AMD 550BE unlock questions.

[Cornholio]

Now now then, after reading alot of hype on the t'internetz i decided to treat the HTPC to an AM3/DDR3 upgrade.

AMD 550BE
Asus M4A785TD-M EVO mobo.

Now quick bios update to the latest and i can run all 4 cores and boot into windows 7 fine, however my question is :

What program/programs should i be using to test its stability. I ran two instances of Orthos (cpu affinities set) for just over 2 hours before BSOD, so all 4 cores @ 100% for 2 hours before BSOD.

All the voltages/timings are set to standard in the bios at the moment, the only thing ive done is enabled the 4 cores.

Thanks in advance.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Prime is a good candidate. you can always give it a little voltage bump for stability. I would try and keep it below 1.4V though.

How are your temps? Although the core temp sensors are turned off you can still get the reading off your mobo sensor. Unlocking gives you max temp of 62C inline with the other Deneb quads. If your chip is good and your temps are low enough. You may be able to even shave 0.1V off your voltages.

Grats on the unlock btw.

[Bitemarks666]

I use 100 runs of linx using all memory to test my oc, also AMD 45nm are ok for 1.5v as long as you temps are good

[Cornholio]

The temp gets to 54, currently running the stock cooler i had to point a 120mm fan to it for orthos to run for that long though, if i run prime blend it can crash within 5 minutes.

I get the idea of running all 4 cores @ 100%, but then..i kinda dont, if it crashes then it crashes, when will you ever use 4 cores @ 100% ? Never. I left the pc on overnight just sat on desktop and it didnt crash once.

Whats the stock vcore on this cpu ?

[Domestic_Ginger]

1.35V.

Pointing the fan thing at it does not sound very healthy. Stock cooler off your 955 if you have it lying around perhaps?

Do you have the option to relock one of the cores in your bios. May be worth a shot to see if one of the unlocked cores is a bit unstable.

Prime only lasting 5 mins is a bit of a bummer. If it crashes at 100% 100% of the time theres a chance it will crash at less than 100% X% of the time. Its your call but I would not use it unlocked unless I knew it was stable.

[Cornholio]

1.35V.

Pointing the fan thing at it does not sound very healthy. Stock cooler off your 955 if you have it lying around perhaps?

Do you have the option to relock one of the cores in your bios. May be worth a shot to see if one of the unlocked cores is a bit unstable.

Prime only lasting 5 mins is a bit of a bummer. If it crashes at 100% 100% of the time theres a chance it will crash at less than 100% X% of the time. Its your call but I would not use it unlocked unless I knew it was stable.

haha i was wondering that last night you know, got this xigmatek cooler on my 955 atm so im sure i have the stock cooler somewhere.

I might try and lock the vcore at say 1.36v then, didnt realise it was 1.35 as standard.

What method should i be using on prime as theres a few different tests.

Cheers.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Hottest; I thin kits the blend/second option. unlocked your 550 should be the same as your 955 but runs 100mhz slower at stock. Good luck!

[Cornholio]

Hottest; I thin kits the blend/second option. unlocked your 550 should be the same as your 955 but runs 100mhz slower at stock. Good luck!

I will appply AS5 and use the stock 955 cooler and see how i get on, voltage is currently set to auto so i will set that at 1.36, cool n quiet disabled for obvious reasons !

[Domestic_Ginger]

Don't forget to turn QnQ back on if its stable. Unlocked It should run fine.

[Cornholio]

Don't forget to turn QnQ back on if its stable. Unlocked It should run fine.

thought you would have to run cool n quiet off to gain stability ? as the vcore will drop substantially with it on ?

[Uriel]

To give that CPU some heat, go for Intelburn or S&M.

My preference is for S&M. Until I'd got my unlocked Athlon X2 5000+ 45nm @ Phenom FX-5000 x4 pretty much stable, it just refused to start.

[Cornholio]

Prime 95 ran but the actual program crashed after a certain amount of time.

Im testing it as a TRI core atm using OCCT.

Is there no set guide out there for instance ;

use program "xxxxxx"
run for "xxxxxx" time

If no crashes then assume stable.

[Domestic_Ginger]

n the overclocking community a rule of thumb is often used to determine how long to run Prime95: test the CPU (8KB FFT) for 10 hours and the memory (4096KB FFT) for 10 hours, and if the system passes, there is a high chance that it is stable. 24 hours' testing is recommended to be sure, as errors may show up after 16 or more hours of testing (compared to, say, just 4 hours of testing).[6] Moreover, a large proportion of system overclockers and enthusiasts favor Prime95 over other benchmarking suites because Prime95 pushes the CPU's floating point units extremely hard, causing the CPU to become extremely hot. .

From wiki. I have never managed 10hrs I usually end up with 3-4; Pretty much the longest I can leave the computer for. The temps are maxed out and stable well before.

Unlocked and stable; CnQ should be fine. You seem to have ended up with a tri then? You can try tweaking the fourth core some more but not sure it will be stable.

[Cornholio]

I posted my results on page 113/114 of the phenom II unlock guide over on overclock.net, i see your a member .

The last blend test i did on prime95 was :

Vcore set to 1.4v
Everything else set to auto.

It ran for 2 hours, the log is here...

[Sat Feb 27 04:59:04 2010]
Self-test 1024K passed!
Self-test 1024K passed!
Self-test 1024K passed!
Self-test 1024K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 05:14:56 2010]
Self-test 8K passed!
Self-test 8K passed!
Self-test 8K passed!
Self-test 8K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 05:30:47 2010]
Self-test 10K passed!
Self-test 10K passed!
Self-test 10K passed!
Self-test 10K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 05:46:07 2010]
Self-test 896K passed!
Self-test 896K passed!
Self-test 896K passed!
Self-test 896K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 06:01:22 2010]
Self-test 768K passed!
Self-test 768K passed!
Self-test 768K passed!
Self-test 768K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 06:16:37 2010]
Self-test 12K passed!
Self-test 12K passed!
Self-test 12K passed!
Self-test 12K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 06:31:53 2010]
Self-test 14K passed!
Self-test 14K passed!
Self-test 14K passed!
Self-test 14K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 06:47:21 2010]
Self-test 640K passed!
Self-test 640K passed!
Self-test 640K passed!
Self-test 640K passed!
[Sat Feb 27 07:03:14 2010]
Self-test 512K passed!
Self-test 512K passed!
Self-test 512K passed!
Self-test 512K passed!


Thats where the log ends, and prime95 had stopped responding, but the pc was fine it wasnt locked up.