Define Orthos Success

S

steveak

Weaksauce
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Feb 2, 2006
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My OCing experience over the weekend. First build, first-time overclocking....

The computer's been stable at stock for a couple of weeks now, so figured it's time to try out what I've been reading/learning here.

Throughout the following, my RAM voltage has been set to 2.2V, and 1:1 ratio with standard 4-4-4-12 timings.

Using CoreTemp to measure temperatures.

First effort: Simply moved my FSB to 370. Made no other changes from stock and there I was at 3.3 GHz. Ran Orthos for about 2 hours to stress the CPU and temps were running at 42-43 C at load. Idling at about 20. I quit that test and ran a second one to stress both the CPU and memory. Ran this for a half-hour but had to leave the house and quit everything. Temps stayed consistent with the earlier test.

Second effort: Bumped the FSB to 390 for a speed of 3.5 GHz. Computer burped upon reboot so I upped the core voltage by two clicks, to 1.337. Again ran Orthos to stress the CPU. Load temps were 46-47 and idle about 22. Just ran Orthos for an hour and figured I'd get back to it the next day.

Third effort: Screw it. Rather than continue at 3.5, I bumped FSB to 400 to get me up to 3.6 GHz. Did not change the core voltage from my second effort. This time had most of the day to run Orthos. Load temps were in the 47-50 range, and do not think they ever got above 50. Idle was at 23-25. This time however, Orthos crashed at 24 minutes. I let things settle down a bit and restarted Orthos without making any changes. Orthos ran for 7 1/2 hours until it crashed. Had it not crashed I would have run it overnight.

So, what to do? Should I bump up the core voltage by one click and see what happens?

At what point to you consider the Orthos stress test to be successful? I know that some people will only take a 24-hour test as a sign of stability.


steve
 
Idle at 20? That's amazingly low considering 20C is 68F.

Anyway, if it crashed it isn't stable. No success. Success is when you can run it as long as you want without crashing. Some systems can go 8+ hours then crash, some may crash in 25 hours. Try bumping up the voltage again. If it runs for 8 hours with no crash then use it. If you never get a blue screen then it's stable enough!
 
if it runs for more than 10 minutes, it's not going to crash. There's probably going to be a little data corruption here or there, though.

For me, the difference between 323mhz and 325 mhz seriously hurts my orthos stability. I've found my system can be pass orthos for about 4 minutes when the bus is set to 326, and I won't see any BSODs or hard lockups (uncorrupted data is a different story, though), but I turn it down because things are better when it's completely stable. It might be time to start rolling back the FSB, but if the temps don't bother you, bump it up a little bit.

For me, there's a point where upping the voltage doesn't help, even if I'm within the thermal specs for my CPU.

I'm not sure what you're doing with your ram, but you *might* see some improvement if you loosen up the timings.

I would say everything is OK, but you're reaching the limit. An error here or there is acceptable (at least in my book). It's all a matter of preference and how stable you want the system to be, but in your situation, there really isn't anything to worry about.
 
I might be different than some but If I see a problem or any errors withing 8 hours of prime 95s or orthos I try to get it out. I hate bugs and crashes. Upping the core voltage is a good place to start IF those temp are accurate, though temps that low mean you must have a pretty cool room. 20C Idle means you are in a room of sub 18C or so minimum because as good as any heat sink is there is no 100% efficient heat sink....is this with an open window to the cool winter air?

There are other area that you might want more voltage or tweaking. I have to have my FSB termination voltage quite high to keep mine stable at the settings in my sig and I've never crashed with it.
 
sdlvx said:
if it runs for more than 10 minutes, it's not going to crash.
Click to expand...

Wrong. I've had Orthos errors after hours and even instant-reboots after hours. An error can result in many strange things from a simple error in the program, the program shutting down or a blue screen/the whole system rebooting.
 
rhagz said:
Wrong. I've had Orthos errors after hours and even instant-reboots after hours. An error can result in many strange things from a simple error in the program, the program shutting down or a blue screen/the whole system rebooting.
Click to expand...

Probably because vista is a lot less tolerant to hardware errors, as opposed to XP.

Even then, it'd be awfully hard for you to prove that the BSOD came from the overclock, and that it wasn't going to happen regardless of if your computer was overclocked or not, so there really isn't any surefire way of knowing who is right or wrong. We can hypothesize, but we aren't going to get anywhere.

Most users aren't going to stress their system non-stop like orthos does, and that's why you can usually get away with it. If you're folding@home non stop and pushing your system 100% 24/7, then yes, it's not going to be stable. But, like I said before, the majority of the time users are going to be just browsing the web and not maxing out their system. Even games more than likely won't max out your CPU like orthos does.
 
Stable = stable. Not stable enough. I've had unstable overclocks blue screen me just surfing the web.

And don't blame Vista, that's just silly.
 
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