So many users are searching around the net these days looking for advice on how to overclock their new systems but don’t know where to start.  To help everyone out, I decided a how-to guide was in order.  Searching around forums can be confusing and intimidating.  There are so many people willing to give advice, but who can you trust?  It’s hard to know, and I’ve seen many users sent on wild goose chases because they are following advice that doesn’t solve or even address their specific problem. I’ve also seen too much trial and error overclocking. What I will attempt to do is create a very simple three step guide to “one-size-fits-all” overclocking.

If you want to continue searching out other opinions, please consider each suggestion with caution. Some will undoubtedly be great, some will not.  There is one exception I would make for OC Forums- their “senior members”. These users are the ones with blue user names and blue stars.  They have been designated seniors based on their knowledge, experience, credentials, and contributions to the OCF community.  While not immune to error, these users generally know their stuff and can be trusted for good advice.

Credentials

So, why should you listen to me? Well I’m not the end-all-be-all of overclocking, and I still learn new things everyday. There are many people around OCF whom I highly regard for their knowledge and experience.  Having said that, I do have a bit experience overclocking computers successfully.  I’m a member of Team IRONMODS, and if you’d like to know more about the team and our accomplishments, please visit our website.  I’m also very active with the OCF benching team where I regularly participate in team events and online competitions with The Raptor Pit.

Methodology

My goal here is for this overclocking guide to be useful for anyone with a newer Intel based system, i3, i5, i7, LGA1156 or LGA1366. With the same basic principles applying to all of them, the basic process doesn’t change whether you are planning to use your system as an everyday system, gaming or if you want to push the limits for a single benchmark.

This guide is also independent of your cooling system.  Whether you are using the stock Intel cooler or if you’re pushing to the extreme with liquid nitrogen, the basic steps remain the same.  One thing that is far too common is errors in mounting your cooling system, specifically the application of the thermal interface material (TIM).  If you don’t have much experience mounting a cooling apparatus, please refer to this excellent guide from Arctic Silver.

Determining methods for finding a stable overclock are highly controversial, and my suggestion is that we agree to disagree.  Everyone has their individual definition of a stable system, but when I refer to “stable” in this guide, I am referring to the stability of your selected “stability test.”  So for a power user or gamer who wants a reliable system that won’t ever crash due to an overclock pushed too far, you’d need to test with a program that will load all of the cores and threads applicable to your CPU, OCCT and Prime95 are two popular choices.  For a benching team member looking to squeeze every last MHz out of their chip for a 7 second SuperPI 1M run on liquid nitrogen cooling, SuperPI 1M would be the ideal test. In my examples below, my verbiage will obviously be geared more towards those running tests like Prime95.  Super PI 1M only takes a few seconds to complete, so when I say “run your stability test for five minutes” obviously you will have to tailor that instruction for your individual situation.

So with that in mind, we will attempt to isolate each portion of the system and overclock one piece at a time.  This may seem time consuming at first glance, but rest assured this can potentially save you hours of troubleshooting and frustration. So go slow, and follow each step very carefully.

Prerequisites

This guide is written for you if you can get around in your system’s BIOS (basic input/output system). I cannot write this guide to cover the variety of BIOS represented.  If you are unfamiliar with your BIOS, search for more information regarding your specific motherboard.  Also, do not be afraid to get into your BIOS and have a look around, if you are ever concerned that you may have changed a setting erroneously, you can always load defaults, and start over.

I also need to insert a disclaimer in here somewhere: I am not responsible for any bad things that happen to you or your computer as a result of you listening to my advice, nor is overclockers.com.  My goal is for this guide to be a safe overclocking guideline, but the burden for damaged hardware lies on the user performing the overclock!  Overclocking can damage hardware, the new 32nm CPUs seem to be particularly fragile.  Overclocking will also void your warranties.

Before we do anything, please start by going into your system’s BIOS, and load defaults, then save and exit.  Your machine will restart with default BIOS values.  Enter the BIOS again and disable all power saving features.  These include, but are not limited to; EIST, C1E, and all other C-states.  All other settings you can leave on auto for now. Although I would also recommend turning off any start-up slash screens, so that you can view your system’s post behavior.  Also, feel free to disable any “integrated peripherals” that will not be used (i.e. NICs, extra PATA/SATA controllers, legacy devices, etc).

If your motherboard fails to post after changing certain settings, you will have to locate and reset the CMOS. Resetting the CMOS restores the BIOS to its factory settings and is a “hard” reset of these settings. Become familiar where the CMOS jumper or button is, you may need to use it a lot. Most of the time, a jumper is located near the battery on the motherboard, most newer motherboards have a button in the same location, many may also have a button on the rear input/output panel for easy access when your motherboard is installed in a case.  If you need to reset the CMOS, please power off the system by flipping the switch on your power supply, or unplugging it completely for 10 sec, then activate the CMOS reset jumper/button for 10 sec.

3 Step Guide to Overclock Your Core i3, i5, or i7

Step 1)  Bclock Frequency

Isolate the bclock from the CPU

First you need to isolate the bclock and find its stable limit with your chosen cooling.  In order to isolate the bclock from the other components, the first thing you need to do is manually force a low multiplier for the CPU.  For example; at stock speed, an i5 750 runs on a 133MHz bclock and a x20 multiplier which results in its stock speed of 2660MHz (133×20).  Raising the bclock to 200 with the stock x20 multi would result in 4000MHz for the CPU, which you’re not quite ready for yet.  If you are shooting for a 200MHz bclock, then a safe choice for now might be a x12 multi, which would result in a CPU speed of 2400MHz if you were successful in reaching your 200MHz target bclock.  Doing this isolates the CPU from the bclock so you can focus on only bclock overclocking in this step.

Isolate the bclock from the memory

The fastest rated speed for memory on P55 with an i5 750 (for example) is DDR3-1333, which is a clock speed of 667MHz (dual data rate “DDR” doubles the bandwidth to 1333-like speed).  Just like the CPU, the memory receives its clock from the bclock via a multiplier, in this case x5 (133×5=667).  This is most often expressed in the BIOS as “2:10″.  If you were to overclock the bclock to 200MHz as described before, your memory would be running at 1000MHz (DDR3-2000), and beyond the specs of all but the most extreme memory.  To isolate the memory from the bclock, lower the memory multiplier to the lowest setting available, most likely 2:6.  If you were to reach your goal of 200MHz bclcok frequency, your memory would only be at 600MHz (DDR3-1200) and well within the capability of all but the worst DDR3 on the market.

Bclock voltages

For this step, there are only two voltages you should play with; CPU VTT, and IOH.  IOH is easy, if you are running a single PCIe card (graphics card), give the IOH 1.3V, if you are running more than one PCIe graphics card, give it 1.35V.  CPU VTT is the crucial voltage adjustment for achieving high bclock stability.  Stock values differ depending on platform and CPU, but as a rule of thumb LGA1366 likes a lot, P55 doesn’t need as much.

So, are you ready to start overclocking?  After entering your BIOS and lowering the CPU & MEM multipliers, go to the voltages section and raise your IOH to 1.3-1.35V and your CPU VTT to +0.2V.  Then restart your machine and go back into the BIOS, if your system fails to post and return to the BIOS, please re-read the last paragraph in the “prerequisites” section above, and start over.  If you still cannot get past this step, post in the forums for some specific help.

After you’ve restarted your system with your manually configured voltages and returned to the BIOS, I always recommend going to the temp/voltage monitoring section and checking the CPU temp.  If the temperature seems too high for your cooling, then shut the system down and double check that your cooling system is properly mounted, and making good contact.  Moving on, almost all systems should be able to achieve 150MHz bclock stability with stock voltages, so go to the bclock adjustment and change it from 133MHz to 150MHz.  Then save and exit and allow the system to reboot.  This time, allow the system to boot fully into the operating system.

Testing for highest stable bclock frequency

Once the operating system has fully loaded, start up RealTemp.  RealTemp should always be running while checking for stability of an overclocked system to ensure you do not overheat your CPU.  RealTemp shows your CPU’s core temperatures real-time, as well as the distance to TJ Max, my advice is to never exceed TJ Max.  Now start up CPU-Z, this will allow you to ensure that your overclocked settings have been properly applied, and that you are running at your desired speed.  Check both the CPU tab for the expected CPU frequency (should be 1800MHz at this point), and check the memory tab to ensure your memory is running at the proper speed (CPU-Z will show the frequency of the memory, not the DDR3 speed, it should be 450MHz at this point).  Now start up you selected test program, for example OCCT or Prime95.  Run the test for just a short amount of time, five minutes should be plenty.  Then reboot the system and return to the BIOS.

If the test ran without error, raise the bclock by 10MHz, reboot into your OS and run the test again.  If the test failed, raise the CPU VTT voltage by a small increment, reboot into your OS and run the test again.  You should be able to see where this is going, continue to raise bclock or CPU VTT voltage with a short test after each change, until you meet one of the following criteria:

• You reach your desired bclock and successfully pass your stability test.
• You reach your maximum safe CPU VTT voltage.
• Raising the CPU VTT does not allow for additional stability.

* Note – there is a phenomena known as “bclock holes,” which seem to be less common now, but may still create confusion and frustration during this process.  But if you appear to have found your limit at a much lower speed than anticipated, please consider trying a step or two higher before continuing on.  A bclock hole causes system instability a particular bclock values, and going past them may allow you to regain stability.

Maximum safe CPU VTT

What is the maximum safe CPU VTT voltage?  Depends on a lot of things, but I feel like these are some basic– conservative guidelines.  If you’re running the stock Intel heatsink and fan, I would not advise more than +0.2V, if you are running a high end air cooler I would not advise more than +0.3V on LGA1156 platforms, and no more than +0.4V on LGA1366 systems.  If you are running a high end custom water loop add another 0.05V to those values, and if you are using extreme forms of cooling then use whatever works best.  I’ve used up to 1.70V on an i7 920, and up to 1.55V with my i5 750 with extreme cooling.

Fine tuning

After you have met one of the criteria above, you should have a rough idea of your bclock limit, now it’s time to get a little finer tuned.  Next, instead of 10MHz bclock changes, shift to 2MHz changes.  Then repeat the steps above and search for one of the three criteria again.  Also, ensure you check my note about “bclock holes” above, the same concept can be applied to this fine tuning step as well.

After you have found your highest stable speed to within 2MHz accuracy, lower the bclock by 2MHz and run your test again.  This time let it run for a full hour (for those of you testing with Super PI or similar, adjust for your situation).  If it passes the test  - Congratulations! – you have found your highest stable bclock frequency.

Step 2) Memory Frequency

DDR3 Basics

The next step is to find the limit of your memory.  To do this first you need to look at the memories ratings.  DDR3 does not typically have a lot of overclocking headroom, so it’s important to start with stock settings.  In this example I will use some basic Crucial Ballistix PC3-12800 for my explanations.  This memory is rated for DDR3-1600 (800MHz) 8-8-8 24 1T with 1.65V.  Enter the BIOS and adjust your memory timings according to the manufactures rating, in this case 8-8-8 24 1T.  Now, consider your maximum/desired bclock frequency, 200MHz for example.  This memory has a stock speed of 800MHz, so a 2:8 ratio with a bclock of 200MHz would put us right at that stock speed of 800MHz.  You could set it and leave it there, but let’s say your maximum/desired bclock is not 200MHz.  For example, if you are actually trying to reach 210MHz.  If that were the case, the resulting memory frequency would be 840MHz (DDR3-1680).  So, similar to finding bclock stability above, we need to work our way up to the desired speed testing along the way.

Testing for highest stable memory frequency

Theoretically we should be able to run for at least an hour with the bclock at 200MHz and the memory multi at 2:8– why?  Because we already found out that this bclock speed is 1 hour stable, and we are not overclocking the memory yet.

However, the integrated memory controller (IMC) is powered by the CPU VTT voltage.  So under some circumstances, especially with the newer 32nm CPUs, you may not be stable with your memory even at stock speeds due to the overclock imposed on the IMC.  This is particularly true if you are running 4 DIMMS (P55/H55/H57), 6 DIMMS (X58), or 4GB DIMMS (P55/H55/H57/X58).  If this is the case keep the memory at stock speed, or even try dropping the memory clock multiplier to run at less than stock speed, and increase the CPU VTT voltage until you gain stability.  The newer 32nm CPUs seem to have particularly weak IMCs, and often will not run at the higher multipliers even if your memory is perfectly capable.

For testing memory, it is important that you take a break from whatever stability test you’ve been running, and use memtest86+ instead.  The easiest way is to download the .iso and burn it to disc.  Then configure your BIOS to load from your optical drive before the hard disk drive.  When you boot the system with the disc inserted, memtest86+ should start automatically, and immediately begin testing your memory.

But, our goal is to reach 210MHz bclock, which will result in 840MHz memory frequency.  In the BIOS, set your bclock to 202MHz, and your memory multi to 2:8, save settings and exit.  Allow memtest86+ to load and complete one entire loop.  A single loop can vary in length, and can take quite a while if you have a large amount of memory installed.  If the test ran without error, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and enter your BIOS.  Raise the bclock by 2MHz and then save and exit.  If the test failed, raise the memory voltage by a smallest increment possible, and run the test again.  You should be able to see where this is going.  Continue to raise bclock or memory voltage until you meet one of the following criteria:

• You reach your desired bclock and successfully pass a single loop of memtest86+.
• You reach your maximum safe memory voltage.
• Raising the memory voltage does not allow for additional stability.

Maximum safe memory voltage

What is the maximum safe memory voltage???  This is determined by two things: first, NEVER INCREASE THE MEMORY VOLTAGE MORE THAN +0.5V OF THE CPU VTT VALUE, second, how much do you enjoy killing your memory?  Throughout recent history, memory is probably the easiest component to damage with extra voltage.  While there are exceptions, most newer DDR3 memory modules do not need very much voltage to reach their practical limits.

Once you have satisfied one of the three criteria above, drop the bclock down 2MHz from your last stable setting, and see if memtest86+ will run through 2 or 3 loops without error.  If you wish to try to push your memory even further at this point, there is one more thing to try, and that is another bump in CPU VTT voltage.  This will possibly boost the capabilities of the IMC and give you a little more room to overclock the memory.  Otherwise - Congratulations! - you now have a relatively stable bclock frequency and memory frequency.

Step 3)  CPU Frequency

Almost there

The last step in this guide is often the first step for users who run into problems and then troubleshoot for days afterward.  Leaving it to the last step makes the task much simpler.  You now have the following settings locked in; CPU VTT, IOH voltage, memory voltage, memory multiplier, and memory timings.  That means when we are looking for our highest CPU frequency, there are only two variables we need to play with: bclock and CPU voltage.

Right now your CPU multiplier should be very low, and your bclock should be quite high. If we move the CPU multiplier up right now, we would undoubtedly become very unstable, and unlikely to post.  The idea here is that if your bclock and memory are stable with the current settings, shifting the bclock down should not cause any instability.  So, change you bclock to 140MHz, and switch your CPU multi up to its maximum.  In our example i5 750, the normal maximum would be x20.  Intel’s Turbo feature allows for extra multipliers, and some BIOS will even allow for the higher multipliers to be forced.  It will not hurt to use this feature if you desire.  So with my example of the i5 750, with some BIOS, I would be able to lock in a multi of x21.

“Load-line calibration”

This actually goes by a few different names, but they are all meant as a means to reduce or prevent v-droop.  Most overclockers would advise you to enable this feature; I would only recommend it if you understand what it does.  It does typically allow for measurably higher overclocking, but at the cost of violating Intel’s design specs, and putting more stress on the CPU.  However, overclocking in its essence violates Intel’s design specs, so you’re not breaking any new ground with this feature.  I do not enable load-line calibration on my daily/gaming system.  But I always use it when I am trying to fine the absolute limit.  For more insight on the matter, refer to this excellent explanation at anandtech.com.

CPU Voltage

That brings us to the first thing that most users want to play with after powering up their new system for the first time: CPU voltage, aka “vcore”.  As you can see, this is actually one of the last things you should be changing.  I would recommend starting at a nice and easy 1.3V.  Surprisingly enough, many users are able to achieve very good overclocks with this modest amount of CPU voltage.

Testing for your highest stable CPU frequency

Once the operating system has fully loaded, start up RealTemp.  Now start up CPU-Z and verify that your overclocked settings have been properly applied, and that you are running at your desired CPU, bclock, and memory frequencies.  Now start up you selected test program, for example OCCT or Prime95.  Run the test for five minutes.  Then reboot and go back into the BIOS.

If the test ran without error, the raise the bclock by 10MHz, reboot into your OS and run the test again.  If the test failed, raise the CPU voltage by 0.025V, reboot into your OS and run the test again.  Continue to raise bclock or CPU voltage until you meet one of the following criteria:

• You reach your desired bclock and successfully pass your test.
• You reach your maximum safe CPU voltage.
• Raising the CPU voltage does not allow for additional stability.

Maximum safe CPU voltage

For there is no maximum “safe” CPU voltage in my book.  My recommendation is to determine your maximum safe voltage based on your temperatures while running your stability test.  With stock air cooling this could be as low as 1.3V on some i7 CPUs while running OCCT.  Or it could be as high as 2.2V when attempting Super PI 1M with an i5 670 on liquid nitrogen.  Personally, I don’t like to see my load temperatures exceed 90C on air or water cooling, but it’s really up to you.

Is it stable?

So, once you find your highest CPU frequency by meeting one of the criteria above, lower the bclock by 5MHz, and run your selected stability test until you are satisfied.  If you are looking for a stable system as a power user or gamer, OCCT or Prime95 for six hours is more than sufficient in my testing, but you may run longer if you desire.  But for a true test of stability, I always like to play Crysis while encoding a Blu-Ray movie into an mpeg4 format.

Final Words

Well, that about wraps it up.  Believe me, there is so much more to overclocking.  There are SO MANY settings you can continue to fiddle with, but this guide should get you 95% of the way in 5% off the time.  If you enjoy overclocking you system, I highly recommend joining one of the teams at OCForums.  If you like to push your system and you like to get competitive, look into joining one of our great folding teams, or the OCForums Benchmarking Team.  You’ll learn a lot and have a blast!

Please feel free to comment, and post any questions you have in the thread linked below where the great OCF community will help you out with any problems you may encounter!

-MIAHALLEN

3 Step Guide to Overclock Your Core i3, i5, or i7 is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

Related posts:

1. A Detailed Step by Step Guide to Folding@Home Under Linux
2. Step-by-Step: How to Build a Cheap and Quiet AMD Dually
3. How To Overclock An Opteron . . .

First thing we do is navigate to Stanford’s download page: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download
Choose the Linux client(Linux (x86) and BSD *combined uniprocessor and SMP client* (64-bit build) 6.24beta )

Step-1: Left clicking the Penguin icon will open a download window:

Step-2: Download to desktop(or your choice of directory)

Step-3: Right click on the .tar archive and in the dropdown choose > Properties

Step-4: Go to the Permissions tab and make Readable, Writable & Executable as shown in the example. [Editor's Note: While this step works, it is not necessary and goes against security best practices. When downloaded, the archive will have sufficient permissions for the user to extract. -splat]

Step-5: You can now right-click and choose “extract here”, the uncompressed file will appear separately from the .tgz archive.

Step-6: For simplicity(just my preference) you can rename the folder to something more concise, by right-clicking and choose “Rename”:

Step-7: As shown, the “FAH6.24beta-Linux” folder has been renamed and is less likely to be prone to ‘typos’ if entering the directory manually in the console.

By the way, as you may have suspected, I am leading you through steps that I take, as someone who is “keyboarding challanged”(yep, I’m horrible). Anyway, from this perspective we go to:

Step-8: For quick & easy(or just lazy-like me) open the folding file and highlight & copy the directory “/home/hrsetrdr/Desktop/fah”

Step-9: Open the console, and type “cd” then right-click~paste the “/home/hrsetrdr/Desktop/fah” (without the “ “) into the line, with a space after the “cd”. Hit Enter.

Step-10: Now type the following: “./fah6 -smp 8 -bigadv -config” then hit Enter. You then will be prompted to enter your username, team number(32), passkey plus the other options needed to configure the client. In this example “-bigadv” was added for the “bigadv” work units that run on 8 or more physical/hyperthreading cores. If using the bigadv flag you’ll need to choose “big” for your download option. The arguments of course will be dependent on your hardware and choice of SMP client.

So there you have it, just a basic Ten quick & easy steps to set up & start an SMP Folding client in Linux- the GUI method.

-ihrsetrdr

Easy Linux Folding Setup Guide: The GUI Method is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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3. The Four Big Folding Sins

If you’ve read any of my recent reviews, you know that most of my motherboard testing is on Intel platforms.  In fact, the last time I did any testing on AMD was when Phenom II first came out.  I tested a few Phenom II CPUs, reviewed a few AM3 motherboards, did a little LN2 overclocking, and went back to playing with Intel stuff.  I think the last AMD CPU I tested was Phenom II X3 720 the week it came out, so it’s been a while for me.  Around that time, AMD CPUs started to become known not only for their ability to operate at extremely low temperatures, but also for the fact that an extra core could be locked on some of the X3 models, making them into cheap X4 chips.  Eventually AMD introduced dual core CPUs that exhibited the same abilities.

But core unlocking was hit or miss.  Y0u could buy two seemingly identical processors, and one or both or even neither would unlock.  Motherboards were also hit or miss in that specific models were known for core unlocking, but only with specific (often older) BIOS versions, etc.  On top of that, if you managed to find a CPU that was able to unlock, there was a decent chance the extra core(s) would be too unstable to use.  While you still take your chances with getting a good CPU for unlocking, once you have one, MSI has included a BIOS feature in their new motherboards to make the rest of your core unlocking experience as easy as possible.  I believe they have also added the new unlocking feature in new BIOS versions for most of their existing motherboards.

The board

This is initially just a review sample.  I didn’t see myself using it much beyond that, but I was wrong.  This is actually a fantastic board, and is now being used in my primary computer.  The ability to use a cheap dual unlocked to a quad, as well as the integrated HD 3000 graphics, are just two of the many reasons I decided to use this a my daily driver.

The Board

The Box

Back of the box

Inside the box

What's included

Motherboard shot 1

Motherboard shot 2

Motherboard shot 3

Motherboard shot 4

Motherboard shot 5

Motherboard shot 6

The BIOS

MSI’s BIOS is one of the best features.  In addition to the usual overclocking options, MSI has included a setting for each CPU core.  This is can be very handy if you’ve got a dual core and only one of the cores is strong enough to be used.  You can enable and disable nearly any combination of processing cores you like.  The CPU I’m using is a Phenom II 545.

BIOS main page

BIOS page 1

BIOS page 2

BIOS page 3

BIOS page 4

BIOS page 5

BIOS page 6

BIOS page 7

BIOS page 8

BIOS page 9

Results

I’m fortunate enough to own a Phenom II X2 545 that not only unlocks to a quad, but has 4 very strong cores.  I wish I could say this was a fortunate retail purchase, but that’s not the case.  I bought it used from someone who had already verified the CPU was unlockable.  I did not know all four cores would do so well though.  I ran three benchmarks that are heavily CPU dependent, and scale well with added processing cores.  I first ran the benchmarks using 2 cores at stock speed, followed by what I would call ideal 24/7 settings, those being 4 cores at 3600mhz.

Stock

Stock 1

Stock 2

Stock 3

Overclocked and Unlocked

Overclocked and Unlocked 1

Overclocked and Unlocked 2

Overclocked and Unlocked 3

Conclusion

MSI has done a fantastic job once again in giving the enthusiasts what we want.  I’ve seen a few people questioning whether or not AMD would approve of this blatant core unlocking ability.  Are you kidding?  AMD is loving it.  If they didn’t want us unlocking the disabled cores on their CPUs, they wouldn’t make it so easy. I think it’s a win-win situation any way you look at it. I’d like to thank MSI for letting me test this product, and making it even easier to unlock these CPUs.

- sno.lcn

AMD Core Unlocking With MSI. How Much Easier Can It Get?! is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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2. Low Cost AMD 4 Core Review
3. Intel’s Core 5 CPUs – AMD Killers?

Sweet spots

Look at the image above. (It’s a WD3000HLFS 300gig VelociRaptor) From this picture we can determine that the ultimate sweet spot for this drive is around the 32gig location and at about the 55gig location would be the sweet spot with more space, just with a slightly slower access time.  55 x 2 is 110gig boot drive (about 102gig formatted), plenty of space for a boot drive for any OS.  By doing this (short stroking) we can use the fastest part of the drive for incredible boot times. I have started a list of drives for RAID 0 short stroking. You can do up to 6 drives in RAID 0 using the ICH10R chip. However, by going to a fourth drive in RAID 0 you add higher latency. That may be overlooked due to the data throughput of the RAID array. Three drives in RAID 0, seems to be the sweet spot. Short stroking 3 drives in RAID 0 would be  utterly incredible!

List of drives submitted by members

In the RAID firmware (Control+I for Intel), you’ll need to setup a RAID 0 array using all of the same type drives.  Earlier I noted that 55 gig would be the sweet spot for the above drive.  If this were three 300gig drives, it should say 839 gig. Remove it and put 165. Since it is RAID 0, it will use 55 gig of each drive.  Save the settings and confirm.  Now start installing Windows7 or whatever your favorable flavor is, and enjoy your new found speed!

How to setup RAID video

Short stroke testing of three 80 gig drive in RAID 0.

To help continue my spreadsheet, please send your HD TACH submissions to:

screen-shots (at) joeteck.com

I will determine the sweet spot for you and enter it in this spreadsheet for future viewing.  Or if you would like to submit it on the forum, there is an ongoing thread about this here. Thank you for your help.

- Joeteck

Update (1:30PM EST 12/15/09): Here’s a screenshot of the performance Joeteck obtained by short stroking:

2 Velociraptors Hard Disks in Raid 0, 64GB Slice, Write-back Cache On, ICH7R Matrix RAID Controller

How to Short Stroke for RAID is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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The actual cooling and overclocking guides are still to come. But before you pick up some dry ice or LN2, you’ve got to learn to insulate properly. This information is from a forum thread by Deanzo that covers just about everything you need to know about insulating for sub zero cooling. I’ve rearranged some things since Deanzo made some updates to the thread. I’ve also added a few of my own comments. The original thread is HERE.

Editor’s note: If your interested in extreme cooling, you may want to refer to sno.lcn’s earlier article, an introduction to extreme cooling HERE.

There are some great guides for this, maybe the best one is from k|ngp|n and can be found HERE. But to add to that, this is how I do it.

I’ve moved away from using nail polish for insulating around the board. Using a conformal coating on both sides, is faster, better and costs a lot less.

(For New Zealand members) You can pick up a can at JayCars for about $12NZ, and should do 10+ boards. Which is alot better than the $25NZ each board that nail polish was costing me.

Just take off all the heatsinks etc, tape it out and spray! It’s that easy.
I don’t cover the vreg’s around the socket, I spray over the top and clean it off after (I find this faster) the cleaner is sold right next to the conformal coating (For NZ members shopping at JayCars).

CPU socket area and container prep.

On the back side of the board I also use a heater pad. Cut foam to go around the CPU socket as pictured.

Paper towel gasket to catch and absorb any drips or moisture that may occur around the CPU.

2nd layer of insulation.

3rd and larger layer of insulation.

The CPU pot used in this guide. Dragon F1 by k|ngp|n, wrapped in insulation.

Add Ceramique (thermal interface material).

Mount Pot.

Graphics Card and Container Prep

Right then kids! You’ve been sub zero cooling your CPU and now want to take the next step. Good for you! Please note, this can make sub zero cooling on a CPU look and feel easy.

First thing, most everyone who does this kills a card at some point and time! But if the big clocks/speeds matter to you, this is the next step.

As I didn’t take many pictures of my 88U, I’ll use the GX2 (Oh the fun, two PCB’s!)

First off take the card apart.

Not all cards are the same, google your card and see if you can find a “how to”
For the GX2, you can use this one at Techpowerup.

This first step can take over an hour on it’s own (mine sure did).

After you have it apart, give it a good clean. And coat the areas around the core and memory with liquid electrical tape or nail polish, both sides, front and back. Conformal spray works great as well.
You will need to heatsink the digital vreg chips on each PCB as well as the monitor output chip. And make a gasket(s) to go around the core(s).

Make sure you insulate your pot well.

But think about what your insulation will push up against. To fat, it may just kill that item ie: vmem

Now mount the pot to the card, and if your really lucky. You’ll have some POS sli bridge getting in the way.

The back of the PCB(s) will get very cold, so you will need to insulate that as well. Or you’ll have ice/condensation issues, and then the water will run down the card and into the PCI-e slot. And that’s bad.

I use two layers, the first layer is just plain closed cell insulation.

2nd layer is the black sticky back insulation, make it over sized to stop air getting in and under the first layer.

One last step, The Motherboard.

You will need to insulate around the PCI-e slot with liquid electrical tape or nail polish, front and back.

Rub some vaseline or dielectric grease onto both side of the “gold fingers” that go into the PCI-e slot, and a “small” amount onto the top of the slot itself.

Also pack paper towels around the slot.

Well done, and now test your handy work.

Northbridge Area Prep

Now that we have looked at both CPU and GPU Cooling, It’s time for the NB. Overall, very easy. Just like the CPU, we need to make a gasket, but this time a little bigger.

Added two paper towel gaskets.

Another layer of insulation.

Last layer of insulation and the hold down.

Add the top part of the insulation.

I used 10mm insulation under the back plate.

Add some other heatsinks for the SB and FET’s, and your ready to go.

And then have some fun!

Added to Deanzo’s thread more recently, this is an updated method of insulation that is quickly gaining in popularity.
Yet another way to insulate your board to stop condensation (air getting in). Use “Art Eraser” to cover the board, there is no way air is getting in and under this stuff.

In the picture below I’m getting ready to mount a NB pot.

And when you put it all together, you get something like this..

F1 EE CPU Pot, NB Pot, Tek9 4.0 GPU Pot and a Tek9 3.0 GPU Pot.

Hopefully this guide has answered some of your questions about insulating for sub zero cooling. If you follow it carefully, your chances of killing your hardware with condensation are slim to none. I’ve run LN2 for 8 hours straight without a single drop of water touching anything vital with using methods identical to these. Extreme cooling can be dangerous for your hardware if care is not taken to protect it. At the same time, it can bring huge rewards to someone willing to get educated on insulating properly.]

Subzero Cooling Insulation Guide is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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2. Project 3C (Cheap Chill Cooling)
3. Radical P2 Cooling Tweak

This guide describes the process to get Folding@Home running under Linux on your CPU as well as on your Nvidia Graphics card.

This works on Ubuntu 9.04 as of October 1st, 2009. This guide will only work for Nvidia cards, 8×00 cards or newer. I’ve heard about a wrapper for ATi cards, but seeing as I don’t own one I can’t really test it out.

Editors Note: This guide was tested on December 2nd, 2009 to still be working. If tested in the future, this note will be updated again to reflect these instructions are up to date.

This guide was done using Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit, and should work without any modification on other Debian based distros. To get SMP folding on the CPU client, you must have a 64-bit system.

Note: When copying terminal commands, copy after the $ symbol. The $ is used to indicate a new command, since some commands span over more than one line.

Update your distro

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Setting up the CPU Client:

Setting up the CPU client is pretty straight-forward.

Start by opening a terminal (located in Applications > Accessories > Terminal).

Then type in or copy/paste this into the terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

$ mkdir -p ~/folding

$ cd ~/folding

$ wget http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.24beta-Linux.tgz

$ tar xzf FAH6.24beta-Linux.tgz

Now you have created a folder in /home/yourname/ called folding, downloaded the linux F@H client and extracted it.

Now, to configure the client:

$ ./fah6 -configonly

Enter your settings, and then you can run the client using the following command:

$ ./fah6 -smp -verbosity 9

If you are using an i7, use

$ ./fah6 -smp 8 -verbosity 9

and furthermore, if you are running your i7 stable 24/7 you can use the -bigadv flag for a point bonus.

GPU client

This is where it gets tricky, because there is no Linux GPU client, only the Windows binaries. Therefore we will use Wine to run it.

But first, we need to install drivers and the CUDA toolkit.

Let’s download the latest CUDA enabled driver.

Go to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers and select the 180 drivers, let them download and install.

Reboot.

The next step is downloading the CUDA toolkit. Open a new terminal and type:

$ wget http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/2_0/linux/toolkit/NVIDIA_CUDA_Toolkit_2.0_ubuntu7.10_x86.run

Then, within the same terminal type:

$ sudo sh NVIDIA_CUDA_Toolkit_2.0_ubuntu7.10_x86.run

Just hit enter to verify install path when asked. CUDA has been set up and you are ready to go.

In case you were wondering, the reason that I’m using the 7.10 toolkit is because the GPU2 wrapper was written for that version of the toolkit, newer toolkits do not work.

Then, we need to link the toolkit:

$ sudo sh -c “echo ‘/usr/local/cuda/lib’ > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/cuda.conf”

$ sudo ldconfig

Download WINE.

The following command will download the latest stable binary release of wine:

$ sudo apt-get install wine

If you just installed Wine, you might want to create the directory structure before starting up the GPU client, do so by simply running notepad:

$ wine notepad

You need to download the CUDA wrapper, so the windows binaries can communicate with the Linux driver:

$ wget http://www.gpu2.twomurs.com/wrapper2ndgen/2.1/cudart.dll.so -O ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/cudart.dll

$ ln -s ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/cudart.dll ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/nvcuda.dll

then run

$ ldd ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/cudart.dll

the result should be something like this:

user@computer:~$ ldd /usr/local/lib/wine/nvcuda.dll.so

linux-gate.so.1 => (0xf7fae000)

libcudart.so.2 => /usr/local/cuda/lib/libcudart.so.2 (0xf7f34000)

libwine.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libwine.so.1 (0xf7dfd000)

libm.so.6 => /lib32/libm.so.6 (0xf7dd6000)

libc.so.6 => /lib32/libc.so.6 (0xf7c78000)

libdl.so.2 => /lib32/libdl.so.2 (0xf7c74000)

libpthread.so.0 => /lib32/libpthread.so.0 (0xf7c5b000)

librt.so.1 => /lib32/librt.so.1 (0xf7c52000)

libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib32/libstdc++.so.6 (0xf7b64000)

libgcc_s.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xf7b54000)

/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf7faf000)

If you see any not founds, it probably has something to do with the CUDA toolkit; make sure you installed 32-bit toolkit, not the 64-bit, even though you are running a 64-bit kernel.

Setting up the client

$ mkdir ~/gpu0

$ cd ~/gpu0

$ wget http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/Folding@home-Win32-GPU_XP-623.zip

$ unzip Folding@home-Win32-GPU_XP-623.zip

Then run the client by typing:

$ nice -n 19 wine Folding@home-Win32-GPU.exe -forcegpu nvidia_g80

(even if you have a newer card than a G80, this is the flag to be given)

After configuring it, your client should be folding away.

Dual GPU Folding

If you have more than one GPU, you can use them both at the same time, just as you would do in Windows.

In terminal:

$ mkdir ~/gpu1/

$ cp ~/gpu0/Folding@home-Win32-GPU_XP-623.zip ~/gpu1/

$ cd ~/gpu1/

$ unzip Folding@home-Win32-GPU_XP-623.zip

Then run this client by typing:

nice -n 19 wine Folding@home-Win32-GPU.exe -forcegpu nvidia_g80 -gpu 1

And put machineid as 3

Scripts for running the clients.

I don’t like to have a lot of programs start up with my OS, so I have a simple script to start my clients.

Run these commands to create scripts for every client (Users with only one GPU need not do the last command):

$ echo -e “cd ~/folding/\n./fah6 -smp -verbosity 9 -advmethods” > ~/fahcpu

$ echo -e “cd ~/gpu0/\nnice -n 19 wine Folding@home-Win32-GPU.exe -forcegpu nvidia_g80 -verbosity 9 -advmethods -gpu 0″ > ~/fahgpu0

$ echo -e “cd ~/gpu1/\nnice -n 19 wine Folding@home-Win32-GPU.exe -forcegpu nvidia_g80 -verbosity 9 -advmethods -gpu 1″ > ~/fahgpu1

$ echo -e “gnome-terminal -x ./fahcpu\ngnome-terminal -x ./fahgpu0\ngnome-terminal -x ./fahgpu1″ > ~/fah

$ chmod +x fahcpu fahgpu0 fahgpu1 fah

Now you can run all your clients by typing:

$ ./fah

Running the clients on startup

Go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications

Now add the clients you want to run

CPU Client:

Name: cpu

Command: ~/./fahcpu

Comment: cpu client

GPU0 Client:

Name: gpu0

Command: ~/./fahgpu0

Comment: GPU0 client

GPU1 Client:

Name: gpu1

Command: ~/./fahgpu1

Comment: GPU1 client

Next time you reboot your system, your folding clients will be running in the background.

However, as I stated earlier, I personally prefer running the ./fah script myself on each startup so I can monitor the output of each client, instead of having them run in the background.

Overclocking your GPU in Linux

If you are doing this, I assume you have already done so in Windows and know the safe clocks for your card(s). To overclock your video card in Linux you have to enable ‘coolbits’ in your nvidia control panel. To do this we will have to edit the xorg configuration:

$ sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And then add ‘Option “CoolBits” “1″‘ under ‘Section: “Device”‘ like so:

Section “Device”

Identifier “Configured Video Device”

Driver “nvidia”

Option “NoLogo” “True”

Option “Coolbits” “1″

EndSection

Save the file and quit. Now you will have access to the CoolBits menu under your nvidia control panel.

Access the control panel by typing $ sudo nvidia-settings in a terminal. You should now see a ‘Clock Frequencies’ section where you can set your clocks. This has to be done every time you boot up Linux though, so the most convenient way would be to flash your video card with a BIOS with increased clock settings. Doing that is risky and is NOT RECOMMENDED UNLESS YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Monitoring

For monitoring, I will use FahMon. If you have been folding on Windows, you have perhaps been using FahMon. So, we’ll grab the latest build using subversion. We’ll have to compile it from source ourselves, which can be very frustrating at times if you don’t have the correct dependencies. You can always run your favorite windows monitoring program using wine:

$ sudo apt-get install subversion

$ svn export http://svn.fahmon.net/trunk fahmon

$ cd fahmon

Now we have the source code ready to install. Before we do this, however, we need to fetch some libraries to compile them:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

$ sudo apt-get install libwxgtk2.8-0 libwxgtk2.8-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev

Then we install with these commands:

$ ./configure

$ make

$ sudo make install

Assuming you didn’t get any errors, FahMon is now installed and can be accessed from Applications > System Tools > FahMon, or by typing “fahmon” into a terminal.

This guide was based on information from:

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/LinSMPGuide Folding@Home – Linux SMP Guide

http://gpu2.twomurs.com/index.php?title=Main_Page bGPU2  – Linux

http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=6793 NVIDIA GPU2 Linux/WINE Headless  – Install Guide

Feel free to improve this guide and redistribute it, giving me credit would be greatly appreciated

If you have any questions, issues or anything regarding F@H under Linux, feel free to send me a PM on OCF and I will get back to you.

Questions and discussion of this article are on Overclockers Forums, join in!

-Sydney

A Detailed Step by Step Guide to Folding@Home Under Linux is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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1. Easy Linux Folding Setup Guide: The GUI Method
2. How to Dual Boot Windows and Linux on a Fake RAID Array
3. Overclockers Folding@Home Team Spotlight #84

With enough work, you can make that remote do whatever it is you want, be it run a script or launch a program. This guide is constructed around Mythbuntu, but the principles are the same regardless of your distribution. How you install and control lirc may change slightly but the irexec coding stays the same.

Objective: Push a button on your remote and have it launch a program or execute a command

You need: lirc, irexec and possibly lirc-modules-source

You need to know: where the program/script you want to run is located; how to edit a text file.

Step 1: Plug in your remote, wait several seconds then find out if and how Linux is detecting it by using:

$lsusb
$dmesg | tail

sample output: lsusb

$lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1784:0008 TopSeed Technology Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
$

sample output: dmesg

$dmesg | tail
[6.646188] lirc_mceusb2: Philips eHome USB IR Transceiver and Microsoft MCE 2005 Remote Control driver for LIRC $Revision: 1.44 $
[6.646191] lirc_mceusb2: Daniel Melander , Martin Blatter
[6.938644] lirc_mceusb2[2]: Topseed Technology Corp. eHome Infrared Transceiver on usb3:2
[6.938671] usbcore: registered new interface driver lirc_mceusb2
$

As you can see I have an mceusb2. This is important for the next step:

Step 2: Install what you need:

$sudo apt-get install lirc irexec lirc-modules-source

Select your model of remote when prompted by lirc

Step 3: Type:

$ irw

And start pushing buttons on your remote to test to see if your remote is working. If it’s working, as you push buttons it will spit out jibberish in response to the keypress (well it’s actually not jibberish, but you get the drift)

Step 4: Run the following command:

$ mythbuntu-lirc-generator

This will generate .lircrc and .lirc/ files/folders. As a brief explanation, the .lircrc is a file which, in this case, points to the lirc folder. Inside the lirc folder you will see individual files, each defining how a program responds to your remote.

Step 5: Create a link inside the .lircrc file it should look something like this:

$ ~/.lirc/irexec

This should not be too difficult because if you have used the generator, there will be links to other files controlling the media programs (vlc, mplayer, elissa etc) that will look similar.

Step 6: Create the file .lirc/irexec (choose your favorite editor… I like nano):

$ sudo nano ~/.lirc/irexec

Step 7: Insert the code into the irexec file, save and exit. The code format looks like this:

begin
remote = mceusb
prog = irexec
button = RecTV
config = /usr/bin/xbmc
repeat = 0
delay = 0
end

Where remote is the remote which you have and the config line is the action you want the computer to execute on button press.

Step 8: Next you need to restart lirc and manually start irexec:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/lirc restart
$ /usr/bin/irexec -d /home/$USER/.lirc/irexec[/code]

Test your buttons. If it works, great - you're pretty much done, you just need to add irexec to your startup as this process does not startup by default with the computer. (Please note that this step may change depending upon your distribution)

For Gnome:

System->Preferences->Startup Applications

For Xfce:

Applications->Settings->Sessions and Startup

There you have it!

You have successfully installed, configured lirc and mapped a button. If you have the same remote, Xbox Media Centre installed and followed this guide, every time you press the Record TV button it will launch the media centre.

Hopefully this will smooth out your experience with Linux and media centres.

Stratus_SS

Making the Most of Media Centre Remotes: Installation and Custom Mapping is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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Today, users have more power and more options than ever before available in small form factor (SFF) systems. So, we are going to take a look at what is possible with an HTPC build using two very different systems.

Many users want more from a new piece of equipment than a simple digital video recorder (DVR) and cable box combination can provide. The HTPC is a tool for expanding your complete media experience.

In addition to Blu-ray playback, a HTPC can be utilized for a multitude of uses. With the proper supporting equipment, you can stream video to your HDTV from the internet or your media server. You can record HD content from unencrypted cable channels from two channels simultaneously or view over the air (OTA) broadcast television, and there is nothing more fun than using your wireless keyboard to amaze your friends who are still wondering how you got Windows 7 to run on your 51″ television. Read on and we’ll show you 2 great ways to get all this and more.

Read the full article HERE.

Mike (OC Forums Official Corsair Rep.) aka Yellowbeard XMS

Corsair Labs 2009: Home Theater PC Build Log is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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Since the card is already out of warranty, you have nothing to lose by baking the card in the oven, right? Well it turns out that reheating your video card to a certain temperature can actually “revive it”. The logic behind the experiment is that by heating up the card, it re-melts the solder joints which can sometimes come loose over time and cause the card to artifact, display a blank screen, or sometimes even overheat.

So you’ve read this far you’re probably saying “get on with it already”, so here are the steps you’ll need to take. Note this isn’t a guaranteed fix, but there is a high success rate (as seen in the threads HERE and HERE), and if your card is already non-working and out of warranty, you have nothing to lose.

Things you’ll need:

-Dead video card
-Oven capable of 385°F
-Tin foil
-Oven tray
-Screwdriver (for removing the heatsink)
-Your favorite thermal paste

First thing you want to do is preheat your oven to 385°F and wrap an oven tray with tin foil.

While that’s preheating, start removing the heatsink and any other plastic parts on your video card. You essentially want the card naked, with nothing but the PCB and rear bracket. Make sure all screws, nuts, and bolts are removed as well. Also remove any old thermal paste from the die itself, and any thermal pads from the RAM chips. Remove the thermal pads gently so you can reuse them when the card comes out of the oven.

Once you have the card stripped down, roll four little balls out of tin foil and place them in the shape of the video card on the tray. Next set the video card face down on them, making sure the foil balls touch only the PCB and not any resistors or solder connections.

Once the oven is 385°F, pop the tray in for 8 minutes and let it cook.

Once the time is up, remove the card from the oven and let it cool back down to room temperature. After it’s cooled, put a thin layer of thermal paste on the die (use a razor to spread it) and the thermal pads back on the RAM chips. Then reinstall the heatsink and make sure everything is snug and the heatsink fan is connected to the power connector on the cards PCB.

Now reinstall the card in your case, hook up any necessary power cables and turn on your PC. If the trick worked, your screen should display video that would make you think the video card is brand new. If you really want to stress your newly fixed card to make sure it won’t break again right away, you can download and run OpenGL Fur Rendering). Choose the stability test, uncheck the “windowed mode” and run it at 640 x 480 with 16x MSAA. Let it run for about ten minutes to make sure your card doesn’t artifact, or crash your system.

That’s it! You’ve just successfully turned your expensive paperweight into a fully functioning video card again.

Credit to antipesto93 for the initial thread and write-up and Haste266 for his photos.

ghost_recon88

EDITOR’S UPDATE BY IMOG: I received this message from Allan Stirling, issuing a warning about the dangers of using your oven for this. I haven’t seen much discussion of these sorts of concerns, and I’m not sure how valid they are. That said, the reader should take these into consideration prior to deciding to attempt the oven trick. Contact me at matt@overclockers.com if you have any feedback, confirming or contradicting Allan’s concerns :

No-one should attempt this in a household oven, for various reasons:

1. Both lead and tin are volatile when heated. Specifically, this means that lead oxide and other dangerous chemicals are emitted when lead is heated.

See:
http://www.sentryair.com/solder%20fume.htm

2. The fluxes used in production of modern electronics are designed to remove oxides very, very efficiently. They are NOT designed to be biocompatible. Small amounts of residue may still be on the board.

3. Boards may contain parts which will melt at the reflow temperature. These components are generally through-hole and added as a separate step.

So, basically, once you have completed this operation and (possibly) fixed your video card, BUY A NEW OVEN.

The other option is to buy a cheap toaster oven and use it only for reflowing – however, that’s cost prohibitive.

The Oven Trick (repairing your broken video card with an oven) is a post from: Overclockers - The Performance Computing Community

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