C2D Overclocking Guide For Beginners P5K Add-On

[spiral out]

Not seeing your specs there TurboTronix.

What PSU are you using?

[TurboTronix]

I think if you click on my name to see my public profile it will show it.

My PSU is Antec Truepower Trio 650W

[TurboTronix]

Ok it shows it now...

[blinkin]

Hi,
today I put my new system together and did some stressing
so far on p5k-e my Q6600 G0 is @ 350Mhz / 1.35V | Crusial Ballistix PC2 6400 @ 1050Mhz / 5-5-5-12 / 2.2V
divider is 2:3 as you can see
other spec: Thermalright ultra 120 extreme with tricool 120cm, antec p182 with 4 120cm fans, corsair 620hx

stressing with orthos for about 30min gave me temps:
- mb max 53 (idle 37)
- cpu 59/58/54/58 (idle 42/45/37/39)

is it too high or it's ok? Especially the mb temp is getting me nervous...
Can I go any further or it's all I can do? Isn't the cpu temps too high with this hs? I've heard it should done better... Maybe I put the AS5 not properly? Could you link me to some site that shows how to properly install heatsink for q6600?
I have noticed 2 strange things:
- mb temp at stressing went for like 30sec at 171C O_o then it went to -95 (minus)... what's going on? Is it damaged or maybe some voltage uping needs to be done?
- at normal work probe warned that vcore dropped to 0,02 (then suddenly went to normal), after a while it again dropped to 0,31 and again went normal in just a sec

i enable/disabled some bios settings as was recommended here
except vcore / ram volt / pll other voltages bios settings is set to auto... should I change something?

last question - what is fsb strap and what settings do you recommend?

edit: dunno if it's important but I'm using 4x1gb sticks in my system

[blinkin]

anybody?

[mroz]

You wrote 350MHz. What did you actually mean? I guess either 3500MHz, which is a pretty high overclock on air for a Q6600 G0, albeit not unheard of, or 350xM for some multiplier M which you didn't state.

What are you measuring the temps with? What OS?

Coretemp gives accurate results aiui.

As to safety of the temps, if they are accurate, I'd not want to be running 24/7 around 60, but some people seem okay with that.

[blinkin]

sorry for not specifying it - 3.16Ghz (350x9). I didn't wanted to try get it higher as I wasn't sure if MB temps aren't too high (???) ...
I measure temps with speedfan 4.34 beta 34, coretemp and everest ultimate
I know 60 is high but while playing some advanced games it doesn't go over 55... You think is still to much for it?

and what about this strange vcore warnings? Speedfan doesn't seem to notice that there is any drop... maybe it's not measuring it so frequently as asus probe? Maybe you know of other application that monitors vcore constantly and provide some graph/statistic over time?

[blinkin]

could somebody answer some of my questions please?

[Gr44]

I'm also interested in the Northbridge temps.... I'd assumed 'MB' in asus probe isn't the northbridge but rather board temp? Reason I say that is I have a waterblock on mine and it still hits 55c. with a huge fan blowing on the motherboard it drops alot, obviously with a waterblock the NB wouldn't drop hardly at all.

I also read the sensor for board temp was very near a mosfet for the RAM or something, so could explain high MB temps?

Can anyone confirm this, and if so - how you can measure the NB temps?

blinking, try disabling 'vdrop' in the bios - it's near the CPU voltage.

Thanks

[blinkin]

finally some nice answer!
it might be true that this is measured somewhere near ram mosfet as my rams do get really hot
you mean I should disable voltage damper? Could you please explain how will this help?

[Gr44]

Hmmm, sorry... Think I messed up a little when I said that!!

Enable the Voltage Damper, ( if it isn't already? ) that should keep your vcore from dropping too much under load.

I've had vcore warnings on boot, it seems to be a problem when the vcore goes above what you set in the bios. I don't think you need to worry as long as you're happy with the vcore level. Assume you have it set quite high to get that error??

I'm as unsure on you regarding MB temps though. I don't think MB temp is the northbridge though, judging by my setup.

[blinkin]

unfortunately v damper is enabled

I get this vcore droppage error really occasionally (it drops to different values, from 0.02 to 0.95) but don't know if I should worry about it or not... Strange thing is it occurs only while normal usage, when stressing with orthos (all 4 cores) it never happened...
I tried setting vcore to auto and to fixed values, it didn't helped

today I changed the orientation of ultra 120 extreme so that now fan on it is blowing toward ram and temp on stress is now 45 which I guess isn't so bad

[mackie]

I've now got my Q6600 running at 3.6GHz with a 400MHz FSB and a VCore of 1.392 (current on auto in the BIOS). Tonight I plan on tweaking the voltage down a bit manually as I had to turn the fan speed up on my Tuniq Tower 120 when I upped it from 3.4GHz. Peak temps with all cores fully loaded are around 65C currently, idle around 32C. I have an Antec 900 case so I think dropping the voltage a tad, turning the Tuniq fan down to min and putting the 200mm case fan on it's middle setting should be nice and quiet and fast while keeping temps under control.

The current setting are stable under OCCT and Everest stress tests. It actually runs cooler than my friend's QX6850 at the same speed but he has a lesser cooler. It'll be interesting to compare them once he's upgraded to a Tuniq 120.

The recent drivers for my 8800GTS also mean I can overclock that a lot more too. I think I got a good one as I can run it at 680Mhz for the core and 1000MHz or the memory, standard settings are 512/794 or something.

The net effect of this is around 12500 3DMark06 marks on default settings.

CPU Q6600 @ 3.6GHz Cooling Tuniq Tower 120 CPU cooler, 3 x 120mm case fans + 1 x 200mm case fan Mobo Asus P5K Premium Memory 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS2 PC-6400 @ 800Mhz PSU Enermax Liberty Modular 500W GPU Asus EN8800GTS 640MB @ 680MHz core 2000MHz memory HDD 2 x Western Digital 500GB SATA in RAID1
Display Hyundai L90D+ 19" TFT Case Antec 900

[Woldcom]

I dont get why I have to set my RAM speed down from 800MHz(my current RAM speed) to 667, just to get the RAM at 1:1. Can someone tell me why, I meen why should I slow down my RAM? To get my normal RAM speed, i have to set my FSB to 400MHz. I have no plans to overclock my CPU that much.

And is it important to Flash the BIOS?

I forgot to say: This is the best guide EVER!

[zmonkey]

The reason you slow down your RAM is to compensate for any OCing you do to your CPU. In some cases, you can overclock your RAM nearly as much as your CPU, but that is usually for fairly tame OCs of the CPU. In my experience, RAM is much more difficult to OC well, as it heats up much faster due to a less efficient cooling system (which is normally just a heat spreader over the module, and then whatever air flow you can manage for it). However, with decent RAM, it is often possible to tighten or loosen the timings of it to have it perform at an optimum level based on your desired CPU overclock. Also, it's not necessary to set your RAM to 1:1, but it does help to ensure a stable CPU overclock with no worrying about the RAM. After you have a CPU speed that you're happy with, then you can start changing the ratio and working on getting the RAM at the level you want. Keeping the RAM at a 1:1 ratio ensures that the RAM is always underclocked except for the most aggressive (>400) FSB settings.

[ErikX]

hope you see something that I dont, hope there's nothing wrong with this board. been running it rock solid for a month or so at stock on xp, xp 64bit, and vista 32bit. just decided today to see what it can do now that I know the hardware runs perfect at stock and cant get anything out of it, lol.

Hello guys, and greetings from Norway!

First of all, thanx a bunch Clunk for your effort. Your guide is fantastic!

Then to my problem.

I am experiencing the exact same problem as described by mark319 in post #61 in this thread (it is the first post on page 5). I am not allowed to quote it or link to it as I need 5 posts in this forum before doing so.

It is extremely frustrating, as I was looking forward to clock my brand new system. The very strange thing is that I was overclocking using AI Suite yesterday, and all changes I made to FSB did indeed raise the the core clock. I was actually running stable at 3.2Ghz.

However, I wanted to continue clocking in BIOS, so I uninstalled AI Suite. From then on I have had the same problem as mark319. I have installed the latest bios, but to no avail. I have even reinstalled AI Suite, but it does not work any longer.

- I have set the correct memory timings and Dram voltage
- I have Dram frequency to the lowest setting
- I have tried to increase the FSB by only 10 to see if it raises the core clock - it does not

Still no go. Whatever I do, the core clock will not increase :-(

Anyone have any clue what's going on here?