Help me overclock my comp!

C

Chunkylover21

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 8, 2006
Messages
92
Hey guys I have ag reat system and want to push it to the limits. Help me overclock this baby and see what shes got.

C2D X6800 Extreme Ed.
4gb Corsair XMS PC6400 (4 x 1gb)
eVGA 8800 Ultra
700W OCZ PSU
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

I have a Danger Den liquid cooling setup on my CPU but just a stock heatsink on my 8800.

Ive OCed my CPU to about 3.5 Ghz before with my older mobo. An ASUS P5W DH Deluxe which made it super easy by just upping the FSB. I just got the new Gigabyte board and am a little confused about the whole thing. When I up the FSB on it, I think it gives me readouts of each core. But am I wrong?

Heres what Ive done so far. My clock says its at like 2107MHz but it fluctuates on its own.

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/2817/20566555ll3.jpg

Another thing which puzzles me is that on my other motherboard my CPU was said to be idling around 22 degree C. Now with the new setup its at like ~44 at idle. Why would the temps be so different?

Please help me to OC my CPU and RAM. Ive never messed with the voltages of the CPU, and have never tried OCing RAM. But I would really like to try it all with your help. The GPU I can handle myself.

Thanks in advance guys.
 
your CPU idling at 22C is wrong. It must have been reading an ambient temp diode since, thats probibly your ambient temp. Without some kind of artificial heat removal system, such as refrigeration, pelter, or phase, you cannot achieve temps lower then your ambient room temperature.

First off, what are the specifics of your liquid cooling setup? I ask because 44C idling is what my 1.5V E6300 does on the Thermalright Ultra 120. You didnt forget to apply a TIM did you? generally speaking 1.5V is the highest voltage that everyone would consider safe for 24/7/52 operation. But if your on a below-par watercooling system, this might mean you reach heats of 70 or 80C.

Also, your going to have to ask around as to what the maximum NB voltage people recomend for that motherboard is, as I simply dont know.

But I wouldn't worry about damaging the Voltage regulators. The 12-phase all-solid-cap Vreg implimented by Giga-byte is good news for overclockers (and general consumers are mobos with popped caps are a common occurance).

Anyways I'm betting, granted a little luck, we'll be able to get that sucker to 4Ghz and beyond.

First off no more easy tune overclocking, use BIOS. Easy tune gets information from C-mos which it often interprets incorrectly. Trying to change clock speeds in windows is never a very good idea, especially if it's low-budget software (such as easy tune).

Now I don't know my way around your boards specific bios so I can't help you specifically but I'll give you the general speech. I'm also assuming Giga-byte has implemented a sophisticated failed-post-recovery system, as, overclocking on a system where you have to plop the c-most jumper in and out each time you fail post, is not fun, at all.

The first thing I suggest you do is lock the memory:FSB ratio at 1:1. This ratio comes in various forms but usually includes the words "FSB" "Ratio" and "memory" in the same phrase. Its options might be things like 1:1, 3:2, and 2:1, or it might be things like 1:1, 1.5:1, 2:1 or it might just be whole numbers like 1.00, 1.5, or 2.00. Or some bios automatically calculate the resultant speed for you in which case it will be 266 or 533Mhz. The option you want is 1.00 or 1:1, or 266 or 533 :p. This will, initially, cause your DDR2 800 to run at DDR2 533 speeds which it will have no trouble with.

next raise the FSB in 40Mhz increments until the board fails to post. When it does fail to post, go two increments down (ie failed FSB post speed - 80MHz) and increase in 10Mhz, each time letting the system fully boot. When the system fails to boot, write down the last good boot speed, and the CPU multiplier (in this case 11).

After that, reset bios to default settings, set ram at 1:1 again, increase the CPU multiplier to 12, and repeat the last paragraphs instructions.

Each time write down the maximum boot FSB speed and the multiplier, then load defaults in bios, increase the CPU multiplier and continue. I would do this until your CPU multiplier is 20.

you should end up with a couple of speeds that, hopefully, yeild 4Ghz or more :D test those speeds to find the maximum stable OC by lowering it a bit, running orthos for 10 mins, then, if it passes, upping the FSB by 1 or 2 Mhz, and, if it fails, decreasing the FSB by 1 or 2, until you have the max stable OC at that multiplier.

We know the P35 chipset is good for FSB speeds of up to 600Mhz SDR (or 2400MHz QDR) in some cases. We also know that, even the early revision X6800s, are good for 4GHz. Of course its possible to get a bum chipset or a bum processor or both, in which case you might just be screwed.
 
GigabyteP35Bioscopy.jpg


1. This is your base (SDR) FSB speed. The actual (QDR) speed is 4X that speed, as its actually running four busses at the base speed. Your final CPU speed is this number (times) the CPU multiplier [2] which is currently set at 11.

2. The CPU multiplier: Another way to over clock a CPU but accessible to few of us as only the Core 2 Extremes allow you to change the CPU multiplier (without pin-mods).

3. The PCI-E reference clock. Set to 100Mhz. Changing these speeds isn't as technical as many think but you can damage hardware that isn't willing to accept a PCI-E bus higher then 100Mhz base freq. The last and current gen Geforce cards from Nvidia will accept 125Mhz base FSB speed as specified in "Link boost" (which was removed as a feature since the extra pci-e bandwidth didn't do anyone a lick of good).

4. The memory ratio, and memory speed. This bios tells you the DDR memory speed in relation to the SDR FSB speed. so 2.00 is 1:1. (unless theres a lower option in which case your currently running you ram at DDR2 1066 :cool:)

5. Memory Voltage control. I suggest you set this to +0.2V aka 2.00V.

6&7. These determine the voltage of the Northbridge, a chip which is going to be under as much stress (if not more) then the CPU itself. Increase voltages here can severely help your overclock. I don't know my way around this mobo or even P35 too well so you'd best do some research (Google up this mobos reviews and find a couple that are overclocker-centric and see what they set them too).

your CPU voltage control looks good.
 
Ok Im having problems.

Whenever he voltage is 1.4 or more the system crashes. It just turns off, flat out. And Ive had to wait for 10+ min for it to (im assuming) cool down enough to turn back on. Otherwise it would turn on for a max of 4-7 seconds and then off again. So i would wait like 15 miin so i would have enough time to get into bios, quick change to fail safe settings, and save it to the CMOS.

And I dont know what the fuck is causing it but the multiplier keeps changing on its own and its pissing me off. It keeps going to 6x. Am I supposed to have Performance Mode at Standard, Turbo, or Extreme? Default is turbo, but when its in standard it changed the muliplier down. Maybe turbo will keep it at 11x?

Also when I change the FSB value the RAM value changes with it. Proportionally it would seem.

And with my CPU voltage at 1.35 my idle temp on it is 60, havent even put it on load yet.
 
In the Advanced BIOS settings, make sure SpeedStep and C1E are both Disabled. I have this board and couldn't get past 2.4ghz until I disabled those two features.
 
OK I disabled C1E but there is nothing actually called speedstep. Is it under another name? Because its still running at 6x.
 
it is EIST (Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology)

Under Advanced Bios Features.

CPU EIST Function__________ [Disabled]


I see I did not indicate what EIST stood for and did not really explain it, my bad. but I did have a lot of ground to cover.

Under light loads the cpu will reduce the voltage and the mulitplier to run the cpu cooler and use less energy. Typically disabled when overclocking testing to avoid the mulitplier jumping around and causing confusion. Once you max OC is set up, it is probally a good idea to turn it back on, when gaming or doing anything that takes much CPU horsepower it gets out of the way and will not impact performance other than a little memory use.

Whenever he voltage is 1.4 or more the system crashes. It just turns off, flat out. And Ive had to wait for 10+ min for it to (im assuming) cool down enough to turn back on. Otherwise it would turn on for a max of 4-7 seconds and then off again
Click to expand...

ok, wow, that really really concerns me. I have read every gigabyte post made in these forums (and most others concerning hardware) and I have not seen that except maybe two times something like that was going on when the stock intel heatsink/fan was not "popped" all the way in and tight onto the cpu. Please triple check that the cpu waterblock is fully seated onto the processor, use a mirror and flashlight if you have too. check that something, a capacitor or some other component is not under the edge of the waterblock and keeping it from sitting flat. That is only my best guess, but if this is still happening, or happens at stock settings, something, dont quite know what, but something is really really wrong and needs to be fixed.
 
I will check when I get back but I am almost positive that the block is on the cpu all the way. Do you think its heat which is causing it? Im not positive that was just my guess. If the voltage or clock is simply too high the system just shuts off and i have to wait a few min and power off the psu for it to give me enough time to get back into BIOS to fix the issue.
 
I honeslty do not know what is causing it but I suspect heat because you said you have to let it sit for a while before it will start back up. But like I mentioned, since I bought my P965-DQ6 when they first came out over a year ago and became active again on these forums I have read every post that even mentions Gigabyte and your problem is not common at all. Something very strange that I do not understand is going on and that concerns me as I am very used to all the small common 'oops' we all make from time to time and this does not fit any of them. It probally is a small thing but I really do not like that "have to let it sit for a while". I do no think anything is damaged or defective, but there sure as heck something not right.
 
I see in your screenshot that you're using memory Option 1. I personally found that Option 2 would allow for higher clocks. I have no clue what the difference is though, wouldn't mind finding out.
 
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