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Q6600 Stability Problems and Voltage Discrepancies

J

Jephir

n00b
Joined
Jul 21, 2008
Messages
11
Hey there!

I'm currently overclocking an Intel Q6600 processor. Right now I'm having problems getting a stable overclock, Prime95 is reporting an error with Core 3 after a few hours no matter how high I can set the processor voltage. On my Asus P5K SE motherboard, I've set the voltage to 1.4 V, yet CPU-Z reports that the voltage is 1.33 V on idle. I'm not sure if this is causing the problem, or if I just have a bad chip. Any help would be appreciated.

My current clock speed on the Q6600 is 3.0 GHz, and I'm running 4 GB of DDR2-800 RAM (right now at 667 MHz, 1:1) at 5-5-5-15 timings.
 
Well..first off, when you check the hardware monitor in the BIOS, what is the voltage that is reported? Is it 1.4V there or is it 1.33V? CPU-Z sometimes reports the wrong voltages (at least one or two versions ago..randomly it would start showing incorrect voltages...right now seems to be ok). If the BIOS shows 1.4V in the monitor, then you're ok and cpu-z is just reporting the wrong Vcore. If the BIOS shows 1.33V then that's your vdrop. In which case you'll have to compensate for that whenever you set your voltage. ie. I have to set my Vcore to 1.555 to get the voltage to 1.50 actual.

I had the same problem w/ Core 3 failing prime95 when I was trying to get to 3.6. In my case, that problem disappeared ...might have been the bios revision for my mobo or b/c I went to water and temps were a lot lower. But, you can try fiddling w/ the GTL REF to get that core stable. Check out the OC guide in the intel processor thread.

Otherwise, what speed are you OC'ing to that you have this problem? Also, what settings are you using for the northbridge (mch) and southbridge (ich/ichio) voltages?
 
prasvt said:
Well..first off, when you check the hardware monitor in the BIOS, what is the voltage that is reported? Is it 1.4V there or is it 1.33V? CPU-Z sometimes reports the wrong voltages (at least one or two versions ago..randomly it would start showing incorrect voltages...right now seems to be ok). If the BIOS shows 1.4V in the monitor, then you're ok and cpu-z is just reporting the wrong Vcore. If the BIOS shows 1.33V then that's your vdrop. In which case you'll have to compensate for that whenever you set your voltage. ie. I have to set my Vcore to 1.555 to get the voltage to 1.50 actual.

I had the same problem w/ Core 3 failing prime95 when I was trying to get to 3.6. In my case, that problem disappeared ...might have been the bios revision for my mobo or b/c I went to water and temps were a lot lower. But, you can try fiddling w/ the GTL REF to get that core stable. Check out the OC guide in the intel processor thread.

Otherwise, what speed are you OC'ing to that you have this problem? Also, what settings are you using for the northbridge (mch) and southbridge (ich/ichio) voltages?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response.

The BIOS is currently reporting 1.320 V in the hardware monitor. It looks like my board has a case of the vdrop.

I can't seem to find the GTL REF setting in my motherboard's BIOS, I'll try getting a newer revision and seeing if the option is there. There doesn't seem to be any northbridge or southbridge voltage display either.

The speed I'm aiming for right now is 3.0 GHz. My memory is running at 5-5-5-15 at 667 MHz (1:1) right now.
 
Asus boards typically have a large amount of vdroop. You can adjust it with the loadline calibration option in the BIOS, but not everyone recommends it. Your chip isn't necessarily a bad oc'er, it may just need a bit more voltage, which is okay depending on temps. Sounds to me like it just needs a bit more juice.
 
exactly. As for the FSB ...there should be a fsb / mch / nb voltage setting. I'll take a look at your manual and see if I can find it.
 
Apparently when you set the AI Overclocking option in the BIOS to [Manual], you should see the following options:

cpu voltage reference ...which sounds like the GTL ref
cpu voltage damper .... which sounds like something related to Vdrop??
cpu pll voltage ... which sounds like Vtt termination voltage
DRAM Voltage
FSB termination Voltage
North Bridge Voltage
North Bridge Voltage Reference
South Bridge Voltage
 
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