# i7 860 overclocking, vcore greyed out!



## jiddo

Hello. I have had the i7 860 for 2 months now, and all the time, I have been using msi's auto overclock, OC genie. I have the p55-cd53 MB with corsair h50 watercooling. So, OC Genie takes the cpu to 3.5 mhz, the idle temp is like 30c, and when gaming, it doesn't go over 50c. What I am trying to do, is get to about 3.9 or even higher, but since I am a complete noob in overclocking, I need help here. So I watched some guide on youtube, did what he said, and I also read some guide on the internet, they said that a vcore of 1.30 should be ok?
So, I enter the bios to begin, turn OCGenie off, and I can change everything EXCEPT vcore. Now, I guess if I turn the cpu up to 3.7 to begin with, the default vcore won't do. What should I do? The option above vcore is just cpu voltage, and under that is greyed out vcore. The cpu voltage gets red, witch means maximum recommended setting, so I did put it a little bit lower than that. The thing is that OC genie changes the vcore when taking it to 3.5ghz, but I can't manually edit it. What am I doing wrong? I know I can take this far more than 3.5ghz.


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## 87dtna

The greyed out Vcore is just showing you what it is currently.  CPU voltage is what you want.

The voltage are you setting it at that it turns red???


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> The voltage are you setting it at that it turns red???



I don't understand what you mean, but I guess you meant if I put the voltage
where it turns red, that is, maximum recommended voltage, is this correct?


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## 87dtna

What did you set the Voltage too?  And what voltage was the first that turned red?


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> What did you set the Voltage too?  And what voltage was the first that turned red?



I have it at [+0.198]
and it turns red at [+0.204]

What would you recommend if I wan't to go to 3.8 - 4.0 ghz?


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## 87dtna

jiddo said:


> I have it at [+0.198]
> and it turns red at [+0.204]
> 
> What would you recommend if I wan't to go to 3.8 - 4.0 ghz?



What does it read it the greyed out Vcore section?  Like 1.4v or so?


You should be able to easily hit 4ghz at that voltage.  Did you check your ram speeds?  You do know that overclocking the CPU also overclocks the ram right?  You need to manually turn down the ram speed as you overclock.


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> What does it read it the greyed out Vcore section?  Like 1.4v or so?
> 
> 
> You should be able to easily hit 4ghz at that voltage.  Did you check your ram speeds?  You do know that overclocking the CPU also overclocks the ram right?  You need to manually turn down the ram speed as you overclock.



Vcore is 1.232 and it never changes, not even if I change the cpu voltage.


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## 87dtna

jiddo said:


> Vcore is 1.232 and it never changes, not even if I change the cpu voltage.



Well it won't change until you reboot the CPU...but are you saying it still says 1.232 after you set it to +.198v and reboot back into the Bios?  If so, thats strange...you must not be increase the CPU's Vcore then.


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> Well it won't change until you reboot the CPU...but are you saying it still says 1.232 after you set it to +.198v and reboot back into the Bios?  If so, thats strange...you must not be increase the CPU's Vcore then.



omg, if it's possible, come to my house and punish me for my stupidity. I forgot to reboot!


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## 87dtna

LOL, ok, so now whats it say?

Oh actually 1.45v is too much.  Just give it .10v now to get 1.35 Vcore.


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> LOL, ok, so now whats it say?
> 
> Oh actually 1.45v is too much.  Just give it .10v now to get 1.35 Vcore.



Ok, I need help. I set the multiplier to 20 and the other thing, frequency or something, ( cant remember.. ) to 194, witch gives me a target of 3.8ghz.
All other settings are as the tutorial on youtube said, ofc, he had different memory, so I have changed that to fit mine. And, the only thing that's left to do is the damn power, why did they make it so complicated!?

I want the vcore to be 1.30, so first, the cpu voltage (the not greyed out option) is at 0.198 witch is maximum "recommended" by bios. And, that makes the vcore to 1.128. What the hell? If the voltage is max recommended at 0.198, and that puts vcore at 1.128, how should I make the vcore 1.30? wouldn't that require me to set cpu frequency stupidly highly more than recommended?

There is something I am doing wrong, because if I put cpu volt at 0.105 as you said, the vcore is 1.136. What should I do to make vcore at 1.30?


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## linkin

what you want to do is stop using software to overclock. the BIOS is the most stable and best way, regardless of how good the software app might be.


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## 87dtna

linkin said:


> what you want to do is stop using software to overclock. the BIOS is the most stable and best way, regardless of how good the software app might be.



He is using the bios 


Anyway, you have speedstep enabled in the Bios which lowers the clock speed and Vcore a lot to save power when the CPU is idling, but if an application demands more CPU power it bumps the multi and Vcore back up.  So you need to disable speedstep so it runs full speed all the time.


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## jiddo

linkin said:


> what you want to do is stop using software to overclock. the BIOS is the most stable and best way, regardless of how good the software app might be.



what the hell are you talking about? Why would I use software to do this?
And why would there be software to edit cpu voltage!?

Correct me if I am wrong, is speedstep EIST? Will check if I can find it if not, because eist is disabled.


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## linkin

woops. i must be blind today, my mistake 

EIST is speedstep, yes. go ahead and disable it if you don't want it.


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## Jet

linkin said:


> what you want to do is stop using software to overclock. the BIOS is the most stable and best way, regardless of how good the software app might be.



I use both . To get the best SuperPi runs you need both the BIOS and software overclocking--overclocking in the BIOS until it's near the max stable, boot, and then push it while it's idling in software overclocking .


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## jiddo

EIST and all the shitty power savers have been off all the time, but OC Genie wants them in when it does the OC. The only thing that worries me is that
I have:

i7 860
xfx 4890 (if it even matters..)
corsair h50 watercooling
corsair tx750watt
p55-cd53

and the automatic OC button only takes it to 3.5ghz!?
It's not even close to the limit, idle temp is at 30c or even less,
and load temp is like 40-45c. When I put the frequency to target 3.9ghz,
I get a BSOD when using prime95, like it boots windows and all, but when using
prime95 to get to 100% load it dies, not the power of the pc, but more like windows just fading away.

haaalp!


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## 87dtna

Can you get pictures of the different screens in your Bios?


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> Can you get pictures of the different screens in your Bios?



I don't know the correct order of them, but you can see at the bios title on top.
All of this was from cell menu, witch I guess is the only part used when overclocking.


















sorry, a picture got turned in the wrong direction, you actually get to exercise your head


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## 87dtna

Whats in the ClockGen tuner? (second pic)

Also in the second pic, it's not scrolled down all the way is VTT voltage down there?


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> Whats in the ClockGen tuner? (second pic)
> 
> Also in the second pic, it's not scrolled down all the way is VTT voltage down there?



here ya go:


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## 87dtna

And you say it's still undervolting/underclocking when the CPU is idling?

When your CPU is idling, if you open CPUz, whats it say for the CPU Vcore and frequency?


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> And you say it's still undervolting/underclocking when the CPU is idling?
> 
> When your CPU is idling, if you open CPUz, whats it say for the CPU Vcore and frequency?



uh, It's completely stable right now at 3.6ghz, but if I go to 3.9 it gets bsod at
full load using prime95.


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## 87dtna

You didn't answer either question!

Open CPUz and what does it say....voltage wise and frequency.  Let the CPU idle.


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> You didn't answer either question!
> 
> Open CPUz and what does it say....voltage wise and frequency.  Let the CPU idle.



Ok, cpu-z says, at 0% load:





the red part i marked, varies from about 3650.5 - 3650.9, this must be
speedstep? Or it's just some random things cpu-z does when reading?


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## 87dtna

No, speedstep would take it down to about 1ghz with a multiplier of 8 or so.

Strange that your voltage is only 1.224, thats stock voltage.  Whats the voltage set to in the bios right now?  +.198?


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## jiddo

ok, so I noticed there is an auto function for cpu voltage, witch takes vcore to about 1.28, it should be enough for 3.9ghz-40ghz? Right?
Also, I have the corsair 750w if it's to any help.


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## 87dtna

Auto may take your voltage even higher once you overclock higher.

Just curious what this will do, but set your voltage to +.3 once, don't change anything else and boot up.  Open cpuz and whats the voltage say?  You won't damage anything I promise


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> Auto may take your voltage even higher once you overclock higher.
> 
> Just curious what this will do, but set your voltage to +.3 once, don't change anything else and boot up.  Open cpuz and whats the voltage say?  You won't damage anything I promise



hmm, when  I set it to auto, I lost the control over voltage at all 
it's greyed out at auto :O


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## 87dtna

Well yeah of course...thats why I said to set it to +.3


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## jiddo

87dtna said:


> Well yeah of course...thats why I said to set it to +.3



no,no. before i set the voltage at auto, I had control of the vcore, because
the vcore changed when I raised cpu voltage, but heh, when I tried auto on cpu volt, it's got stuck like that, it seems to be changing after the needs, but now I can't fix it 

When I go over 3.8ghz, I get a BSOD, will post all my specs when I get home, and if you see any problems I have done, it would be awesome.


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