So, I'm trying to overclock the heck out my old machine before I ship it off to a friend. Here are the specs
AMD Athlon II x4 630
ASUS M4A785-M
2x2GB Kingston Hyper X 1066 DDR2
Rosewill 530W Green Series
The main thing I'm trying to accomplish is to get a hefty Overclock while retaining stock(ish) memory speeds. In order to do this, I need to have the bus speed cranked to 267MHz with the DRAM at 400MHz, which brings my effective memory speed to 1066MHz, and with auto timings @ 2.19V, its 5-5-5-18, which is within spec. The RAM spec is 1066 @ 2.2v 5-5-5-15, but runs at 800MHz 5-5-5-18 @ 1.8v by default.
Here is where I'm at so far with the OC. I suspect it's still unstable, but Prime crashed at the exact time it encountered it's first error, so I don't know for certain if the error was CPU, or Prime. I'm currently running OCCT to confirm. So far, it boots into Windows, and no BSOD while stressed
3.6GHz @ 1.425V
CPU Ratio 13.5
HT Mult 267MHz
HT Link x9 (effectively 2400MHz)
LLC 22.3%
My trouble so far is the voltage. The stock is 1.325v, but I'm nervous about pushing it more. I've seen reviews crank the voltage to 1.5v - 1.6v, but I'm concerned if that is a safe everyday voltage, or is that just to benchmark voltage.
My last piece of info for you guys is my cooling. I have a Zalman CNPS 9900A-LED, and temps plateau at 48c (my last stable OC at 3.25 GHz w/ 1.35v plateaued at 35c after 24 hours of Prime)
Currently 1.45v on a daily OC.
As long as you have sufficient cooling, you should be fine.
However, you might have trouble getting a stable OC with that MOBO... it's only 4+1phases (means your voltage is not really 1.425v, but varies a bit under load).
What is your current max temperature?
Maxed out a 48c. I tried OCing this thing before and ran into the same issue. However, this time around I'm a bit more familiar with LLC. I've noticed that just before a crash, there was a voltage drop. However without LLC, voltage fluctuates a lot, and goes much higher than what I set it to. From what I've read, it can fluctuate by as much as 0.1V without LLC, but I saw spikes of 0.05v, which is still too high for my preferences.
Anyway, I took it as high as 1.475V with 33% LLC (Auto is 52% LLC) and still no dice. At this point, instead of experiencing BSOD's or CPU errors, I was experiencing total system lock-ups.
Also, I know the bus clock is stupid high, so I'm wondering: would if a chipset voltage bump would help? I'm not going to it because the chipset cooling is pretty minimal and airflow isn't the greatest now that I transferred everything into a NZXT Source 210. Plus, I'm about to ship it pretty soon.
I'm kinda of giving up, but I still think this is a valuable learning experience and it was a lot of fun. I settled for a 3.2GHz OC @ 1.35v (RAM is 916MHz, 5-5-5-18 @ 1.9v), and it passed a 30 hour Prime95 blend test with temps at 35c.
carefuly, do it a little bit at a time. you'll damage a huge amount of capacitors if you do it too quickly