o/c B3 Q6600, any advice? :)

I am thinking of overclocking my PC (again). I did it 6+ months ago and having only just checked it now iv found that desbite all the settings in the bios being correct, the o/c seems to have been lost/disabled.

I had a fiddle based on some of the numbers i used before (i wrote a table of everything for future reference) and everytime i tried it, i would get a BSOD almost instantly (these were all tested & found to work fine 6 months ago). Im guessing a lot of this is because iv doubled my RAM since then, as a result id like to try and get my o/c back up again. Due to how long ago it was though, iv more or less forgotten the procedure.


The compter is in the 'my system' under my username, and iv got the B3 steppings of the Q6600.


I dont spose anyone could start me off on the first few steps of upping the voltages & steppings etc, i wouldnt midn tryign to o/c the RAM slightly aswell.


Any advice/links would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys :)

edit; this was my original thread;
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...g-alright.html

What is the speed of your ram (pc2 6400)?

Anyhow try slowing raising up the FSB to about 300 (2.7ghz) and and run a burn in test to see if its stable. It should be able to do that without any voltage adjustment

Open up Coretemp http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ and see what the VID is.

My B3 has 1.2750 VID, which in a B3 is pretty amazing. Nevertheless still OCs like a pig.

3.2GHz (8*400) needs 1.4050V in BIOS
3.3GHz (8*416) needs 1.5050V in BIOS

Both Prime95 stable.

Heat with this stepping is a bitch too, I see you have an Antec 900 which helps, what CPU cooler do you have?

1.4v for 3.2GHz is pretty good. That's a top-end voltage for a 45nm chip, which means its fairly low for a 65nm! My Xeon X3310 (also a B3 with very low VID) gets roughly the same clocks and voltages that you are seeing.

I've seen people running 1.5v+ on 65nm chips, 1.475v is what I would call safe. 1.4v is perfectly fine :)

Should have added, they are 800mhz RAM sticks, so yes, pc2 6400.

Iv looked through CoreTemp and my VID is 1.1625 idle, but bounces up to 1.265v every now and then. Is 1.1625v any good? :O_o1:


I will try and bring the FSB up to 300 now, then report back.

edit;

Yep, FSB300 (no voltage change) works fine, ran prime95 for 15mins and all seems good! Where should i go from here?

thanks again guys :)

edit2; Prime95 still working fine fine, but intel's burn test failed.

edit3; One of the cores on Prime95 failed after 5 rounds, intel's burn test failed three times in a row. I raised the voltages up from 1.26250v (standard) to 1.26875v and it still fails Intels burn test. Prime95 seems alright though. Once again this is with everything else default in the BIOS. My bios is pictured below, but with a few values altered (this pic is from last year) when i got it to 3ghz without any issues though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3.../IMAGE_012.jpg

Raised the voltages up again to 1.26875 and the FSB to 300 and it has been fine on Prime95 (13 tests,1 hour), Intel's burn test still fails though. Is this anything i should be worried about?


From here, how should i proceed? Keep raising the FSB until it fails, then raise the voltage until it is stable? What else should i look to change to try and keep it all stable?

thanks :)


edit; Still going strong on prime95, 2.5 hours with PC still downloading, playing music and a bit of gaming.

edit2; Sods law, minute i say that i try to open up easytune5 and i get a BSOD. Forgot to check the message but im tempted to say FSB300 at 1.26875 seems stable enough.

Coretemp VID is a static number and does not change, this VID is the stock voltage for your CPU and is a good indicator of where you need to start your manual CPU voltage from.

CPU-Z is showing the voltage set in the BIOS less the vdroop (which can vary depending on the motherboard), and it can drop more if you put heavy load on the CPU.

I dont spose anyone has any advice on how to proceed from here? Is it just a matter of raising the FSB until it fails, then raising the voltages until i find the sweet spot. What else should i be looking at altering in order to increase stability?

thanks guys :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LuckyNV

Coretemp VID is a static number and does not change, this VID is the stock voltage for your CPU and is a good indicator of where you need to start your manual CPU voltage from.

CPU-Z is showing the voltage set in the BIOS less the vdroop (which can vary depending on the motherboard), and it can drop more if you put heavy load on the CPU.

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Really. My Q6600GO has a VID of 1.3250, and CPU-Z states 1.168V under load (GPU folding), and it is set to something like 1.25V in BIOS.

VID is set by Intel based on their own testing.

Its very likely for home users to run on less voltage than VID because of how they use it.

In your case GPU folding is not taxing all 4 cores is it?
Try Intel burn test or Prime95 Small FFTs.

Even then it may still be stable reason goes back to my first sentence.

Intel burn test at 1.144V ATM, I just think that they got the VID wrong:P

Edit, momenterially went up to 1.16V