i5-2500k, can't get past 1.6GHz. Can I overclock after installation? Do I need a new SSDT?

[sshanky]

Hi everyone

I have an i5-2500k and Gigabyte GA Z77-DS3H. It's been running great for a year or more but I've never been able to overclock it. I just decided to try again, and no matter what I set, my hardware monitor shows a CPU Package Multiplier of x16 and CPU Package of 1.60GHz, and it never changes. If I set the BIOS values back to defaults this will go to x34/3.4.

I can't remember when I used Multibeast if I selected i5 or i5 overclocking. It's been too long. Is there something that I need to do that will instruct OSX to allow the CPU to speed up? I'm not experienced enough to figure this out.

I do notice that there is a file in my /Extra directory, SSDT.aml, and the first bit of text I can see when I look at it with a text editor is "Core i5 3.8 GHz Maximum Clock SSDT based on Greggen's at tonymacx86.com 2012-05-16". I've never gotten 3.8, either.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks

 

[P1LGRIM]

Hi everyone

I have an i5-2500k and Gigabyte GA Z77-DS3H. It's been running great for a year or more but I've never been able to overclock it. I just decided to try again, and no matter what I set, my hardware monitor shows a CPU Package Multiplier of x16 and CPU Package of 1.60GHz, and it never changes. If I set the BIOS values back to defaults this will go to x34/3.4.

I can't remember when I used Multibeast if I selected i5 or i5 overclocking. It's been too long. Is there something that I need to do that will instruct OSX to allow the CPU to speed up? I'm not experienced enough to figure this out.

I do notice that there is a file in my /Extra directory, SSDT.aml, and the first bit of text I can see when I look at it with a text editor is "Core i5 3.8 GHz Maximum Clock SSDT based on Greggen's at tonymacx86.com 2012-05-16". I've never gotten 3.8, either.

Any help would be appreciated!

Disable EIST in BIOS

Good Luck

 

[sshanky]

I couldn't find EIST in my BIOS. However, I did some further changes:

1. made a new smbios.plist with multibeast and specified Macmini5,1 as the system
2. made a new org.chameleon.Boot.plist with multibeast and specified i5/i7 overclocked
3. tried some other changes to the BIOS as recommended on an overclocking page I read

And then I got 1.7 instead of 1.4 and 3.7 instead of 3.4. A slight improvement. However, as soon as I shut down, I couldn't restart. The system would boot into a blank BIOS screen (no settings) for a moment, then restart, and it repeated this process 5 to 10 times before reporting that I had a corrupt BIOS. It proceeded to reload the default BIOS, and I then had to research how to reset things to make it boot again. I think I have it working for the time being, and now I'm afraid to up the core speeds...

I wish someone had the same MoBo/CPU as I do and could share the settings and items done to make it work...

Thanks

 

[tuan2195]

I have a similar system (i7 2600K and Gigabyte Z68MX mobo) and I have it running at 5.0GHz stable for about 17.3K Geekbench Here's what I did:

1. Reset your BIOS to its optional setting so you can boot into OS X
2. (Optional) Use MultiBeast and install boot verbose so can always debug if it panics
3. IMPORTANT: Use these following definitions: MacMini 6,1 or iMac 14,1 for i5 CPUs and MacMini 6,2 or iMac 14,2 for i7 CPUs. I use them and got 5.0GHz without any SSDT hackery. The MacMini definition has the advantage of enabling audio over onboard HDMI, keep that in mind.
4. DISABLE EIST AT ALL COST! Even if it means reading your mobo's manual.
5. IMPORTANT: When overclocking, don't set the overall multiplier but instead set the core multipliers separately for each core config. The 4-core multiplier must be 1x multiplier lower than the 1-core config multiplier. For example, my config is 50-50-50-49 but something like 50-49-49-49 will also work. OSX don't like it when they're all the same for some reason. This way the CPU will only (lol) operate at 4.9GHz when all 4 cores are active, but will jump to 5.0GHz when one or more cores are idle. It's not optimal, but it's the only way.
6. Happy overclocking and go back here if you have questions!

One last note, not all chips can hit 5.0GHz stable, and also I have a very good cooling system and also using an unhealthy bit of Vcore so if your chip cannot hit 5.0GHz it's normal! Don't push it too hard, 4.5GHz seems doable on every chip though.

And oh, that 2133MHz RAM is also OC'd from 1600MHz. And your About This Mac won't show anything over 4.3GHz for the CPU even if you push it past that point, to get something like 5.0GHz you have to do some edits!

 

[sshanky]

This is great! Finally, someone explained it in a way I was unable to figure out before. The key was to change the system definition as you described. I couldn't find iMac 14,2 in my version of Multibeast (5.5.5), but the MacMini 6,1 was there, so I chose it. It also made sense to choose that for the sound capabilities you mentioned.

I went to BIOS, disabled EIST (it was on Auto), and changed the four cores to 43, 43, 43, and 42, and restarted and -- Voila -- it worked! I was getting 4.3 GHz!

I thought to myself, he told me he's gotten up to 5, but 4.5 works on most chips, so I went back and set them to 45, 45, 45, and 44. But then I got a GP and couldn't start. And, BIOS froze every time I went in there, after a few seconds. So I kept restarting it, and could make it about halfway through putting the cores back to 45 and 44, before it would freeze. Finally, after about 6 tries, I was able to quickly set them and save and restart, and I got back into OSX. However, after using it for about two minutes, it also froze. So I went back and moved down to 41, 41, 41, and 40, which seems to be stable enough for me to write this post.

What am I doing wrong? I did not change any other settings. I guess I need to up voltage as well, right?

Also, do I need to overclock the RAM? I did not do anything there. Thanks so much for your assistance...I appreciate it!

 

[tuan2195]

I would suggest you get the latest Multibeast version which is 6.5. 5.x is old and not very optimized for Mavericks I think. Also the next time you the BIOS crash you can remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard or short the RESET_CMOS jumpers on it. That should reset everything back to default.

Edit: I see you're on ML... I am on Mavericks 10.9.5 though so take the SSDT advise with a grain of salt.

You said that you can boot into OS X on 4.3GHz right? That may means that you don't need SSDT. To be sure go into System Report->Hardware and check. (Looks like below) If it says 4.3GHz then it's doing fine, otherwise it need maybe the "Sandy Bridge i5/i7 Overclocked" SSDT from Multibeast 6.5. No need to manually edit the SSDT. It may conflict with Z77 though, please do a research if you're worried.



Also have you tried putting more Vcore into the chip? I said 4.5GHz is doable but I forgot to say that it's doable with extra Vcore

Overclocking the RAM is very involved and should be saved for later... But in a nutshell it involves adding more DRAM voltage, increase the Memory Multiplier (i.e. mine was 16.00 and I incresed it to 21.33 for a 1600MHz to 2133MHz OC) and/or tweaking the timings... which is a great way to kill your free time.

See if you can get to 4.5GHz. Most of the time you can unless you have a really bad chip or board.

 

[sshanky]

I'll hold off on the ram for now

I have Mountain Lion installed. Have not decided to go for the upgrade to Mavericks, and that is why I used Multibeast 5.5.5. Soon I suppose I will try to upgrade (don't know how exactly and haven't thought it was worth it really, since I have a complex system with 2 monitors, 4 hard disks, wifi, bluetooth, etc that is working and sleeping well right now).

I checked my hardware overview and it does show 4.0 GHz:



Do you really think I should reset the motherboard CMOS if it's working? Or because it got locked maybe?

What about the vcore? I want to try increasing that -- It sounds normal that I would have this problem if I didn't increase it, right? How do I know how much to increase it? This is the part I'm not sure about. Have you also had trouble with the BIOS freezing on you like that? It only happened while the core settings were too high.

Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it.

 

[tuan2195]

You're better off searching for something like "Sandy Bridge Overclocking Guide" on Google... It's a very long and involved process that I don't really have the time to go into details. Something like THIS will work (technically that's for Ivy Bridge though but they're quite similar)
Resetting the CMOS is something you do when you overclock too much and you cannot get into the BIOS/the BIOS hangs or something like that. Resetting it will not make your PC OC better. If I OC too high on my mobo it simply won't even boot into BIOS. If I let it fail 3 times then it will automatically reset for me - pretty neat though this depends on the mainboard. Your mobo/BIOS is not bad or locked whatsoever, the fact that it can OC to 4.3GHz proved it.
If you want a quickie I suggest you increase the Vcore to 1.3V and see how far you can go. 1.3 is a safe Vcore to use.

 

[sshanky]

Thanks a lot...I just played with it and learned that my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H) doesn't have a vcore setting...so the fastest the review I read said it could go was 4.3. I have it set to 4.2 now (I used 43 42 42 42 -- I guess I can't just use 43 43 43 43?) and it seems stable. I am happy with that. I was at 3.4 for a year without being able to figure it out and you helped me get to this point.

I searched everywhere and could never figure out that I have to choose a certain system profile to be able to make the faster speed work on this mac. So thank you! I appreciate all your information.

I'm going to build another hackintosh soon. I have a friend who works at Intel and I think he can get me one cpu at a discount...I was thinking of 4790K but I could even get 4930K). We'll see...

Thanks!

 

[kilaz]

Hello, I had the CPU clock locked at 1.6Ghz too on my i5 2500k too.

I changed on Multibeast the system definition from macPro to iMac. Also I defined in the bios every clock speed multiplier at 40, except the 4th to 39 like you said. Now I am getting te overclocked speed fixed (less than 40...), ok, cool,
but is not switching to the standby 16x when is not required.

I didn't disabled EIST because I want the switching for decrease the power consumption when is not required the full speed.

Any idea what is going on? I remember it was working fine in previous OSX versions.

Yosemite 10.10.5 & Asus z68 v pro

EDIT: I am using Easy install without DSDT and a modified BIOS (I think)

EDIT: I don't know if that's the reason, but after reinstalling the Multibeast 3 fakeSMC (driver, plugins, hwmonitor) now is switching between 16-40 correctly. Thanks all!