I'm rusty ... Help with some basic overclock.

[ZeroBR]

Hi Folks,

I'm new on this forum so go easy on me... 🙂

After a long while, I decided to upgrade my PC. Everything is set up and working as expected, but when I'm running tasks that demand some raw power (aka gaming) after some time my machine just freezes (forcing me to hard reset) or just reboot itself.

Question is: I've seen this behavior more often after overclocking a bit, I don't know if I'm doing something wrong (most probably), I tried to run the auto tweak from the mobo and changing some stuff. The problem is, I'm f**** old right now and my brain is not so smart as it was 10 years ago. My old machine had a decent bios, with pretty straight forward stuff (It was a evga nfoce 790i SLI FTW). I got a sabertooth mark I z97 and HELL, there is so much information and names I can't even imagine what they are used for. 😞

I have no problems running stock, but since I just bought these parts, I'm trying to get my rig at least stable, thing that I'm not able to do right now, unless I'm not gaming.

My rig is:

Asus sabertooth Z97 Mark1
Intel Core i7 4790k
2x 8GB Gskill RipjawsX F3-12800CL10S-8GBXL (SPD says 1333 but I see everywhere it's 1600, a bit confusing).
evga GTX 660
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Thermaltake thoughpower 750w (pretty old right now, have this for about 6 years, but keeping up)

Can you guys share an example of stable configuration (stock and overclocked)? There are plenty of switches and gimmicks on the BIOS that I don't even know where to start with.

I know you guys will shed some light on an old man's head, and for that, I'm eternally grateful.

Thanks a ton!!

[MeanMachine]

Hi ZeroBR and Welcome to ROG.

Before we begin, may I ask your current Bios rev and your operating system.
I know the UEFI Bios is a little daunting at first and there is plenty of help here for that.
Also look here: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?47153-ASUS-Z97-Motherboards-Overview-and-Official-Support-T...
I can help guide you once you report back.

[ZeroBR]

Hi MeanMachine,

My bios rev is the latest (I downloaded right after I installed the EZ update tool).

I checked and it's .1202 My operating system is Windows 7 64 bit.

Thank you very much!!

[MeanMachine]

The latest Bios for your MB and OS is 1304 for improved system stability. I suggest you first update.

Using an empty USB stick, download the latest Bios 1304 and at the same time go to the utilities section and download the Bios renaming tool.
Activate the renamer and check it has done its job. You should then have a file named Z97ST.CAP.
Power down your system so there is only power to your MB.(Green light)
Insert the USB stick into the USB 2 port of your IO panel.(There are 4. choose bottom left facing the panel)
Press the USB Flashback button (3 secs until flashing. Once it stops its done.
You should then access your bios with default values initially. Do not make changes to Bios from within windows.

The Initial procedure is as follows:

Leave your baseclock as is.
In advanced Mode under AI Tweaker
Set AI overclock to XMP
CPU Core ratio (Sync all Cores)
Core ratio limit - 48

BCLK frequency to 100.0
CPU Core voltage - 1.008V
CPU Cache voltage - 1.072v
CPU System agent offset - 0.816V
All other settings on Auto.

With a 4770K, change Turbo multiplier to 44 initially and gradually work your way upwards. If lucky you may get to 48
Increase CPU voltage, though setting AUTO might work fine, I would choose 1.2~1.250V on this motherboard as a start.
Save and Exit BIOS / UEFI
Your cooler should cope at 4.6GHz, But if you want 4.8GHz or above you will have to upgrade to a liquid cooler.

You should then run a stress test in Windows using Prime95 for 10-15mins, (small FFT) and at the same time monitoring your temps using Coretemp and its grapher plugin. These products can be downloaded for free.
We can further OC when you are stable at 4.6GHz

Lets start with that and good luck.

Edit: You can use CPUz to read your XMP profile for the Ripjaws.

[ZeroBR]

Wow!!

Thank you so much for every bit of information. I would never figure this out alone.

Just a small correction on your post, you mentioned a 4770K, but in fact I have a 4790k, is the procedure the same?

I will follow your steps and will post results once I'm done.

Again, thank you SO much!


Edit: Just a quick side-note. I have downloaded Prime95 (latest version v28) and found out that this version is not so good to be used for Haswell chips. Is that correct? There are several people reporting wrong output from the tool when used together with Haswell. Should I download V26 instead?

Edit2: I've done some tests after changing the specs you suggested MeanMachine, although I could not find some of them.

I'm a bit scared, Here is the link to the prime test: http://imgur.com/gDw4Rhu

I have left it running for 10 minutes but I almost s** my pants, temperatures where at the tJunction threshold and I know this is not good.

Thanks!

[MeanMachine]

Hi and yea sorry about the typo,same procedure.

Yes, I agree indeed the 4790k does run hotter under Prime95 which is a harsh tester imo, as the algorithm increases in intensity after each pass. Hence you should monitor with CoreTemp constantly. (Do not allow higher than 85c for sustained periods)
We are initially testing for stability just for a short period. I never use it to run for long periods and certainly not overnight.
If you feel uncomfortable with using Prime95, then download ROGs own real world tester RealBench (my favourite). It will stress your CPU, GPU and DIMMs and is not so harsh. Your scores can be uploaded to the RealBench Leader-board, where comparisons with other similar systems as yours, can be made.

Please report back

[ZeroBR]

Hi MeanMachine,

I've tested with your configs and the system seem pretty stable (Didn't crash while gaming or rendering stuff on 3dstudio max). I have set CoreTemp to output a log while I was stressing the system with gaming/rendering and the temps didn't went above 65ºC. Which I believe it's fine.

But some other temperature raised my attention. I've set the Asus Push Notice to send me temperature information on my smartphone. And while I was stressing the system, I have recevied about a hundred push notifications stating the VCORE temp as at 60ºC (I believe this is a higher threshold, since it showed in RED on AI Suite 3. I don't know about this temperature and it's limit to ensure proper system stability. Is 60ºC too high for VCORE? I think this is what might be causing the freezes and reboots since the processor is running low in my humble opinion.

I will install the ROG RealBench and give it a try.

Thanks a ton!

[MeanMachine]

Well that's excellent news ZeroBR, What is your multiplier set at?

Sorry mate, I don't use AISuite and your temps (65c under load) are fine.
You can get erroneous readings using more than one temp monitor at a time.
You should always be present when stress testing a system imo.
Lets see how you go with RealBench.

Edit: Did you finish up using Prime95 and what were the results?
Edit 2: Just noticed your previous edit re Prime95, Yea no good, you should have shut it down before reaching those temps as it will degrade your CPU if sustained.

[NemesisChild]

One thing that I recommend is to replace that very old PSU sometime soon.
PSU quality degrades over time and quite honestly, I'm surprised your unit has failed yet.

Prime is not really a good program to test system stability, RealBench provides more realistic results.

[ZeroBR]

Thanks for the update guys, and sorry for this late reply. I was out for the entire weekend and could not test my system in this timeframe.

I have installed the RealBench app and there are two options: Benchmark and Stress test, what option shoudl I go?

NemesisChild, changin my PSU is my next step, I have been looking for other to swap, do you have any recommendation on model/manufacturer?

Thanks again!


Edit: I've took the time to properly run the RealBench and found some interesting results:

Although you mentioned AISuite was kinda innacurate, I have a pic here to show the temps of the VRAM at idle.

The other images are from a full benchmark test with RealBench, and the others are stress testing with RealBench. It raised my attention that again, Just after I started the stress test with RealBench, temparatures didn't spiked to 99, 100º, but they were very close to that, and that was in the first minute of testing. I decided to abort in order to avoid screwing my processor.

Follow the screens:

Idle: http://i.imgur.com/aru5Y4v.jpg

RealBench, complete Benchmark: http://i.imgur.com/uTeVAE3.png

Several screenshots from the stress test:

http://i.imgur.com/ORFdkcb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/R3yLeKn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gvGbb0k.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YVAUyPf.jpg

I don't know, but I think this has to do with the voltages I've set on the bios. I will take some pictures of it and post here too. If you can double check please, just to be sure I didn't mess anything there.

Thanks!!


Edit2:

Here are some information I took from my bios (sorry for the photo thing, I know it's archaic, but I found no other way to do it.)

Screenshots:

http://i.imgur.com/K7pEXce.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aVM99K6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HQW4gQq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gsf1DTA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NOS6yr7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9vvIwia.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vGKnBrw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ffsWsiP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mA5Wqgf.jpg

I took all of them in order of appearance on my screen. Hope this helps a bit.