FX 8320 Overclocking difficulties, VCORE stubborn!

steve10765

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I have a new FX 8320 and an Gigabyte 970-UD3P mobo and for the love of me I can't get the VCORE to change, no matter what I do, I disabled cool n quite, turbo boost, C1(or something similar) instructions, and APM mode. - these are all power saving stuff.

When I put in 1.4V it doesnt change, and any other value has no affect. It boots to windows but when I open Coretemp and CPUz it hasnt changed. Any ideas what I should do with the vcore? Others with gigabyte boards have had this problem too. A weird thing that happens when I have all the power saving stuff enabled is the CPU sits at 3.7GHZ at 1.412V but then when it turbos to 4.5GHZ it drops down to 1.387, but if 1 core drops down to 3.7GHZ the vcore shoots up to 1.412 vcore again.
it sits at 1.412 vcore stock for some reason.None of this makes sense, lower volts at higher clocks

Hey guys... I am on the stock cooler with a 120mm fan zip tied to it with arctic silver mx4, its in the lower 50-53C and its pretty silent. When I put the case fans on turbo instead of silent its drops to 43-47C. I also have my MSI 270X at 1200MHZ core and 1450MHZ memory +20% power. It gets up to 80C though with my case fans on silent, with case fans on turbo it drops 5c, and the GPU fan never goes above 23%, the min is 20%. Also core 3 of my CPU had an error and stopped after 2 hours of prime, the rest where fine for the night.

So how do I change volts??? any tips? I also cant enable windows aero scheme, I have to manually enable it in the services.msc, and then it crashes soon after, and I can't do windows experience thing, which is something I think aero needs. I care about this more than the voltage because everything looks bad without aero.
 
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If you're running a stock cooler idc what fan you have, don't overclock. I see you've ran Prime95 with it to see why. Your core errored because of heat, and 75/80c is not something you want to run an AMD chip at. My friend with his 8320 and same board is running a full custom water loop to keep his chip cold to run 4.6GHz 24/7 and unless you have a beefy cooling solution I suggest you keep your clocks low. I tell people not to go AMD for a reason. They run HOT and are too slow for the power sucked and heat produced. Another thing you have to worry about is with overclocking these chips you need to keep a fan on the motherboard VRM. When you're pulling upwards of 200w you could start cooking the small VRM section on that lower end board. FX is a different ballpark compared to Phenom 2 man.
 
If you're running a stock cooler idc what fan you have, don't overclock. I see you've ran Prime95 with it to see why. Your core errored because of heat, and 75/80c is not something you want to run an AMD chip at. My friend with his 8320 and same board is running a full custom water loop to keep his chip cold to run 4.6GHz 24/7 and unless you have a beefy cooling solution I suggest you keep your clocks low. I tell people not to go AMD for a reason. They run HOT and are too slow for the power sucked and heat produced. Another thing you have to worry about is with overclocking these chips you need to keep a fan on the motherboard VRM. When you're pulling upwards of 200w you could start cooking the small VRM section on that lower end board. FX is a different ballpark compared to Phenom 2 man.

I am sorry I made a kind of confusing post, I was talking talking about my GPU being that temp... Lol I wont take anything over 58C or so due to the 62C recommended temp. FYI T.J max is 80C
My core is at 50-53C when at 4.5GHZ with my case fans on silent. and 44-48C with my fans on turbo. That is also with my CPU fan running up to 1600RPM, not its 2000RPM max.

The mobo is a 8+2 phase and has a VRM heatsink, and the cpu fan is pointing down onto it also so I don't think I will need to worry about that. I read allot on this stuff on a great VRM database thread, and concluded that was a great mobo for the price, they had a list of know failures, etc. Also gigabyte has said that 65-75C is when it starts to get unsafe for my board, and the temp normally stays within 2C of the CPU.
 
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So you're saying your temps are 48c with Prime95 running more than 10 minutes?
Yes I know TJMax is 80c but you don't want to run near that. My TJMax is 91c and I don't want to see my chip run over 75c.
As to the board, read note 2 on there. Like I've said before, I have a friend running I guess the same setup as you and his chip is under water cooling (he's had the board quite a while). When you put a good load on that chip at higher clocks the VRMs get real warm. It's why you need actual "good" boards specifically rated for 220w to run the 9590. Those are the same chips, just binned and stock clocked to 5GHz. So think about that for a minute, if you're running an 8320 at 4.5GHz you're already going over the 140w rated support for a board that should technically only have a 4+1 phase since it's a lower board I'd be willing to bet it's only using 4 channels. You're smart enough that I need not explain any further.

And no, I'm not trying to ward you from overclocking. Just want to make sure you take the necessary steps to not fry your board. It is a cheap board after all.
And AMD isn't the only ones with this issue. My 3960x is a 130w chip and my board is a 12+2 but my VRM sink gets HOT when I'm pushing 4.6+. I mean, hot enough that if I touched it I would literally get a small burn.
 
So you're saying your temps are 48c with Prime95 running more than 10 minutes?
Yes I know TJMax is 80c but you don't want to run near that. My TJMax is 91c and I don't want to see my chip run over 75c.
As to the board, read note 2 on there. Like I've said before, I have a friend running I guess the same setup as you and his chip is under water cooling (he's had the board quite a while). When you put a good load on that chip at higher clocks the VRMs get real warm. It's why you need actual "good" boards specifically rated for 220w to run the 9590. Those are the same chips, just binned and stock clocked to 5GHz. So think about that for a minute, if you're running an 8320 at 4.5GHz you're already going over the 140w rated support for a board that should technically only have a 4+1 phase since it's a lower board I'd be willing to bet it's only using 4 channels. You're smart enough that I need not explain any further.

And no, I'm not trying to ward you from overclocking. Just want to make sure you take the necessary steps to not fry your board. It is a cheap board after all.
And AMD isn't the only ones with this issue. My 3960x is a 130w chip and my board is a 12+2 but my VRM sink gets HOT when I'm pushing 4.6+. I mean, hot enough that if I touched it I would literally get a small burn.

I was hoping to get a quality board for the price :( and it did cross my mind that it might not be actually 8+2,:( but at least it has a heatsink. And I ran Prime for the around 10 hours and the temps were fine, I am pretty surprised how well the 120mm fan worked, I mainly did it because I read that the stock fan is like a motorcylce, but the temps were so good I decided to OC a bit.

Anyway I still need to know how to adjust the Vcore, because even at stock settings the mobo sets it wrong, its supposed to be 1.3 not 1.412
BTW it is also only a 400MHZ overclock since as this has turbo core to 4.1, which I know is not exactly the same as overclocking to 4.1 because there is some other stuff going on.

Also I can't get windows aero scheme to work! it starts fine but aero crashes 10 sec after boot, and I can restart it in the services.msc thing, but it will crash again, it also gives no error. Windows checked for unresolved problems, and it found 70, most of them video hardware errors, then I tried to upload it to Microsoft but it failed. I also can't do windows index, it says video performance error. I ran a game and the Heaven Engine 4.0 and everything was fine.
I just looked at GPUz and its says PCI-E supports 16X v3.0, and its running at v1.1 ... maybe I put it in the wrong slot...
EDIT: its in the right slot, it doesn't say what slot matters and in the example pic its in the first slot, like where mine is
 
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Sounds like you got some issues there that could be a multitude of things. Leave your stuff on auto and stock until you get the other problems figured out.

Turbo only applies to one module. When you put more of a load it goes back down. Technically 4.5 would be a 1GHz overclock.
 
I have a new FX 8320 and an Gigabyte 970-UD3P mobo and for the love of me I can't get the VCORE to change, no matter what I do, I disabled cool n quite, turbo boost, C1(or something similar) instructions, and APM mode. - these are all power saving stuff.

When I put in 1.4V it doesnt change, and any other value has no affect. It boots to windows but when I open Coretemp and CPUz it hasnt changed. Any ideas what I should do with the vcore? Others with gigabyte boards have had this problem too. A weird thing that happens when I have all the power saving stuff enabled is the CPU sits at 3.7GHZ at 1.412V but then when it turbos to 4.5GHZ it drops down to 1.387, but if 1 core drops down to 3.7GHZ the vcore shoots up to 1.412 vcore again.
it sits at 1.412 vcore stock for some reason.None of this makes sense, lower volts at higher clocks

I have a better idea, don't over clock on any stock amd heatsink not unless you want to cook it and buy another.
Leave the cpu at 3.5ghz, turn off the oc feature and turbo mode.
To be honest you have enough to do what you need for the time being.

ARCTIC Freezer A30 CPU Cooler for AMD with 120mm PWM Fan and 4 Direct Contact Heat Pipes - Newegg.com

ARCTIC MX4 Thermal Paste - 4gram - Newegg.com

Both items will allow you to over clock smoothly.
I recommend you leave it 3.5ghz - 3.9ghz, my fx4100 is in that speed range and I have no problems.
Don't use artic silver on amd chips, doesn't work out in the long run with over heating issues,
 
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For only a few bucks more you could have saved yourself the gigaheadache and gone with this: MSI 990FXA-GD65V2 Desktop Motherboard - AMD 990FX Chipset - Socket AM3+ - Newegg.com It's a much better board and it's the smaller cheaper cousin of the board I use and have. biggest difference is it's GD65 versus GD80. You also wouldn't have the problems with the Vcore, as the board is designed to overclock like you really want that thing to. Gigabyte970=fail IMO Others seem to have success with it but I wouldn't buy a gigabyte myself based on how many systems I've had to help fix or help tune because of memory timings, or even worse vcore problems. There are boards out there that are meant to do the specs but fall short, and the 970 Gigabyte board is one of those IMO.
 
For only a few bucks more you could have saved yourself the gigaheadache and gone with this: MSI 990FXA-GD65V2 Desktop Motherboard - AMD 990FX Chipset - Socket AM3+ - Newegg.com It's a much better board and it's the smaller cheaper cousin of the board I use and have. biggest difference is it's GD65 versus GD80. You also wouldn't have the problems with the Vcore, as the board is designed to overclock like you really want that thing to. Gigabyte970=fail IMO Others seem to have success with it but I wouldn't buy a gigabyte myself based on how many systems I've had to help fix or help tune because of memory timings, or even worse vcore problems. There are boards out there that are meant to do the specs but fall short, and the 970 Gigabyte board is one of those IMO.

the board was $89 when I bought it, and it had a bundle with ram which I saved $5 with it.
And man this vcore thing sucks, I cant even set it to its stock vcore, I thought this board would be good. I will not buy Gig budget boards again, and another thing that sucks is whenever I turn the comp on, it comes on for half a second, then goes off for a second, then turns on and takes like 2 sec to post, this leads to a longer boot time.(stock settings).

Mike my cooler works great, I can't even hear it and its temps are great for a stock cooler with arctic silver and a 120mm fan on it. Its as good as an aftermarket cooler, so I don't see why I should get one unless I wan't to go hardcore, but getting an hyper 212 evo would be waste for only like 5C cooler, and I am not gonna waste that much for only like a 4.7ghz overclock or something which is only 200mhz faster than I am now, or 300MHZ if I decide to lower the speed.
temps 57C max with a case fan off and the rest on silent, and 52C max with turbo fans on, which is still quite. I can also always increase the cpu fan speed, I have never seen it go above 1600 on my settings, and its rated for 2000rpm at 19db

EDIT
- I think I might lower the OC to relive pressure on the VRM's, not sure though
btw the fan is bigger than the heatsink so it hangs off to the side and blows directly onto the VRM's. Here is a picture of an hyper 212 evo and the amd stock heatsink, image that fan on the amd one :)
 
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