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My sad E6600

B

Budzman

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 9, 2001
Messages
1,035
So after a few days of trying to get a decent overclock out of my E6600 i've just come to the conclusion that I just got a crappy one out of the batch, It tops out at 2.9ghz (stable) lol.

The reason I know it's the cpu holding me back and not my 680i is from a few signs like the fact that I need to bump the voltage up to atleast 1.5v to get it to POST at 3.0ghz anything lower and it wont even POST and higher voltages to POST at like 3.2, 3.3ghz.

If I set the voltage to around 1.55v even at like 3.4 or 3.3ghz it will run fine for a couple hours but I always end up getting a BSOD after a while. My temps are pretty decent even at those high voltages since my room temp is pretty low and i'm using a Zalman 9500 with excellent case airflow.

So I ask, would a new bios give my cpu new life or should just ditch the E6600 and get a E6400? The current bios for the evga 680i board is rather buggy and maybe thats the reason the chip wont o/c good?

I don't really mind having to get another cpu since it is all about being lucky and getting a good overclocking chip but if a newer bios will save me then that would own.

BTW its a L631A454 chip.
 
That is an A stepping. The newer ones are the B stepping. Might want to get that 6400 and hope it is a B stepping
 
I'm almost positive that this can't be the chip. A or B steppings don't make a difference until over 3.4Ghz, where I'm overclocked to. I'm also almost positive this is the flaky 680i bios on those Evga mobos. But I've never seen a 6600 clock under 3Ghz unless it was held back by the board or other reason. Honestly.
 
Yea I just don't get this thing now. I relaxed all my settings to 2.8ghz CPU, 800mhz ram, 1244 FSB and it just crashed on me when I was just listening to MP3's.

Im getting very close to just returning this board. There are few other minor bugs with this board and really looks to me that they never spent enough time quality testing these boards before releasing them to the public, /sigh.
 
I also dont think its the chip. I played with more than 3 E6600 chips on Intel mobos and all easily posted @ 400FSB with 1.5V . Two were stable @ that speed and 1 was stable @ 360FSB with 1.4875V which was an A stepping.

Seeing that there is still a lot of problems with the 680i boards I would say its the board.
 
I have that same chip. L631A454. CPU-Z reports it as a B2 6.
Currently it's topping out around 3.3--1.45volts. Each slight increase requires much more voltage. I guess this week is under performing. Core 0 is the crapper. (dual Prime95)
Also--My eVGA 680i's fsb is topping at 395. That just plain sucks. I ruled everything else out--memory, voltages, spread spectrum, linkboost...--but it refuses to boot from 396 on through 470-ish. The boot screen is messed when booting at 395X8 -ish. It reports 443X8 3.55Ghz! Ntune will report the same values too. CPU-Z accurately reports my bios setting though. ??
In conclusion: :) This board is messed up. I'm thinking RMA. Maybe you should too.
 
The eVGA 680i is not nearly as mature or stable as the Intel 965 or 975 chipset.

Don't blame your E6600. It would have no trouble getting over 3300 MHz on a good board with some decent memory even at stock voltage.

nVidia has a great reputation of making some great stuff but it's usually not until the second or third generation before they get all the bugs worked out.
 
same chip, gettin 3.6 @ 1.438v orthos overnight stable.... same board 2. hrm.....
 
I'm RMA'ing the board. I got sick of the crashes trying to overclock even slightly and it still crashed on me with stock ram and cpu speeds.

Ya I got pretty decent PSU, 600w Antec.
 
moshpit said:
But I've never seen a 6600 clock under 3Ghz unless it was held back by the board or other reason. Honestly.
Click to expand...

My e6600 only does 3Ghz stable @ 1.375v. If I pump 1.5v+ I can get it to almost 3.1Ghz, but its not worth the extra heat for like 80Mhz.

And it not anything else holding it back. I can run the ram up to 1Ghz,
I can run the FSB up to 473Mhz with 6x multiplier or
7x430, 8x375, 9 x 334

Anyway! Face it there are some duds out there! :(

There's a reason Intel made the X6800's clock 2.93Ghz, not 3Ghz.
(so they could get good yields)
 
I agree that its all about getting lucky and getting a good overclocking cpu. However I have never seen a system where crashing is caused by the cpu at stock speeds unless there are problems with the cpu cooling or psu, in my system there is more than ample cooling and the power supply has worked with no problems for over a year and voltages are not spiking. My system is crashing at stock speeds on a regular basis. It's possible the ram is bad but it honestly doesnt look that way to me.

My best guess in my case is that the problem lies with the motherboard. There are plenty of threads on the evga forums about various problems with the board.

Lemme ask this question, what are the chances that the CPU is actually bad?

I've honestly never seen or had a defective CPU. I dunno, this thing is just starting to piss me off. I just ordered a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 to replace the 680i.

Stability > 100 points in 3dmark
 
Budzman said:
I agree that its all about getting lucky and getting a good overclocking cpu. However I have never seen a system where crashing is caused by the cpu at stock speeds unless there are problems with the cpu cooling or psu, in my system there is more than ample cooling and the power supply has worked with no problems for over a year and voltages are not spiking. My system is crashing at stock speeds on a regular basis. It's possible the ram is bad but it honestly doesnt look that way to me.

My best guess in my case is that the problem lies with the motherboard. There are plenty of threads on the evga forums about various problems with the board.

Lemme ask this question, what are the chances that the CPU is actually bad?

I've honestly never seen or had a defective CPU. I dunno, this thing is just starting to piss me off. I just ordered a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 to replace the 680i.

Stability > 100 points in 3dmark
Click to expand...

Maybe I am biased because I have an eVGA board, but my system is perfectly stable at 3.9ghz (water cooled of cause). The 680i is a stable board as far as I am concern. There were problem with sound issue, and SLI issue, but I believe they have a beta bios that reportedly fixed these problems. I guess you've gotten a bad 680i, cause you said your e6600 works on the DS3.
 
Budzman said:
So after a few days of trying to get a decent overclock out of my E6600 i've just come to the conclusion that I just got a crappy one out of the batch, It tops out at 2.9ghz (stable) lol.

The reason I know it's the cpu holding me back and not my 680i is from a few signs like the fact that I need to bump the voltage up to atleast 1.5v to get it to POST at 3.0ghz anything lower and it wont even POST and higher voltages to POST at like 3.2, 3.3ghz.

If I set the voltage to around 1.55v even at like 3.4 or 3.3ghz it will run fine for a couple hours but I always end up getting a BSOD after a while. My temps are pretty decent even at those high voltages since my room temp is pretty low and i'm using a Zalman 9500 with excellent case airflow.

So I ask, would a new bios give my cpu new life or should just ditch the E6600 and get a E6400? The current bios for the evga 680i board is rather buggy and maybe thats the reason the chip wont o/c good?

I don't really mind having to get another cpu since it is all about being lucky and getting a good overclocking chip but if a newer bios will save me then that would own.

BTW its a L631A454 chip.
Click to expand...

I had that issue... I set my ram frequency to 667, and I got up to 3.51 stable so far. I'm not going any higher.. I actually run at 3.36 for everyday use. :D
 
I wouldn't be so fast to say its the boards fault. My e6400 only hits about 2.6 on stock voltage. To hit 3.2 I have to get it to 1.575 in the bios. My bet is on the chip.
 
Not stable at stock speed? Than that's not the cpu problem.
U mentioned having problem playing music, try not to use SLI with the onboard sound enabled.
 
I should have the Gigabyte board on Tuesday, guess you could say that will be judgement day... heh.

Yea its not stable at stock speeds I even dropped the ram speed all the way down to 667. It will run for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours before it either locks up or BSOD's and it doesn't matter what i'm doing with the computer. I could leave it on doing nothing and it would crash in about 2 hours.
 
spend less money and get the ASUS P5N32-E SLI......680i chipset but made by ASUS.

Boards should be in stock this week. Newegg had them in stock for about 10 minutes Friday, I almost had one......anyway, I trust that ASUS will give me a rock solid board. :D
 
Budzman said:
I'm RMA'ing the board. I got sick of the crashes trying to overclock even slightly and it still crashed on me with stock ram and cpu speeds.

Ya I got pretty decent PSU, 600w Antec.
Click to expand...

Why are you rma'iong? Overclocking = voided warranty. Who knows if you damaged by trying to overclock it "slightly" ?
 
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