Hitting a ceiling for Q6600 OC?

Y

yangp1127

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Messages
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Guys, i've followed the OC guide and got my Q6600 stable at 3.2ghz (356x9)...however, anything higher (367x9 or 3.4 3.5+ghz), no matter how much vcore i give it, windows vista just BSODs sometimes during prime95 runs, after booting into vista or right as vista loads...my memory is kept at 5-5-5-15 relaxed....and when i give it more juice ( as high as 1.45, for 3.3 or 3.4 ghz), the idle temp is around 48...too low for temp to be the cause of BSOD right ?..... does this mean my quad is just not so good at OC ?

thanks for the input...
 
There are many factors which could lead to ceilings. Here are a few questions to help you determine possible causes:

1. Is your Q6600 from the G0 / SLACR stepping? If so, what is the batch date, and what is the VID?

2. What motherboard are you using?

3. What RAM are you using?

4. What are the voltages to your other components set to?

Mark.
 
Markyip1 said:
There are many factors which could lead to ceilings. Here are a few questions to help you determine possible causes:

1. Is your Q6600 from the G0 / SLACR stepping? If so, what is the batch date, and what is the VID? its G0...VID is 1.20....at work atm duno the date..

2. What motherboard are you using?
i have a Gigabyte P35-DS3L

3. What RAM are you using?
i have the 4 gigs of (4x1gig) of Gskill DDR2-800 cas 5 ram...

4. What are the voltages to your other components set to?

running at 356x9, the core is stable at 1.35...after that any higher it still wont OC stably,...the ram is set to +0.2V which is 2V, which is the max for the ram (1.8-2.0) for the MCH, on the DS3L i set it to +0.1....that and everything else except the MCH (+0.1V) stays pretty much at auto......

Mark.
Click to expand...

thanks for the help!
 
Hmm... it looks like you have everything set for a great OC: a G0 chip with a low VID, a P35 motherboard, good RAM.. Unfortunately I don't have much OC experience with P35 boards, so I can't be of much help as to how to set the other voltages, but I do believe that they may be related to your issue.

If you haven't yet, search around the .net for postings which detail OC experiences with your particular board. Try to determine what the common settings are for FSB, MCR, ICH, etc. On my 680i motherboard, for example, I found that when my FSB voltage was set to 1.4 or 1.5, I would need almost 1.55 vCore on my Q6600 G0 to get it to boot into Windows at 400x9 (3.6ghz.) However, by lowering the FSB voltage to 1.2v, I could get the chip to boot at 1.4v. My advice is to at least try playing around with other voltages until you determine that your chip is an OC dud (which could be the case, despite the low VID.)

Also, what heat sink are you using, and what is your temp at load? 48c idle at 3.2ghz may actually be high if you are using a top-of-the-line cooler like the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme. Your OC issues could be caused by heat.

Mark
 
If you're talking about lapping a Thermalright 120 Extreme, you may want to hold off and just play around with other voltages first. I do believe Thermalright intentionally produces their heat sink mounts with a Convex (or is it Concave? I can never remember) shape as many LGA 775 heat spreaders are Concave (or Convex... well the opposite of what most TRUEs are.)

If you do decide to lap the heat sink, I would first determine if the IHS is truly flat or not. I don't believe a simple razorblade test will tell you whether the convexity and/or concavity lies with the IHS, heat sink, or both. I did see a post recently on HardOCP and XtremeSystems where someone did a variety of tests to see if the IHS needed lapping. If it does, be sure to lap the IHS in addition to the TRUE... otherwise you may not get the reduction in temperatures you are looking for.

Mark.
 
One other thing... have you tried to test for stability at 400x8 (for 3.2ghz?)

Mark.
 
i have lapped both the ihs as well as the u120...dropped like 6 degree off the hottest cores under prime95, from 67 to like 61-62..... havnt really tried 400x8... maybe i should ? its the same speed tho... thanks for the inputs !
 
for some reason my cpu didn tlike the 9 multi, im at 3.6 450x8 and it runs fine.. vcore 1.3 nb 1.450
 
wats a VID? (coretemp reading)
Click to expand...

The VID is a number (unique to each processor) which represents the voltage used to run at stock settings. If you haven't tweaked your BIOS settings for an overclock, you'll likely find that all of your voltages are set to auto. In this case, and assuming the processor is running at stock speed, the voltage supplied to the CPU by the motherboard will match the VID.

Processors with a lower VID tend tend to reach a given overclock speed at lower voltage than processors with a higher VID. Note that if a chip has a high VID, it does not mean that it will be a bad overclocker. However, chips with low VIDs generally overclock well.

To the OP: I see you are running RAM at 2.0 volts. What is the recommended voltage rating for your RAM? You may try setting your RAM voltage at 2.1 to see if that helps things.

Mark.
 
recommended is 1.8 to 2.0... on DS3L i used the +0.2V setting which is 2.0V...

Markyip1 said:
The VID is a number (unique to each processor) which represents the voltage used to run at stock settings. If you haven't tweaked your BIOS settings for an overclock, you'll likely find that all of your voltages are set to auto. In this case, and assuming the processor is running at stock speed, the voltage supplied to the CPU by the motherboard will match the VID.

Processors with a lower VID tend tend to reach a given overclock speed at lower voltage than processors with a higher VID. Note that if a chip has a high VID, it does not mean that it will be a bad overclocker. However, chips with low VIDs generally overclock well.

To the OP: I see you are running RAM at 2.0 volts. What is the recommended voltage rating for your RAM? You may try setting your RAM voltage at 2.1 to see if that helps things.

Mark.
Click to expand...
 
Markyip1 said:
If you're talking about lapping a Thermalright 120 Extreme, you may want to hold off and just play around with other voltages first. I do believe Thermalright intentionally produces their heat sink mounts with a Convex (or is it Concave? I can never remember) shape as many LGA 775 heat spreaders are Concave (or Convex... well the opposite of what most TRUEs are.)

If you do decide to lap the heat sink, I would first determine if the IHS is truly flat or not. I don't believe a simple razorblade test will tell you whether the convexity and/or concavity lies with the IHS, heat sink, or both. I did see a post recently on HardOCP and XtremeSystems where someone did a variety of tests to see if the IHS needed lapping. If it does, be sure to lap the IHS in addition to the TRUE... otherwise you may not get the reduction in temperatures you are looking for.

Mark.
Click to expand...

I have the Ultra 120 Extreme. Mine however is flat. I have heard and seen pictures of the convex shape but I examine mine when i got it, flat.
 
VID isn't always telling of a good CPU, mine's 1.275 for a VID, under AUTO it gets 1.375, and to hit 3.6 it needs 1.42V...
 
yangp1127 said:
recommended is 1.8 to 2.0... on DS3L i used the +0.2V setting which is 2.0V...
Click to expand...

You might want to try 2.1 to see if it helps. No guarantees though. Before doing this however, I would search the web to see if anyone else runs your RAM beyond 2.0v. If you see a lot of people doing it with a similar motherboard, it may be worth a try. Otherwise, it may not pay to do this -- RAM fries easily, especially with certain motherboards.

Btw, what are you temperatures at stock settings, both idle and load? Also, what is the temperature in your room (ambient.) You may very well just have a bad chip, but the 48 idle you reported earlier seemed a bit high. If you can get temps down a bit, you may find that you have more OC headroom.

Mark.
 
idels ranges from 48 to 40, load 61 to 56...under prime95....which isnt THAT bad, when its underload.... its just the q6600 giving me BSOD when i try to go above 3.2+ ghz.... :/
 
I had the same problems with my G0. Couldn't get much past 3.2Ghz stable. I read on another forum (evga's maybe?) to try and drop the multiplier to 8 and raise the fsb. Doing exactly that got me to 3.6Ghz at 1.44v where using the 9x multiplier I couldn't hit 3.4 stable no matter what voltage I used.

all good suggestions in the thread tho, but don't give up hope. Mine boots at 3.8Ghz at 1.465v but the temps aren't very pretty under load (gotta get water!)
 
nst6563 said:
I had the same problems with my G0. Couldn't get much past 3.2Ghz stable. I read on another forum (evga's maybe?) to try and drop the multiplier to 8 and raise the fsb. Doing exactly that got me to 3.6Ghz at 1.44v where using the 9x multiplier I couldn't hit 3.4 stable no matter what voltage I used.

all good suggestions in the thread tho, but don't give up hope. Mine boots at 3.8Ghz at 1.465v but the temps aren't very pretty under load (gotta get water!)
Click to expand...

on the DS3L, even with 8x multiplier, if i go up past 3.2gig, it just locks up/ crashes etc, even w/ more juice ...maybe mine G0 is just not a great OC'er :/
 
mid 40s on idle, and 60c on load at stock does seem quite high for a lapped Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and IHS. I would say it is pretty bad. Assuming you are in a room with a 20-22c ambient temperature (around 70F,) your CPU if properly mounted can easily be around 20c cooler for both idle and load. Even on my broken Tuniq Tower, my Q6600 idle in the mid 20s to low 30s at stock, and that's with a higher stock VID of 1.275.

I would check your heat sink mount before you conclude that your chip is a bad OCer. What thermal paste did you use, and how did you apply it? Lastly, in some cases a lapping can go bad, resulting in raised temperatures. If a reseat doesn't help temps, try running at stock with the stock cooler. If temps aren't much higher, then your heat sink, and not the cpu, may be at fault.

Mark.
 
Markyip1 said:
mid 40s on idle, and 60c on load at stock does seem quite high for a lapped Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and IHS. I would say it is pretty bad. Assuming you are in a room with a 20-22c ambient temperature (around 70F,) your CPU if properly mounted can easily be around 20c cooler for both idle and load. Even on my broken Tuniq Tower, my Q6600 idle in the mid 20s to low 30s at stock, and that's with a higher stock VID of 1.275.

I would check your heat sink mount before you conclude that your chip is a bad OCer. What thermal paste did you use, and how did you apply it? Lastly, in some cases a lapping can go bad, resulting in raised temperatures. If a reseat doesn't help temps, try running at stock with the stock cooler. If temps aren't much higher, then your heat sink, and not the cpu, may be at fault.

Mark.
Click to expand...

Oh the temp above is at 1.35V, 356x9 = 3.2ghz , not on stock speed tho,,, but i guess its still high ? i used STG1, just brushed a thin layer on the CPU and put on the U120..... but it rotates alot after being put on....thinking about checking the lapping on both IHS and CPU to confirm they are flat again, and sticking in a washer, coz mine didnt come with a washer...
 
I had the same problem when trying the 9x multi, no matter what voltage it was not stable..
8x450 = 3.6 stable 1.3 volts, i could even go lower... im getting low 30's mid 40's underload..

Also try bumping up the NBchipset and SB, chipset may be whats the problem...

i run NB on p35 mobo at 1.450
SB 1.400

if you think the ram is the problem drop the ratio on it, if its 1066 ram run it at normal voltage but at 800, eliminate that possibility.. also check your voltage on your psu...if you see the 12volt lower or the 5, 3... u may have a bad psu, puking....
 
hmm...i thought about it and tried it too...but i got the Gskill 800 ram.....so if i OC it using 8x multiplier, with the system memory multiplier at 2.0, i'm still going to be running the ram at higher speed than its rated for....and it didnt work, even tho when running it at 854 did with the 356x9....... i mean i could run the PC at 9x356 with 2.4 ram multiplier for 854 ram....however, when i tried 8x425, runnin the ram at 2.0 multiplier for 850, it just BSODs in window....even with the more juice to the ram....so i dont think its the ram holding me back.... on my DS3L , i have the option to overvoltage PCI-E, FSB, MCH also....i gave +0.2V to both FSB and MCH ( DS3L bio ranges of adding +0.1 to +0.3V) , when i do +0.2V to both FSB and MCH, with 8x425 for 3.4 gig, if i give it more Vcore ( 1.425) it boots into window, however, the system just freezes when Prim95 is run, no BSOD but just freezes....i have the sonata III, with the built in 500W PSU , they said its decent...
 
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