Do I have a crap i7 920 D0, please advice

[blakmumba]

Hi, all, since my last venture iv managed to get my i7 stable @ 3.8ghz with HT ON (Prime 95 24hrs). Unfortunatly I cannot for the life of me get it stable at 4ghz with HT OFF and all other features OFF, it needs a whole 1.4V just to start running IBT before freezing or crashing. Iv seen others hitting 4ghz with just 1.275V and yes I know every chip/board etc is different but really, that far apart different in voltages?.
Do i really have a crap i7 920 D0???

Current Settings for 3.8 with HT ON
CPU - i7 920 D0
Board - Asus rampage II Extreme Bios 2002
Cooler - Corsair H50 Push/Pull
DDR 1451mhz (currently downclocked from 1600mhz) - corsair xms3 classic 8.8.8.24 1.65v,
Ratio - 21
BCLK - 181
CPU Voltage - 1.325 (prime unstable anything lower)
CPU Differential Amplitude - 800mV
CPU PLL - 1.88217
QPI/DRAM - 1.29375
IOH Voltage - 1.20616
ICH Voltage - 1.20616
Dram Voltage - 1.65681.

Any help and advice would be much much appreciated .
Thanx in Advance.

[AshritaS]

Achieving 4Ghz on Intel Core i7 is possible. There are number test which are performed on this. But if your system becomes unstable at a particular frequency it recommended not to go over that. There are various reason behind a unstable overclocking. Like improper cooling, outdated firmware, low power supply, low fsb, etc. A overall perfect system configuration is needed to keep your cpu stable on that frequency. It is not worth to blame the processor only.

[BiggaStill]

Current Settings for 3.8 with HT ON
CPU - i7 920 D0
Board - Asus rampage II Extreme Bios 2002
Cooler - Corsair H50 Push/Pull
DDR 1451mhz (currently downclocked from 1600mhz) - corsair xms3 classic 8.8.8.24 1.65v,
Ratio - 21
BCLK - 181
CPU Voltage - 1.325 (prime unstable anything lower)
CPU Differential Amplitude - 800mV
CPU PLL - 1.88217
QPI/DRAM - 1.29375
IOH Voltage - 1.20616
ICH Voltage - 1.20616
Dram Voltage - 1.65681.

Any help and advice would be much much appreciated .
Thanx in Advance.

Yes that much of a difference; my 2600k can do 4.7Ghz at 1.37vcore while others need over 1.4volts and some only require 1.34 or even less.

What are your temps at 3.8Ghz? Anything above 75c/80c is hot. My friends 920 at 3.6Ghz boils on the H50(not sure what sort of voltage is being pushed through it tho)

Run your memory at 1333 or even 1066 while you stabilize the processor. That will cut out anything not specifically related to the processor voltages. Get the processor where you want it first, then bring the memory up to speed.

What sort of error codes are you getting?

BSOD codes for overclocking
0x101 = increase vcore
0x124 = increase/decrease vcore or QPI/VTT...have to test to see which one it is
0x0A = unstable RAM/IMC, increase QPI first, if that doesn't work increase vcore
0x1E = increase vcore
0x3B = increase vcore
0x3D = increase vcore
0xD1 = QPI/VTT, increase/decrease as necessary, can also be unstable Ram, raise Ram voltage
0x9C = QPI/VTT most likely, but increasing vcore has helped in some instances
0x50 = RAM timings/Frequency or uncore multi unstable, increase RAM voltage or adjust QPI/VTT, or lower uncore if you're higher than 2x
0x109 = Not enough or too Much memory voltage
0x116 = Low IOH (NB) voltage, GPU issue (most common when running multi-GPU/overclocking GPU)
0x7E = Corrupted OS file, possibly from overclocking. Run sfc /scannow and chkdsk /r

IBT/LinPak put way heavier loads on the system, loads that you most likely will never put on the system under normal use. Few hours of Prime is usually more than sufficient. My system is stable under Prime at 4.7 but can't get through the medium stress test of IBT. It's also rock solid under its usual loads, which is dedicated folding, 24/7.