X79 and/or rampage IV OC'ing thread for those of us still left....

[dalekdukesboy]

Yeah, generally speaking 32 gigs of memory is way more than you could ever use unless you are using some serious graphics software or multiple memory hogging apps all at once etc etc. So basically you got way more than you need (I'd guess) although when you do have all that stuff running at once I'd be interested in you checking how much memory is actually being used, obviously windows task manager is easiest and everyone has it on the pc but could use other programs to check as well as you probably well know. I'm no expert I just don't know your level of expertise but I can tell it's pretty high and probably in many areas you know more than I do I just so happened to have good practical knowledge about this platform because I've used multiple memory configurations and a couple processors and tried countless Overclocks with various speeds/timings etc. I've never populated every slot I was running dual channel for a while because I only had 2 sticks of memory and the board wouldn't read beyond that due to pin damage, now with replacement board I have what you currently have which is 4 slots populated I just have half the memory capacity density and have 4x4 gigs rather than your 4x8 gigs. Anyway sounds like having higher density sticks but half the slots populated made a huge difference, which I'd kind of suspect because it is a ton of stress on the board and cpu memory controller to have every memory slot in operation at the same time. So it's interesting to hear how you notice the difference between all slots and half slots with same gigabytes of memory, I would probably never populate all the slots but I would have considered it till I heard how you seemed to find out that it appears x79 at least doesn't particularly appreciate that plus a healthy CPU overclock.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Well... I used to use two browsers with a load of tabs open & thats why i needed more ram even with chrome open right now & Azureus im sitting on 10GB of ram usage. I used to run 16GB of ram before and keeping things running while running battlefield 3 or 4 would see ram usage almost max out.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Ok, but maybe I'm asking the obvious...why keep multiple browsers open while playing a pc game?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Ok, but maybe I'm asking the obvious...why keep multiple browsers open while playing a pc game?

I dont always, I close the second one down. 10GB is just with chrome open

 

[dalekdukesboy]

That sounds like a lot...what are you running exactly? I'm just curious, granted hyperthreading and the ability of multi-cores and multiple threading theoretically allows you to run multiple things with no or minimal loss of speed at any one task but I admit I'm a minimalist so I close and even stop every windows background crap task or program that wants to open on startup because when I only had 4-8 gigs of memory it was obvious how bad the slowdowns were once memory was even close to mostly used up.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

just about 50 or so tabs, too lazy to bookmark and load everything all up again. i know what tab is what so just click on it.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Um ok. Thanks for explanation though I admit I don't rationally follow it considering I err on the opposite extreme of running as little as possible particularly stuff I am not actively using.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

50 tabs? Wow, I just noticed that number, that's a massive amount of pages open.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

So FreedomEclipse how is the system working? I'm curious if it's relatively smooth sailing with new memory configuration and if it's still running better and not getting slowdowns/performance issues like before? As I said I may never fill all my RAM slots but still fascinating to know the practical application of filling every memory slot vs higher density mem with same overall gigs and how it actually effects stability and performance. I am actually surprised you found such a difference at first and wondering if you still are again sailing smoothly with higher overclock or if any problems came back or not. I have a few odd "quirks" I have noticed in my machine as well that I haven't mentioned so I may bring them up and see if anyone else has them or they are just something I deal with.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I still think its early days so far, Its been through a few guildwars 2 sessions & 2hrs of BF1 tonight and no BSOD yet. System is still running quite smoothly and temps havent spiked or idled at 52'c for a while. Going to put in some more BF1 time and pretty much just wait and see if it BSOD's If it doesnt then I'll hop back up another 100mhz back to 4.6

::edit::

Exactly 30 mins after making this post my system bsod during a round of BF1 with 101 error. Ive revised the vrm settings in my bios to see if i can get it stable again at 4.5ghz

 

[dalekdukesboy]

I still think its early days so far, Its been through a few guildwars 2 sessions & 2hrs of BF1 tonight and no BSOD yet. System is still running quite smoothly and temps havent spiked or idled at 52'c for a while. Going to put in some more BF1 time and pretty much just wait and see if it BSOD's If it doesnt then I'll hop back up another 100mhz back to 4.6

::edit::

Exactly 30 mins after making this post my system bsod during a round of BF1 with 101 error. Ive revised the vrm settings in my bios to see if i can get it stable again at 4.5ghz

Damn. I was pulling for you that all was well and it was like a miracle cure for your pc lol. All was well till you sent original post to me...your PC read it and said FU I'm going to bluescreen. Pretty amazing though how weird these things are and they just do crazy shit out of nowhere just when you think you got them figured out. OK 101 error I believe is memory related, I'm going to check but I know it's one of the hundreds I've gotten when I was stress testing my pc and pushing the limits with CPU and memory overclock. X79 is still a very capable beast for its' age but it is known to be very, very picky about RAM and settings related to it. I can attest to that. So have you seen your CPU temps while gaming etc? You probably should get a program to monitor that as you stress system so you can rule out any heat related issues...idle temp is meaningless generally unless they are through the roof but your temps while cpu is being heavily used are critical. Part of the reason I like silly stress tests is you aren't on a full screen like a game and you can watch the temps right up to any bluescreen or freeze and you know if they are kinda high or not.

Also since I have become a relative "expert" in what not to do with this platform due to all my experiments torturing this poor system would you mind posting as many of your voltages/settings as possible? We have systems that are close enough (down to an Asus motherboard) that I'm sure I may be able to help by comparing your settings to mine and see if they are in line and sound plausible and workable. Obviously our cpus/memory are different and will have variance but generally a lot of the settings will be very similar or within a narrow enough "range" that you may just have one silly setting off a bit and it is causing all the hassle. If you've read back through most of my posts you will see I have had more failures and pain with problems just like yours than I'd care to admit and also your overclock is dead nuts on to mine...currently 4.5 ghz was at 4.6 but voltage higher than I'd like and seemed a bit bleeding edge for running my memory at high mhz and CAS settings. Anyway hope you figure it out one way or another and I'd certainly like to help or try anyway best as I can.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

101 is Vcore related, Hence i revised the VRM settings. Im probably dealing with a bit of V-droop but i read up on a few guides and they said to set the VRMs to optimised instead of Manual>Medium which is what i had it on.

 

[dalekdukesboy]

AH ok thanks, I was about to look it up, I admit I forgot which numbers were which I saw them all trust me. So what is your vcore set at?

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Yep 109 is related to memory. I did get 101 a few times however I did get multiple codes some of which I couldn't even find a reason for which can be frustrating but usually you can logically figure it out if you record or remember what settings you changed etc. My vdroop I set to be essentially non-existant I think I am on ultra-high for vdroop currently...4.5 ghz my cpu will do with 1.335 volts.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

My Vcore should be about 1.38v

 

[dalekdukesboy]

AH, yeah that's within reason, up to 4.5 ghz my particular cpu sips voltage. Once you push further it goes up exponentially lol. Granted I have the rampage board but your pro should have a similar set of VRM settings, possibly identical. Since you mentioned that you reminded me including that 101 code I got that and other freezes and simply failing memory tests by not having my vrm settings correct. Also since you were and still are pushing the VRM hard on your setup with fairly high mhz memory and high density my guess is every bit of your issues revolves around VRM temps and settings. I touched the VRM area of my board and the heatsinks were quite hot while it was stressed, then I put a big fan strapped to cables that run over the area and suddenly I was getting stable results consistently while testing even when pushing my memory harder. I also set the switching frequencies to max on the board and slightly bumped up the voltage to the main chipset once fan was in place and I got further improvements in stability while getting better results. Just my thoughts.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Ive been thinking about finding a way of directing more airflow over my ram & vrms - I played two rounds of BF1 while running vuze in the background and both were running hot!

I was looking for an Antec Spot 100 but it seems Antec have stopped doing those and i cant seem find or know of a similar solution.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

well, Ive paid over the odds for an Antec Spot 100 (100mm fan) off ebay. Getting it from the US as there are none here in the UK, the closest is a secondhand one in germany but hes charging too much for P&P. Should be here in about a week or so

 

[dalekdukesboy]

well, Ive paid over the odds for an Antec Spot 100 (100mm fan) off ebay. Getting it from the US as there are none here in the UK, the closest is a secondhand one in germany but hes charging too much for P&P. Should be here in about a week or so

Hopefully that does the trick, I've heard of that fan but I had ordered 3 of 140 mm silverstone fans 2 for my AIO cooler for the cpu and 1 just for case cooling if I could find a place it would work...it ended up being the fan I tie wrapped onto the cpu cooler tubing which conveniently is right over the VRM. I have it full blast as all my fans are....it is 171 cfm lol. Highest cfm fan I've seen with relatively low noise...43 db I think. Most fans much over 100 cfm are 48-60 db and are just true screamers. My system already had 6-7 fans running included with my case so I'm used to moderate noise just not the screamer Delta fans with super high cfm over 200 for example. Anyway it probably is overkill but maybe not, because as you said that area gets seriously hot when you pump voltage it requires to run 16 gb+ of memory @ 2400mhz.
Many cpu's can't even do 2400 mhz on X79 or require lousy timings when you try to push memory to the max...and even those that can like mine its' truly an overclock and the CPU memory controller and the VRM on your board smokes in doing so. Before I put the fan over my VRM I was running intel burntest and only a minute/two had gone by and I touched that area of the board just over my CPU and the heatsinks....they were so damn hot I literally couldn't hold my fingertip to them for more than a second or two. Then I realized why I was getting mixed results in passing tests and why sometimes it failed over and over or would pass one day and next day fail miserably with all the same settings, it simply was a matter of how long PC was up and how hot the vrm got and if it cried uncle and gave up or passed but probably barely so.


Also I know your memory is rated @ 2400 mhz according to signature (that's great ddr3 at 32mb!) are you running it at 2400 mhz? Also I'm curious what are the main timings your memory is rated for and what do you have it set at? Currently I have my memory @ 2400 mhz 10-12-12-32 1 CR timing. Whatever you are set at you have double my memory capacity and running 2400 mhz that's a serious load for the cpu to handle.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

So far it seems ok (fingers crossed) Ive turned HT off and put in at least 3hrs BF1 today and no BSOD so far.

The ram im currently running at 2133mhz just to take it out of the equation when it comes to the overclock. Once the antec fan is in and i have some airflow over the ram then i'll have them running back at their advertised speed. I think the timings are mostly the same for 2400mhz DDR3

 

[dalekdukesboy]

Yeah, smart idea, I think the fan is a must on these systems having that much memory plus mhz speed. I'm not surprised when you had every slot filled it just made it even worse even though gigs were the same. But still you have a lot of memory for that cpu to handle guaranteed if you give it adequate voltage your VRM is cooking.

 

[Kanan]

I have some news too:

I had to increase voltage all the way up from 1.31 to 1.36vcore because I had dark screens in GTA online suddenly (black screen of sudden death). Seems something degraded I don't know. Well cpu was bought used and it seems after a few months usage it's not able to do it with 1.31v and oc at 4.5ghz anymore. If any of you guys have pro tips how to increase oc stability I'd be thankful - I didn't tweak those complex settings just did ultra simple oc with multiplier and manual voltage.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I have some news too:

I had to increase voltage all the way up from 1.31 to 1.36vcore because I had dark screens in GTA online suddenly (black screen of sudden death). Seems something degraded I don't know. Well cpu was bought used and it seems after a few months usage it's not able to do it with 1.31v and oc at 4.5ghz anymore. If any of you guys have pro tips how to increase oc stability I'd be thankful - I didn't tweak those complex settings just did ultra simple oc with multiplier and manual voltage.

For me personally when i got my 3930k I followed this guide here

I didnt follow it totally to the book mind you but it sets a good foundation to understand just how to do it. pay attention to the part where it talks about the power phases/VRMS etc though since your board is missing one of the big heatsinks between the ram slots & the I/O of the motherboard you might not be able to push your CPU as hard as i do. Otherwise our boards are literally identical.

I dont think its mentioned in the guide, but you also want to use Voltage Offset Mode to OC if you can because it extends the life of your CPU and lowers the voltage when your PC is idle I use +0.080 (I think) or +0.085 which sets the voltage at around 1.38-1.39v which is fine for daily use.

 

[Kanan]

For me personally when i got my 3930k I followed this guide here

I didnt follow it totally to the book mind you but it sets a good foundation to understand just how to do it. pay attention to the part where it talks about the power phases/VRMS etc though since your board is mission one of the big heatsinks between the ram slots & the I/O of the motherboard you might not be able to push your CPU as hard as i do. Otherwise our boards are literally identical.

I dont think its mentioned in the guide, but you also want to use Voltage Offset Mode to OC if you can because it extends the life of your CPU and lowers the voltage when your PC is idle I use +0.080 (I think) or +0.085 which sets the voltage at around 1.38-1.39v which is fine for daily use.

I'll see into it thanks.

Yeah cooling of vrms could be better, but I think it's okay. I have two 140mm blowing directly on board and gpu and the cpu cooler helps a bit too. Basically I couldve done 5ghz and more with that nice chip but my cpu cooler was too weak for it. temps too high, shut off/restart, safety kicked in.

BTW I'm using offset voltage, nvm my wrong wording.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

So i found out one of the reasons why my PC was possibly hating life with all dimm slots populated.... It turns out that not all of my ram kits were identical -- They are the same speed & capacity but the timings are slightly different according to their data sheets. Could of been a different batch with different IC's

Kingston KHX24C11T3K2/8X
Kingston HX324C11T3K2/8