q9450 overclock questions

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Fingorn

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Jul 23, 2007
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I just finished a new q9450 build, and i've been trying to overclock it with mixed results. A few questions came up I was hoping someone could answer.

I'm using a noctua-nh12p in a coolermaster 690 case. I've gotten the system stable at 3.5 ghz (440 fsb) using 1.4 vcore, +.1 fsb voltage. However, under stress test load from prime it is running at 62C according to coretemp. This seems high, and I was wondering if i should back off on the overclock so i can lower temps. Also, what should be the high-end cutoff for temps on this processor?

According to coretemp, when I'm running at stock the idle temps are around 38C, and load temps are around 50C - is that indicative of bad heatsink->cpu contact?

The coolermaster case and the noctua cooler are pretty awesomely quiet, except for the side panel fan that came with it (it seems to make a bit of a buzzing noise). This seems due to the mounting on the side panel rather than the fan itself. Would moving the side panel fan to the top of the case be a bad idea? There are currently two other case fans in the system - one on the front panel pulling air in, the other on the back panel pushing air out. The noctua cooler fan is pushing air into the rear fan.
 
Well I think your vcore is a little high? I'd try and drop that a bit, on mine at 1800 fsb my vcore is only at 1.3 (reading from cpuz) and tonight I'm going to try and actually drop that. The one thing that made a huge difference for me at getting the system stable was putting the HT voltage up to 1.4. I think i'm going to increase that and drop my vcore and see what happens.
 
Well, I was going by the motherboard settings for my vcore - cpuz shows vcore at 1.3 or so.
 
that's not terrible, i would try dropping that from your bios and see if it helps with your temps.
 
Fingorn said:
Well, I was going by the motherboard settings for my vcore - cpuz shows vcore at 1.3 or so.
Click to expand...

That number is more accurate than the set-point in BIOS. How did you decide on this vCore? Minimizing your voltage will lower temps, though they aren't too outrageous now. Also, did you need to up vFSB to get it stable?
 
aethelwulf said:
That number is more accurate than the set-point in BIOS. How did you decide on this vCore? Minimizing your voltage will lower temps, though they aren't too outrageous now. Also, did you need to up vFSB to get it stable?
Click to expand...

I was inching up from 1.275 (in bios) which was the previous stable point for a 400fsb overclock. The system was really not stable (it would post, and load windows, but crash in minutes after that) even as I got around to 1.35 or so. I did the big jump just to prove to myself that the chip could overlock to this point and remain stable, but I don't think i'll be able to lower it too much and keep it so.

edit: Another question came to mind here. I'm using some ocz pc8000 ram in my machine, timings very relaxed, synchronous mode but the voltage is default. Considering that this OC is still below the rating of the ram, I didn't think to tweak anything here. Would upping the voltage to the rams max rating (i believe it is 2.1v) and then trying to lower the vcore be a worthwhile thing to attempt?
 
A bit of an update:

prime failed over an 8 hour run, so I gave up on reaching 440 fsb. Lowered it to 430, dropped vcore to 1.26 and the system now runs like a champ. Temps are down to around 58C under load, 44C idle which seems acceptable.
 
Fingorn said:
I was inching up from 1.275 (in bios) which was the previous stable point for a 400fsb overclock. The system was really not stable (it would post, and load windows, but crash in minutes after that) even as I got around to 1.35 or so.
Click to expand...

I'm getting a lot of instability on my Q9450 as well. I had an E6750 that I ran at 8x400 24x7 for months without issue (just using bios auto-volt), so I think the chipset should be able to handle it, but I can't get 8x400 stable on the Q9450 no matter what I try. It's been hanging mostly, not restarting the machine as you'd expect - usually happens during or soon after booting vista, or randomly during cpu-intensive tasks.

If I set the voltage to auto in the bios, cpuz reads that it's sitting at about 1.264v, I’ve tried bumping it up as high as 1.3v in the bios, but generally changing anything in bios for me keeps it from booting, so I’m guessing some other settings need to be tweaked as well.

Westfield said:
The one thing that made a huge difference for me at getting the system stable was putting the HT voltage up to 1.4. I think i'm going to increase that and drop my vcore and see what happens.
Click to expand...

nubish questions here – what do you mean by HTv?

the cpu-related options I have in my GB bios are (G)MCH (northbridge) overvoltage, fsb overvoltage, and cpu voltage. It doesn’t show the actual voltages for northbridge or fsb, just lets you set the amount it is overvolted. The cpu voltage I can set specifically.

FSB can be overvolted in increments of .05v from .05v~.35v - tried setting this as high as 0.1v, but wouldn’t boot.

NB can be overvolted in increments of .025v from .025v~375v – again, tried setting as high as 0.1v over, but didn’t pass post under these settings…

Any help with getting this volted correctly and stable would be appreciated.
 
Ill say it one more time.....

GTLVREF/VTT

setting these to 66% of your vcore will increase stability DRAMATICALLY and allow for a higher overclock.

I have mine set to 80mv for all 4 lanes and this stabilized 3.7 ghz. When I tried 65mv for just lane 3 and 0 for all 4, it was anything but stable.

HT is your FSB voltage, you should put both that and NB voltage at 1.4v or higher.
 
On 780i boards in the voltage section, down at the bottom there is something called

GTLVREF

Those control the terminating voltages inside the chip. SO you can effectively up the voltage without even touching the vcore. Or atleast thats what I read. Do a good search for it, and read the articles. They say to make these 66% of your vcore. so if you have a vcore of 1.2, change these to 70mv's.

on Intel chipsets xXX's its called VTT, and you can set a voltage just like a vcore. I dont know the #'s for these, but htis will stabilize an overclock on those boards.
 
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