Hi All,
I am about to attempt some overclocking and have had some strange results with Prime 95. I ran a torture test with the stock settings - no overclocking. My temps hit 88C after a minute or two before I shut her down. Any thoughts?
Intel Xeon E5645 (single for now)  
EVGA Classified SR-2  
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 24GB (6 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 F3-10666CL9T2-24GBRL  
Quadro 4000  
SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC128D/AM 2.5" 128GB SATA III  
ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX-B 135mm  
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit  
Rosewill BLACKHAWK-ULTRA Case  
CORSAIR (CMPSU-950TX) 950W ATX12V v2.3

sounds like a poor cpu cooler mounting, try removing your heatsink and redoing the tim. of course if you have more info it might narow down the problem, such as ambiant temps, whaqt cooler you use, what tim and how you mounted it, whether this was the first time stress testing, etc.
edit.
oh you do have the cooler mentioned. try reseating it using the tim application guide in the overclocking section of the forum.

I looked for the overclockers forum but didn't see it. I now see it under hardware. Is it possible to move my post there?

sorry, I was just lazy and didnt link the guide for you. we are happy right here to help with overclocking your sr-2
 
heres the guide from the overclocking section:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1132585
 
just let us know some more details, such as if you have ever tried running a stress test before using this same setup and we can try to get your temps down a bit before you attempt further overclocking of the sr-2. if your ambient temps in your computer room are around 75 degrees F. you should be able to run the stress test at stock clocks at between 50-70 celcius with common air setup. a setup with water cooling should run this same at stock clocks between 30-65 depending on what kind of water setup. (these are core temps) so check the mount for your cooler make sure it is clean and has good airflow through it. make sure your case has good airflow and isnt getting to 100 degrees f inside. let us know how it comes along.

No worries. The heatsink was loose, YIKES!. Tightening a few screws seems to have done the job. It holds steady at 36C with the torture test. Room temp is about 80F. Which brings me to my first question with regards to OCing: Is there a way to set the CPU so it shuts down when it hits a certain temperature?
 
My other questions are:
2. at idle my CPU reads steady at 1.6MHz with a x12 multiplier. If I OC the chip, will it idle at those higher speeds?
3. since I only need the OC during certain tasks, is it possible to set it up to only OC in Turbo mode?
4.Is it possible for me to exceed the x19 multiplier indicated under turbo mode in the E-leet Overclocking tab?
5. Some cores read a x21 multi, what does that mean?
 
I have never OC's before and am currently at stock settings.

good glad it was something simple. 36C at full load is great. ok intel uses something called speedstep it automatically downclocks the multiplier when it is idle. you can turn this off in the bios and sometimes it helps give a higher oc with the trade being power consumption. if you oc with it on then it will still down clock but at the new ratio you are running your oc.
 
turbo is something intel uses to give you a boost on single threaded applications.  you can set your computer to run on turbo always and it will give you the extra multiplier by enabling performance mode in windows. you also need to turn off c-states in bios to do this. so 19 is what you get all the time that way, the reason why you see 21 sometimes is when a single thread only is running turbo can boost it up that high. (its diferent for the differant chips and I dont have yours info in front of me so I am assuming its 19 and 21 as you said.) I think the only way you can run 21 constantly is if you disable 2 or 3 of your cores, which sorta defeats the purpose of an sr-2 IMHO.
 
you seem to be fairly new to overclocking in general. read and comprehend this guide here:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?high=&m=583817&mpage=1#583817
most of the gulftown stuff aplies but its mainly principals you need to understand so that you can ask specific questions about your sr-2.
 
there is a wealth of information here in the sr-2 section if you browse back over the last 2 years, especially the posts from early 2011.
 
good luck, and post if you have more questions. if you have general oc questions like the ones above you will probably get more people looking to help if you post in the overclocking section, but keep in mind if you ask something sr-2 related most of those members will try to help but may give you wrong info due to the quirkiness of the sr-2. I have seen so many people try to answer questions about the sr-2 having never even owned one, lol. but what do I know, lol im just another guy with a 4.5ghz oc on my sr2 lol. definantly not an expert.
 
edit:
forgot your first question, lol. the intel chip itself will shutdown when it goes nuclear, but this is unavisable. there isnt a setting in the bios, but you can download a program like coretemp which is free and you can set to do it. there are other free and paid for programs that will do this as well as certain fan controlers.
  
 

On the SR-2 you want to:
Enable Speedstep
Enable Turbo
Disable C-States
which, on the E5645, gets you a 19x multiplier.
Then, try to aim for as close to 200 BCLK as possible, which would get you 3.8 GHz.

I'd start my vcore at 1.25v that should get 3.8 stable and may can be lowered.
This really can depend on the chip & mobo as some chip might need just a little more vcore for 3.8.

Beginner's luck. I'm sittin pretty at 3.7 GHz, 195 bclk, vcore 1.125, vtt 1.25. I couldn't get 200 bclk stable. Passed IBT standard and max as well as Prime 95 Torture test.

nice oc man. hope our info helped.

spant


Beginner's luck. I'm sittin pretty at 3.7 GHz, 195 bclk, vcore 1.125, vtt 1.25. I couldn't get 200 bclk stable. Passed IBT standard and max as well as Prime 95 Torture test.

Nice chip & overclocking!
Did you try 1.3v on vtt for the 200 bclk?
At 1.125vcore@195 I would think at 1.20vcore w/ 1.30v vtt would get 200 bclk.
but if your happy I'd let it roll right where its at. Temps should be nice and low under load.
Good job!

You want to bump VIOH to 1.4 if you're shooting for 200BCLK.
Also, try applying the QPI0/1 signal tweaks; they actually work magic.

Probably no good to ya, but here's my settings running 10 cores 20 TH.
This is with a E5645 & a E5620 on a SR2. Single chip will probably take less voltage & be stable.

Yeah Wolf I am familiar with your posts and settings. Thanks for sharing and the input. I am ok with 195 and may stay there for a while before I get the itch again. Temps around 60C under load.
Bayley I am not too familiar with the signal tweaks and what they do. I saw some signal tweaking here http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1575363&mpage=1 but as I am stable at 3.7 I didn't bother to look into it further.
I just noticed some issues with sleeoing and waking. I was having issues before without OC. Things seemed to level off though. When it slept the lights on the keayboard were still on. I couldn't wake from the keyboard, only by hitting power button. But keyboard sleep button works.
 
Now with OC seems to slip into a zombie state where the fans still run as if it's on but no signal to monitors or mouse. Power button or keyboard don't wake. Reset button didn't work. It seemed to shutdown but then did not boot. Only a full shutdown worked. Any thoughts?