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Q6600 Overclock to 3.2

S

ssg10587

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 3, 2008
Messages
245
My problem is that I am not able to get my Q6600 up to 3.2. I can 3.0 stable but I am looking to go that little more to 3.2. My memory is:
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory
Gigabyte EP43 DS3L motherboard

I followed the overclock guide on this site at http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1169366, it helped but following it I was not able to get the 3.2.

These are my bios settings:
CPU Hyper-Threading________ [Disabled]
Limit CPUID Max. to 3______ [Disabled]
No-Execute Memory Protect__ [Disabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)____ [Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2)_ [Enable]
CPU EIST Function__________ [Disabled]
Virtualization Technology__ [Disabled]
Full Screen LOGO Show______ [Disabled]
Init Display First_________ [PEG]
SATA AHCI Mode__________ [AHCI] I dont know about here whether to use AHCI, I enabled it and my mobo made this constant beeping. I have xp sp3 so though I needed it.
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode [Enabled]Same here, have it disabled, dont know if i need it
USB Controller__________ [Enabled]
USB 2.0 Controller______ [Enabled]
Azalia Codec____________ [Auto]
Onboard H/W LAN_________ [Enabled]
SMART LAN_______________ [Press Enter]
Onboard LAN Boot ROM____ [Disabled]
Onboard SATA/IDE Device_ [Enabled]
Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode [IDE]
Parallel Port Mode______ [SPP]
Robust Graphics Booster___________ [Auto]
CPU Clock Ratio (Note)____________ [8]
CPU Host Clock Control_ [Enabled]
CPU Host Frequency (MHz)__________ [375] <<<----FSB Speed (Front Side Buss)
PCI Express Frequency (Mhz)_______ [102]
C.I.A. 2__________________________ [Disabled]
System Memory Multiplier (SPD)____ [2.00D]
CAS Latency Time_____________ 5
Dram RAS# to CAS# Delay______ 5
Dram RAS# Precharge Delay_____5
Precharge Delay (tRAS)________15
My VCORE is at 1.35
Rest of the voltage setup is stock. There was no northbridge voltage to change so had no clue what to do there.

On the Guide there was this:
ACT to ACT Delay (tRRD)_______4 _____[auto]
Rank Write to READ Delay______3 _____[auto]
Write to Precharge Delay______6 _____[auto]
Refresh to ACT Delay________42 ______[0]
Read to Precharge Delay_______4 _____[auto]
Memory Performance Enhance__________ [Normal]
High Speed DRAM DLL Settings________ [Option 1]

******** System Voltage NOT Optimized ******** <<---IGNORE This.
System Voltage Control____ [Manual]
DDR2 OverVoltage Control__ [+0.300V] <-- default is 1.8V, 1.8 + 0.3V = 2.1V set this to add up to your ram's voltage requirement.
PCI-E OverVoltage Control_ [+0.1V] <--- a little extra for stability
FSB OverVoltage Control___ [+0.1V] <--- a little extra for stability
(G)MCH OverVoltage Control [+0.1V] <--- a little extra for stability
CPU Voltage Control_______ [Per chart below] <--- very mild overvoltage so we can start playing soon SEE WARNING BELOW !

I didnt see any of this on my bios and was a little worried

Ive googled for help, looked all over this forum as well, couldnt find anything useful. Any help ould be appreciated. Thanks.
 
On my 2 Gigabyte motherboards, those settings are at the bottom of the MI Tweaker page. You have to scroll down to get to them. Not sure about the EP43 though... I'll go see if I can find the manual online, and find those settings.

Sometimes Gigabyte hides the extra goodies behind Ctrl+F1. You might try that on the main screen, then go into the MIT page, and see if they show up.

G.Skill memory is known to need the extra voltage. I run mine at +0.15V (1.95V).

You might also try 9x multiplier... that would get you to 3.375 with the 375 FSB. Thats very similar to what I'm running.
 
bdxl said:
Sometimes Gigabyte hides the extra goodies behind Ctrl+F1. You might try that on the main screen, then go into the MIT page, and see if they show up.
Click to expand...

It's very likely that this is is what you need to do.
 
Yep, from the manual I found online for your board, it should be in the MIT page, but its down on the 3rd page. They do mention Ctrl+F1 if you don't see options you are looking for (pg 37).

Page 39 & 40 of this pdf shows the voltage settings you are looking for, well some of them anyway:
http://america.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-ep43-(d)s3l(r)_e.pdf
Of course they say that is a sample from F1da bios, and it looks like they are up to F8 bios now.

DRAM voltage is probably the important one for you, and thats at the very bottom.
 
drop your fsb to 356 and set your multiplier to 9...20MHz of speed loss on the bus is something you'll never notice.
 
thanks for the help guys, so:
1) change mult to 9 and change fsb to 356? I thought they are the same except x8 uses less power? Also bdxl ill try the 9 x 375 when i can get the 3.2 working. The idea of having 3.375 sounds awesome, just want to figure out getting 3.2 first.
2) change northbridge voltage
3) change dram volatage to 1.95

So hopefully that is it and it works. Ill let you know if any problems rise up again. Thanks for the help.
 
also wtf are the voltage types:
cpu termination, pll, reference, mch core, ich I/O, Are any of these the northbridge? Sorry if this is a dumb question, this is my first time overclocking. And i tried the ctrl f1, it did nothing except make the bios flicker then back to normal. Also still no clue how to change the northbridge and I looked through the whole manual.

edit: I apologize for being stupid, didnt even realize mch is northbridge
 
Running the FSB at higher frequencies means NB and your DRAM is running at a higher speeds, so you might be hitting some sort of stability limit with those. Or need to bump up NB/DRAM voltage to get them stable again.

mystykmax's make a good point....drop the FSB and go to 9x, then work your way up.
You might play it safe, and drop to 310 or so at first (2.79 GHz), and then work your way up to find the limit.
 
got it it seems, fixed my ram to 2.0D, changed northbridge to 1.2 and got 3.2 ghz now. Thanks all for the help. Ill try for 3.375 soon
 
ssg10587 said:
got it it seems, fixed my ram to 2.0D, changed northbridge to 1.2 and got 3.2 ghz now. Thanks all for the help. Ill try for 3.375 soon
Click to expand...

Congrats!!! Curious to see how high you go, and what your final settings are.
I wasn't sure what I'd be able to get to on my Q6600, but when I got into the 3.2-3.3 range, I suddenly got fixed on shooting for +1GHz over stock..... so pushed a bit further to hit 3.4.

As for Ctrl-F1: My screen flickers too, and one extra top level menu item shows up on my new eg31m board. But down in the menus there are lots of new goodies. On my EP35-DS3P, I never had to hit ctrl-F1.... maybe there's stuff down there I never knew about. :confused:

Good luck!
 
thanks bdxl, you helped me a crudload. Dont know how to thank you but ill let you know how high i go definitely. The ctrl f1 seems to do nothing. I hit it once and rechecked menus and nothing new. Guess didnt rly need it anyways since i have mch core and ICH which turned out to be the northbridge and southbridge.
 
Wanted to bring this post back up since I had the question of whether I have an adequate power supply for this overclock. I have a 500W antec. I checked http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine and calculated the power and even at stock it says i need a 600W and with the overclock about a 800W. I was wondering anyone has done a similar overclock and what psu they are using.
 
A lot would depend on your video card and exactly what model Antec you have but in general unless you have Xfire (two video cards) or one of the dual GPU cards (X2) you should be fine. If your single video card is a monster like the Nvidia 280 you are giving the supply a good workout but thats unlikely.

One easy test is to just use your hand to see how hot the exhaust of the power supply. While gaming and fully warmed up its ok if it warm but if it feels distinctly hot then its time to really sit down and see what your power requirements are and look closely at the ratings of that supply.

(and another one is to listen for the fan ramping up when going from a cold start to playing a game for an hour)

I doubt you have a problem I run this machine (sig) on 550W but if you really want an analysis you need to provide us with all your system details and the model number (or newegg link) of that Antec. Posting it in the power supply forum would be best.

Keep in mind the "L" versions are budget boards and do not have heatsinks/heatpipes for the power mosfets that feed voltage/power to the cpu. If you have replaced the stock downwards blowing Intel heatsink with something that does not blow down and wash air over those mosfets or made up for it with a fan, you risk reducing the boards life. Even just an old 80mm case fan tie-wrapped or secured any way you can to blow air directly on the components around the cpu socket will do wonders in increasing stability and long componenet life for that board. Frankly I highly recommend you stay at 3.2 until you take care of that.

While you are waiting you can play with seeing what you can do about your memory mulitplier. If you are still on the 2.0 mulitplier you are most likely underclocking your memory.
 
I have a gigabyte board and am overclocked to 3.2, i have a zalman zm750-hp PSU. I also have it with less voltage than what you are trying mine is at 1.27.

Most likely is the PSU, when i had my antec 550 i couldn't get above 3.0 as well.
 
BillParrish said:
A lot would depend on your video card and exactly what model Antec you have but in general unless you have Xfire (two video cards) or one of the dual GPU cards (X2) you should be fine. If your single video card is a monster like the Nvidia 280 you are giving the supply a good workout but thats unlikely.

One easy test is to just use your hand to see how hot the exhaust of the power supply. While gaming and fully warmed up its ok if it warm but if it feels distinctly hot then its time to really sit down and see what your power requirements are and look closely at the ratings of that supply.

(and another one is to listen for the fan ramping up when going from a cold start to playing a game for an hour)

I doubt you have a problem I run this machine (sig) on 550W but if you really want an analysis you need to provide us with all your system details and the model number (or newegg link) of that Antec. Posting it in the power supply forum would be best.

Keep in mind the "L" versions are budget boards and do not have heatsinks/heatpipes for the power mosfets that feed voltage/power to the cpu. If you have replaced the stock downwards blowing Intel heatsink with something that does not blow down and wash air over those mosfets or made up for it with a fan, you risk reducing the boards life. Even just an old 80mm case fan tie-wrapped or secured any way you can to blow air directly on the components around the cpu socket will do wonders in increasing stability and long componenet life for that board. Frankly I highly recommend you stay at 3.2 until you take care of that.

While you are waiting you can play with seeing what you can do about your memory mulitplier. If you are still on the 2.0 mulitplier you are most likely underclocking your memory.
Click to expand...

Here is psu, it was a case and psu combo which i am figuring for the price, it means the psu isnt that good.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

What would i put the memory multiplier at as well?

Other wise it mostly has to do with gaming since I have an ati4850 and wanted the 3.2 to maximize my gaming. I have a bunch of fans in the case circulating air. Im pretty sure i have it well cooled. But I keep getting the problem of when im playing games they will freeze up and make a stuttering sound in the speakers. I rmaed the card a while ago so i hope its not the card.
 
The EA500 PSU that you have is plenty for your components. Unless the PSU happens to be defective, that would not be the issue here. Chances are that your overclock isn't perfectly stable. Try raising your Vcore to 1.42v or so and see if that helps.
 
Zero82z said:
The EA500 PSU that you have is plenty for your components. Unless the PSU happens to be defective, that would not be the issue here. Chances are that your overclock isn't perfectly stable. Try raising your Vcore to 1.42v or so and see if that helps.
Click to expand...

This.
 
alright thx guys for the help ill try that. It does the freezing and stuttering though on stock settings so should i raise the vcore on stock settings as well? So the overclock to 3.2 and the 4850 will run with 500W? Also doesnt raising the vcore mean the psu is having to supply more power? I turned had it at 1.35 before so I pray upin the vcore works.
 
Raising the Vcore does mean the CPU uses more power, but your PSU can handle way more than you'll ever need so don't worry about that at all. About the stuttering, that could just be due to loading pauses or intermittent lag. It doesn't sound like an actual hardware problem to me, although that's just what I'm getting from your description of the problem.
 
I agree that power supply should be fine with what you have.
I agreee that next I would try a Vcore of 1.375 and if necessary go up to 1.4V (at that point I would call it quits.). Yes that will require more power from the PSU but not very much, we are talking about 10 or 25 watts here if you get the frequency from 3.0ish to 3.2ish.
Raise the MCH (Northbridge) voltage to +.1 and then try +.2 if needed. (dont remember the increments supplied by the board, if there is something in between, go up in smaller increments.)

Raising the Vcore at stock settings will do no good and just waste electricty and raise the cpu temp for no reason. The idea is to up the CPU and MCH voltages just barely enough to get the OC you want and be stable.




You need to tell us what resolution you are gaming with so we can decide if you are just pushing the video card too hard or if there might be a software issue with old drivers not cleaned out etc.

We will worry about the memory later.
 
im gaming at 1440 x 990. Also thanks you guys for the help, i really do appreciate it. This has been nagging the crap out of me.

@Zero: Well if it does the stuttering at stock, it cant be the vcore im assuming then, so what else could it be? I cleaned the registry, defraged, updated drivers. Im out of ideas.
 
ssg10587 said:
@Zero: Well if it does the stuttering at stock, it cant be the vcore im assuming then, so what else could it be? I cleaned the registry, defraged, updated drivers. Im out of ideas.
Click to expand...

It could simply be that the games you're running are lagging.
 
its not lag, i cant move the mouse at all and it freezes completely. Ive left it for hours and it doesnt resume so im pretty sure its not lag. And when you guys say change vcore u mean in the bios right? Because I have speedfan and it says vcore 1 is 1.3 and vcore 2 is 1.95

edit: Also quick question. Besides the ram, vcore and northbridge do i need to add voltage to anything else?

2nd edit: Also I have the video card overclocked with the ati overdrive. I tested it and it passed. Would that have anything to do with the problem?
 
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