't crash go ahead and run it for like 20 minutes to see what it does.
 
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