C2D Overclocking Guide For Beginners P5K Add-On

P5K Add-On.

A Fully Updated and Supported Version Of This Guide Is Available At Clunk.org.uk

Recently, Asus have released a new range of motherboards based on the Intel P35 chipset. The P35 looks to be the successor to the excellent 965 chipset that has featured on the majority of C2D boards from the past year that have turned out to be excellent overclockers.

It just so happens, that the P5K Deluxe WiFi (The replacement for the highly regarded P5B Deluxe WiFi) is also a monster overclocker, is rock solid, and yet can go even higher that the P5B Deluxe, so it looks set to be a popular board, and with that in mind, here is an add-on to the guide, to help the people that went straight to the P35 chipset, without having the benefit of using the 965 chipset first.

Throughout this guide, I will be using a Q6600, which has a 9x multi. If your CPU has a different multi, please see the first part of the guide on how to work it out.

OK, firstly, familiarise yourself with the BIOS. There are a few new settings to get your head round, but those of you who have come from a P5B series board, it should be pretty straight forward.

All of the overclocking settings, including memory timings and voltages are all on the same page now, so that makes things easier.

Open the BIOS and go to “Jumper free configuration”, and open that page.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...figuration.jpg

You will see the main page with all your overclocking settings. Some of them will be hidden at first, so you need to change a few things, so that you can see all the options.

I've split the page into 2 images, as it wouldn't all fit on one.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...ingsstock1.jpg

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...ingsstock2.jpg

AI Overclocking - Change to MANUAL

CPU RATIO CONTROL – Leave on AUTO, unless you intend using a lower Multi (No idea what this means? Click here!)

FSB Frequency – Stock is 266, we will change this later.

PCI-E Frequency – I have had ZERO problems leaving this on AUTO, for even fairly high overclocks, on the P5B deluxe and the P5K deluxe using an X1900XT and an 8800GTX, but if you want to be safe, then manually set it to 100.

DRAM Frequency – Set this to the lowest divider for now, your FSB Frequency is set at 266 at the moment, so you should be able to see a 667 setting, use this.....For the eagle eyed amongst you, that wondered where the 533 setting had gone, I can confirm that I have no idea either, and, to be honest, I only noticed it while I was writing this! But don't worry, this divider, still shows up as 1:1 in CPU-Z. (See further down, about this, it may just be my board, will confirm later)

DRAM Timing Control – Set this to MANUAL, and you will see all the RAM timings and sub timings, I will go into these in more detail later, but for now, just enter the correct timings for your RAM, if its 5-5-5-12 (it will say on the label on the sticks themselves), then that's what you enter here, like this (and I'm using RAM that uses 5-5-5-12) ;

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...ngschopped.jpg

CAS# Latency = 5
RAS# to CAS# Delay = 5
RAS# Precharge 5
RAS# Activate to Precharge = 12

The following settings are the RAM Sub timings Leave these at AUTO, unless you actually know what they are for your specific RAM and this board, because if you enter the wrong timings, your PC can become unstable, and we wouldn't want that would we?

TWR = AUTO
TRFC = AUTO
TWTR = AUTO
TRRD = AUTO
TRTP = AUTO

DRAM Static Read Control = AUTO

Transaction Booster = DISABLED* This is one of the new settings for the P5K. So far, I haven't been able to get any stability with this set to ENABLED, so, for now, disable it. If I find a use for this, I will add it here.

Clock Over-Charging Mode = AUTO* Another new setting for the P5K, and I'm still trying to find a use for this, stable overclocks become unstable with this on anything but AUTO for me, so for now, leave it on AUTO. ****Testing this at the moment, and it has enabled me to boot at 4ghz (on a quad), same for someone else on a dual core. Just set it to 1000mv if you need it. If I find any other use for it, I will add it here****

CPU Spread Spectrum = DISABLED
PCIE Spread Spectrum = DISABLED

CPU VOLTAGE = This is where you add/subtract extra Vcore if needed.

CPU Voltage Reference = AUTO* This appears to have an effect on stability at higher overclocks, so you can keep it at AUTO, or if you are feeling confident later, you can set it manually.

CPU Voltage Damper = Set this to ENABLED* Another new feature for the P5K, which almost eliminates Vdroop. Not everyone will need it, but I have found it handy when overclocking. If you set a Vcore value in the BIOS, on past Asus boards, there has been a large difference between the voltage shown in the BIOS, and what you actually get, especially under load (Vdroop). This makes the Vdroop much less. Click here to find out more about Vdroop.

DRAM Voltage = This is where you set the voltage for your RAM. This is important, do it now while you are here. If you are unsure what the voltage should be, take out one of the sticks and it says on the label, usually right next to where it tells you what the timings should be (See pic at the end of this list of settings)

FSB Termination Voltage = Leave at AUTO for now.

North Bridge Voltage = Leave this at AUTO for now. Later on, when we use lower multis, and tighten the RAM timings, we may need to set this manually.

North Bridge Voltage Reference = Another new setting for the P5K. Leave at AUTO for now, we can change this later if needed.

South Bridge Voltage = Leave at AUTO for now.

Look on the label on the sticks of RAM to find the correct timings and voltages.
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...2/RAMlabel.jpg

Have a look at the advanced CPU settings page.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/b...ettingsp5k.jpg

You will see the following settings;

CPU Ratio Control – This just lets you choose the Multi, you can also do this on the main Jumperfree BIOS settings page.

C1E Support – Disable this, it just isn't needed when overclocking.

Max CPUID Limit – Disable this, its for older P4 CPUs with Hyperthreading, and older operating systems.

Vanderpool Technology – Disable this, unless you specifically need it, find out if you do, by clicking here.

CPU TM Function – Disable this. I can find no use for this with C2D, apparently it was to throttle older P4 Prescott CPUs. I have always disabled it on every C2D board with no problems whatsoever.

Execute Disable Bit – I generally disable this, but it is up to you. If you experience instability with it enabled, try disabling it. You can find out more here.

PECI – I usually disable this. I have tested this with several CPUs and have been unable to find any use for it. Enabled/Disabled doesn't affect my temps in any way, and no throttling occurs. If anyone knows any different, please let me know.

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


That's the important settings covered!


Before we go any further, have you manually entered the correct RAM timings and voltages? If not, do it now. One of the most common problems with unstable/poor overclocks is because people haven't set the RAM timings and voltages properly. BAH!

continued below......

Please have a read of the first part of the guide, if you haven't already. It will answer a lot of questions, and make your overclocking experience smoother, and hopefully more enjoyable. In this part of the guide onwards, I will assume that you have read and understood Part 1.

Hopefully, now, you should now have an idea of what we are trying to achieve, and we can get down to business!

I am going to be using the Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi AP for reference, a Q6600 and I will provide as many BIOS screen shots as possible, so you can easily see what I have done.

Ensure that you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard (311 at the time of writing this, available here.

In pic below, you can see that we have manually entered the RAM timings and voltages. (I know I keep going on about this, but the amount of questions I get asked, that end up being fixed by this is incredible!).

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...schopped-1.jpg

In the screenshot, you can clearly see all the main timings for the RAM. It is important that you enter these to get the best performance from your RAM. If you don’t enter these timings manually, the motherboard will read the SPD table of the RAM and run it at the standard, relaxed, safe, timings. This is OK, but not optimal, and as you have a motherboard that is a RAM overclocking monster, there should be no excuses :D

While we are in the BIOS, disable anything that you aren’t using, this part is optional, but I always do it. Things like on-board sound (if you have a sound card), Firewire (if you don’t need it), IDE controller (if you don’t have any IDE devices)….you get the idea anyway!

If you have a separate PCI RAID card, and are experiencing problems with drive detection, try disabling legacy USB.

Save all that, boot to windows, check everything is working OK and then back to the BIOS.

Next, we are going to set the RAM at 1:1.

I found a strange bug while writing this, which may or may not be specific to my setup;

At the moment, the P5K displays the 1:1 RAM settings incorrectly, which might be a bit confusing for some, so I will try and explain what is going on, and hopefully they will fix it with a BIOS update.

Lets say that you want to have your FSB running at 266 and your RAM running 1:1, this would normally be shown as 533mhz for the RAM (on, say, a P5B etc.).

There is a bug (might be intentional, who knows?) in the P5K BIOS that only allows for a minimum of 667mhz RAM when the FSB is under 300., it appears as if the board is running dividers for 1333FSB CPUs (quick bit of maths, 1333, roughly divided by 4 = 333, and that would explain the 667 RAM...anyway!)

A quick table to illustrate.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...ertable1-1.jpg

As you can see, up to 300 FSB, the 1:1 divider is running at odd speeds, that you wouldn't normally expect, but as we will be running higher than 300 FSB, this wont affect us, but it is always good to know stuff :)

As we already know your system is 100% stable at stock speeds (see Part 1), we can now go for the jugular :D (well, ish)

Set the FSB to 333.

The RAM will stay at 667mhz. Why? Have a look at the table above, this is fine.

Set your CPU voltage to AUTO for now, later, we will come back and set it manually.

Save and exit the BIOS and let it boot to Windows.

When windows has finished loading, open CPU-Z (it will take a few seconds to open), have a look at the memory section of CPU-Z as well, it should be the same as the timings that you entered in the BIOS earlier, something like this...

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...puz1and2-1.jpg

After you have finished marvelling, you can close CPU-Z, it was just to show you the changes that you have made.

As in Part 1 of the guide, run a stress testing program such as Orthos/Prime/SP2004, or if you are using a quad CPU, and Orthos/Prime/SP2004 crashes, try 4x instances of SP2004 Just create 4x separate folders and run each of the exe files from the folders, and then set the affinity for each of them in windows Task Manager. Each instance of SP2004 should be assigned to a single core, in the pic below, you can see the first one assigned to core 0, the next one should be assigned to core 1 and so on.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...affinity-1.jpg

OCCT is a good stress test that will create a lot of heat, and stress all four cores, and can often give you a good idea if your overclock is going to be stable.

Set Orthos/Prime/SP2004 going and read this next bit, and remember to keep an eye on those temps. :)

A note about temp monitoring software

I have seen a lot of people stressing about their temps recently, and there's really no need to.

One thing to keep in mind is that pretty much every CPU reports temps differently, some report them MUCH higher than others, and there really isn't much that you can do about it.
If you suspect that your CPU is running too hot, simply feel the heatsink while the CPU is under load, is it very hot? If it is, then you may have a problem, if it isn't, then you probably have a CPU that is reporting too high.

If you have a quad core CPU, it will obviously run much hotter than a dual core CPU, and when overclocked, the temps can get quite high. My own Q6600 runs hot, and at stock speeds, using the stock cooler, it can hit 70c under load with ambient temps of around 23c. As you know, the stock coolers are no good for overclocking. Ask on the forums for advice on the best cooling for your needs.

As mentioned in Part 1 of the guide, there are quite a few things that you can do to lower your temps, and some of those include;

Use a good quality thermal paste like Arctic Silver 5, and follow the manufacturers instructions on how to apply it. Different CPUs require a different method of application.

Properly secure your CPU heatsink. Make doubly sure that all the plastic lugs are pushed in as far as they will go, and then turned fully clockwise to lock them, otherwise, when you stand the case up, one or more of them will pull out. (see the troubleshooting guide for instructions on how to do this properly).

Make sure you have good airflow through your case. You need a minimum of a fan at the front drawing in cool air, and a fan at the back exhausting hot air. When you overclock, you generate extra heat, which must be somehow got rid of. Side fans, and top fans can also help, its just a case of experimenting to see what works best for your set-up

Reduce cable clutter in your case. If your wiring is all over the place, this will restrict the airflow dramatically, and your temps will rise.

I use 3 temp monitoring programs myself, and each have their own merits and drawbacks.

If running a dual core CPU, I use TAT (Intel Thermal Analysis Tool), Coretemp and Asus PC Probe 2. I use Asus probe solely for keeping an eye on voltages, and the Northbridge temps, and TAT and Coretemp for the CPU temps.

These work for me, however, some people can't get them to work. Vista seems to be a problem area for some temp software, and some boards, such as the 680i boards seem to be fussy about what they run as well.

Be aware that if you use Speedfan to monitor your temps, your CPU temps will usually be around 15c too low, which could be dangerous if left unchecked, and for that reason, I don't recommend that you use it until they fix that.

CPU-Z is a great little program for a lot of system info, but avoid using it for monitoring your CPU voltages when overclocking, as it incorrectly reports them.

I'm running a Q6600 on this P5K, and I have found Coretemp to be the most reliable with this set-up I also use Asus probe, as I mentioned above, for voltages and Northbridge temps.

Ok, so now it is 6 hours or more later and Orthos/Prime/SP2004 ran fine with no errors (If it didn't, please see the troubleshooting guide), so next we can up the overclock again :D

Go back to the BIOS.

Lets try a higher FSB, shall we say 380 FSB? (Keep in mind that some CPUs wont go this high, so don't worry if yours doesn't, just set the FSB slightly lower and try again.)

Set to 380 FSB, the RAM will auto adjust to 760mhz (I'm assuming here, that you have RAM that is capable of at least 800mhz (DDR2-800/PC2-6400).

Leave everything else as it is, and then save and exit the BIOS.

All being well, Windows will load, and you can open CPU-Z. You should see something like this..

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...uz380fsb-1.jpg

You will notice that your CPU is now running at 3420Mhz. (maybe 3219Mhz):D

Also look at the RAM speed, it should be 780Mhz.

As before, run Orthos/Prime/SP2004 for around 10-12 hours, if it passes with no errors and you are happy with the temps, then there's no reason why you cant try for higher, although for most people, even 3420Mhz is more than enough for most things, but, if like me, you have the bug, then go for it.

If you didn't pass Orthos/Prime/SP2004, there are a couple of things you can do;

Boot to Windows, and make a note of the voltage displayed for your CPU in Asus probe, go back to the BIOS and manually enter one notch above that voltage, so if Asus probe says 1.4v, change it in the BIOS from AUTO to 1.4125v and test again, if it still fails, you can try another notch until it is stable, but keep an eye on those temps.

Or,

Lower the FSB slightly, you can drop the FSB in increments of 10, and test with Orthos/Prime/SP2004 in between each step until stable.

Got all that?

Onto Part 2.

continued below.....

Part 2.

In Part 2, we will be looking at tweaking voltages and tightening memory timings, and generally optimising your PC, now it is overclocked.

At this point, as we are going a little bit more advanced, I will assume that you have read the other parts of the guide, and you have got to grips with how things work, and how to recover if you stuff it up (a bad overclock, see the troubleshooting guide).

Disclaimer.

Please read this bit, it is very important!

RAM is potentially the easiest thing to kill in a PC. Overvolting any component carries a high risk of damage and/or failure. I take no responsibility for any loss or damage to your components as a result of using this guide. All overclocking is done at your own risk.

A lot of RAM, just will not overclock much, no matter how much voltage you feed it, so if things aren't working out for you in this part of the guide, leave it right there, and seek help on the forums, rather than throwing more voltage at it.

Tightening up those timings.

Now you have a nice, stable, fairly large overclock, we can look at tightening the RAM timings.

At this stage, be prepared for some CMOS clearing, BSODs, and general odd behaviour from your PC to start with, but it will be worth it :)

If your RAM is already running tight timings, such as 3-4-3-8, then there is no great need for you to follow this part, you can skip to the voltage tweaking part further down.

If you have some RAM that uses Micron D9xxx chips (Check here to see if yours are), you will probably have more success at this point than people that aren't. The Micron D9 chips can often do really insane tight timings at quite high speeds, but often require a good slug of voltage to get there. Some sticks are rated for up to 2.45v, but for this kind of RAM, you need active cooling. Its pretty simple, the higher the voltage, the hotter the sticks will get, and the hotter they get, the more chance you have of getting errors, or even killing the RAM outright, so you need active cooling.

By active cooling, I just mean a fan, directly blowing on the RAM to dissipate the heat that is generated.

I have found that an 80mm or 92mm fan, blowing at a moderate speed from a couple of inches away, is enough to keep most D9 RAM happy (alive :D), a 120mm fan has too big of a dead spot, in case you wondered.

There are also dedicated RAM coolers that you can buy, from the likes of OCZ and Corsair, which also work well.

My general rule of thumb is that if the RAM is 2.0v or over, blow a fan on it. Better safe than sorry.

So, what I'm getting at, is keep the RAM cool. :)

OK, back to the timings.

Some applications benefit greatly from tightened timings, other don't, all you need to do, is find a memory hungry program that you use a lot, and try tightening your timings, if you can see a benefit, then great, if not, change them back and forget about them :)

Install Sisoft Sandra 2007. There is a very useful memory bandwidth benchmark in there. Run it now and make a note of your current memory bandwidth.

So, my RAM is rated for 5-5-5-12 @ 1066Mhz (PC2-8500)

This will often mean that if I were to run it at less than the rated 1066Mhz, say at 800Mhz, I could then tighten the timings, without having to up the voltage (not always, but more often than not).

So, if I go into the BIOS, and look at my existing settings, I have an FSB of 380, and the RAM running at 760Mhz with timings of 5-5-5-12.

Now, I know that the RAM will go higher at those timings, so in theory, can go tighter, at a lower MHz, so I will change the 5-5-5-12 timings to 4-4-4-12 and see what happens.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/mattd/ocguide/4-4-4-12.jpg

Save and exit the BIOS.

Hold breath.......

If it hangs or doesn't post, don't worry, it is just your Memory's way of telling you that it doesn't like going that fast, and that it needs more voltage (see disclaimer), or looser timings.

If it boots to Windows, run the Sandra memory bandwidth benchmark and record your score again.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/mattd/ocguide/sandra380-760.jpg

Run Orthos/Prime/SP2004 again, if you get errors, you know its the RAM, so you will need to up the voltage by one notch.

Save and exit, boot to windows, and test again.
Is it stable this time?

If not, repeat the above steps and add another notch of voltage to the RAM, but at this stage, if that doesn't work, its probably safe to say that your RAM doesn't overclock well, and to leave it at stock timings/voltages, rather than damage it.

If it IS stable, then that is good news, run the Sandra 2007 memory bandwidth benchmark and record your scores.

Now, if you are feeling adventurous, you can try for even tighter timings, maybe something like 4-4-4-4, or 3-4-4-8.

Run Sandra again.
http://img.hexus.net/v2/mattd/ocguid...7603-4-4-8.jpg

So, not much of an improvement in bandwidth, but the changes should be noticable in *some* real world applications, that part is up to you to test :)

Keep a note of all your scores, and if you have a bit of software that you use a lot, try out your new settings on that as well.

At this point, it is just a case of finding out what your RAM is capable of, and if the performance is worth the trade off in heat and voltage.

Once you have found a set of timings that you like, and are stable, save these BIOS settings to a USB stick for use later, using the Asus O.C.Profile,

http://img.hexus.net/v2/mattd/ocguide/OCProfile.jpg

Next, we will see how high your RAM can go using a divider.

If you haven't used a divider before on a C2D board, there isn't much to it really, on Intel chipsets, they only go upwards, in other words, they will only let you run your RAM faster than the CPU.

While we have a play with these, we will put the FSB back to 266 for now, so I can explain things a bit easier.

At 266 FSB, we have a set of dividers available to us.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/mattd/ocguid...istatstock.jpg

There are dividers to allow you to run your RAM at;

667Mhz
800Mhz
889Mhz
1067Mhz

So, lets say that your RAM is rated at 800Mhz, choose the 800Mhz divider (it can be any within reason), and make sure that your RAM timings and voltages are set to their normal values.

Try upping the FSB a bit to 300, this will now set the RAM to 720Mhz, and we know that your RAM can do at least 800Mhz, so lets go up a bit more, try 333 again (Deja Vu?), this will give you bang on 800Mhz on the RAM, but only 3GHZ on the CPU, so we need to raise the FSB a bit more to say, 350, that gives us 840Mhz on the RAM and 3150Mhz on the CPU. Its not a huge overclock, but it is on the way.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/mattd/ocguide/350-840.jpg

Save and exit, boot to Windows, exactly the same as before, if it boots, all is good, if it doesn't, you have gone too far, so either back off the FSB, or add a notch of voltage to the RAM (see disclaimer).

OK, so we are safely into Windows, run Sandra 2007 memory bandwidth benchmark again and make a note of your results again.

Run Orthos/Prime/SP2004 again, I like to use the blend test for all of these tests, so that everything gets a good stressing.

Remember, this bit, is just an exercise to get you acquainted with dividers.

Have a mess around with some of your regular programs again, see if you can notice any difference.

Of course, it doesn't end there. For those of you with faster RAM, you can go back to the BIOS and choose a higher divider, and see how high you can go.

Next up, we are going to try and find a good balance between your high CPU overclock, A high RAM divider and the tightest timings possible.

At this point, I will assume that you have tested how high your RAM will go, and have made a note of the speed :D

Same for the timings :D

Same for the CPU overclock (although, you should have saved the settings in O.C.Profile)

Load up your Best stable CPU overclock from O.C. Profile.

Now choose a divider that is as close to your RAM's max as possible, but without going over.

Keep the RAM timings standard for now.

Set the RAM voltage to whatever you had it at when you found it's max speed.

To aid stability, you can also change the Northbridge setting from AUTO to something like 1.55v. (This isn't always 100% necessary, and you can always change it back later).

Save and exit, and boot to Windows.....

If it doesn't boot, or if it hangs, or you get a BSOD while loading Windows, there are a few things you can try;

A different divider, preferably lower, but sometimes a higher one will work.

A notch more voltage to the Northbridge.

A bit less FSB, try dropping it by 10 at a time.

Try again.

Once it's stable, you can try the tighter timings, but you may need to drop the FSB by say, 30-50 and work your way back up.

All of this is just a balancing act, and, after a while you will definitely get a feel for what will and what wont work.

Don't worry if something doesn't work, just keep experimenting, and you will get there eventually.

Part 3

Voltage Tweaking

This section is for those who want to keep their overclock, but want to lower their heat output (Not by much, but it's better than nothing :D)

This is pretty much, just common sense, and a process of elimination.

So, your PC is rock solid stable, but there's an awful lot of hot air coming from the exhaust fan, what can you do?

Anything voltage related that is set to AUTO, simply set it to its lowest value, manually. Do this one item at a time, test for stability, and then do another. That way, if you adjust a few things and it turns out to be unstable, you don't have to guess at what it was that you changed.

Vcore is probably the biggest source of heat. Unfortunately, when you overclock, you will generate extra heat, even if you don't add extra voltage, but you can try and reduce the amount of Vcore that you use.

Simply drop the Vcore to whatever you think, and then test with Orthos/Prime/SP2004, if it fails, it needs more Vcore, simple as that. Try upping the Vcore in single notches until stable again.

You can always back off the FSB, but that kind of defeats the object of all the hard work we have just done.

Again, its a trade off between temps and performance, the choice is yours :)







As always, if you think I have missed anything, or if you want to see something included in the guide, please let me know.

P.S. theres more pics to come, and I'll be tidying it up and adding stuff in the coming days :)

http://www.adrian-gurney.com/clunk/clunk.gif

Administrator message: Whilst the images for this thread have been hosted by HEXUS on this occasion we must advised that by following or acting on any of the information contained in this thread is entirely at your own risk. HEXUS Limited is in no way endorsing or recommending the content within this thread nor is it responsible for any loss or damaged caused, whatsoever.

reserved

Speechless. Speechless I say!! Your timing is divine.

More piccies and general tidying up when I get chance this afternoon :)

Don't mind me, I'm off to bed. Moving 700GB takes a while I've discovered. :-)

Did you do these in Word or anything like that? What with the short time between massive posts.

Anyway they are bloody good.

Open office Writer :)

good work - i did it very much like this and got good results.

I didnt touch transaction booster setting but ive been quite stable - maybe i can go a little further with your help.

its very important (i think you mention it in the first guide) that we are realistic about what we expect from our RAM - not all clocks very well, and so knowing which is D9 is good too.

Awesome thread man. I'm having a blast clocking my P5K-dlx and temps are not bad at all. I just need to open up this old pc-601 with some 120 holes.

Great guide clunk.
especially

Quote:

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If you have a separate PCI RAID card, and are experiencing problems with drive detection, try disabling legacy USB.

---

very useful.:lol: i owe u one:D

Just pop a fiver in the post :lol:

Actually, thats in the troubleshooting guide as well, so call it a round tenner :D

Quote:

---

Actually, thats in the troubleshooting guide as well, so call it a round tenner

---

:lol:

You're a star clunk - i still haven't built my PC and it's like you... knew it..

I'm just in the process of adding pics and stuff to all the guides, should be done by tonight :)

Ok, loads of pics added, and some stuff tidied up, looks a bit more presentable now :D

I have a quick question -

If you were running a C2D with a ~400Mhz fsb with 800Mhz DDR2 RAM, is there any advantage to overclocking the RAM? You would have to use a divider in order to make that work, and wouldn't that lower your performance?

Depends how much the RAM will overclock. If you have good RAM with plenty of headroom, you can see a decent jump in performance in some apps by running a divider.

Best thing to do is have a mess around with it and see.

Welcome to Hexus by the way :D

Great guide Clunk :bowdown:

^^ On that note, anyone have any Sandra memory bandwidth figures for running dividers versus 1:1 sync. I'd be interested to see the impact or say 667MHz @ 5:4 = 833MHz versus a genuine 1:1 833MHz at the same CPU clock speed (or anything comparable, I just picked those numbers as an example!)

Have a look in the P5K deluxe thread, theres a few of sandra shots in there :)

For the highest bandwidth, try a lower multi with a high FSB and a higher divider.

Ive just come from a DFI SLI-DR board which came with a reliable windows bios flashing tool. Ive bought this board and really appreciate all the hints your giving clunk, your a star. I still have to update this bios and want to do it the safest possible way. What advice would you give on updating the bios?

Use the EZ flash utility in the bios.

Grab a usb memory stick, put it in, extract your bios file to the usb stick

Boot to the bios, go to tools, then EZ flash.

Select your file from the usb drive and let it do its stuff.

If you dont have a usb drive, you can use a floppy, or even put it on your c: drive

extremely nice post.

very easy to read, even for a noob like me, and i will look forward 2 trying it out in a few weeks when i can convince my dad to give me some money for my rig :)

Hi Clunk,

Absolutely brilliant thread, thank you so much for your contribution. Just one little question. I am running 4 x 1gb sticks of ram in the P5K deluxe along with an e6600. I have the /PAE and /3gb switch on my boot.ini for winxp, should this pose any problem for overclocking, should I remove the switches? Generally any extras I should know before attempting to oc with 4gb of ram? :embarrassed:

Thanks.

I wouldnt even put 4x1gb of ram in there unless you have vista x64 to be honest.

I'm sure others can comment further, but I run xp home 32 bit and 2x1GB on this one, sorry :)

Thanks for the reply Clunk, I can't use vista right now due to the software I use not being compatible with it.

I'll give the overclocking a go, and report back here with what I was able to achieve.... or not.

Well it's up and running - 4gigs of ram but cpu at stock for now (it's still bloody quick) - my only worry before i overclock is the MB temperature - asus probe II is reporting 47C! The cpu is 21C (water cooled) which is astounding..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by uchiha_itachi

Hi Clunk,

Absolutely brilliant thread, thank you so much for your contribution. Just one little question. I am running 4 x 1gb sticks of ram in the P5K deluxe along with an e6600. I have the /PAE and /3gb switch on my boot.ini for winxp, should this pose any problem for overclocking, should I remove the switches? Generally any extras I should know before attempting to oc with 4gb of ram? :embarrassed:

Thanks.

---

I'm at 3.2GHz on an E6420 (2.13GHz stock) with 4 x 2GB RAM, so I wouldn't worry just yet.... :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Agrippa

I'm at 3.2GHz on an E6420 (2.13GHz stock) with 4 x 2GB RAM

---

4 x 2GB? so you have 8GB in your system?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Agrippa

I'm at 3.2GHz on an E6420 (2.13GHz stock) with 4 x 2GB RAM, so I wouldn't worry just yet.... :-)

---

You're on vista64 though arent you? He's on 32bit xp :surprised:

Nope, XP x64. I'm not touching Vista again until SP1 arrives.

Signed up to say Clunk, thanks for this guide. It's helped heaps.

Coming from an old amd system where all there was to change was the FSB and some voltages to memory speeds, fsb, timings, dividers... heh.

Needless to say i've got a pretty good stable OC now.

E6600: 400 * 9 = 3.6ghz - 1.5125v (motherboard)
4gb Mem: 4-4-3-8 @ 800mhz (yeah yeah.. xp and 4gb)
NB: 1.4v

Next mission is finding out what I can get stable and what is better for the computer..

Getting 450*8 stable or DDR1000 or higher.

Glad it was of use, and welcome to hexus :D

Thanks for this Clunk :mrgreen:

Sorry to clutter your excellent thread Clunk, but what's with the Thanks feature under users names - is that new or am I just very unobservant :confused:

Anyway, how do I officially register my thanks to you :bowdown:

../ you can put the cheque in the post :mrgreen:

j/k

You just click the thanks button on the bottom right of the post you want to thank the person for :)

You can send used bank notes, jewels, gold and other expensive items to the usual address :D

Sweet Guide man. In my testing I've noticed I have to disable peci for benching and stress tests. Also probe and AI give really flaky messages and cpu temps.

Clunk did you take before and after temps with the stock and aftermarket sinks?

Here's a couple of my screens so far-

3.6 - 24/7
Mid Orthos -

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/372...thosqc8.th.gif

Post Orthos -

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/7...idleam6.th.gif

3dMark05 -

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/2...rk05iz5.th.gif

3.7
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/2...idleoi9.th.gif

3.8
CPUZ Validation

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/4...idleir5.th.gif

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jazzforce

Sweet Guide man. In my testing I've noticed I have to disable peci for benching and stress tests. Also probe and AI give really flaky messages and cpu temps.

---

I dont use AI.

I just use Asus Probe for keeping a rough idea of NB temps, and some voltages.

As far a PECI is concerned, I always turn it off, as I havent ever found a use for it, but I have seen a few people insist that it should be left on. I would be interested to see exactly why though. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jazzforce

Clunk did you take before and after temps with the stock and aftermarket sinks?

---

No, there wouldnt have been much point, as I watercool the NB, and the only air cooler I have, is the stock q6600 one.

If you are meaning the Thermalright HR-09 heatsinks, there isnt a heat sensor (that I know of) for the mosfets, so any testing would have to be done with a thermal probe, which I will do if you want.

One thing that I would recommend, is that, if possible, you get some kind of backplate for the CPU cooler, this stops the board from bending, and lets the mosfet coolers sit flat on the mosfets. :)

The overclocks are looking good :D

Thanks for the reply, no need to test with a thermal probe. I have a bunch of microcool mosfet sinks, and hr-05 and a few options for the sb on hand but I'm holding off for now. I've worked a fan into my case that hits the nb/ram area pretty well and the mb temp readings in probe and speedfan look okay. Even at orthos load and warm ambient temps it never gets much higher than 37c or so. I was just thinking that if the aftermarket cooling made a big diff, I could get rid of the fan.

P5K-Dlx rocks.

Well, its hard to say, I'm running a quad core and that makes the mosfets get really hot, especially when overclocking.

They do get rid of a lot of heat though, especially as I have the rear fan blowing inwards.

Pics will be back up today :)

I've been a fiddling....not the naughty kind, nor the 'while Rome burns' kind, but rather the 'trying so hard not to kill my computer kind'

What I'd like to know is why my RAM is showing up in CPU-Z as
CAS# 32
RAS# to CAS# 5
RAS# Precharge 2
Cycle Time (Tras) 12

When it's set to manual 4-4-4-12....

SPD tab has it down like this
SPD
---

Module Size 1024 MBytes
Max Bandwidth PC2-6400 (400MHz)

Frequency 400 500
cas 4 5
RAS 4 5
RAS 4 5
Tras 12 15
Trc 24 30
Command Rate 2T 2T

so what's going on?

What BIOS, what version of CPU-Z?

What RAM?

Do a screenie :)

Same problem here ibm:

http://www.aooe21.dsl.pipex.com/hexus/cpuz.jpg

This is with Corsair XMS2 5400, manually set to 4-4-4-12. I've given up trying to monitor my system under Vista 64 bit though, I've not found one app that works as it should :O_o1: Are you running Vista?

Found the problem. I thought I'd updated the BIOS but hadn't. Now it's running fine on 311

CPU-Z version is whatever is available from the site, 1.4 I guess.

No, I'm running XP (oooooh, with 4Gb RAM too), aiming to upgradge to something 64 in the near future.

Ram is Crucial 2 x 2GB kit (1GBx2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-6400.

Just working my way towards 1:1....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JimNastics

Same problem here ibm:

http://www.aooe21.dsl.pipex.com/hexus/cpuz.jpg

This is with Corsair XMS2 5400, manually set to 4-4-4-12. I've given up trying to monitor my system under Vista 64 bit though, I've not found one app that works as it should :O_o1: Are you running Vista?

---

Vista is pretty awful when it comes to overclocking, thats why I dumped it. I tried x86 and x64 and they both were a pain in the arse.

Have you tried a bios update though? CPU-Z should work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ibm

Found the problem. I thought I'd updated the BIOS but hadn't. Now it's running fine on 311

CPU-Z version is whatever is available from the site, 1.4 I guess.

No, I'm running XP (oooooh, with 4Gb RAM too), aiming to upgradge to something 64 in the near future.

Ram is Crucial 2 x 2GB kit (1GBx2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-6400.

Just working my way towards 1:1....

---

At least that is sorted. I'm surprised you havent had more odd problems with xp and 4gb!

I haven't had any problems with XP32 and 4gb... ok, some of it's gone missing but that's all fair enough :) The board/OS seem to cope just fine tbh.

What kind of problems should I be looking out for? Boils, warts, sight loss? I'm currently running orthos with FSB at 380, DDR 667...will check it when I get home this afternoon.

I figure RAM was uber cheap, if it causes problems I'll take out the additional 2x1Gb set until I'm up on 64bit, and probably won't notice much difference.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ibm

What kind of problems should I be looking out for? Boils, warts, sight loss? I'm currently running orthos with FSB at 380, DDR 667...will check it when I get home this afternoon.

I figure RAM was uber cheap, if it causes problems I'll take out the additional 2x1Gb set until I'm up on 64bit, and probably won't notice much difference.

---

How are you running at 380FSB and running the RAM at 667? The dividers only let you run the RAM faster, not slower.

errrr.....I will have to get back to you on that one. There is a small chance that I may have my numbers mixed up.....

:embarrassed:

Has anybody updated their boards with the new 404 bios? Just saw it now on the asus site.

P5KD 0403 bios & 0404

&

P5K Deluxe 0403 / 0404 bios released

Bottom line is 0404 gives better bandwidth but is more difficuklt to maintain stability, i'm back on 0311.

Funny, I thought being subscribed to this thread gives me all updates.

I had the same issue with my board (CPU-Z showing 32-5-5-whatever) and had to bios update to fix it.

What was even more odd was that the bios update apparently failed, yet i'm on the new bios, all the settings are there, its reporting correctly, etc.

It gets even crazier that when I make the settings unstable that the motherboard reports the bios update erro. Set it back to decent but not crazy OC and its happy. Shrug. I would look into it more but its working.

Also running XP with 4gb memory, it only reports as 3.25gb though due to the usual 32bit limitation.

I had to pull the OC from 3.6 to 3 to combat possible heat/voltage issues. One question i've got for you guys. When the cpu gets full load mine jumps from about 35 or so idle up to 60 instantly then over the next min or two reaches close to 70 or so. Does this sound like bad cpu/heatsink contact or a design of the cpu? I’ve got the zalman CU9700 big round CPU cooler. (I forget the exact model number)

My theory is it starts working at full load (using TAT to load it, as it creates the most heat) and thus puts out heat at full load. The heatsink then takes the heat and gets rid of it, but wont actually cool the cpu down so in which case, its not going to get any cooler, its just not going to get hotter, right? Theory comes from the 'do i spend the money on watercooling or not' game… Pondering if I’ll actually see any difference.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Phonoflux

Funny, I thought being subscribed to this thread gives me all updates. Not sure about that mate, doesnt it email you when there is a post?

I had the same issue with my board (CPU-Z showing 32-5-5-whatever) and had to bios update to fix it.

What was even more odd was that the bios update apparently failed, yet i'm on the new bios, all the settings are there, its reporting correctly, etc. Very odd, how did it fail? How were you updating etc?

It gets even crazier that when I make the settings unstable that the motherboard reports the bios update erro. Set it back to decent but not crazy OC and its happy. Shrug. I would look into it more but its working. Sounds like you need a full cmos clear.

Also running XP with 4gb memory, it only reports as 3.25gb though due to the usual 32bit limitation. Do you have any of the above problems with just 2gb of RAM in there?

I had to pull the OC from 3.6 to 3 to combat possible heat/voltage issues. One question i've got for you guys. When the cpu gets full load mine jumps from about 35 or so idle up to 60 instantly then over the next min or two reaches close to 70 or so. Does this sound like bad cpu/heatsink contact or a design of the cpu? I’ve got the zalman CU9700 big round CPU cooler. (I forget the exact model number) Depends on the voltage you are feeding the CPU, its high, but for higher voltages, its what you would expect.

My theory is it starts working at full load (using TAT to load it, as it creates the most heat) and thus puts out heat at full load. The heatsink then takes the heat and gets rid of it, but wont actually cool the cpu down so in which case, its not going to get any cooler, its just not going to get hotter, right? Theory comes from the 'do i spend the money on watercooling or not' game… Pondering if I’ll actually see any difference. Again, it will depend on the voltage. Also, check the thermal paste, and reapply, double check that the cooler is seated properly, and possibly use a more powerful fan on the heatsink.

---

Answers in bold. :)

well for some reason my board will not oc :(. I changed the settings just like stated (I have same exact board and cpu) to 333 in fsb and that bootstrap setting, save and exit, pc clicks off, comes back on with the cpu at 2.41ghz. am I missing something?

thanks

Welcome to Hexus :)

If you can take some bios shots for me, I will point you in the right direction.

thanks for the welcome and I cant seem to figure out what's up with this. so here's some pics of my current settings:

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8224/bios1fj8.jpg

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8512/bios2nc0.jpg

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5623/bios3lw7.jpg

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9861/bios4dk7.jpg

and here's how it boots everytime:

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5291/bios5zd7.jpg

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.

What RAM do you have?..can you post your system specs as well?

p5k deluxe wifi
QX6600 quad core
corsair TWIN2X4096 - 6400C5DHX
geforce 8800
zalman 9700 cpu cooler
rapter 150 gig boot/programs
2x 500gig WD RE2 (RAID 0) on intel matrix
lite-on 20x sata dvdrw

Ive tried many different settings and it will not overclock, lol. I feel like such a noob right now for not being able to figure this out

thanks

well still cant get it to work anyone with any ideas?

could it be the 2 2gig sticks? I've tried with just one stick of ram and it didnt work either?

and here's what cpuz says no matter what I set it to:

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/7572/cpuz1fz6.jpg

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/3792/cpuz2xl9.jpg

is there such thing as a locked fsb cpu or mb? cause I've sure as hell tried everything and this damn cpu wont show anything but 2.4ghz :O_o1:

You are saving and then exiting the bios right?

lol, yeah I'm not that dumb. but when I hit save and exit, it shuts off the pc for about 5 sec then comes back on by itself. and when I go back into the bios the settings are at 333mhz or whatever settings I left them at.

OK, sorry, but had to ask :)

I'm slightly confused because your bios is showing that you are running 333x9, which would give you roughly 3ghz.

You also have your RAM on a divider, which you dont want to do at this stage. Set it to 1:1 for now.
Just so I know what we are talking about....if you set your

NB strap to 266.
FSB to 300,
multi to 9,
RAM to 600,
Timings and voltages to whatever corsair says they should be,

Save and exit..and what happens?

If that doesnt work, take all the RAM out and reset the CMOS. It could be a duff battery as well, but not very likely.

Only put one stick of RAM back in one of the yellow slots and try overclocking again. If it still wont work, try the same with all of the sticks of ram.

You havent modded your cpu have you? - another guess.

See how you get on with those and let us know :)

yeah already had reset the cmos. and yeah only one stick is in while trying to figure this out. both stick pass memtest fine btw. settings are like this:

nb strap 266
fsb 300
multi 9
ram to 750 (cause my only choices are auto, 750, 900, or 1200)
ram voltage to 2.1

post gives me 2.41ghz, but cpuz gives me 1.6 ghz once in windows (says multiplier of 6, WTF!).

...

k, rebooted checked to make sure that multiplier is on 9 and it is, yet cpuz saying it's 6. and general tab in xp system properties says intel quad running at 2.4ghz. yeah I'm freaked out. something is locked somewhere. and no kind of mods on this cpu and motherboard straight out the retail pakaging brand spanking new. and it runs great. I've stress tested this thing to no end with no errors. but the damn thing just doesnt want to increase that fsb any faster than 266.

um, btw how do I know what my ram divider setting is? I'm guess bootstrap compared to fsb setting?

damn just installed the asus ai thing and tried the overclock thing in it and the nos thing. lol no matter what I do it stays at 2.4ghz. bastard machine gonna make me pull the rest of my hair out,

Windows showing 1.6ghz sounds like speedstep/eist doing its thing, but your screenshots say that it is disabled.

It does sound like you might have a duff battery to me, that would explain why it isnt saving the settings.

The RAM divider is the DRAM frequency, just make sure it is twice the FSB.

The only other thing that I can think of, is that your RAM is already at 800Mhz, and you are trying to overclock and that is instantly running the RAM out of spec and it doesnt want to go higher than 800Mhz.

When your board freaks out after a bad RAM overclock, it will always default to the 2.4Ghz.

getting my new rig soon so hope to contribute my over clocks tot his thread soon

Looking forward to it :)

this is truly wonderful... need to read it over and over again b4 i applied it on my pc... surely it is very interesting to do! i will go for it the soonest time possible lol

thanks man! awesome brain you have! lol

just one more question to ask...

how was it compare to the overclocking softwares that comes along with my motherboard?
i mean which is more reliable? tweaking the bios or overclocking my pc components through the help of those softwares? like easytune and vtune?

you've asked this same question in this thread. http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...5&postcount=10

Don't ask the same thing in multiple threads, it take them off topic and ruins them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clunk

Just pop a fiver in the post :lol:

Actually, thats in the troubleshooting guide as well, so call it a round tenner :D

---

:)

A quick thank you from me too, very informative and I might actually NOT break anything if I follow it.... :help:

New to the forum so I'll put in all the PC stuff when I get home, burning off company time cruising this forum.....

Regards
Thomas

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kietsmark1975

this is truly wonderful... need to read it over and over again b4 i applied it on my pc... surely it is very interesting to do! i will go for it the soonest time possible lol

thanks man! awesome brain you have! lol

just one more question to ask...

how was it compare to the overclocking softwares that comes along with my motherboard?
i mean which is more reliable? tweaking the bios or overclocking my pc components through the help of those softwares? like easytune and vtune?

---

Looking at your system specs, it seems that you have a Gigabyte board, this is a thread for the Asus P5K boards, so not much info about that here.

I dont use overclocking software, sorry :)

Hi Clunk.

Noob here.

Just checking out your beginners threads.
My system is to the left.
Have downloaded CPU-Z TAT and Core Temp.

In CPU-Z it is telling me that my Multi is set to 6 267 FSB giving me less than the stock speed of 2.14, at 1603Mhz!!

Can I change that? What is teh setting called?

Going to set my RAM timmings etc first then look to clock it a bit...have been told by a guy at SCAN that his runs 400FSB to give 3.2Mhz "no problem"

Core Temp says the cores are running at 34 Degrees ish with Email, Firefox and the three Temp programs running.

Any pointers?

Cheers

Gaz

That would be speedstep/eist. Disable those and that should go away.

Temps look fine to me, although they will rise a lot when the summer eventually gets here :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clunk

That would be speedstep/eist. Disable those and that should go away.

Temps look fine to me, although they will rise a lot when the summer eventually gets here :D

---

Thanks mate:D

Anal Probe, sorry, ASUS...says CPU is 28degrees...so would you be inclined to believe a middle ground between that and Core Temp?

Where do I find speed step?

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

What, in your opinion, would be a sensible expectation for everyday use from my setup?

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

Quote:

---

Where do I find speed step?

---

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

Quote:

---

Have a look at the advanced CPU settings page

---

. bottom item.

Quote:

---

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

---

Quote:

---

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

---

No

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skeet

Thanks mate:D

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

---

:)

Groovy...thanks gents.

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

:rockon2:

Quote:

---

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

---

That explains it then:lol:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skeet

Groovy...thanks gents.

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

:rockon2:

---

Not with your anal probe again? :D

Quote:

---

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, FSB:DRAM 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!:D

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

Quote:

---

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!:embarrassed:

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. :embarrassed:

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.

Quote:

---

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. :embarrassed:

---

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.

Quote:

---

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. :embarrassed:

---

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.

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

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

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?!:bowdown:

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.

Ok i did some testing with CPU-Z and either my motherboard is screwed ir CPU-Z is giving me the wrong numbers :)

Bios FSB set at 266 and Bios Vcore set at 1.3vcore
--> Going to windows and run cpu-z and orthos
CPU-Z Giving me idle Vcore of 1.264 vcore
CPU-Z Giving me stress Vcore of 1.240 then 1.232 and 1.224 in this order and then starts switching regularly ( every xx seconds ) between 1.232 and 1.224.

I also noticed Vcore's dropping with other FSB Settings on AUTO. They always drop a bit when comming from idle. And for example my MOBO Vcore set to 1.4 shows an idle of 1.352vcore idle in CPU-Z and a stressed 1.320vcore stressed.

It got me really confused now :) Is this an error in CPU-Z , Mobo , Not enough Power ?

Anyways Greetz

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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 ) Avoid using the auto update thing, it can kill your board.
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 ) Dont worry about the strap setting for now, leave it as it is.

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 ) 400x9 is quite an unrealistic goal for 24/7 usage. You may be lucky and have a CPU that doesnt need much voltage to do 3.6Ghz, but it isnt very common. 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. Are you sure that it should be 1.9v?, you need to double check, either on the sticks of RAM themselves, or on the manufacturers website.
Note: Coretemp shows 48 degrees as max for 3000Mhz setup on both cores and goes back to 45 after a few seconds - Temps are ok.

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. This could be a lot of things, but it sounds like you are running the RAM too high - please post some bios shots of all your settings.

So i have 3 questions : Is the reboot that i describe here to be blamed on my 500W PSU ? - Possibly, but check the RAM first.
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. The PSU specs are fine, it just depends if the PSU itself is flakey or not.
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. - You absolutely need to set the ram voltage to what the manufacturer says it should run at. The board will set it to 1.8v by default.

Second question is something i noticed with CPU-Z
Stock settings Idle : Vcore 1.30
Stock settings Full Load : Vcore 1.28 Never use cpuz to check CPU voltages.

3000Mhz Settings Idle: Vcore 1.40
3000Mhz Settings Full Load : Vcore 1.36 - This is vdroop, enable the voltage damper in the bios (if your board has one, which im not sure if it does or not).

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 ? See above, enable it if you have it) 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 ? Use Asus probe to check the voltages, or if you really want to do it properly, use a DMM. If you google it, you will be able to find the correct points to test at.

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 ? The bottom line here, is that you need to get your system at least 12 hours stable with orthos at STOCK SPEEDS BEFORE you start overclocking. Put it all back to stock, and get it stable first.

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

---

Answers in bold. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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?!:bowdown:

---

Have you got your vcore at auto?

Temps do seem a bit high, what cooler are you using, and have you tried reapplying the thermal paste?

If you could post some bios shots to show your settings, that would be good :)

Thanks m8 :)

With everything disabled/enabled and all FSB and voltages on stock i did a 9 hour Orthos test with no problems whatsoever. I also had the voltage damper enabled already (i did read your guide first ! :p)
The voltage for the ram isn't shown on the product itself but on the site they say the duo kit is tested at 5-5-5-12 at 1.9v so that's what i have set it to now

I will try setting everything manually and do a 12 hour test with orthos for 3000Mhz and then put the next post :) Also a dumb question but how exactly do you post screens of your BIOS ? :)

Furthermore i installed the Asus probe and it still shows a Vdroop of 0.8 at full load running orthos and vdroop of 0.4 on idle. I guess there is nothing i can do about it then i just wonder if people say max 1.5volts if they mean 1.58 -0.8 vdroop :)
CPU Temp of 29°C and MB temp of 35°C at 305fsb, quite a difference with coretemp ! who shows 36°C for both cores

Sorry for the noobisch questions but i really got hooked now that i started reading and trying these things myself :) As long as i keep learning and stuff don't burn up ... it's fun ! :p