8350 @ 4.9GHz need HELP to get to 5.0GHZ (Crosshair V Formula)

[Heatshiver]

So since the FX-9000 was introduced at E3 I decided I would forego paying $960 and just try to achieve the clocks with my FX-8350.

This is what I am working with:

Crosshair V Formula
Windows 7 x64
FX-8350
32GB G.Skill Ares 1866MHz
COOLER MASTER Seidon 120M (Closed Loop Liquid CPU Cooling)
Several HDD (all in RAID), but a Kingston 96GB SSD (V100) as primary
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 Case (with 120mm fans everywhere but the bottom)

I was able to get up to 4.92GHz with the following:

CPU Ratio: 24.0
FSB: 205
DDR3: 1912MHz
CPU Manual Voltage: 1.481250 (Extreme OV Enabled)
DRAM Voltage: 1.65
DRAM Voltage Switching Frequency: 2x
NB Voltage Switching Frequency: 2x

I have tried numerous combinations of the multiplier and FSB to get 5.0GHz. I can achieve it and boot Windows, but when I try a benchmark like Prime95 x64 it'll get through part of the first part or the second before the system freezes. I have also bumped up the CPU voltage to 1.525 while trying these combinations, but to no avail. Essentially, I would just move the multiplier up (or down) and then set the FSB to just barely be at 5.0GHz. Some combinations would allow me to boot, but most wouldn't.

What else can I do to get to 5.0GHz? I'm open to any suggestions. I don't care about getting passed that, but as long as I can reach that objective (stably) I'll be satisfied.

Thanks!

[HiVizMan]

What is your maximum FSB?

And what other voltages are you changing?

[Heatshiver]

It terms of what is stable, the 205 has been the only one that has worked. But I have tried others for the 5.0GHz and had them boot (unstable). The maximum FSB I can go on this board is up to 600 I believe.

These are the only voltage changes I have had, everything else is on Auto. All power save features are disabled.

[HiVizMan]

Increase your NB voltage and see how that goes for you.

Ideally you should just run 200 x 25

[Heatshiver]

I'll try 200 x 25 again and start upping the NB voltage. 1.175 was the highest I tried for NB earlier as I had seen a post (on here) where someone had achieved 5.4GHz with the same chip and motherboard.

If that doesn't work, I'll try from the settings I posted and increase the NB voltage.

Thanks!

[Hartacus]

You can look at my computer blog and look at all my bios settings. It took me about 2 days to get 4.9 stable. It took me about 2 months to get 5.0 stable and a very good chip. I remember the key for me was playing with the CPU/NB.

[Heatshiver]

Okay, so I went ahead and started at 200 x25 and used the following settings:

CPU Ratio: 25.0
FSB: 200
DDR3: 1866MHz
CPU Manual Voltage: 1.5250 (Extreme OV Enabled)
DRAM Voltage: 1.8
DRAM Voltage Switching Frequency: 2x
NB Voltage: 1.3
NB Voltage Switching Frequency: 2x

I ran Prime95 benchmark and it finished without freezing! This was after having the computer off for quite some time... I then messed with the settings to see if I could lower anything. Each time I changed something Prime95 would freeze. So I went back to the settings above and tested again. This time Prime95 froze (albeit near the end)!

I tried upping everything, but Prime95 would continue to freeze. I then thought it might be Prime95 and tried AIDA64's benchmark report. This shut down the computer on the 3rd CPU test.

I tried both benchmarks after loading the defaults, and they worked fine. Slow, but fine. I retried my 4.8 and 4.9 settings and those seem to work fine on Prime95, but would shut down the computer on the same CPU test in AIDA64...

@Hartacus - I will definitely be trying your settings after getting some rest. Thanks!

Any suggestions on benchmarking software (if the ones I have chosen are not good indicators of a stable OC)?

[HiVizMan]

Run Realbench - you can download it here in the forum. If your system can pass this benchmark then your system is stable and will handily any real world application you can toss at it. But make sure your cooling is good if you shoot for very high frequency the second test really heats up your CPU.

Oh and congrats on getting 5GHz as you wanted.

[HiVizMan]

Run Realbench - you can download it here in the forum. If your system can pass this benchmark then your system is stable and will handily any real world application you can toss at it. But make sure your cooling is good if you shoot for very high frequency the second test really heats up your CPU.

Oh and congrats on getting 5GHz as you wanted.

[Heatshiver]

So I did achieve the 5GHz, but again, it was just for show since the second Prime95 benchmark had frozen.

I decided to download RealBench (was in the middle of downloading x264 FHD) after reading your post. I can get through imaging no problem. When it does encoding, it gets a portion done before shutting down the computer and rebooting.

I tried some different combinations again trying only the encoding portion of RealBench with the the same failed results each time. The system got so messed up (couldn't boot into Windows) I had to do a Restore Point, which was fortunately from a couple days ago.

I am still going to keep at it, but just not sure what it is. I always have AIDA64 up so I can watch all the temps. They seem to be fine, seldomly going above 80 degrees [for Prime95]. I feel like it could be a power problem, but I'm not sure where to adjust. If it helps, I do run two GTX 480s in SLI (not overclocked)...

These minor setbacks won't stop me! I'm going to keep trying everything I can until I get that 5.0GHz stable!

P.S.
Tried the blog entry for settings and it too gave me failures in benching. Beyond that, those templates don't match my current updated BIOS (maybe an older version?); I also noticed this for the 4.8GHz guide...