Q9950 + Asus P5Q Turbo = no overclock

S

Summoner

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 6, 2003
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Evening all,

I just picked up a Q9550 on Ebay for a reasonable price but i cant seem to get it to overclock at all with my Asus P5Q Turbo board. Im using the Corsair H50 cooler too, my temps are excellent - even under full load stress testing with CPU stability test 6 it doesnt even break 40C.

I had an E6600 running @ 3.0Ghz previously, which while not the best, is a reasonable overclock so i dont think its the mobo holding me back?

Its running with 2 x 2Gb OCZ reaper PC8500 memory, ive tried keeping things in auto and moving up the FSB to manually setting the FSB, memory timings, volts etc but it just doesnt like anything above stock. It will boot into Windows @ 3.2Ghz but reboots itself after about 2 or 3 mins, even @ 3.0Ghz it wont pass any kind of stress test.

I tried upping the CPU volts to 1.35 but doesnt make any difference to be honest. Do i just have one of those CPUs thats maxxed at stock or am i going about things the wrong way? I must admit a lot of the settings in the Asus BIOS dont mean much to me, even after reading a lot of stuff on the 'net about them, and i like to think i know my way around a PC :)

Any advice welcome :)
 
Have a feeling it might be the board, it wont even run a 400FSB with the CPU underclocked. Might be time to swap the board out and see if that makes a difference, when i was running my E6600 it wouldnt go much past 350FSB reliably either.
 
Sounds like a nbstrap/ram speed/ram timing related problem.

Set the common performance level to 9 and only reduce it when fine tuning. leave the nbstrap to auto. Make sure your ram is set to run in spec and the timings are correct for the ram.
 
Well, some more testing shows the board is unstable past 333, which ties in with my 3.0Ghz OC on my E6600, as that was a 266 CPU and 333 x 9 would have been the most it could do.

Anyone know if the P5Q Turbo is meant to do more than 333 ie could i RMA it? Or do i just have one of those boards that wont overclock and thats it?

Cheers
 
The P5Q Pro Turbo officially supports running at 400MHz (it supports 1600MHz FSB CPUs), so if your board won't do that then you'd be justified in RMAing it.
 
Summoner said:
Well, some more testing shows the board is unstable past 333, which ties in with my 3.0Ghz OC on my E6600, as that was a 266 CPU and 333 x 9 would have been the most it could do.

Anyone know if the P5Q Turbo is meant to do more than 333 ie could i RMA it? Or do i just have one of those boards that wont overclock and thats it?

Cheers
Click to expand...

Sounds more like RAM actually. Was the same RAM used with each CPU? If so, I would say its very highly likely a RAM issue, even if its on the compatibility list. Ive used well known vendor approved ram on mobos before and found that sometimes they just dont get along when trying to OC. Stock is OK, but not OC. And all they need to be on that list is to be OK with stock settings. P5Q series should be easily capable of 500+ on NB. You said your BIOS settings dont mean much to you...my advice is to read your mobo manual and understand the BIOS settings before doing anything else. Ask questions if you dont understand.

DO NOT forget...CPUs also have an FSB limit. Considering that it appears two very different CPUs have a similar FSB limit on the same board and (assuming) same ram...I think the CPU can be safely ruled out.
 
I do know my way around most BIOS settings, its just some of the more obscure Asus settings are a bit too cryptic for me!

The ram is same with both CPUs, it runs perfectly at 1066Mhz, i even set it to DDR800 when trying to move the FSB up to make sure it wasnt the ram.

I tried running 400 x 7 on the Q9550 with the ram locked to DDR800 but it wont even get into Windows with that. Ive got some DDR800 memory kicking about so will try that to see if i can rule out the OCZ stuff.

Cheers for all the help so far.
 
Used some different and known working DDR2-800 ram, works fine @ stock speeds, soon as i tried 400 x 7 with the ram locked at DDR2-800 it rebooted as it was loading windows 7.

Pretty sure this confirms a board problem :(
 
Ive tried raising the NB volts slightly, i think i went up to around 1.3 but it didnt seem to make any difference, any suggestions on VTT or what the NB should be?

Cheers
 
My P5QL-E doesn't need any extra voltage on VTT or NB to get to 411mhz which is where it begins to crap out. And this is one of the most budget forms of the P5Q series AFAIK.

I can't believe your P5Q Pro won't readily do 400mhz fsb.

You're either doing something wrong (no offense! ;)) or your board is faulty.


Oh yeah, be sure to enable "Load Line Calibration" in the bios. You most definitely want to use the Asus engineered anti vdroop tech rather than following the intel specifications when overclocking. For any serious overclock it's an absolute necessity.
 
Im using a Coolermaster Realpower 520. I really do think its the board, if im that much of an idiot i cant get the board past 333 when its capable please shoot me now! :(
 
Well, i was right about the board, put a new one in and already im running at 400 x 8.5 = 3.4Ghz with no problems at all.

Time to RMA the old one i think, thanks for all the advice everyone :)
 
Nice one, glad you figured it out.

I guess you must be pleased to know you weren't just being a spaz all this time... :p
 
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