Hi Sifu's. I haven't post anything in this thread for so long. After more than a year of using 955BE with my old AM2 mobo, I have finally bought a Gigabyte MA770-UD3 for my CPU. I'm pairing it with Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz Ram.

The thing is, my PC went BSOD several times when I was playing NFS Shift 2

I OC my 955BE to 3.6Ghz by changing the multiplier to 18 and increase my voltage to 1.425v. And after it went BSOD for the first time, I increase the voltage to 1.45v and it was stable for a moment until I heard the alarm from my PC. I have set the warning alarm if my CPU reaches 60c.

And so I re-tune my multiplier to 17.5 and voltage to 1.425v and leave it at 3.5Ghz hoping it would run cooler but after a moment it went BSOD again when I'm playing Shift.

After BSOD for the second time, I OC my 955 to 3.6Ghz again at 1.45v and tested with Shift again. After a while my PC went BSOD again Seriously I'm not sure where I did wrong

My RAM setting is 10-10-10-25 @ 1600Mhz @ 1.66v.

I'm setting my CPU back to 3.4Ghz for now and hopefully I can tune it again tomorrow

The funny thing is, my old Asus AM2 mobo can support 3.6Ghz on my 955BE with my old DDR2 ram. I wonder why 770 chipset can't support it? it doesn't really make sense. I must have done something wrong.

I'm hoping sifu's here can give me some advice. Thanks

Not really a big fan of stressing test. Not even sure how to stress it. Got Prime95 but not sure how to use it. Kinda noob with it

The only strees test I know is 3D Mark

This post has been edited by cllee86: Apr 4 2011, 04:29 AM

I see..Thanks. Will try that soon.

But I'm still curious about my setting. What is safest operating temperature for 955BE c3. I remember its somewhere between 55c ~ 60c rite?

Hahaha..after a few tries and some reading, I finally know how to use Prime 95. I wonder why I never try to use the Torture Test option before

But I think I know my issue, its heat. When I Prime my 955BE it went up to 60c quite fast. That was at 3.6Ghz @ 1.45v. It only takes around 5 minutes to get more than 60c. I always thought my Zalman 9500LED can handle OC but apparently I'm wrong. Been using the same setup for years but only now I notice these issues

I wonder, is 1.45v for 3.6Ghz too much? How much voltage do you guys put for 3.6Ghz?

Now, I'm trying to Prime 3.5Ghz @ 1.425v.

Hi guys. Latest update on my OC adventure.

Prime 3.5Ghz @ 1.425v = failed - PC restarted in less than 3 seconds

Prime 3.2Ghz(Stock) @ 1.375v(Under volt by 0.025v = failed - PC also restarted in less than 3 seconds

At last, Prime 3.4Ghz with stock voltage @ 1.4v - Successful for 45mins without any issues. Maximum temperature reach 62c

Aiii...in the end the most stable clock speed is the one I've been using all along Feels kinda disappointed

I can try 3.6Ghz @ 1.45v but the temperature will climb very fast and will exceed 65c in no time. My biggest concern is heat now.
Gotta find some way to reduce the temperature of my CPU and improve the air flow in my casing.

Maybe need to radically mod my casing

Shouldn't be the PSU. My father handpick this PSU himself. Back then I was under budget and my only option was wither Enlight 400w or Cooler Master Extreme 460w. We look at both and my father insist that I took the Enlight even though Cooler Master has more wattage. Reason is, Enlight is a lot heavier

If you wondering why I listen to my father, its because he's an electrician / electronic engineer. Has been dealing with these electronic stuff for more than 20 years. Dealt with more PSU than you or I have ever touch in our lifetime

Either way, I believe the issue is not with the PSU. I don't have any other PSU to try anyway.

Can't really call Enlight cap ayam. Have dissected the PSU before and it was surprisingly good. Large transformer, surprisingly quality large capacitors and some very good transistors too.

Oh, did I mention it was as heavy as some of the 550w PSU's

Nah..those PSU calculator are not very accurate. Just another tool to make money.

You see. There is a strong correlation between weight and a quality of PSU. Normally, a more powerful PSU requires a larger transformer, which in turns translated to heavier PSU.

And there is no way these tiny copper wire you found in those high end PSU can carry 60amps in them. Unless they're made out of pure gold or the found a way to turn it super conductor at high temperature

You don't really need that much power in a small CPU you see. Its only 1.4v for God sake

And if my PSU is really under power, it would have shut down a long long time ago

This post has been edited by cllee86: Apr 4 2011, 10:53 PM

Well. I appreciate your kind intentions but if you did as much research as I did into PSU then you'll know that the ampere rating on those 12v rails could be best describe as the work of fiction.

There is 1 time I was obsessed by PSU and all these 12v rail rating. I'm gonna take my time to explain why 60amp on those PSU 12v rails are crazy.

Our PC runs on Direct Current. Which means that the positive and negative charge must go together in the same copper wire. This creates a more stable flow of electricity but generates a lot of resistant. Which means, in order to carry more current (known as ampere) it must have thicker copper wire.

Now if you need a copper wire to carry 60amps of 12v DC, you'll need at least 1" thick copper wire

Have you ever see a 1 inch thick cable in any PC PSU? Neither did I. But I have seen a 12v DC 40amp PSU, but not for PC. Its for Car starter and you'll need a trolley just to move it

Now, about wattage calculation. Watt is a very general term. It can be used to represent any form of power. Even the power required for a person to climb stairs can be measured in watt. Now for electricity, watt is easier to calculate. To get the wattage, you just multiply the volt and the ampere.

V * Amp = Watt, for example.

10v * 10amp = 100watt. Easy. But if you take the formula to calculate CPU then it all doesn't make sense. CPU is only 1.4v, so in order for it to consume 125watt it must take at least 89amps

So for a tiny CPU to consume that much power is

I still need some time to find the root cause for my OC setup. But I'm confident that the PSU is not the culprit.

Btw, I'm more interested in the settings. Like how will the NB frequency affect OC and other stuff like that..

To answer your first query. All those other components you were mentioning. They all use less than 3 volts. That I can guarantee. There is no small Integrated Circuits in the world (the ones they put in PCB) that uses more than 3 volts.

And why PSU Manufacturer would put fictitious rating on their PSU. That's even simpler, so that you would keep buying them

I kinda agree with you on your first statement. That's why we dissect my PSU early this year to check for any fault. As I mentioned before, my father is an expert on PSU and he has handled more PSU we have ever touch in our life combined. In order to see whether aging has took place or the PSU has been stressed more than its capacity, we have to physically take a look at the components. I'll teach you how.

First of all, take a look at the capacitors. The moment you remove the cover to your PSU you'll notice 2 things, a very large capacitor and transformer. If the capacitor becomes "pregnant", or grows a bulge on top of it. Its a sign of capacitor overload. The capacitor will only become like that if its faulty or overload. If the capacitor doesn't look pregnant, it means that its still fine.

When we took out my PSU last time, my father was surprise at the capacity of the Enlight capacitor. He say it is very hard to find a capacitor with that high capacity.

Secondly, take a look at the bottom of the PCB, especially on the solder. If your solder appears blacken then it means the PSU has been overload. If tis clean and the solder haven't melted, then its all OK

My PSU was in perfect condition when we take it out last time, even then I have been using it for more than a year. If my PSU is underpower then all the symptoms I mentioned about damaged PSU would have appear then

Yea..this is what I'm taking about. Alright, its a bit long, here goes;

FSB 200Mhz @ 18 Multiplier which gives 3600Mhz
HT is set at default at 2000Mhz
I haven't check the NB Multi, donno how, will see how..
Ram 1600Mhz @ 10-10-10-25, I think this not the most ideal timing
RAM divider at 1:4 I think

I wanna go explore these kind of setting but not sure how, Its the RAM timing that makes me go nuts
Maybe I'll go revisit Phenom 2 overclocking thread.

Yea. Kinda agree with you. Btw, I know a lot, I mean a lot about PSU so you don't have to worry about my PSU consumption. I know what I'm doing
Btw, what do you mean when you say you won't go high vcore on that mobo? U mean my 770T mobo? Is it no good, I bought it 2nd hand from another forumer...

Hey. I have never thought of that. How do you do memtest. At the start of Bios? Or using software?


Awesome man That's what I'm talking about. How did you do that? And with 1.344v sumore

You have my out most respect

Btw, I stopped playing with Multiplier and tweak the FSB.

I'm now running 212FSB with Multiplier at 17 which gives about 3604Mhz.

I clocked my VCore to 1.425 to give it more stability, maybe lower it when if it works.

My HT link now is at 2120Mhz and my ram clock change to 706Mhz.

Will Prime it and see whether it will survive 5 mins

Wow.God Damn it. It works

Changing the FSB to 212 at 17 Multiplier works. I managed to Prime my CPU for more than 10 mins and the temperature stays stable at 55~56c.

If I used FSB 200 at 18 Multiplier with 1.45v on my core it will shoot more than 65c after just 3 minutes.

And confirm I need to improve the airflow on my Cap Dolphin casing. I remove the side cover for the OC session just now and the temperature manage to stay stable at 55~56c.

Here's a screen shot of my setup just now. I think can still be improved. Gonna do it like Sifu kuntawakaw
I'll go gaming for a while and check out whether it'll BSOD on me or not this time.

The thing is, electronic components don;t normally have wear and tear like mechanical components. But I suppose it has something similar though. Normally electronic components will fail completely if its time.

And you're lucky if your PC suddenly shutdown or unable to boot. It means that the PSU fail safe is working and it kept your other PC components from being damaged. Cheers to Enlight
Do you still have the old Enlight you mentioned, I'm sure it can be repaired.


Well, given their price I'm would be really really surprised if they give cheapo components lorr. They HAD to give extra large capacitors and extra powerful transformer and extra quality IC's if they want to supply more power to the PC.

What I mean when we're surprise when we saw the capacity of the capacitor is that, given its price of RM145 (if I recall correctly), the components given are quite good. I mean, you don't exactly hear praises when you mentioned Enlight. But then again, my 400W Enlight that everybody says is underpowered has served me for the past 2 years so I have no complaints.


Damn, really..Shit..But Gigabyte 4+1 phase won't be worse than my old Asus M2N68 Motherboard rite...


My RAM is at 1.66v. Stock should be 1.65 but the BIOS doesn't have 1.65v, it skips to 1.66 from 1.64 I've kept my NB and other components at stock voltage. And I've made a mistake just now, apparently I didn't over volt my CPU to 1.425v. It was running at stock 1.4v when I was testing the configuration just now. No wonder my CPU-Z shows 1.39v....

Its damn good news for me though...


Hmm..Linux also has the Memtest, maybe I should try that one later. Thanks for the info bro.


I see, well congrats on your new Deneb bro.
Btw, your RAM timing is very weird. Would it be more stable if you time your RAM like that?
And I didn't know you can OC the CPU-NB frequency to that high.

And my setting works. After 20 mins of Prime 95 and 2 hours of gaming my system is still stable. No sudden shut down or BSOD. Looks like there is more to OC than just increasing the voltage...

Time to experiment on other settings hehe.....

This post has been edited by cllee86: Apr 5 2011, 03:53 AM

I see I see..thanks for the info bro. By tight timing you mean 7-7-7-10 or 10-10-10-20?

I'm setting my ram at 9-10-9-25 @ 1410Mhz. It pass the first round of Memtest so it should be fine i guess. Normally u Memtest the RAM timing to determine the stability?


Hehe..not really a debate lar bro. Just stating what I have learn during the days when I was obsessed by it
Btw, it very difficult to see from the pictures. At first I thought you took them yourself haha...

Alright, the first thing you'll notice is the large capacitors, all PSU have that. The 450v reading means that the capacitor can accept inputs up to 450Volts. It doesn't really mean anything since the input voltage is not really important, its the output voltage that is important but I can't see it from your picture.

The uF number indicated the stability of the electric output of the capacitor. 390uF is really good. It means that the electric output from the capacitor is very stable. The Big RED coil next to the capacitors are meant to further reduce the electronic noise.

As expected of Silverstone. No wonder they're so damn expensive. They're using good stuffs. My father has only 1 solid advice when selecting PSU.
Always take the HEAVIER ones. If you have 2, 1 is heavier and the other 1 is lighter but has more output written on its stickers. Always take the heavier 1.


Oh yea. I didn't mention what RAM I'm using. I'm just using a low end Kingston HyperX ram. Its stated in the website that the original timing for my Kingston Ram is 1600Mhz at 9-9-9-24 at 1.65v

My current RAM setting is at 1410Mhz at 9-10-9-25 at 1.6v. Tested with Memtest and it pass 1 round. Should be OK I guess.

Any advice on my RAM timing? Can go lower? Cause I heard the lower the RAM timing the more unstable you system becomes when you OC. Especially if you're using cheapo RAM like my Kingston HyperX...


Yup, but you can still measure it in Watt if you want.


Not really sure how accurate is the calculation. TDP stated in CPU websites are thermal power. We're talking about electrical power. i don't think its very accurate to calculate total electrical consumption from thermal output.


Yes, other component do draw power ( that's a no brainer ) but its not that much. But the motors in the HDD runs on 12v, In fact, all the motors in the PC system runs on 12v.

Please, don't make me start on GPU. It'll deviate further from the purpose of this thread and I wanna focus on OC.

And if you read my later post, you'll notice that its all about configuration, and not PSU. My latest configuration works perfectly fine. No BSOD or restart.

The culprit for my system now is the No 1 enemy to all electronic components, Heat. My casing just doesn't deliver cool air fast enough and it does a bad job at exhausting hot air. No choice, cap Dolphin casing, from 7 years ago....Gotta MOD my case, can't afford a new one...yet..

Thank you so much for the advice Will try it out soon...

And compared to those high end Rams like Munchkin and Corsair, my Kingston HyperX is considered cheapo edi
But will try to push it to the max
I hope this HyperX will be friends with my chipset haha..


Hmm..I tested Prime yesterday with my side case open and the temperature max at 56c. When I closed it the temperature shoot up to 60c ++.
The ZALMAN 9500 is pretty good, it cost me RM245 back then Its just that the air flow inside my casing sucks. But I already have plans for my casing, I will cut out 1 section of the side panel so that I can fit one 12" fan directly beside my CPU fan

This post has been edited by cllee86: Apr 5 2011, 11:35 PM

Aiyo..don't you think I want to get rid of those cacing kerawits meh..
I bought the Cap Dolphin casing 7 years ago!! There are no cable managements built into the casing larr..
Plus the PSU is on top sumore and there's a bunch of big ass cable dangling from above

I did my best to manage the cable with what I got and I'm proud to say I did quite a decent job at it...

My casing got both intake and exhaust fans but there's this huge metal mesh blocking the air flow and its giving a huge wind resistant to the overall airflow.
Now I wanna cut out these metal meshes first but the thing is, they're damn strong and I can't cut it using my regular cutter. I need professional help with this...Gonna ask my friend to cut it for me, he got the right tools

Hehe..no need to go that far As for cable routing, I'll just get me a new casing that has good cable routes and airflow. But I can't afford it yet..Haizzz...

And I've also heard about this rumours that over 4gb of Ram is a bit harder to OC. Guess it true then. My brother is planning to get 8gb as well for his next PC.

Woah...267 fsb....Fro some reason I'm quite reluctant to touch my FSB...

Latest RAM Timing.

8-9-8-23-30 @ 1.6v / FSB:DRAM = 3:10

MemTest pass 1 round. No error found.

Prime for 15 minutes. 2 sessions. Success.

Looks like OK. But is tight timing faster or slower? So far I'm quite satisfied with my current clock and configuration
Do you think its possible to push 3.8Ghz with this RAM timing? Now running stable at 3.6Ghz

Have modded my casing by adding another 12cm intake fan. Have to take out 3 DVD Bays to do that. Looks ugly but it works.
Temperature is lower by 8c

Donno man. It looks like AM3+ has 940pins. AM3 has only 938.
Wikipedia says AM3+ CPU's are not compatible with AM3 socket cause of the extra 2 pins, if you trust Wikipedia.
Even the link provided by louislkw shows that AM3+ has extra 2 pins. Even though I can't really understand the English translation well.

Or I could read the manual or refer to official AMD statement...