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Llewen · ‎08-14-2015

I just bought and put together the system in my system specs link under my name. Trying to stabilize it has turned into a two week long battle. For me stable means four to eight runs though Memtest86 (most recent version) test no. 6, and at least 8 hours of Prime95 large fft test, with acceptable temperatures.

I couldn't even get the board stable at stock clocks, but I'm using DDR3 2400, and that seems to be the sticking point. But I haven't given up and it seems like I'm finally getting close to stability, and this is with a small oc at 4.4ghz. But I'm only up to about an hour and a half on Prime95 right now and there is still a long way to go to reach that 8 hours.

I have to have the system that stable because a couple of my favourite games, Civilization IV and V are extremely fussy and just won't run on a system that isn't rock solid stable.

I suppose I could try underclocking, but I'm stubborn and refuse to accept less than what I payed for, and I'm also fairly certain that the problems I am having are configuration issues. There are just so many options in the bios, and I've never owned a system like this before. It's also been a couple of years since I've put together and stabilized a system.

I'm going to post screens of my configuration below. If anyone has any suggestions or questions, I'd be grateful. One thing I have found is that having voltages too high is just as bad as having them too low, in terms of stability, and my first attempts were using the auto configuration options, which turned out to be a disaster.

Llewen · ‎08-14-2015

I'll just add one more thing. The power savings options I've chosen are important to me, and I'm pretty sure they aren't the cause of the instability. I've tried turning them off just to be sure and have noticed no difference. I don't think that overclocking and power savings are mutually exclusive. The settings I've chosen give me power when I need it, and save power when I don't.

Hurtman · ‎08-15-2015

In what not stability consists?

Llewen · ‎08-15-2015

The ram is stable, but I can't get Prime95 to run stable for more than between 30 and 90 min.

Llewen · ‎08-15-2015

After a lot of reading I suspect that one of the reasons why stabilizing my system has been so difficult is that my ram is maxxed out (4X8GB). I've read that the Vishera chips can have issues with that. However I haven't given up yet and I'm still somewhat optimistic that I can beat this. And again, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be grateful. If not, I'll keep posting back with any additional information.

Hurtman · ‎08-15-2015

What happens to system?
Mistakes or lag?

Llewen · ‎08-15-2015

Rounding errors while running Prime95. But I think I've finally got it stable. My eureka moment came when I stopped being intimidated by all the settings, and realized that the defaults for the settings were listed to the right of each setting when you selected it.

I then set all the voltages to default, and just played with the ones I knew made a difference. I had done a lot of testing and knew that DRAM votage was where it needed to be, so I set vddr to default, then raised it until the ram was stable. Then I started messing with CPU and CPU/NB.

I'm afraid I lost patience with raising it one at a time, and not knowing whether I needed to raise CPU, CPU/NB, or both, so I raised them both a fair bit to what I felt was still within an acceptable range, and lo and behold, it seems to be stable. I'm going to run Prime95 all night just to be sure but it made it through IBT on the max settings I could support ten times, so I'm pretty confident that I've made it.

I'm sure at some point I will see if I can overclock it further, or try lowering the voltages to the minimum they need to be, but for now I'm just happy it's finally stable.

If I learned a major lesson through all this, it is that the auto voltage settings are complete bollocks, you should always start with default, and work from that as the base.

edrak · ‎08-16-2015

Lleren,

I would raise the load line calibration to ultra high and disable cool and quiet. There is aguide on how to get to 4.8GHz stable https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?30417-Overclocking-FX-8350-4-8ghz-Crosshair-V-Formula-z. I would read that guide as i have my PC stable at 4.8GHz and 2x8GB 2133 MHz RAM. I would also bet that your ram is supposed to be 1.65V and not 1.5.
Edrak

Llewen · ‎08-16-2015

edrak wrote:
Lleren,

I would raise the load line calibration to ultra high and disable cool and quiet. There is aguide on how to get to 4.8GHz stable https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?30417-Overclocking-FX-8350-4-8ghz-Crosshair-V-Formula-z. I would read that guide as i have my PC stable at 4.8GHz and 2x8GB 2133 MHz RAM. I would also bet that your ram is supposed to be 1.65V and not 1.5.
Edrak

The first thing I read was that guide, and the first thing I did was try to follow it. That's what started my two week battle with my new computer. As has been discussed in other threads, I think there are different definitions of "stable". There is a big difference between a system that will run Prime95 small fft's for an hour without failures, and one that will run Prime95 large fft's for 8 hours without failures.

But regardless of that my first mistake was to allow ASUS to optimize the rest of my voltages that I didn't understand what to do with, and no one seems to say anything about. It was a complete disaster.

Having said that, I can't even get close to the overclocks that many have mentioned without my system becoming completely unusable. I'm mostly happy where I am now, although I would love to push it a bit harder, but the voltage on the ram seems to be very finicky. If I push it one higher or one lower I start getting errors.

However, in the final analysis, absolute rock solid stability is far more important to me than bragging rights on an overclock. I think the 4 X 8GB ram is part of what has made this board so hard to stabilize, and what is limiting my overclock. But it is important to me because I run a 16GB RAMDisk.

edrak · ‎08-17-2015

Later I am going to post screenshots of my setup and you can go from there..........

Need Help Stabilizing CrossHair V Formula-Z