Help me overclock my AMD Phenom X4

everyguy

I have an AMD Phenom X4 Black 9850 that is running great with a stock AMD heatsink, but I'm feeling the urge to overclock it. I've built a lot of systems over the years, but never done any overclocking, so I wonder if some of the Icrontic overclocking veterans could give me some advice on what to do, like what heatsink to use, and suggested voltage and frequency settings and the like.

I would like the system to run as fast as possible, especially in crunching FAH work units. I don't use it for gaming, so the GPU is probably not an issue. I still need it to be pretty stable because I use it for work, and software I use for work is pretty buggy and really sensitive to computer instability.

So my question is, what would you do with this system? What FSB freq. would you set, what multiplier, what voltage, what else would you do?

Below are some screen shots with relevant specs. Let me know if any other information is needed.

Thanks!

rolleggroll

Average cpu temperatures? Cpu temperatures @ full load. Ambient temps? I am a beginner too but I think getting a new heatsink is probably going to be a good idea.

everyguy

rolleggroll wrote:

Average cpu temperatures? Cpu temperatures @ full load. Ambient temps? I am a beginner too but I think getting a new heatsink is probably going to be a good idea.

I'm always running folding@home, so what you see is pretty much my average temp. Whatever I do in the way of overclocking will have to work under constant 100% loads. I'm not sure about ambient temps. Does that mean the temp in the room or the temp in the case?

Definately I need a new heat sink. Probably I should lap the CPU and heat sink too.

Thanks!

lemonlime

Welcome to Icrontic!

Purchasing a new heatsink is not a requirement to do some overclocking, but it will certainly limit your overclock if you do not. Your heat load will not increase dramatically with frequency increases alone. It is the voltage increases that really get the chip cooking.

First of all, what motherboard are you using in this rig?

everyguy

lemonlime wrote:

Welcome to Icrontic!

Purchasing a new heatsink is not a requirement to do some overclocking, but it will certainly limit your overclock if you do not. Your heat load will not increase dramatically with frequency increases alone. It is the voltage increases that really get the chip cooking.

First of all, what motherboard are you using in this rig?

Thanks for the welcome. Icrontic seems like a nice group.

I'm using an ASUS M3A with the latest bios update. Also, I'm running Windows XP home version.

One reason I started this thread is because I'm unclear about the relationship between frequency increases and voltage increases. Yesterday I changed the frequency multiplier to 14 from 12.5, giving 2.8 GHz, and it seemed to run fine, and the core temp only went up by about a degree and a half. But while using the notoriously buggy translation memory software I need for my work, it suddenly froze up while I was doing a copy and paste. This happens a lot with that software, but it usually just hangs that app. But this time, the whole computer froze, which makes me think the frequency increase destabilized the thing. So I'm thinking maybe I need some combination of frequency increase, plus voltage increase, plus improved heat removing to make it work. One question I have is what does the voltage increase do, and how do I know how far to increase it.

Thanks for your help!

lemonlime

Yep, you've probably pushed the frequency beyond what could be maintained at that voltage and temperature. Start with small frequency increases and give it a good stability test run. With a black edition chip, you are fortunate in that you can simply increase the multiplier. Try .5 increases until complete stability can be verified. I wouldn't rely on application behavior as an indication of CPU stability. Download 'Prime95' v25 and do a 'Large In-Place FFT' stability test. I've seen the operating system and applications run completely normally for weeks but fail a Prime95 test in less than 5 minutes.

Installation instructions and a download link can be found here:
http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=8981

Keep a close eye on your temperatures during Prime95 testing--it is much more intensive than F@H.

I would advise against voltage increases until you can get a better heatsink installed. Your temperature is already above the 60'C mark and will get significantly worse with voltage increases.

everyguy

lemonlime wrote:

I would advise against voltage increases until you can get a better heatsink installed. Your temperature is already above the 60'C mark and will get significantly worse with voltage increases.

Any recommendations for a good heatsink?

lemonlime

Check out Noctua's NH-C12P or NH-U12P. They are both high quality heatsinks that will do well. The OCZ Vendetta II is also supposed to be a great sink, although I have not tried it yet.

kless001

I use a phenom x4 9850 black edition<---don't know if this has any significance. It's on an asus M4A78 Pro MoBo.

This is exactly what I did....

Go in your bios, leave EVERYTHING on auto setting except cpu ratio. Take it off of auto setting and change it to X14

Instant boost from 2.5ghz

---

> 2.8ghz.

Since I didn't increase voltage I expect the worst that can happen is my system will crash. If anything happens I'll post asap. I did my research and found a well written article with pictures detailing every step "which are easy to figure out".

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/682/13/

kless001

I'd like to add something. I had this problem before I changed my cpu ratio but it's something to note. In windows task manager, under performance, that graph.... yeah every 10 or so seconds I spike up to 29%-35% in cpu usage. Again it was always doing this even before I adjusted the cpu ratio. I suppose it's something I'll have to make my own thread about. I'm not sure what would be causing this, it happens even when I have no programs running and only the necessary processes running in the background.