Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

[SmOgER]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

"The general recommendation is that VTT should be set at least 0.05 - 0.10 volts lower than Vcore". - This is why my CPU Termination is 1.260V as per professor Jim's recommendation...

Oh I see. I'am curious as to where this info came from. VTT delta to vDIMM may be important on some platforms where memory controller is on CPU (not LGA775), but I fail to see any importance of delta between VTT and vcore. :P
In my book, as long as VTT is under 1.4v, you can safely increase it.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Because some memory bios settings can accidentally be set differently for each memory channel, it's best to click the >> Memset icon to display both memory channels.

In post #401, your bios template includes: CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) ...........: [Enabled] and from Wikipedia:

TM2, or "Thermal Monitoring 2", is a throttling control method used on LGA 775 versions of the Pentium 4, Pentium D and Celeron processors and also on the Pentium M series of processors.[1] TM2 reduces processor temperature by lowering the CPU clock multiplier, and thereby the processor core speed.[2] In contrast, TM1 inserts an idle cycle into the CPU for thermal control without decreasing multipliers.

References

• Performance and Power Consumption Control Features in Intel Pentium 4 and Intel Xeon Processors – Different Names, the Same Principles
• Thermal Monitor 2 - Intel E2160 - Cpu Pentium Dual-Core 1.80Ghz Fsb800Mhz 1M Lga775 Tray Guide (Page 28)

I'm not aware of any other EP45-UD3P bios settings that deal with protecting your cpu from excessively high temperatures.

"The general recommendation is that VTT should be set at least 0.05 - 0.10 volts lower than Vcore". - This is why my CPU Termination is 1.260V as per professor Jim's recommendation...

Oh I see. I'am curious as to where this info came from. VTT delta to vDIMM may be important on some platforms where memory controller is on CPU (not LGA775), but I fail to see any importance of delta between VTT and vcore. :P
In my book, as long as VTT is under 1.4v, you can safely increase it.

Lsdmeasap, our former Gigabyte guru and forum admin recommend the lower VTT* voltage delta relative to Cpu Vcore voltage.

*aka FSB Termination or I/O termination voltage for the front side bus

Reference Documents from :

• http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc...775-1-note.pdf

Voltage Regulator-Down (VRD) 10.1 Design Guide for Desktop LGA775 Socket

http://www.intel.com/design/Pentium4/guides/302356.htm

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=712012 has some VTT information and links, but this is beyond my understanding.

You can also check out: Intel Core2 Extreme Processor X6800 and Intel Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor E6000 and E4000 Sequences Datasheet
http://download.intel.com/design/pro...s/31327807.pdf

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Just to clarify the VTT recommended setting:

• With 1.35 cpu vcore, VTT can be set from 1.25 - 1.30 if needed.
• I've seen many recommendations that VTT = 1.40 is the absolute maximum safe setting.

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) is still enabled.

I clicked the >> button in MemSet - I don't think it was there before as I only had 2 RAM slots populated previously.

The system just passed 8 hours of Prime Large FTTs:

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

NICE!!

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

I couldn't have done it without you Jim! Thanks again for everything!

Did I mention I followed BlackViper's guide like you suggested? I'm now looking at more ways to optimise this system - I'm thinking I should move My Documents folder to one of the HDDs before re-adding my files from the external USB 3.0 HDD. I've also downloaded Macrium Reflect but haven't installed it yet - is it pretty simple to use/do you have any recommendations?

As always I treat your word as gospel.

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

In other good news, my AS SSD Benchmark score is now almost as good as yours from all that time ago (http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...ml#post481645:)



Obviously no rapid mode but great compared to my old score (http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...tml#post481717)!

:)

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

You're welcome.

The BlackViper guide is a great way to shut down unneeded windows services.

The Macrium Reflect backup freeware is excellent and works better than Acronis True Image and other backup alternatives.
Use Reflect to create a WinPE bootable optical disk; it is one of the few free programs that lets you create a WinPE backup disk.
I prefer to backup my boot drive from a DVD instead of doing this backup when windows is running. Either way should work fine.
Be sure to backup your full ssd boot drive, not just the C:\ partition; you need to include the hidden Win7 Recovery partition.

You might find it useful in the future to buy the paid version of Macrium Reflect for the additional features that it offers.
They frequently have discount offers once you sign up on their site.

I have different hard drive partitions for My Documents, music, photos, videos, downloads and my backup files.
My external usb 3.0 hard drive also has copies of my backups and file folders.

When you run Macrium Reflect, be sure to click on the Advanced Options tab and select the Verify and file size options.
They have a decent online help web page at Macrium Reflect Disk Imaging and Backup - Help

AHA!! I just noticed that you snuck in another post, glad to hear that your ssd performance is much better.

Maybe your add-in card's sata2 performance is also better than when it was in your P35-DS3L.

Any regrets about upgrading your motherboard and going with 8GB of the Kingston HyperX T1 memory?
I'll take a wild guess that you're somewhat happier now.

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Upgrading (and overclocking when it works) is fun!



I'm keeping my eye out for a good deal on an X5470 - none to be had in the UK atm as far as I can tell though.

I might even look into upgrading my graphics card since I'm sure there are some good deals to be had on old models that are still much newer than my 8800GTS!

Hmmm I could even SLI Probably not necessary since I'm not much of a gamer though...

[SmOgER]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Just to clarify the VTT recommended setting:

• With 1.35 cpu vcore, VTT can be set from 1.25 - 1.30 if needed.
• I've seen many recommendations that VTT = 1.40 is the absolute maximum safe setting.

Well all tend to agree that for these 45nm chips VTT of up to 1.4V is safe for 24/7.
All the fuss about it came from anandtech, they supposedly burned burned one of the chips in their review because of very high VTT and made a recommendation not to go over 1.4V for 24/7.
Some people say that it was just a coincidence or a bad chip and that it wasn't VTT which caused that chip to fail. In fact, one overclockers.net member extensively ran his chip for more than year at 1.6-1.65V VTT and didn't even see any degradation signs after that.
That's all speculations, but what we now for sure, up to 1.4v should be more than safe.

Now as for the delta, maybe it's applicable for gigabyte boards only.
I'am now at 1.31v vcore and 1.36VTT and it seems to be stable. Now when I decrease VTT to 1.25V, it gives me bsod straight away on boot screen.

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Is there a noticeable difference having the folders on separate partitions?

I had some difficulties installing Windows 7 so am not sure if I installed the recovery partition :/ :



On a side note, do I need to adjust my virtual memory or SSD pagefile at all for better performance or will Windows have automatically set them at optimised levels?

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

SmOgER, you're entitled to your opinion.

Are you right about VTT? Am I right? I don't know.

No offense, but the sum total of your experience pales in comparison to Lsdme's.

If we combined your experience and my experience, it would be very small compared to Lsdme.

I've read enough about electromigration to be somewhat conservative when exceeding specifications.

End of discussion on recommended safe VTT settings.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Is there a noticeable difference having the folders on separate partitions?

I had some difficulties installing Windows 7 so am not sure if I installed the recovery partition :/ :

[ATTACH]7094[/ATTACH]

On a side note, do I need to adjust my virtual memory or SSD pagefile at all for better performance or will Windows have automatically set them at optimised levels?

If a single partition gets corrupted, you could loose ALL of your files.
When you defragment a partition it's much faster when you have smaller partitions.
I put my frequently accessed hard drive partitions starting at the beginning of the drive (e.g. D:, E:, F:, etc.) and put infrequently accessed partitions at the end of the hard drive.

But what happens if the hard drive's partition table gets corrupted?
You pray that TestDisk or similar programs can find and fix the partition table errors.
It has happened to me a couple of times in the past with win2K.

Windows recovery partition
Look at your posted disk management screen.
It looks like you you preformatted your ssd to use all available space.
This means that the windows installation had no available space for a hidden recovery partition.
If you have windows set up to display hidden folders, you should see a C:\Recovery hidden folder that you can't access. Don't worry, be happy.

Windows default pagefile settings
With 8GB of ram, windows probably set up an 8GB pagefile.sys on your ssd.
With my 8GB systems, I usually have no swapfile usage and when needed, it usually uses less than ~125MB.
The attached picture shows how I have a 1024 - 2048MB swapfile setup on my temporary work partition on my hard drive.

SSD over provisioning space
For longer ssd life and better performance, I shrink my boot partition by 20% to leave unallocated space for over-provisioning.
It is safe to do this immediately after your most recent boot drive backup.
I like the AOMEI partition manager freeware, which also lets you create a bootable WinPE optical disk.
I think that you can also change the partition size or layout in windows after you do a mandatory reboot to apply the changes.

• AOMEI Partition Assistant ? free disk partition manager software, helps you to resize partitions, merge partitions etc.

Windows 7 installation problems
So what's new?
_ I've lost count of how many non o/c problems we've fixed in this thread.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Addendum:

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Well every time I expect it to fail, this system has proved me wrong!

8.5 hours small FTT stable at 3.8GHz!