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OS X stability above 3.6 GHz on Conroe


bofors
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In my lastest overclocking adventures I am noticing a couple things about OS X. First of all, Windows seems to be more stable than OS X (10.4.8 with DaemonES kernel). I am wondering if anyone else has observed this.

 

The second thing is that OS X does seem very stable much above 3.6 GHz on Conroe either. While I am sure that this is in part due to the limits of my air cooling and quality of my CPUs, it does not explain the fact that I can boot OS X at 3.8 GHz. It is just not completelty stable unless it is slowed all the way down to 3.65 GHz, which I think is a little too much.

 

Finally, I am wondering what others are using to test for stability. Just runing Xbench is not good enough for my needs, I need extended dual thread performance, so I have been running Power Fractal with the maximum count (it takes about half an hour): http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10540

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I am on a conroe with air cooling too. I had to raise my core voltage to get apps like handbrake stable I am at 3520mhz with an e6600. I have also had a few KPs here and there, but nothing repeatable so I can only assume it has to do with excess heat. Temperature Monitor reports my die temp at 72 C, although I Have no idea is the app is accurate. Handbrake was the best test of stability for me, os x seemed fine. but handbrake would unexpectedly quit an hour into an encode...

 

I am also using sem's beta 8 kernel, which I consider a must for overclockers due to auto bus speed timing.

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Do you think in the 64 bit versions of osx in the future this problem will be eliminated?

 

First of all, I am not even sure if this is a bone fide "problem". That is why I started this thread, to see if others have noticed such a phenomena as OS X being less than 100% stable above 3.6 GHz.

 

Whether OS X is 32-bit or 64-bit should have no direct effect on its stability. But in general, changes in the kernel certainly certainly should be pronounced.

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I dont have much to report at the moment because I finally (last night) got the majority of my cooling problems settled with my Xeon 3060 (basically a E6600). Once I find a stable OC in windows (previous tests showed 3.6 not to be an issue) I will be installing OS X.

 

Then I will be able to report back with whatever I find out.

 

I guess this is just a, you are not really alone in this post :whistle:

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I can't speak for my Conroe setup. I have not done the mod on my Bad Axe so I max out at 3.2 GHZ with no probs. For pure MHZ in general, my pentium D was chuggin' along at 4.05 GHZ no prob.

Edited by Thade
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  • 3 weeks later...

bofors yes you are right, Windows is much more stable, than OSX, even w/o overclocking. I know that, cause I have a lot of experience of iokit programming. This is not an issue, this is a payment for OSX speed.

 

Kaspers yes, but pm timer is much more accurate, than semthex method, just my two cents.

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bofors yes you are right, Windows is much more stable, than OSX, even w/o overclocking. I know that, cause I have a lot of experience of iokit programming. This is not an issue, this is a payment for OSX speed.

 

Hi Daemon,

 

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about OS X versus Windows in terms of overclocking.

 

Bye the way, I am still interested in getting your latest kernel.

 

~bofors

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi

 

I know that it may be asking too much, where can I find your latest kernel? I'm using semthex's and keep getting a kernel panic when applying Taruga's HDA patch

 

thanks

 

jjduro

(Portugal)

 

jjduro at gmail dot com

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I have BadAxe2 & E6600:

 

I've been playing around with different versions of BadAxe2 Bios to see how high I can go on air cooling.

 

The 11/17 got me the highest, 4Ghz, but the CPU fan was like a 747 turbine and under no load it quickly got to 59 Celcius (with case closed). I don't know how stable it would be, but I didn't want to wait around and watch my CPU fry.

 

I think that 3.6 is probably a good mix of performance versus risk. This might seem odd, but I was never actually able to hit a stable 3.6 until the new Bios. 3.4 was my max on 11/17, and then 4 G also, but nothing in betwen / very bizzare).

 

The new Bios dated 1/23 (just flashed last night) gave me a nice / steady 3.6 steady on air cooling with a loaded temp around 53'ish and no-load temp in high 40's. / 51.

 

I'm half tempted to get a watercooling rig and see how far this can go...I know I can post/boot in both PC/Mac @ 4Ghz with an older Bios...question is how do I cool this silly thing long enough to run some tests?

 

post-56202-1170856056_thumb.jpg

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Here's an interesting discovery, so thought I'd post here...

 

I went out an bought a Big Typhoon...dropped it in and temps went down like 20 degrees (sick!). I was operating at 3.6 Ghz at around 31 C. Put the case door back on, temps went up to 44 C. I have a Sonata II case, and some high end cooling (Seasonic 600W M12, Noctua Fans, Big Typhoon, etc.), and I realize now that this case is a P.O.S. The ventilation must really stink!

 

So, I now realize in order for me to get stable up to 4 Ghz (on E6600) and beyond, I should do testing with my case door open. Run both Windoze and Mac torture tests on the PCS, and once stable, go out an by a "real" case! I have (well, my HTPC I built) a Lian Li case (the G5 look-alike) and it is whisper quiet and incredibly well ventilated. For my personal Hackintosh, I should've gotten another one instead of spending time/money on the stupid Sonata II. For a high end case, it is incredible how poorly ventilated it is in contrast to the door open. Running SuperPi 32M my temps shot up by as much as 17 degrees, and only came off (once complete) about 5 degrees, meaning, the case doesn't ventilate the hot air out.

 

Thought it would be worth mentioning...I think now I can get stable much higher on Air cooling with my case door open, because my CPU is running at like 31 C (+/- 4 for load).

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does anyone can help me to repair or REflash my bios ???

 

i can't do nothing

my system always freezes at this sreen "EB"when i tried normal boot so i can't reflash bios from CD.

p1010010hp6.th.jpg

 

also i can't repair it by this instruction

http://support.intel.com/support/motherboa...23360.htm#cdrom

i don't see nothing like this.

i doesn't see anything =) just a black screen.

suppose my mobo just a little broken

any ideas ???

Edited by boo50
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  • 3 weeks later...
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