C2D Overclocking Guide For Beginners P5K Add-On

[Supershanks]

Where do I find speed step?

Did you bother reading the 1st post of this thread see picture

Have a look at the advanced CPU settings page

. bottom item.

Intel ® SpeedStep (TM) Tech – Disable this, generally, it doesn't play nicely with overclocking.

...is there a quick way to get to the BIOS other than Start>>Restart>>>DEL on boot?

No

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by Skeet

Thanks mate

Anal Probe, sorry, ASUS...says CPU is 28degrees...so would you be inclined to believe a middle ground between that and Core Temp? Asus probe is only really any good for MB temps and voltages.

Where do I find speed step? In the bios, in the cpu settings.

Also...dumbass question...is there a quick way to get to the BIOS other than Start>>Restart>>>DEL on boot? nope.

What, in your opinion, would be a sensible expectation for everyday use from my setup? Every system is different, so its impossible to say until you have had a stab at it (not with your anal probe though).

Summer? Heh...my Mrs likes it warm in the house (that will be the Portuguese and Red Indian Blood! LOL!), so its always 20-25 degrees if not warmer in here.

Cheers

Gaz

[Skeet]

Groovy...thanks gents.

Yes I did read first page etc...but have cleaned out neighbours guttering since then!

[Supershanks]

Yes I did read first page etc...but have cleaned out neighbours guttering since then!

That explains it then

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by Skeet

Groovy...thanks gents.

Yes I did read first page etc...but have cleaned out neighbours guttering since then!

Not with your anal probe again?

[Skeet]

Originally Posted by Clunk

Right then...so...I'm back.

Went through the bits regarding the later P5K thread (part 2 I guess).

So now CPU-Z tells me I am running at 2.13...ram timings are as set, FSBRAM is 4:5 Frequency is 334.1 Mhz.

Slight problem...

I now have a black square about 5 inches wide and 3 inches high on my 19 inch widescreen, in the top left of the screen.

The first item in my bottom bar, is "AI Nap"...I seem to remember this being a MOBO function.

How do I remove it, as when I open things like Calculator etc, i can only see a bit and cant move them!

Apart from that, it's annoying! CoreTemp reads 35/35.

Over to you gents!

[Clunk]

Not sure what youve done there, but you can safely uninstall the ai thing for starters.

[Skeet]

Originally Posted by Clunk

Not sure what youve done there, but you can safely uninstall the ai thing for starters.

Uninstalled Ai Suite and that sorted it...Phew!.

Ok then.

Am I asking too many questions, or is that OK?

So...having set my memory timings, I should now go into my FSB in CPU Config and up it a touch, yes?

Downloaded Orthos...couldn't find instructions.

Looking at it...what do I put in the various boxes?

Start time/Rounds/Duration/CPU Speed (would seem obvious, but!), I read that the Blend Test was most appropriate, CPU and RAM.

Many thanks!

[Phonoflux]

Aaaaaaaandddd... i'm back, with another issue. Not directly motherboard related but it is on this board and you've helped me out so far

Background info: Had a stable over clock of 3.6 running prime for hours, took it down to 3.4 just for the comfort factor and in the last 2-3 weeks have been playing Overlord (new PC game) constantly and just recently started on the new Colin Mcrae, with no issues, where I decided my current graphics weren't cutting it (7800gtx)... wait for it this info will become relevant.

Off to the store for a 8800gts stock over clocked 600/1900 from XFX.

Now, within 3-5 mins of being in game and racing around the system goes into a slow death where the screen pauses, the sound goes high pitched and I have to hit the reset button. At stock settings it seems to be fine but I haven't done extensive testing yet as I spent all last night taking components out and putting them back, upgrading drivers, etc etc etc trying to see what could be causing it.

In short, I suspect it may be the PSU as it appears to be an over clocked issue yet it's a 620w Corsair which should be more than perfect for the job.

Off the top of my head exaggerated over clocked power usage:
CPU 150w~
Video 200w~
Motherboard, memory 100w~
3xHDD 70w~
1xDVD Drive 15w~

Plenty of wattage left over.

------------------

I've tried everything I can think of, do you guys know any hidden secrets or have any odd suggestions that I could try? I'm gonna try running the tests i've been doing again and set the GPU fan to 100% using riva tuner, but other than that i'm out of ideas.

Appreciate any suggestions you have.

[Clunk]

The questions are fine mate, but first, you need to click on the first part of the guide in my sig, and have a read of all of that, and then have a go at the p5k stuff, it will save you a lot of messing about

You only need to set orthos to blend test and away you go....if it errors, you need to change stuff, if it runs for a minimum of 8 hours, you can pretty much say that it is stable.

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by Phonoflux

Aaaaaaaandddd... i'm back, with another issue. Not directly motherboard related but it is on this board and you've helped me out so far

Background info: Had a stable over clock of 3.6 running prime for hours, took it down to 3.4 just for the comfort factor and in the last 2-3 weeks have been playing Overlord (new PC game) constantly and just recently started on the new Colin Mcrae, with no issues, where I decided my current graphics weren't cutting it (7800gtx)... wait for it this info will become relevant.

Off to the store for a 8800gts stock over clocked 600/1900 from XFX.

Now, within 3-5 mins of being in game and racing around the system goes into a slow death where the screen pauses, the sound goes high pitched and I have to hit the reset button. At stock settings it seems to be fine but I haven't done extensive testing yet as I spent all last night taking components out and putting them back, upgrading drivers, etc etc etc trying to see what could be causing it.

In short, I suspect it may be the PSU as it appears to be an over clocked issue yet it's a 620w Corsair which should be more than perfect for the job.

Off the top of my head exaggerated over clocked power usage:
CPU 150w~
Video 200w~
Motherboard, memory 100w~
3xHDD 70w~
1xDVD Drive 15w~

Plenty of wattage left over.

------------------

I've tried everything I can think of, do you guys know any hidden secrets or have any odd suggestions that I could try? I'm gonna try running the tests i've been doing again and set the GPU fan to 100% using riva tuner, but other than that i'm out of ideas.

Appreciate any suggestions you have.

This can be a few things.

Drivers. - clean out all the old drivers with driver cleaner, and reinstall the new ones.
Heat. - grab a desk fan and blow it into the case and see if it makes a difference to the stability.
Power - its unlikely as its a relatively new and good psu, but not impossible.
Memory - Very likely suspect. Do the memtest test 5 thing on each stick at a time, in the black slots for a few hours each.

[Skeet]

Originally Posted by Phonoflux

Aaaaaaaandddd... i'm back, with another issue. Not directly motherboard related but it is on this board and you've helped me out so far

Background info: Had a stable over clock of 3.6 running prime for hours, took it down to 3.4 just for the comfort factor and in the last 2-3 weeks have been playing Overlord (new PC game) constantly and just recently started on the new Colin Mcrae, with no issues, where I decided my current graphics weren't cutting it (7800gtx)... wait for it this info will become relevant.

Off to the store for a 8800gts stock over clocked 600/1900 from XFX.

Now, within 3-5 mins of being in game and racing around the system goes into a slow death where the screen pauses, the sound goes high pitched and I have to hit the reset button. At stock settings it seems to be fine but I haven't done extensive testing yet as I spent all last night taking components out and putting them back, upgrading drivers, etc etc etc trying to see what could be causing it.

In short, I suspect it may be the PSU as it appears to be an over clocked issue yet it's a 620w Corsair which should be more than perfect for the job.

Off the top of my head exaggerated over clocked power usage:
CPU 150w~
Video 200w~
Motherboard, memory 100w~
3xHDD 70w~
1xDVD Drive 15w~

Plenty of wattage left over.

------------------

I've tried everything I can think of, do you guys know any hidden secrets or have any odd suggestions that I could try? I'm gonna try running the tests i've been doing again and set the GPU fan to 100% using riva tuner, but other than that i'm out of ideas.

Appreciate any suggestions you have.

Hi mate.

I was going to go for a similar card the BFG 8800GTS OC 2 but I heard that they had had problems...people think that they have pushed that 320MB card too far with the higher OC.

I have BFG 8800GTS OC, the first one, which runs at 550 and 1500 or something similar...

CLUNK.

Read the guide....running ORTHOS right now...been running around 25Mins so far.

It has passed one test then its starts running another (so it seems) although obviously it is continuous.

How will I know if there are errors?

Temps are 47-50 each core.

[Clunk]

It will stop if there are errors, and start flashing red.

[DavekeC]

Hellow there all !

I am pretty new to all the overclocking but i learned a great deal over the past few days and i owe it all to Clunck for the biggest part So a huge thanx is in order i suppose. I tried posting a 5€ bill here on your name but i couldn't find your bankaccount number so maybe another time

Anyways i had some question for all you readers here on this busy forum.

I have the following setup

E6600
P5K Basic with Bios 603 installed from asus site ( autoupdate doesn't show this version )
EN8800GTS 640MB
Corsair TWINX 55512 DDR2 800Mhz 2024GB
Sonata III Case
Antec Earthwats 500W ( 2 rails of 17ampere 12volts )

The following thing happened.
I followed this guide to the letter except for 1 thing i don't know about ( Clunck read private message concerning the FSB - Strap to Northbridge setting )

At 3000Mhz i have a stable setup 333 FSB and memory at 667Mhz with both the vcore and MemV on AUTO settings ( idea here is to obtain my 400FSB clock and then search for ideal vcore starting from the vcore shown in CPU-Z ). I have set the Latencie for the Memory as indicated tough. Just not very comfortable with setting the voltage of the memory since i can't get a reading of it anywhere. It should work at 1.9v but if i put it manually to 1.9 the system is unstable at 3Ghz.
Note: Coretemp shows 48 degrees as max for 3000Mhz setup on both cores and goes back to 45 after a few seconds

Anyways i decide to try 3200Mhz setup and go to 350FSB. Ram is at 700 Mhz. System boots and i start testing with orthos. Not even a minute in the test the system reboots. So i decide to wait for reboot but he doesn't get to windows before he reboots again. Then just before loading windows he reboots again so i go to bios to put back the old settings.

So i have 3 questions : Is the reboot that i describe here to be blamed on my 500W PSU ?
After some research i had the feeling 2 rails of 17A for 12Volt is very low when trying to overclock. Also 500W all in all might be a bit low for this system but not sure.
If not what else could it be ? I followed the guide every step of the way with exception of setting my Vcore and Memory voltage manually.

Second question is something i noticed with CPU-Z
Stock settings Idle : Vcore 1.30
Stock settings Full Load : Vcore 1.28

3000Mhz Settings Idle: Vcore 1.40
3000Mhz Settings Full Load : Vcore 1.36

3200 Settings Idle : Vcore 1.42
3200 Settings Full laod : Vcore 1.38 --> 1.34 Reboot described above

Question here is if the drop in Vcore is normal ( caused by the function CPU Voltage Demper to enabled ? ) or if it's because my powersupply just gives less when it's getting stressed ?
Also what voltage should i use when i take manual voltages in the bios if this drop is normal ?

Question 3:
Memory basic voltage is 1.9 according to site
When leaving it on auto my 3000Mhz systems is stable but when setting it manually on 1.90 it gives me a blue screen when running orthos ( i read this is caused by lack of power and the memory changes stuff that it shouldn't resulting in the BSOD ) but if i get it right for my 800Mhz memory i should not up the voltage untill go over 400 FSB right ? I did set the timings manually for 5-5-5-12. So i don't really know if i should get higher manual voltage and to what voltage i'm allowed to go. The infinity cooler is pretty big and hangs directly over the first memory bank of my computer so the cooler almost touches one of the memory sticks. So not sure if it has optimal cooling to up the voltage.
The XMS2 memory has passive cooling on it tough. So to what voltage should i be allowed to go with my memory ?

Anyways hope some1 can help me out here because i really want to get my system at 3600 Mhz

Greetz and thanks in advance.

Daveke

[Skeet]

Morning Clunk...

Bit the bullet last night so have some results, if you dont mind having a gander.

So....I set FSB to 333, 2672Mhz giving me 1:1 at 667Mhz. Didn't adjust anything else ( previously setup as per the guide, memmory timmings 1.9V VDIMM as memmory requires).

Ran ORTHOS....

After 4 mins or so it stopped with a fatal error. (as below)

After looking around a bit and seeing what other people have clocked to...I thought this odd..so I ran it again...all looked ok with temps on Core Temp and TAT running at 54-59 Degrees roughly....overnight.

That was started at 23:40...this morning I checked it, and it had run for 8 hours 1 min 42 Seconds, stopping due to 1 Fatal error on Core 1#, so at about 07:40 this morning.

Error reads as:

1:Self-test 1280K passed!
1:Test 1, 2500 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M29311553 using 1536K FFT length.
2:FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
2:Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
2:Torture Test ran 8 hours, 1 minutes 42 seconds - 1 errors, 0 warnings.
2:Execution halted.

1:Torture Test ran 8 hours, 1 minutes 42 seconds - 0 errors, 0 warnings.
1:Execution halted.

What does this error mean?

V Core at idle at the moment is 1.38V, I seem to remember it being around 1.34V during the testing.

I read that you suggest upping V Core by .125V to see if that induces stability etc..so.

I'm a touch concerned that my temps appear to be so high, the air coming from the back of my case, is nothing like warm, not even slightly.

As the PC is only 5 days old, I wonder if the TIM on teh heatsink has bedded in yet..also...the TIM was ASUS stuff and was very thick and hard to apply smoothly, thinking of getting Arctic silver.

Can I get some sort of drive bay device and a temp probe that I could mount on the conductor plate of the heat sink, to monitor its temp?

Anyway...I am going to let my poor, tortured PC have a sleep while I am at work!

Many thanks...do you have Paypal?!

[Phonoflux]

DavekeC:

I've got a 6600 and for solid operation at 3.6ghz I found I need to have the vcore set 1.5-1.525v with the northbridge at 1.4v. Please note this causes a LOT of extra heat on the cpu so make sure you have a very good cooler and monitor your temps closely.

My memory is rated for 2.1v @ 800mhz 4-4-3-8 so when running 1:1 I just set it to the specified settings and let it go.

If your memory is rated for 800mhz just look on the side of one stick and see what the sticker says for the timings. Using AUTO for the voltage should be fine unless you're trying to get tighter timings.