Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 OC help Please! Cheers : D

[malice19]

Mobo is an asrock p45de
CPU FAN Zalman CNPS9500A-LED Aero Flower Socket 1156/775/AM2+/AM3/754/939/940 Cooler
PSU:Corsair TX750 750W CMPSU-750TX


Hi all

Had my QX6700 for a few years now and keep thinking about upgrading but mate suggested to try OC it and get a few more months out of it first? So looking for some expert help on how i should go about it, as looking for a better understanding on what my changes are doing? Like changing the mulipler and stepping?

Got a little bit of help from a mate who told to me turn up the mutiplier which i have done, looking at my first screen shot using of CPUz this was before i changed my BIOS settings from AUTO, correct me if im wrong but has my CPU running lower than stock speeds for the past few years?

Stock?


After playing around with the mutiplier i managed to get it as high as 11 as after this the Pc does not POST and just resets to stock settings. Mate then said that i should be able to go higher but that i need to increase Voltage?

OC attempt so far.

[scaryjim]

What cooler are you using? You need to keep a very close eye on temperatures when overclocking to make sure you don't fry your chip. You also need to make sure you tweak your RAM settings down to make sure your RAM doesn't limit your overclock. Also, having a quick look at your motherboard, there's no cooling at all on the power delivery components on the board, which means you'll have to be careful about pushing the overclock too high in case the motherboard can't supply enough power safely.

So, step 1: make sure you've got a decent cooler and you are using temperature monitoring software.
Step 2: reduce your RAM ratio to 1:1 (exactly how you do this varies from mobo to mobo) to make sure you're not accidentally overclocking the memory.
Step 3: Set the CPU multiplier back to the default (x10)
Step 4: slowly edge up the FSB until your computer becomes unstable.

For Core 2 overclocks, AFAIK getting the FSB as high as possible is the key to improving performance, so it may be worth taking the multiplier down a step or two to see if you can push the FSB up higher - you can always try increasing the multiplier later to get more clock speed. Overclocking is an intricate balancing act! Incidentally, have you already manually adjusted the FSB in the second shot, or did you leave everything else on auto and just bump the multiplier up? If the latter, then I'd recommend a new motherboard as that one seems to be making up the FSB as it goes along, which is rarely a good sign...

As to the settings showing in your "stock" CPU-z shot, something is seriously wrong. The multiplier of x6 is the standard Intel setting for a computer at idle, so that's not a huge worry, but the FSB should be 266MHz, and motherboards shouldn't underclock the FSB automatically for any reason that I know of. Something very odd is going on there...

[malice19]

What cooler are you using? You need to keep a very close eye on temperatures when overclocking to make sure you don't fry your chip. You also need to make sure you tweak your RAM settings down to make sure your RAM doesn't limit your overclock. Also, having a quick look at your motherboard, there's no cooling at all on the power delivery components on the board, which means you'll have to be careful about pushing the overclock too high in case the motherboard can't supply enough power safely.

So, step 1: make sure you've got a decent cooler and you are using temperature monitoring software.
Step 2: reduce your RAM ratio to 1:1 (exactly how you do this varies from mobo to mobo) to make sure you're not accidentally overclocking the memory.
Step 3: Set the CPU multiplier back to the default (x10)
Step 4: slowly edge up the FSB until your computer becomes unstable.

For Core 2 overclocks, AFAIK getting the FSB as high as possible is the key to improving performance, so it may be worth taking the multiplier down a step or two to see if you can push the FSB up higher - you can always try increasing the multiplier later to get more clock speed. Overclocking is an intricate balancing act! Incidentally, have you already manually adjusted the FSB in the second shot, or did you leave everything else on auto and just bump the multiplier up? If the latter, then I'd recommend a new motherboard as that one seems to be making up the FSB as it goes along, which is rarely a good sign...

As to the settings showing in your "stock" CPU-z shot, something is seriously wrong. The multiplier of x6 is the standard Intel setting for a computer at idle, so that's not a huge worry, but the FSB should be 266MHz, and motherboards shouldn't underclock the FSB automatically for any reason that I know of. Something very odd is going on there...

Thanks for your post mate, cooling i am using Zalman CNPS9500A and its set to low at the moment on the back of my case manual control. Every thing on the stock screen shot = All the settings in BIOS as Auto including the RAM timings.

On the OC screen shot i did play around with the FSB settings come to think about it, think it gave me some options and i just went for the highest one in the list then started increasing the multiplier

[malice19]

CpuZ is saying im getting a core clock of 3.2Ghz but windows says 2.9Ghz?



Also as soon as i change the mulipler to 10 its goes back to 2.66Ghz is this because speedstep enables? As it greys out when set on 11.

Picks of BIOS settings

[malice19]

On a plus note im getting not bad temps on load i think?

[malice19]

Change in Bios 11x 300 and now get 3.6Ghz in CPU z and 3.3Ghz in Windows system window?
Have not got time to test how stable it is, job for tomorrow : D

[malice19]

Change in Bios 11x 300 and now get 3.6Ghz in CPU z and 3.3Ghz in Windows system window?
Have not got time to test how stable it is, job for tomorrow : D

Ok may be not BSOD! : P

[scaryjim]

Check the memory tab and post back Ideally you want to keep your memory as clock to stock speed as possible - some memory will overclock nicely but some will complain bitterly!

I think the windows experience uses a different source for CPU speeds - it seems to be basing its speed on the default multiplier (x10) rather than the amended x11 multi.

Personally I'd drop the multi to x9 or even x8 and see what happens - this will tell you whether the chip is the problem or if the board just can't push the FSB any higher (although that would be a bit of a surprise, since it's rated to 2000MHz FSB!). Also, the CPU temps are getting up to the kind of level where I'd be keeping a close eye on them - you don't want to go much higher than 60C is you can help it.

Have a little tweak and see if you can get 3.6GHz stable - that's a pretty damn good overclock if you can

[malice19]

Have managed to get it up to 3.3Ghz stable at temps,

Load 70c
Idle 53c
Gaming on FC3 runs at 66c.

That is with settings
11x 273 1.4v

Don't think i really want to push it much more as most people say not to go over 70c.

[scaryjim]

Have you tried dropping back to a 10x multiplier and pushing the FSB to 333MHz? With s775 systems you want the FSB as high as possible as all the memory transactions have to go across that bus, so the higher you can get the FSB the better performance you're likely to see. With IMCs on modern CPUs it doesn't make that much difference, but back in the old FSB days a higher FSB was always the way to go...

And looking at it, 11x273 should only be 3.003GHz, not 3.3GHz. I noticed in some of your other posts the CPUz FSB doesn't match the FSB you say you've input. I'd check that you've for the right drivers for your motherboard installed - your spec says P45DE but I notice that the CPUID Hardware monitor says P43DE. Also, if your CPU cooler is set to low I'd turn it up, as you may find that @ 70°C you'll get thermal throttling on the CPU (I'm pretty sure this kicked in around 70 on my old Q6600). That may then let you push the overclock further - and like I said above, the best thing to do is drop the CPU multiplier down, find the fastest FSB the board will run at, then slowly increase the multiplier until you get instability. Even if it leaves you at a lower overall CPU clock, a faster FSB will be better for performance.

[malice19]

Have you tried dropping back to a 10x multiplier and pushing the FSB to 333MHz? With s775 systems you want the FSB as high as possible as all the memory transactions have to go across that bus, so the higher you can get the FSB the better performance you're likely to see. With IMCs on modern CPUs it doesn't make that much difference, but back in the old FSB days a higher FSB was always the way to go...

Im sure i tried that 333 x10 and it would not boot as BIOS just rebooted and went back to stock as otherwise PC would not pass POST.
I will try it again tonight just to make sure, also started using Asrock OC windows tool as lets me change settings in windows and test. Which saves alot of time. Then i can just set the stable settings in BIOS.

Cheers

[scaryjim]

try 333x9 instead - that'll give you 3GHz and let you know if you're hitting the ceiling of your chip at ~ 3.3GHz. Then you could try dropping back to an 8X multiplier and trying something like 375x8 which would also give you 3GHz, or even 400x8 for 3.2GHz and a 1600FSB. The one thing I will say, however, is that you need to be careful about the VRMs overheating. AFAIK there was only ever a B3 stepping for the QX6700, and that's the one that doesn't overclock as well (the G0 Q6600s were the ones that just kept overclocking!). I'd guess, based on that, that your chip may well top out at around 3.2GHz.

With s775, it's all about tweaking to get the best combination of

[malice19]

try 333x9 instead - that'll give you 3GHz and let you know if you're hitting the ceiling of your chip at ~ 3.3GHz. Then you could try dropping back to an 8X multiplier and trying something like 375x8 which would also give you 3GHz, or even 400x8 for 3.2GHz and a 1600FSB. The one thing I will say, however, is that you need to be careful about the VRMs overheating. AFAIK there was only ever a B3 stepping for the QX6700, and that's the one that doesn't overclock as well (the G0 Q6600s were the ones that just kept overclocking!). I'd guess, based on that, that your chip may well top out at around 3.2GHz.

With s775, it's all about tweaking to get the best combination of

VRMs? Sorry Noob : P

[scaryjim]

VRMs are the bit of the mobo that controls power delivery. They're the set of large black cubes and small black squares around the CPU socket. If you're overclocking you could do with pointing a fan at them, or getting some of those small stick-on heatsinks you can buy and putting them on the small black squares (not the big black cubes).

[malice19]

Is that the small one on the right of the CPU socket next to 1R1

[scaryjim]

Yeah - the components with 1R1 on them are the chokes (there's four of them - two above the CPU socket and two to the right); the small, three-legged components next to those are mosfets - there's two next to each choke.

The 'choke + 2 mosfet' groups make up one "phase" of the VRM. You can see there's a couple more dotted about the board (helping to control the RAM power delivery and PCIe slot power delivery). But it's the ones next to the CPU that you're interested in; they can get very hot when you overclock - and particularly overvolt - your CPU. That could affect the stability of your overclock.

Unfortunately, the layout of that board will make it quite difficult to put heatsinks on the mosfets. You might have to see if you can set up a fan so it's blowing across the CPU socket (your Zalman won't really help much as it blows front to back, leaving some of the VRMs without airflow...)

EDIT:


If you look at that picture of my new Asus A55 mobo, you can see the mosfets are nicely lined up just above the chokes. That'd make it really easy for me to stick heatsinks along that row of chips. Sadly, with your board they're all dotted around the chokes, so you'd have to add lots of very small heatsinks to each individual mosfet - and that'd be a pain in the proverbial, I'm afraid...