Hey guys,

I just bought a new rig and I am planning to OC this thing the best as I can.

Only question I have is this:

I have an Athlon II X3 440 3 GHZ Rana CPU which has a voltage range of 0.75 V - 1.425 V.

Is it ok to OC past the 1.425 V? I have been able to get stable clock to 3.5 GHZ but only at 1.56 V.

I put the clock and voltage back to stock because I dont want to risk frying the CPU.

So nerds of TL.net, is it ok to amp up the voltage past the spec?

ghen

United States1356 Posts

June 11 2010 13:42 GMT

With every overclock comes risk. It is truely personal preference unless you find someone that has experience with that exact processor.

As long as your motherboard and power supply can handle it and you can do a burn-in test without failing then you're good for now, but still it has the ability to shorten the life of the processor just like any other overclock.

link for downloading Prime 95 to test stability: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103

Have you tried unlocking the 4th core on your processor?
http://www.guru3d.com/news/phenom-ii-x3--enable-the-4th-core/

Klapdout

United States282 Posts

June 11 2010 13:51 GMT

1.6v is usually considered the limit for any long term overclock with those cpu's as long as your temps are ok under load. Most find they max out around 1.55v on air cooling, so be sure to test it thoroughly using the program ghen showed you, at least 12 hours.

Also download cpu-z http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html and make sure your checking the voltage under load, it could drop quite a bit

sc4k

United Kingdom5454 Posts

June 11 2010 13:54 GMT

to be honest a lot of good processors can OC without increasing stock voltage. If you do some googling you're bound to find performance benchmarks relative to voltage...

PS in answer to question, it is ok but it WILL reduce life of cpu. Increase clock speed but not voltage doesn't really reduce life at all

Klapdout

United States282 Posts

June 11 2010 13:55 GMT

On June 11 2010 22:54 sc4k wrote:
to be honest a lot of good processors can OC without increasing stock voltage. If you do some googling you're bound to find performance benchmarks relative to voltage...

PS in answer to question, it is ok but it WILL reduce life of cpu. Increase clock speed but not voltage doesn't really reduce life at all

There are two ways to reduce life on a processor, voltage and heat.

General rule of thumb is Component life expectancy decreases 50% per 10c rise in temperature. voltage also increases operating temp, and adds to electron migration which reduces life expectancy even further.

These cpus stock are made to last a very long time, you should get several years out of a 1.56v <=60c load temp athlon ii.
This may seem obvious, but its important. If your pushing a cpu to its limit you need to be vigilant the temp doesn't change over time. temps can increase due to many things, changing ambient temps, dust, TIM breakdown ect. Make sure you monitor the temp at all times, preferably something with a graph like Speed Fan.

Overclocking at all, even without adding voltage can pretty dramatically reduce a processors lifespan if you don't have adequate cooling.

HyoSang

United States194 Posts

June 11 2010 16:54 GMT

Wow, you guys are friggin awesome.

On June 11 2010 22:42 ghen wrote:

Have you tried unlocking the 4th core on your processor?
http://www.guru3d.com/news/phenom-ii-x3--enable-the-4th-core/

Yea I did, but it made my system crash. The mobo automatically readjusted back to a 3 core setting. Will lowering my clock increase the chances that the 4th core will unlock? No, right?

Right now, on just stock settings, my cpu temps are running at 42 C idle and 65 at load.

When I OC'ed to 3.5 ghz @ 1.56V I pushed that to 46C idle and 70 C load.

I am planning on getting an aftermarket heatsink and fan combo to lower these temps.

anything below 70 on load is ok, right?

Klapdout

United States282 Posts

June 11 2010 17:06 GMT

On June 12 2010 01:54 HyoSang wrote:
Wow, you guys are friggin awesome.

Show nested quote +

AMD lists 72C the maximum safe temperature for that cpu, however your also running high voltage.
I would back it down slightly until you get your aftermarket cooling solution, generally you want to stay below 60c with these chips to be safe.

Sadistx

Zimbabwe5568 Posts

June 11 2010 17:14 GMT

I wouldn't recommend running at 1.56V 24/7, especially if you get 46C during idle (what's room temp btw?) Depending on what tasks you do, you may get almost no performance boost from going from 3 ghz to 3.5 ghz (games on high resolutions especially).

First, find the highest OC you can get with the nominal voltage and see what it does to your temps and frequency.

You should be able to achieve something like 3.4 ghz on 1.425, don't push it any farther than you have to imo.

HyoSang

United States194 Posts

June 11 2010 18:11 GMT

On June 12 2010 02:14 Sadistx wrote:
I wouldn't recommend running at 1.56V 24/7, especially if you get 46C during idle (what's room temp btw?)
You should be able to achieve something like 3.4 ghz on 1.425, don't push it any farther than you have to imo.

Room temp = 73 F

I actually cant even touch anything above 210 mhz (15x multiplier). System freezes. I think it might be a memory issue, im working on messing with the timings to get it more stable.

ghen

United States1356 Posts

June 11 2010 19:39 GMT

#10

On June 12 2010 01:54 HyoSang wrote:
Wow, you guys are friggin awesome.

Show nested quote +

Yea I did, but it made my system crash. The mobo automatically readjusted back to a 3 core setting. Will lowering my clock increase the chances that the 4th core will unlock? No, right?

No, if the 4th core won't unlock then it's really just dead. The only reason to try unlocking it is if they needed more x3's and locked a perfectly good core just for stock reasons.

So this means that your processor really is a crappy x3. This isn't a bad thing per-say but 1/4th of the chip is already dead so I would advise against the really high overclock voltage just to keep the rest from dying. This isn't a scientific answer, it just sounds good.

HyoSang

United States194 Posts

June 11 2010 20:10 GMT

#11

If the system is freezing whenever I try and up the FSB, does that inidicate a CPU stability issue or a memory stability issue?

pikaaarrr :3

United States593 Posts

June 11 2010 23:07 GMT

#12

Its probably better to stay under 60 deg; however, once you get an aftermarket heatsink, the difference will blow your mind.

I wouldn't go past 1.4v or maybe 1.5v if you're adventurous, simply because it'll reduce CPU life.

Use Memtest 86 to test if the memory is causing a problem; however, most likely it is that your CPU can't run at those settings. Memtest is a great tool, but if your ram was stable before, then it's likely that its the CPU. Memory isn't affected that significantly by the FSB.

HyoSang

United States194 Posts

June 27 2010 20:13 GMT

#13

I actually ended up finding out that once i increased my NB/CPU voltage from 1.175v -> 1.1875V that I got quite a large stability increase. I was able to jump from 3.0 gHz to 3.56 gHz without increasing CPU voltage once I increased the NB/CPU voltage.

semantics

10040 Posts

June 27 2010 20:21 GMT

#14

have you already increased your NB voltage and adjusted the pll and the glt, usually if you read up on that crap you can pull better numbers then leaving them on auto requiring less v-core voltage. My E8400 runs at 4ghz at 1.25v for v core. I'm only expirenced in older cpus to oc, i haven't messed around much with amd's or the newer intels which require a little different touch when the multiplier is out the window.

HyoSang

United States194 Posts

May 23 2011 00:23 GMT

#15

Well I think I found out the issue, for some reason, even if I shut off my computer, as long as their is power running to it, the power supply continues to feed power into the USB controller. This means that my USB controller, regardless of whether or not the computer is on, always has juice running in it. I thought it was a neat feature at first. It meant that I could charge USB devices with my computer off. But an unfortunate side effect is that my USB stack never depletes, which means it gets faults.

How I figured it out was that I noticed that even when turned off, my LED lights on my Mobo were always on, and quite bright at that. I was trying some kinect hacking earlier and noticed that I kept getting errors to due to my USB stack being overloaded. I figured that maybe, that meant that the juice running to my comp was preventing the stack from resetting. I unplugged the comp from the power for a little bit and turned it back on. Wha-la! no problems. Anyone know another solution besides unplugging and replugging the comp?