Why won't my Q6600 do 3.2GHz?

[Scottyyy]

My new Q6600 simply won't do 3.2GHz. The highest vcore I've tried is 1.525 in the BIOS, which is extremely high, but even at that voltage it doesn't get past POST. It gets to the motherboard screen were you can choose to enter setup, boot options, etc, but just before it displays my hard drives and optical drives, it reboots and resets the overclock.

3GHz is fully stable at 1.425v in the BIOS. I tried 400*7 (2.8GHz) and it was stable. So it's not my RAM or my motherboard that's failing, it has to be the Q6600. (mobo is Gigabyte S3 P965 and RAM is 4x1GB PC6400, CPU cooler is Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro)

Do I just have a really bad overclocker?

[Terbinator]

Okay, what speed is your RAM at when your trying for 3.2GHz, also at 3.2GHz with a x9 multiplier thats giving you a FSB off 355 - I don't know if the 965 boards are known for running around that speed. For comparisons sake my P45 board with a Q6600 would let me go up towards 440FSB.

Ideally you should set your RAM at its lowest multiplier so it will be running at 533Mhz i think then overclock from there. Try not to go past a clockspeed that is faster than 800Mhz as that is what your RAM is designed to run at. Because your using 4 sticks of RAM it may also be useful upping the northbridge/MCH voltage as well.

Edit: I wouldnt bother setting the vCore higher than 1.35v for your CPU as 1.35v should get you to around 3.4GHz maybe higher.

[Scottyyy]

Okay, what speed is your RAM at when your trying for 3.2GHz, also at 3.2GHz with a x9 multiplier thats giving you a FSB off 355 - I don't know if the 965 boards are known for running around that speed. For comparisons sake my P45 board with a Q6600 would let me go up towards 440FSB.

Ideally you should set your RAM at its lowest multiplier so it will be running at 533Mhz i think then overclock from there. Try not to go past a clockspeed that is faster than 800Mhz as that is what your RAM is designed to run at. Because your using 4 sticks of RAM it may also be useful upping the northbridge/MCH voltage as well.

Edit: I wouldnt bother setting the vCore higher than 1.35v for your CPU as 1.35v should get you to around 3.4GHz maybe higher.

356*9 is what I'm trying to do. I think that's 720MHz RAM speed as I've got the RAM multiplier on 2.0, which is the slowest I can do. But like I said, the RAM will do 800MHz (400*7) no problem and is stable. If the RAM and mobo can do 400 FSB, then surely they can do 356 right? Unless I'm missunderstanding this whole thing.

[GoNz0]

theres no guarentee it will do anything other than stock speeds, mine when i had it went to 2.9 end of story.

[Scottyyy]

theres no guarentee it will do anything other than stock speeds, mine when i had it went to 2.9 end of story.

That's true. But I don't think I've ever seen a Q6600 that wouldn't do 3.2GHz before.

[neonplanet40]

That's true. But I don't think I've ever seen a Q6600 that wouldn't do 3.2GHz before.

now you've found two....

[GoNz0]

now you've found two....

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My Q6600 does around 3.1GHZ to 3.2GHZ in my 975X motherboard and does a bit better in the P35 based motherboard in my backup PC. It is one of the later high VID Q6600 processors. Anyway it can do around 2.9GHZ to 3GHZ on stock voltage which is good enough IMHO and is fast enough for the games I play. I can run Supreme Commander at decent settings at 1680X1050 for example. A Q6600 at around this speed is comparable to a Phenom II X4 925 and 945 or a Core2 Q8400 and Q9400 AFAIK so it is still a decent processor. It will also be faster in many cases than a processor such as the Core i3 530. Don't get caught up too much by perceived slowness or obsolescence as propagated by many people.

Overclocking is never guaranteed and I hate when people have tried to argue with me before when I have stated this. The worst ones are the ones which say that every processor of a certain model will do 4GHZ to everyone when they recommend builds. The funny thing is that they think that a couple of hours of Prime32 is enough for stability testing and on top of this often recommend some really el cheapo boards with no VRM cooling!! They don't even say to cool the VRMs in any way!!

Then when people don't get these massive overclocks they say they have got a bad chip and then after this still argue with people when they state that overclocking to 4GHZ is not guaranteed. Alternatively they try to blame the person who cannot get the "guaranteed" overclock.

I don't like to disappoint people when listing parts for a build so I always state that any overclock or unlock for any processor is not guaranteed. I am not one of crowd who states if you overclock processor "A" to clockspeed ""z" it will be faster than processor "B" even though processor "B" is faster than the processor "A" at stock speeds. I cannot guarantee that any processor will definitely be able to overclock or core unlock so I don't want to give a potential empty promise.

The overclocking capability of any chip varies form batch to batch and from revision to revision so you are taking a chance!! The same goes with core unlocking.

IMHO,if you are paying over £50 for a processor it must have enough performance at stock to fulfil your current computer needs and any extra performance gained through modifications like overclocking and core unlocking should be an additional benefit.