First time OC'ing, advice please?

[IronWarrior]

I would like to OC my Q6600 to about 3GHz or 3.1GHz, I know the PC is able to do that because the friend I brought it off had it at that as the link below, but everything was reset due to a rebuild.

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1149236

I gone through a few guides here on XS and looked at some other sites on how to do it, but am a little unsure on one or two things.

If I rise my FSB Frequency to 333 and VCore to 1.4 and leave everything on Auto, that should be ok for 3GHz for 247 stable use?

Reading the guides, I should also set PCI Express Frequency to 100MHz and PCI Clock Synchronization to 33.33, is that true?

I don't plan on doing anything with the Memory, unless I have too as well?

Motherboard
Asus P5K Pro

CPU Type
QuadCore Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2400 MHz (9 x 267)

System Memory 6144 MB (DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM)
DIMM1: OCZ Titanium XTC OCZ2T8001G 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 400 MHz) (4-5-5-13 @ 333 MHz) (3-4-4-10 @ 270 MHz)
DIMM2: OCZ Reaper HPC OCZ2RPR800C42G 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-18 @ 400 MHz) (4-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (3-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz)
DIMM3: OCZ Titanium XTC OCZ2T8001G 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 400 MHz) (4-5-5-13 @ 333 MHz) (3-4-4-10 @ 270 MHz)
DIMM4: OCZ Reaper HPC OCZ2RPR800C42G 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-18 @ 400 MHz) (4-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (3-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz)

3D Accelerator
nVIDIA GeForce GTX BE 260

PSU
Hiper Type-R, 880W

CPU Cooler
Thermalright something. (It's big)

[mrt9888]

Yes thats right, just make sure you don't overclock the RAM, it should not be higher than 800mhz.

[IronWarrior]

Yes thats right, just make sure you don't overclock the RAM, it should not be higher than 800mhz.

Ah thank you.

Well I plan on leaving the RAM settings as they are in the BIOS already, that will be fine right?

[Ulti]

Probably not, however the board you have is a P35 board IIRC and they were superb at overclocking and it should say what the RAM speed is whilst you overclock, you probably wanna have it at a 1:1 divider at the beginning so if it's set at 333FSB then your RAM will be running at 333mhz (which will be ~667mhz as it's DDR2). You could then set it higher to get the rated 800mhz once everything is stable.

[IronWarrior]

Well did it: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1416353

One thing that I found out, was that Speedstep needed to be disabled, since it kept forcing the ratio back at x6.

Temps are 48"C at idle, haven't tested load yet.

Thanks guys.

[mrt9888]

You could leave it on, when you stress the cpu it will go back to 9. Did you stress test it?

[IronWarrior]

You could leave it on, when you stress the cpu it will go back to 9. Did you stress test it?

Not yet, will do that at a later date, through I do plan on gaming later on in BFBC2 and L4D1/2 and see how it PC handles the new changes.

But for now, it seems to be pretty happy.

Temps seem to be uneven on the cores at idle.

Temperatures
Motherboard 43 °C (109 °F)
CPU 41 °C (106 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 41 °C (106 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 40 °C (104 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #3 36 °C (97 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #4 36 °C (97 °F)
GPU 51 °C (124 °F)
GPU Memory 43 °C (109 °F)
GPU Ambient 43 °C (109 °F)
GPU VRM 46 °C (115 °F)

Voltage Values
CPU Core 1.34 V
+3.3 V 3.28 V
+5 V 5.09 V
+12 V 12.10 V
+5 V Standby 4.97 V
GPU Vcc 3.31 V
GPU VRM 1.11 V

Current Values
GPU VRM 10.16 A

[Ulti]

It's not usually meant to be that even, as an example, my i7 930 is idling at 3.2ghz is 37C on 2 cores and 41c on 2 cores. (Yeah I undervolted it quite a bit )



I'd defo suggest you to stress test it though as it may not be stable, idle temps look a bit high too so you may want to lower voltage (obviously not too much to cause it to be unstable). E.g. I have 3.2ghz on 1.00V

[IronWarrior]

Holy crap, I didn't know the vcore on the 930 could go that low.

Yep, I was thinking of lowering the vcore a lot more, think I go do that now.

EDIT: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1416525

Seems lowing the vcore a little increased the OC a tiny margin, temps look better, but that might change as the PC stays online longer.

Temperatures
Motherboard 43 °C (109 °F)
CPU 36 °C (97 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 36 °C (97 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 36 °C (97 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #3 32 °C (90 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #4 33 °C (91 °F)
GPU 60 °C (140 °F)
GPU Memory 52 °C (126 °F)
GPU Ambient 49 °C (120 °F)
GPU VRM 55 °C (131 °F)

Voltage Values
CPU Core 1.25 V
+3.3 V 3.28 V
+5 V 5.09 V
+12 V 12.10 V
+5 V Standby 4.97 V
GPU Vcc 3.31 V
GPU VRM 1.13 V

[Terbinator]

Definitely lower it.

Q6600 should be able to reach 3.2-3.4GHz no problem. They can go higher but unless you have decent cooling your risking a small fire starting inside your case.

Having all 4 DIMM's populated would usually require you to up the NB/MCH voltage up so if you find your not getting stable no matter how much you up the Vcore notch some up on the NB/MCH.

[IronWarrior]

Well I lowered it to 1.2 and it blue screened, rebooted and noticed that my USB hubs wasn't working, my sound card wasn't detected and my second sound card (usb) wasn't being powered.

I changed it back to 1.3.5 and everything seems fine again, rebooted it again and dropped it 1.3, seems to be happy again.

I keep messing around till it doesn't give me any odd problems.

[Terbinator]

Yep, thats the way to do it. Just drop it by one option each time, so say from 1.35 too 1.34.

[IronWarrior]

Well been playing L4D for about 4 hours, I'm now worn out!

But the PC is happy, no problems.