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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

a little nudge

LouP

LouP

Flight Sim Junkie
I'm sure this has been asked a million times but I'll be d$%med if I can find it. I have an Alienware i7 930 and it's been bumped up to run at 3.3 g. I don't think it's even close to giving me what it has in it so was wondering what would be the best way to bump it up a bit. I am thinking that 3.8 g would be nice and would not be pushing my cpu too much.

Thanks
LouP
 
I just upgraded my Alienware so I may be able to help you out. The biggest obstacle I had to overcome in OC'ing mine (I have an i7-950) was upgrading the RAM.. Alienware gave me some garbage RAM that was DDR3 PC 107000.. So I upgraded to some Corsair Dominator PC 12800 with a CAS of 7. I bought it from Newegg here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=Corsair_Dominator_6GB-_-20-145-289-_-Product . You will also need to upgrade your cooling system if you want to run 3.8ghz as the air cooler you got from them will not be up to task. I originally started on air, but now I have a Corsair H-70 I installed Monday which you can get here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181013&Tpk=Corsair H70 ... I am running my i7-950 stable at 4.2ghz with temps in the low to mid 70's at full load (max you want is 85, but it is definately not recommended to run it even close to 85C)... Not sure what your max multiplier is though on your 930, so you may need even faster RAM that what I posted above because to get to 3.8 you will need to increase your front speed bus a lot more than I did.. Cause to get my 4.2ghz I am running a multiplier of 21 with a FSB of 200mhz.. That puts the RAM perfectly at just over 1600mhz which is it's stock clock, so I can maintain the stock timings. Ideally that is what you would want to try and do as well as I am very bad at overclocking RAM, and it becomes a huge pain to do.
 
Awesome Steve, good information here. My Alienware came with liquid cooling so if I have any issue with tempertures, which I think I do, I am suspect of the contact between the cpu and coolong plate. I have some artic silver I may throw on there over the weekend as I bumped up the bsclk rate and added some milivolts to sustain it and got 3.8 gig out of her. I am at my max multiplier now at 21. I have not adjusted anything else yet as I am taking it slow (I am new at this).

My major concern is that under stress using realtemp and prime95 the temps were in the 80s on all four cores. At idle I am in the low 60s. Even though I got a passing grade and it seemed stable, I think those numbers are to high. I am in work right now and can post the specific numers I used to get the 3.8 tonight or tomorrow morning. I think I am on the right track but I want to get the tempertures down.

I can't remember specifically, but I believe I got the upgraded memory when I purchased the machine.

Thanks for the assistance, I don't want to start a fire in my machine :icon_lol:

LouP
 
Yeah those temps seem kind of high. I had water cooling on an older Alienware computer, and I was not happy with it. Granted that was on an older AMD FX-60 powered machine. The Arctic Silver may help. I had a Cooler Master air cooler that I tried before the H-70, but it was not powerful enough to counteract all the heat from the i7. The H-70 has 2 120mm fans (1 on each side of the radiator) to push/pull the air through it. Like you I was running up into the 80C range (sometimes hitting 90C on Prime/Intel Burn Test on Standard!), and that was only running 4ghz.. With the H-70 I am running 4.2ghz, and even running Intel Burn Test on maximum I am only hitting 81C max now. Maybe you could get another 120mm fan to try and increase air flow through the radiator on your current setup and see if that helps. You do not have to worry about starting a fire though.. The processor will automatically shut down at TJ Maxx (100C), and at worst you will just melt the processor to the board (really bad, but it will not burst into flames). Even when I was OC'd to 4ghz my RAM really slowed me down.. You should get CPU-Z and check to see what you have without having to open the case. It is no problem though. Hopefully you get to where you want to be. Just be sure when upping the FSB you keep you RAM in spec, or loosen the timings if you increase the speed. Stops the BSOD's which I was having a lot of issues with.
 
Hi Steve,

I'll post up screenshots of CPUZ as soon sd I can. I think there are two issues causing the heat. First, I have a GTX480 sitting in the case along with a GT430 for a third monitior. Second, I have most of the settings on "auto" right now and I am thinking something is pulling in way more voltage than needed to compensate for the changes I made so far in the bsclk. I may even back that off a little as right now I have it at 185 to get my 3.8 gigs. However, I don't see any reason why I should not be able to reach my 3.8 without the heat so I will keep trying some other things.

I am not too keen on taking the heatsink off the cpu but will if the temps don't come down with some other adjustments.

LouP
 
I am with you about not wanting to take the heat sink off. That was the great thing about the Corsair H-70, is it had the thermal paste already perfectly pre-applied to the CPU mount area. So I just cleaned off the old stuff, and put the H-70's cooling plate right on. I was going to clean it off and replace it with the Artic Silver5, but after reading several threads decided not to. Either way I had to remove the mobo to change out the back plate and all (a major pain in the rear). If you are running most settings in auto I am suprised you are able to get to 3.8. On mine (Asus P6T Deluxe V2) I could barely make it past 3.4 without BSOD's. Had to go in and change the vCore voltage and everything. After that I made it to 4ghz before the heat got to bad, and the RAM couldn't take anymore... The GTX 480 shouldn't be to much of a problem since it vents outside the case.. The way I have the H70 setup is the rear fans are actually pulling air inside the case instead of pushing it out. So I have those, and the front fan pulling air into the case then the GTX 580, and I reverse the side door fan to exhaust the air back out of the system. Seems to work pretty well in that configuration so far. For a 3.8ghz clock though you should be able to get away with a 1.3-1.32 vCore which should keep your temps pretty low. Providing the cooler is able to ditch the heat quick enough. This is just one of those areas where you have to kind of feel out your system to see where the weak points are at. Then decide if it is worth the $$ to replace the weak links. The bad thing about your 930 is you are limited on your multiplier, so you are forced into using the FSB. When I was OC'ing it really made me wish I had spent the extra money on the Xtreme processors as they have an unlimited multiplier, but at the moment it is not worth $$ I think.
 
So when I started my PC tonight, it apparently did not like what I did to it last night and it reset all my settings back to the base settings. Not a bad thing though as I needed to take another route because of those temps. This time I disabled hyperthreading (don't believe FSX uses this anyway), bumped the bsclk back up to 180, and only added 80 mv to vcore instead of ~300 like last time. I think I like the results and will see how they work out. :jump: I hope they hold after my next shutdown this time around :applause:.

My temps peaked out at 73 on one core under stress which is not too bad and hover around 60 at idle. :mixedsmi: Here's a look where I am at. Who said this OC thing was tough? I think as long as you take it slow and don't get agressive, these i7s are just made to nudge a bit. :salute:

LouP
 
Looking good Lou. I think you are right. As long as we don't go crazy with the i7's they are built to go over spec. Hopefully it remains stable.
 
Settings held nicely on start-up this morning and temps are starting of in the 40s. Looks like I got a good one :jump: Just the nudge I was looking for ;)

LouP
 
Still messing around and wanted to share something. I dropped my clock back a wee bit just to be safe and have a little more piece of mind. I kept tinkering and manually set my DRAM timings and tightened things up a bit. I saw a HUGE increase in the sim after I set the timings manually. Almost more so than I saw when increasing the clock rate. I am flying like butter now :jump:

No voltage increase, just tightened them up a bit and took them off "auto". Can not believe the difference. Makes me wonder if the techs at Dell had them messed up to begin with somehow. Anyway that doesn't matter, all is good :guinness:

LouP :mixedsmi:
 
Is why I was telling you about the RAM as well Lou. Is good to hear you are doing better with it now. For me the RAM was a huge bottleneck. Just be sure you aren't pushing it to far if you do not have the type with cooling fins on them, and do not push the DRAM voltage to high as it is really easy to burn out the chips. The good thing about the motherboard I have (the Asus P6T) is that if you buy the XMP enabled RAM it automatically adjusts your timings, voltage, and speed for you. So it at least saves you that hassle. Having a Dell though you would need to do it yourself like you are saying. Suprised you were even able to mess with the timings? Most of the store bought PC's I have owned everything was locked up. Most likely it was not the techs at Dell messing it up, just that they throw the same mobo BIOS into most of their PC's. Just aim them at working correctly, and not performance.
 
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