OC genie failed on P55-GD80, but now i7 860 is overclocked!

Question

My system specs:
MSI p55-gd80
Bios 1.5
core i7 860
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2
2 x nvidia 9800 GT in sli mode
2 x 2GB G Skill F3-16000CL9D-4GBTD in slots 1 and 3
Apevia ATX-IB680W-BL 680w SLI compatible power supply
Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit
The system has been running smoothly with no problems since initial build 2 weeks ago. The system came with bios version 1.4, now running bios 1.5
Build is for son's gaming system. Bought this for the OC genie function. Although I have been building systems for 10+ years, I have no OC experience, so I thought this function would be quick and safe method to get some more out of the new Core i7.
Tried to activate OC Genie, first with bios 1.4. Turned off sytem and pressed OC Genie button. Powered on system, mobo posts, bios screen appears saying OC genie enabled,  the mobo cycles thru codes (the codes next to the clock +/- buttons) beginning with FF, and then stops on 38. After a few seconds (anywhere from approximately 3-12 seconds for different attempts) on 38, the system shuts down and reboots, after 3-4 tries at this, the system will no longer even post.
We then enabled fail safe defaults in bios and tried again. Same symptoms and results, could not get to OS. We then flashed to bios 1.5, and tried again, same process, same results.
However, after we finally gave up and disabled to OC Genie, we noticed in the bios (or somehow, I don't remember) that the CPU was actually running faster than 2.8ghz, so we downloaded CPU-Z to check. What is very strange is that CPU-Z shows that the core speed of the processor is now at 3266.6, the multiplier is x18, bus speed is 181.5, and qpi link is 2903.7. It seems the board appears to be overclocked? We have not changed any settings manually, so it appears that OC genie made some changes?
What is going on here? As I said, I know nothing about OC settings or the process (although I am beginning to try to learn given my current situation). Is this board now overcloced? Based on the settings I see in CPU-Z, is it safe? Should I reset the board back to fail-safe or optimum bios settings or something else. Clear CMOS?
More important, why is OC Genie not working and how do I rectify that issue?
Thanks for the help if you have any ideas or thoughts on this issue.
Rick
NH, USA

Answer 1

Quote from: rickd123 on 06-November-09, 23:12:36
Hi Bitgod,
I see you have the same board and processor. As you can see by my posts I am a newbee to OCing. If you have a stable (and not too agressive) OC that you are satisfied with, wondering if you could post here your bios changes for your OC so I could try them.
I didn't try the Genie with less ram or a single video card as you suggested, that might be a solution, but as I read more about OCing to try to get a handle on things it does seem that a better solution in my case (since OC Genie fails to work properly with my configuration?) is to do things manually.
I agree with the Control Center comment also. My son was in there right after we put the system together. When he closed the program the system rebooted and would not post. We had to reset cmos to get it back up...
Rick
Sure, here's some screen shots of my settings.  I'm not aggressively OCing, I'm happy enough with 3.6Ghz and I'm going to play it safe because of the Foxconn socket controversy, I didn't want to get into the 1.4v range, so I hope by staying at 1.26v, that I should be avoiding any socket/CPU issues. (not all GD80s have Foxconn sockets, but mine does)  These pics are from the 1.6b7 BIOS.
I don't have a screen shot of the OC Genie settings because those got wiped when I updated my BIOS, but I wrote down the numbers, so here's some for comparison...to get it clocked at 3.546Ghz, OC Genie was using 1.4v on the CPU, 1.399 on the VTT, had my DRAM at 1.740, and was using a frequency of 197 and a ratio of 18.  All the things disabled in the first pic were disabled by OC Genie also.  That was using the 1.4 BIOS, so they may have tweaked things for the better in the 1.5
At those power settings, I could probably manually get my CPU to at least 4.0Ghz.  My RAM is capable of doing 1600Mhz at stock speeds.  I made one attempt at getting them to run in the 1700Mhz range by using a different memory ratio, but that didn't last under testing, so for now I'm just fine at running above the "normal stock" 1333 speed.  Once I've gotten through the ton of new games to play, maybe I'll try tweaking the system some more.
Now someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you can do any combination of CPU base frequency and multiplier to get any clock you want, but what you have to keep in mind is the memory speed, which you get from the base frequency and the memory ratio, so you'll want to use something your RAM can handle.  When in doubt, go low, stress test it, and if it's stable, then you can start going higher to see what you can get.  Don't forget to use the feature to save your BIOS settings, if you find something that works, save it, then you can always fall back to that when you start playing with the system.