C2D Overclocking Guide For Beginners P5K Add-On

[Silverbullit]

Thank you mate!

I will try this and and then give a mild OC a go Clunk,
I do have two questions,
I know I need to lock the pcie and pci to 100 and 33,3
there is no problem finding pci-e, but where the heck have they hidden the pci option?

Secondly I have those Mushkin XP2-8500 memory capsules, (2 x 1gb)
and understand I need to set them manually to higher timings to begin (6-6-6-18)
But should I still do them 1;1 and where do I set this ratio?

Forgive my noobness almighty source of knowledge =)

/Silverbullit*kneels to thy wisdom and listens carefully*

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by Silverbullit

Thank you mate!

I will try this and and then give a mild OC a go Clunk,
I do have two questions,
I know I need to lock the pcie and pci to 100 and 33,3
there is no problem finding pci-e, but where the heck have they hidden the pci option?

Secondly I have those Mushkin XP2-8500 memory capsules, (2 x 1gb)
and understand I need to set them manually to higher timings to begin (6-6-6-18)
But should I still do them 1:1 and where do I set this ratio?

Forgive my noobness almighty source of knowledge =)

/Silverbullit*kneels to thy wisdom and listens carefully*

Dont worry about the PCI frequency, its locked by the bios now, at least it is up until the older bios that I'm using.

PCI-E frequency is the 4th one down in the pic below.



To set the RAM 1:1, just choose the lowest divider available.

Youll need to set your RAM timings and voltages manually. Same page as above, you can see the timings in the pic, and DRAM voltage is a bit further down.

All will become clear when you start overclocking the FSB as to why you are keeping the RAM at 1:1 to start with.

[Silverbullit]

You are divine Clunk!

(Also you live were my favorite pic was made, Breakfast at the Manchester M. =)

Hope it is o.k. if I ask you a little bit more, I followed your advice to the letter but I am still a bit confused about the memory settings. *much for a poor noobs puny brain*

I slowed down the settings to 6-6-6-18 and set them as ddr800.

I got Mushkin XP2-8500 rated at 5-5-4-12 at 2,2-2,35V

My oc is 333 x 9

Question 1,
What would you set these memory to? (ddr1067 instead of ddr-800?)
settings?

Question 2,
If I want to go with fsb 350,
should I still leave fsb frequency to 333? (Wich I think I should, but best 2 ask first)

Thanks for your supreme helpthread and your time Clunk!

/Silverbullit

[Clunk]

Ok, you are doing it wrong.

You need to set the RAM 1:1. Choose the lowest divider. If your FSB is at 333, then the lowest divider is 667 (because the RAM is double data rate so the RAM frequency = 2 x the FSB frequency) If you are running 1:1 the RAM will always show double the FSB.

There is no need to set the timings to 6-6-6-18. Just set them to whatever the manufacturer says they should be set to, and make sure you set the voltage correctly as well.

The reason for all this is so we can find out how high the CPU will go without having to worry about the RAM holding us back.

So, to recap, if you have the FSB at 333, the RAM should be at 667, and as you raise the FSB some more, the RAM frequency will also increase, so 350FSB would give you 700Mhz RAM and so on.

Once you find out where the CPU limit is, and it is stable, you can then start playing around with the RAM speeds, but get the rest stable first.

[Silverbullit]

Ok, ill give it a new go.

About ""FSB strap to northbridge", is that one supposed to always be set to 333,
no matter what the
FSB Frequency is set to, now 333

(If I change Frequency to lets say 350, the Strap to Northbrigde still always stay 333?)

Thanx again Clunk!

This is going smooth with nice mates like you!

/Silverbullit

[Clunk]

Just leave that setting as it is. I still use an older bios that automatically sets that setting, and I found that it was harder to get stable with it changed, so just leave at default until you are stable with the rest of the settings and then start messing with stuff

[Silverbullit]

You truly Rock'n Roll Clunk!

I am barely starting out to get this stuff, and this looks good mate.
Thank you for being so pedagogic and patient!

Some questions pops up in my (puny) mind as I go along,
I understand that your suggested limitation has to do with the heat.
How hot would you go with the cpu? (Q6600)

I put a lot of effort in the cooling and I am getting 51C degrees now,
it once peaked in heat for a few seconds at 55C degrees and I quickly took a screendump.



I have to explain some stuff,
to my surprise I got the affinity error with suggested Orthos.
(On each instance of Orthos I got this error with one of the cores - thus only stress testing two out of four cores with double running Orthos.)
So I got crazy with prime95 25.4 instead.

Also Tat did not give me specific coretemps so I choose to go with SpeedFan as people tend to favour this little program. Your the brains here, wuzz your opinion of these programs?

I am certain Im not the only one had problems with Orthos so maybe I can pay some help back to you and your outstanding guide, and our mates here Clunk with this tip. =)

What is your opinion of my Screendump, do you think I dare go a little bit higher with these temps?
I dont know what the suggested temp limits are on the Q6600 but I will do some more surfing on this subject now.
It would be very satisfying hitting 3,5 point blanc before applying the next step in your guide.

(Hope I understand correctly I should start by lowering the timings, then lower the voltages both here and there. O man that will be the tough part...)

Any input on this master is, as usual, greatly appreciated.

/Silverbullit

[Silverbullit]

Hmm, here I noticed something REALLY weird...
Check out the difference between Tat and SpeedFan mates.
What the heck is up with this?



Now I'm gettin nervous here...

Wich should I trust? What are the max temp?

/Silverbullit

[Skeet]

Apparently...Speedfan can report temps at 15 degress LESS than what they really are.

Clunk suggests using TAT andf CoreTemp (he links CoreTemp on first page).

Trust TAT and CoreTemp....

[Clunk]

The TAT suggested in the guide is for dual core CPUs.

If coretemp will run on your PC, use that.

As Skeet mentioned, speedfan will usually read the temps 15c too low, but dont worry about it, you are still ok with those temps.

[Silverbullit]

O.K. You think I am still okey with these temps 69/68

Read Intel says my Q6600 B3 limit is 62,2

(And theres an G0 with higher 71 degrees limit - almost wish I received one of these G0 instead of my B3)

But if you say I'm okey ill keep my 3240 OC Clunk =)
Though I want to ask you as my 69 is almost ten degrees over Intels specified 62,2C... *watching those numbers and getting sweaty*

/Silverbullit

PS. Ill make some more tweaks and then ill report back what bios settings i ended up with for your skilled eyes to google. DS.

[Clunk]

It is really up to you, but those temps look ok to me for an overclocked quad. See how you go on with getting it stable and then tweak the voltage down.

[Silverbullit]

Yo Clank, how much do you think it is o.k. to go over Intels spec's?
Maybe you have some insight in the whereabouts of were these Q6600 starts to burnout?

Had some weird problems with some programs like Sandra Sisoftware,
dang that bugger complains about mdacs, databases and crap.
Never got it started o.k. it just bitched.

On top of this, after Sandra install it took my rig like 15 mins to boot up through screens and bios before it hit windows,
I tried booting again - same crapus
uninstalled Sandra - it booted so fast I missed to del into bios....
Now aint that weird?

Now I am running with Prime95 instead, had some failiures with to low core voltages.


Started 2 worry but at 1,2875 it suddenly seemed quite happy and ran Prime95 2hrs failfree =)


I backed up a bit on my fsb to play with my mem caps,

I read up on the memory bit in the guide,
I run my Mushkin XP2-8500 at 1:1 on 2,2V (333 x 2 = ddr667)

And my question is about dividers,
should I strive for the 1067 divider for optimal OC?

/Silverbullit

[Clunk]

Get your CPU stable first.

[Silverbullit]

yup, it is stable on 1,285
it was a great part of the guide as it, just like you told, lowered the cpu temps =)

About the mem caps,
have I understood correctly how to count this,

My OC is @ 333 x 9,
thus making the ddr, set to 800 (now) 333 x 2 = 667 on a divider of 5:6, 667 x 1,2 = DDR800...
is that assumption correct?

/Silverbullit

[Clunk]

No idea why sandra would slow your system down, did you get the latest version? You are just on XP 32 right?