Overclocking for beginners

[shbris]

YOUR chip might be stable, it might not be. orthos x 2 (each one covers two cores) and leave it running for a few hours.
if it crashes or whatever, up the voltage, or ask here again and someone will put you on the right track

[NeedMoarFarms]

So there's no need to up the voltage if it's stable?

Yay, 2.999999gHz or something lol.

Now to see if it is stable, cheers for all your help.

[shbris]

well if it runs stable in orthos or another program for a few hours with 100% load on all cores, that's stable in my and probably most peoples books.
increasing voltage on top of that will just produce more heat

so there's no single answer, 'put your settings to these exact values and leave it', you have to tweak and change them and adapt. you want it to be:

1. stable for a set amount of time/load etc, depending on ur needs
2. at the lowest voltage setting that allows you to do the above, thereby cutting back on waste heat which is unnecessary

memory timings etc. can almost be left as an afterthough after you've got the FSB and core to what u want. so just give it a go

[NeedMoarFarms]

Ok, I'll run Orthos overnight on this voltage, and if it's stable, then excellent.

Can I tell Orthos to run on specific cores? Because it will only run on cores 1 and 2?

[Webby]

Yeah you only need to increase the voltage if the overclock is unstable but increasing it a bit to start gives you a better chance of having the overclock stable from the off then you can bring it back down to the optimum afterwards.

The other way of doing it is moving in small steps from the base testing until you find instability upping the voltage a bit then moving on. This is more methodical and will give you a better idea of how your chips speed is related to its voltage requirements.

[shbris]

Ok, I'll run Orthos overnight on this voltage, and if it's stable, then excellent.

Can I tell Orthos to run on specific cores? Because it will only run on cores 1 and 2?

run it once, then go to task manager and set it's affinity to core 0 and core 1
then run it again and set affinity of that instance to core 2 and core 3
should work!

and 2nd what webby said. sounds like u've got your heart set on 3.2GHz core, which is a good day to day overclock, so maybe take it to that, adjust memory frequency slightly to get the most out of your memory, then leave any further overclocking for a lazy sunday afternoon to see how far it'll go!

good luck

[NeedMoarFarms]

Ah, I just downloaded Prime 95, puts all cores on 100% load. Max temperature of any core is 60, lowest is 47. Why is that? All cores are under full load, yet one is 13 degrees hotter than another lol?

I'm happy with 3.0gHz, so if I ever get a sunday to be lazy I'll push the clock a little further.

Thanks for all your help guys!

[Blitzen]

set voltage up a notch as well, fsb:ddr to 1:1 then FSB up to whatever you fancy

Bad advice!
There is almost certainly no need to alter voltages for such a small overclock.

adjust memory frequency slightly to get the most out of your memory

No need for this either if the memory is PC6400.
A memory overclock will just produce more heat and the 1:1 ratio will be constant at 3.2ghz anyway.

Just asking for some assistance before I do this. Should I up my voltage, or should it be stable at 1.3250V?
Entering the RAM timings, is it just the first 4 numbers that are 5-5-5-15?

It should be stable
BUT
My advice to you would be leave all your voltages alone!

Set all to 'Automatic', up the FSB and watch the clock happen.

[Hunain]

Im dropping in late, but ill give my advice anyways Everything mentioned earlier seems fine, just one thing, Im not really comfortable with AUTOMATIC voltage settings, i have always found them to be quite a bit more than what is required, so I prefer to manually tune just about the perfect value, not less, not very much...always found that value to be quite a bit lower than what the automatic value is (idle temps comparison), I just like to keep the temperatures as low as possible..

[NeedMoarFarms]

I haven't touched any voltages.

My temperatures are a little higher than I would like, after a few hours of prime95 my highest core tempt was 70C. I have a good after marker heatsink (Sycthe Ninja), do you think it isn't making very good contact with the CPU? Or do you think airflow in my case (antec 900) isn't optimal?

Is there anyway to get my temps down before I try and get a higher clock?

[Webby]

If you think your temps are too high then you have too potential problems

1. You have a hot running chip not a lot you can do about that.
2. Reseat the cooler (remove it clean and reapply thermal paste reatach the cooler ensure all 4 push pins are correctly aligned)

Related to point 1 run CPU-Z/Everest/HW Monitor and tell use what your idle core voltage is. I assume when you say that you have not touched any voltages that they are set to manual control but default settings rather than automatic?

[NeedMoarFarms]

The voltages are all set on default.

My temps have almost doubled going from 40C on full load, to 70C on full load. Is this normal?

Core voltage is 1.288V on CPU-Z.

cpu voltage is set to default.
DDR2 voltage is set to auto.

[Webby]

Hmmm I would say your cooler is not mounted properly, Oh and you do have a fan on the cooler right? (just checking some people run it passive, not a good idea with an OCed Q6600)

You should take it off and remount it, make sure you use enough (but not too much) thermal paste and ensure the push pins are secured all the way down they should click when they are in properly. YOu can check the pins by looking on the back of the motherboard they should all be out the other side and locked in place. Some people will suggest you pick the board up by the cooler (over something soft!) if the pins are in right it should support the weight of the board no problem at all.

[NeedMoarFarms]

Yeah fan is on the cooler.

I had trouble with the push pins before (absolute nightmare to get in, thought I was going to have to buy a different heatsink) but my friend helped me out. I'll check to see that they are firmly in place before resetting it. And I might just get my friend to do it if need be, so that there's optimal contact (most likely to mess it up doing it myself). Cheers for the tip.

Tested prime95, and after a few minutes the highest core was 45degrees.
Last night, when I ran prime95, after a few seconds it went to 70degrees.

I'll leave prime95 running and see if my temps get any higher, then should I go about resetting?

[shbris]

Bad advice!
There is almost certainly no need to alter voltages for such a small overclock.

haha, i should defend my honour!! it's not a tiny overclock, and hey he might need to adjust his voltage, he might not. all my advice was relevant thank you

[Smoothlegs]

I have been interested in overclocking for some time but just don't know how to go about it.
My maximus formula has oc built in to the bios but I just want to do it the safest way.