E6600 unstable

N

ncseng

n00b
Joined
Jan 2, 2007
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19
System specs:

E6600
GA-965P-DS3
4GB Corsair 6400-C4 RAM (four 1GB sticks)
Scythe Ninja Rev. B
NVidia Quadro FX 3500
150GB WD Raptor
160GB WD1600JS
Sony CRX320E DVD/CD-RW
Lite-On LH-20A1H DVD-RW
Antec Sonata II w/ SmartPower 2.0 450W supply

I have been messing around with overclocks trying to see what I could get out of this rig, and was running at 3.2GHz (400x8) until this morning at 1.300 vcore, +3V DIMM (to get the 4-4-4-12 timings of the Corsair memory), +1V FSB, +1V MCH, PCI freq. 100. Disabled limit cpuid, C1E, TM2, EIST, Virtualization, and CIA2. Using native SATA mode, AHCI for SATA-2.

I ran Orthos blend for 10.4 hours over the weekend with no errors. The longer I ran with those settings though, I'd get random reboots or lockups in WinXP and the PC would reboot with stock fsb. The last time I was in BIOS I noticed the VDIMM18 voltage said "Fail" next to it. I tried raising VDIMM +4V, FSB +3V and MCH +3V and vcore to 1.325 and still had problems upon WinXP startup. I am currently back at stock speeds and settings. Could the 450W power supply be too small for this overclock? What else can I do to make system stable at that OC?
 
Turn the MCH and FSB to auto as they are more stable when the BIOS ups the voltage automatically. Also, either try your timings on auto or set them to 5-5-5-18 or something to that effect. The timings really dont matter much with these chips and should make your system rock stable.

Let me know how that works out for you, I have almost the same system but with a 6400 and it seems to have worked for me, but with a little more voltage.
 
Thanks for the quick reply! Nope didn't work for me -- The weird thing is I can't even get WinXP to boot using the original settings that worked for me before at 400 fsb. What motherboard are you using? I don't see how to manually set Vcore without having to manually adjust MCH and FSB overvoltage. I can either set all system voltages to auto or I can change manually and leave them at "normal" or +1, +2 or +3 (mch and fsb). Maybe I should try Vcore higher? Any other ideas?
 
Yea, I had similar problems when I lowered my multiplier to 8... It might be memory errors. Not sure, but at 8x400 it passed Orthos for 6 hours without fail but would sometimes not boot up and have random restarts. Decided to up the multi back to 9 and haven't had any issues since (it's at 3.4 right now).

-Juce
 
Well I bumped vcore up to 1.35V but my idle temps are around 45C so that's not so great. Running TAT for just a minute raises my load temps near 70C. I left the other voltages set at "normal." One weird thing -- TAT reports max frequency at 3600 MHz even though it shows current at 3200 MHz, and Control Panel\System shows 3.6GHz as current speed. CPU-Z shows 3200 MHz correctly with 1600 fsb. Do TAT and the WinXP system information update the multiplier setting? I did have it clocked that high briefly to check idle temperatures and see if it was worth trying to run it that fast on my current air cooling setup. I removed the Ninja once already to reapply AS5, might lap it if I have to take it off again to make sure it is flat.
 
I'm going to bump the fsb up to 410 and see if that improves stability. I've read a few overclocking reviews for this board that mention instability from 3xx to 400 MHz. Will update with results tomorrow.
 
Nada. Seems like I can boost everything and boot into Windows just fine, albeit with high idle temps, then I'll shut it down for a while and when I come back and turn it on it won't post, then it reboots with stock fsb and pci frequency. I notice a lot of you have higher wattage power supplies -- could 450 watts be holding me back for some reason? I ran the psu calculator based on overclocking and it was close depending on what parameters I chose. I did notice vcore fluctuating in CPU-Z -- usually between 1.216 and 1.232 idle and it seemed like as long as it didn't drop below 1.216 under load Orthos would run fine.
 
I decided to go ahead and order an Ultra XVS 700W power supply since I have a feeling that is what is holding this system back. Will repost with results if it works.
 
Sounds more like a memory issue to me not power supply at all. Maybe you got a pair of those defective Corsair 6400C4 sticks like I did from newegg. I already had to RMA one pair it arrives back at newegg tomorrow.

Set them to factory rated speed, timings and voltage and run memtest-86 like I did. The memory got a ton of errors. Same system with a different set of memory -- no errors. You should try removing 1 pair of memory and memtest the remaining pair, then switch pairs and retest. Can't say for sure unless you test it. Your system should not require more than a 450W supply I would think. It would be a shame to get the Ultra power supply then discover bad memory sticks -- not concluding its the memory or not the memory only I think you have good cause to test the memory. On the other hand the Ultra is a good power supply so if you do get one it is a good move in the long run.
 
I ran Memtest86+ for 9 hours overnight and no errors were found. This is at stock fsb and voltages, with +3V necessary on the DS3 mobo to run the memory at 4-4-4-12 timings manually - it is the C4 memory which requires 2.1V. The stock voltage on the motherboard is 1.8V and if left alone it runs the memory at 5-5-5-18 timings.

Should I be running Memtest86+ with overclocked fsb? I would think that if the memory was bad it would fail under normal (stock) settings.
 
It's possible that your memory won't overclock as far as you are shooting for. yes you should run memtest while the memory is overclocked to see if it will run as fast as you want it to. you will get errors if you try to push the ram too far.
 
Well, new power supply didn't solve the problem, but new bios did. I had been running F9 and just updated to F10 and am running 400x8 right now with 4-4-4-12 mem timings. I also lapped my Ninja Rev.B heatsink and reinstalled it with screws and springs instead of the intel push-pins and my temps have dropped considerably. After AS5 has cured I'll try to push the fsb higher. I have VDimm +3V manually and everything else set to auto for voltages, and it seems that the mobo is running Vcore at 1.32V.
 
What RAM are you using? I was able to OC mine stable to 890 using the 356x9 and 2.5 multiplier with the 4-4-4-12 manual settings with the new bios. What should the other RAM settings be in BIOS? I left all the others alone. I'm using the Corsair 6400-C4 memory though. Sandra benchmarks are a little higher at 400x8 than 356x9.
 
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