Running Q6600 @ 3.6 - how'd you get there?

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LanceDiamond

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
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I am familiar with overclocking in general - not asking a very basic "raise voltage, test, repeat" type question here.

I am running a Q6600 at 3.2 currently. Prime95 stable for > 24 hours. It *seems* to run fine at 3.6 also but Prime95 croaks after about 7ish hours and I strongly suspect it's heat related rather than Mhz related. Problem is, I can't confirm it not being Mhz related by going beyond 3.6 - my memory just flat refuses to cooperate with even 410Mhz FSB. I have 4gb AData fairly cheap memory.

My question is really just a general one: If you're running your Q6600 at 3.6, did you test beyond 3.6 and find that 3.6 was the best stable you could do or is 3.6 as high as you could boot and it seems (or in fact is) perfectly stable there?

I know I could invest in slightly better memory but I don't know that it is worth it, other than curiosity. I am *really* curious what the max Mhz on my Q6600 is and without better memory I can't find out. :confused:
 
I did 3.2 for a long time, then went right to 3.6 and got it stable.
I didn't go beyond that until I felt like playing around with the OC... Highest I've done is 9x445 but that's just too insane for 24/7 use.

For 3.6, I had a lot of issues with my memory (timings + volts) that took me a long time to figure out. It took me about 7 days of Priming each night to finally get it where I wanted it.
 
My buddy currently has his Q6600 running stable at 3.5 with water cooling. When he pushes past that he starts running into a problem with stability.
 
LanceDiamond said:
I am familiar with overclocking in general - not asking a very basic "raise voltage, test, repeat" type question here.

I am running a Q6600 at 3.2 currently. Prime95 stable for > 24 hours. It *seems* to run fine at 3.6 also but Prime95 croaks after about 7ish hours and I strongly suspect it's heat related rather than Mhz related. Problem is, I can't confirm it not being Mhz related by going beyond 3.6 - my memory just flat refuses to cooperate with even 410Mhz FSB. I have 4gb AData fairly cheap memory.

My question is really just a general one: If you're running your Q6600 at 3.6, did you test beyond 3.6 and find that 3.6 was the best stable you could do or is 3.6 as high as you could boot and it seems (or in fact is) perfectly stable there?

I know I could invest in slightly better memory but I don't know that it is worth it, other than curiosity. I am *really* curious what the max Mhz on my Q6600 is and without better memory I can't find out. :confused:
Click to expand...

i'm running the little brother version of your mobo. the 410mhz fsb wall is pretty common with abit ip35/pro and quadgt, not your memory's fault. In order for me to get past 3.2 I had to throw a fan over the PWM are in the top left corneer. Use Speedfan and see what the pwm is reading. Without cooling it gets HOT around 1.35+ volts. Check your northbridge temps as well. I threw a 40mm fan over that guy and temps cooled down a lot.
 
I have two [email protected] and another @3.51. I wouldn't be surprised if I could go higher with both of the ones at 3.6 but with being on air cooling the coolers wouldn't be able to handle the extra speed as well as the extra voltage needed to get it higher. Both of them are running 1.42-1.44 vcore after vdroop so I have some headroom there. I could probably get them a bit higher even with the voltage they are using now, but 3.6 is a nice round number and I prefer to leave a safety net for the CPUs as the ambient temps rise like they are now. The systems need to be rock solid stable 24/7 so I don't push them to the absolute limit. It's usually best to leave a margin for error as you never know what might come up.

Something else to remember is that my systems are running at 100% load at all times. This means they can't get away with having a little possible instability like most can since most systems are running 100% at all times.

 
Took 1.475v to get mine stable for 12 hours of prime.
I backed it down to 3.4 for everyday use, my chip only needs 1.38 for 3.4, and it runs about 10 degrees cooler as well. At 3.6 I hit 74 degrees at one point in the prime test. Not close enough to fry the chip although it could shorten the lifespan, but I figured I 200mhz wasn't worth the potential price.
 
strend said:
At 3.6 I hit 74 degrees at one point in the prime test. Not close enough to fry the chip although it could shorten the lifespan, but I figured I 200mhz wasn't worth the potential price.
Click to expand...
What does hitting 74C in Prime have to do with shortening the lifespan?
It's not like you run 24/7 at 74C, and 1.475v is safe...
 
I found the exact same thing on my chip....

here's my thread on it.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1288060

I found that Vista wasn't stable at the same exact settings that XP was in prime 95.

I got frustrated with the whole thing and just tried to figure out what the fastest I could get it was with all stock voltages...
I found it to be 3150Mhz. It is prime 95 stable and has no issues --- ROCK solid.

Everything stock voltage with a 750Mhz overclock is just fine with me. Heat is a lot less of an issue too.
 
3.6GHZ is not achievable on all chips with air cooling.
Luck is a major factor!
 
3.6 on waterat 1.55Vcore 1.5vtt 400x9
Have a bad cpu for ocing tho 1.325 vid.
 
3.8Ghz at 1.55 vcore after vdroop with my X3220 (9x multi 65nm quad like the Q6600), watercooled on a dedicated loop with a 2x120 radiator. I still flirt with 70C Prime95 small FFTs full load.

It's kept at 3.6Ghz 24/7, loading at 62C max with Prime95 small FFTs, with 1.45 vcore after vdroop. 200Mhz isn't worth the extra heat and voltage.

This is on an XFX 780i reference board with the P06 BIOS and 4GB (2x2GB) of Patriot Extreme Performance DDR2-800 @ 4-4-4-12 2.1vdimm.
 
What are your 3.6 Q6600s' VIDs and what vcore did it take to hit the 3.6?
 
UtopiA said:
What are your 3.6 Q6600s' VIDs and what vcore did it take to hit the 3.6?
Click to expand...

X3220 - VID 1.188 (no, not a typo)
3.6Ghz stable - 1.48 vcore after vdroop (63C full load)
3.8Ghz stable - 1.54 vcore after vdroop (70C full load)
 
^^^
You got a nice one then.

The X3220 will do 3.4Ghz at 1.3 vcore, but I am unreasonably demanding. ;)
 
Go to xtremesystems forum and look up the thread on the Asus Maximus Formula SE.

There are TONS of BIOS setting profiles listed by various peeps who hit 3.6 with their Q6600.

This is where I started. Just BTW, I do think you have a cooling issue as well. As soon as I upgraded from my non-quad certified cooling to the Freezone Elite, which has the cooling power to handle the O/C'd quad, I was able to hit 3.6 easy with my Q6600.
Granted, it is a nice G0, with a VID of 1.225, as I'm only running 1.32v on it.
 
wadec22 said:
i'm running the little brother version of your mobo. the 410mhz fsb wall is pretty common with abit ip35/pro and quadgt, not your memory's fault. In order for me to get past 3.2 I had to throw a fan over the PWM are in the top left corneer. Use Speedfan and see what the pwm is reading. Without cooling it gets HOT around 1.35+ volts. Check your northbridge temps as well. I threw a 40mm fan over that guy and temps cooled down a lot.
Click to expand...


Great information in all the replies here thanks a bunch! I looked at the stuff about removing, reseating with new paste and bolting the heatpipe system on the mobo - may try that on the "spare" IP35 Pro I wound up with during this build. My PWM is @ 51c right now under 5min or so Prime95 run. Idle was about 39c so I don't *think* it's getting terribly hot but not sure.

I have an Accellro 8800 Xtreme on the way to put on the 8800GTX - that thing is a friggin toaster. Gaming for several hours straight I've seen it bounce off 90c (GPU diode temp as measured in Everest - the GPU temp was slightly lower but still insanely hot.) I have a decent amount of air moving through the case; 120mm front fan intake, top fan exhaust @ low speed, top back fan exhaust @ medium speed and it exhausts warm-ish air. I guess I could be pulling more air in the front somehow but I'll trade 400Mhz for less noise.
 
Based on the info here, I realized I should try something other than just raising the DDR2 voltage to push my memory.

Using these settings:
VCC - 1.335v
DDR2 voltage - 1.875v
VTT - 1.27v
MCH - 1.44v (this is the one I hadn't raised much beyond 1.33 previously)
GTLCPUREF 68%/68%

I was actually able to pass memtest86, test #5 up to 460x6. 470x6 seemed squireley and beyond that required CMOS resets to fix.

Since it *seemed* like my memory might cooperate above 400Mhz, I wanted to find the ceiling for the CPU so I tried these, results noted in each case:

434 x 9 (3906Mhz) @ 1.505v VCC - bluescreen/reboot during OS boot
422 x 9 (3798Mhz) @ 1.505v VCC - bluescreen/reboot during OS boot
422 x 9 (3798Mhz) @ 1.535v VCC - booted OS, cores idling at 48c/45c. Prime95 jumps core temps quickly to 68c and bluescreen in seconds.

Based on it actually booting the OS - 64bit Vista - at 3798Mhz, I think with extreme cooling I could push the higher voltage and actually run at that speed or even higher. I may try 434 x 9 again in a bit at 1.535v to see if it boots there. I just can't bring myself to push the voltage up much past 1.535v and with my current cooling there is no way I'd run it at that voltage for any length of time.

I seem to have some breakpoints above my Q6600's VID of 1.275v:
1.325v - 1.335v seems to get me to 8x400 or even 8x410 as it seems to be running right now. Slightly lower voltage and Prime95 croaks in ~40min.

1.4550v gets me to 9x400 and Prime95 runs for up to 7 hours before problems which seem to be heat/cooling related as the temps are 10c hotter than they are around 1.335v (around 70c vs around/usually below 60c.)

1.5350v gets me as high as 9x422 (maybe higher) - 3798Mhz - and will boot the OS but very quickly bluescreens under stress, possibly due to heat as much as anything.

Edit: No dice with 1.535v and 434x9 - bluescreen during boot.
 
Hey Lance, are you running 4 sticks of ram or 2? I've been trying to get my Q6700 up to 3.6 w/ 4 sticks of ddr2 800 w/o much luck. I've got the same mobo but up to this point I haven't pushed the fsb past 400 since I didn't want to introduce any more instability due to memory being oc'd. I realized that I was getting errors w/ memtest randomly.

Just wondering...I ended up ordering a 2 x 2gb kit of Mushkin 1066 so hopefully I'll be able to push the speed up a little.

With the iP35 Pro, the only really irritating thing to deal with is the vdroop ... it gets close to .09V under prime95 for me. I had to use 1.515V (plus other voltages up) to get 10 hrs prime stable at 3.5. But you're right, the temps tend to get well into the 60s (~66 w/ my tuniq tower) at 1.535+ Vcore. 1.455 for 9 x 400 is pretty promising - is that underload or what you set in the bios? Temps are a little high though.
 
prasvt said:
Hey Lance, are you running 4 sticks of ram or 2?
...
1.455 for 9 x 400 is pretty promising - is that underload or what you set in the bios? Temps are a little high though.
Click to expand...

On the RAM it's a $74 Fry's sale special of ADATA 2x2GB PC6400 memory - cheap and seems to be ok.

The 1.455v setting was what I had set in the BIOS, it showed less in CPU-Z and vdroop'd a little below that during Prime95.

Regarding my high temps, my ambient is bad - it's 95 or more outside right now and the room the PC is in has the worst cooling of any room in the house - it may be 78F in here right now, I need to get a thermometer so I can see just how bad it is. I think my idle core temps can flucuate as much as 10c because of ambient.

If I have to settle at 8 x 400 with lower volts and let it creep up in temp on hot days, that is fine with me. When it gets cold I may try 3.6. :D
 
Yeah same here...the last week has been kind of cool here in n. cali but next week could hot again. Well I managed to try 450 x 8 @ 1.515 (~1.47 idle in win) and it hasn't crashed in the last 30 min. I haven't run prime95 or anything yet though. This is the first time I've oc'd the ram from 800 to 900. Just thought I'd give it a shot (using same settings as they did on anandtech when they reviewed the iP35 Pro and OC'd w/ a Q6600). If it gets hot out here again I'll probably throttle back as well.
 
3.6 was pretty easy, just bumped up the voltage and FSB, and hoped for the best. 3.7 otoh took some work with the GTL adjustments.
 
On my P5K Premium everything at default except vCore and vDimm, takes my chip 1.46 to do it tho (1.3 vid) :(

Also I'm running at 450 X 8, for whatever reason that takes less voltage than 400 X 9 :confused:
 
You don't have to up the northbridge voltage? I thought that was kind of necessity when you turn the fsb up? I've been running 450x8 the last 10 hours or so and the only real change I made was to upp the nb to 1.72 (i have a fan on the nb hs don't worry). Vcore is at 1.470 (win) and Vtt at 1.42. Of course my RAM is only rated for 800mhz (seems to have some overhead if it's still ok at 900). I'm sure if I run prime95, it'll crash though lol. Thought I'd try this before the new ram comes in. On the upside, 3.6ghz w/ core temps around 31C at idle is quit amusing.

As for GTL, I haven't had much luck w/ it up till now on the iP35 Pro - BUT I was adjusting it when the machine was already not particularly stable. So w/ 1066 ram, better case air flow and my new combo of settings...may help to get to 3.7. there is hope yet.
 
Is anyone getting over 3.2GHz with only 4 phase power? I'm stuck at 3.1 on water with a P5K-E with my aging FSP 500W power supply.

 
I got a Q6600 to 3.7Ghz for a friend on a DFI P35-T2RS, which is 4 phase power. Took some GTL-REF tweaking.
 
I just realized that using BIOS 16 final on my iP35 Pro, my Vdroop has gone from .08V+ under load to .03V under load. Thank god!! That should help on the way to 3.6 - 3.7 (also the new mushkin 1066)

BTW what's 4 phase power?
 
Catboxer said:
Is anyone getting over 3.2GHz with only 4 phase power? I'm stuck at 3.1 on water with a P5K-E with my aging FSP 500W power supply.

Click to expand...

The P5K-e is a good mobo, you should be able to hit 3.6 fairly easily... What temps are you getting?
 
I'm so out of touch with temp monitoring software, but I just ran Speedfan and its reporting 171F at full load on Folding@Home SMP client and 150F Idle. That's not right. System temp is 104F and I wouldn't doubt that right about now. What's the new standard in monitoring software, MBM is dead and gone it seems.

Its currently running default voltages @ 3GHz with all the case fans trimmed back to 7 volts. But, it is cooled by a fairly nice watercooling setup. Dual 120 Radiator, 1250 Eheim pump, newest Swiftech block. While I've had little success pushing it past 3GHz, I'm kinda hesitant to part ways with the very quiet case.

 
use Coretemp, also you are definitely going to have to up the voltage some for 3.6. With the P5K tho you can pretty much just leave everything on default except the vCore, make sure you're running the memory at 1:1 and slowly up the FSB, test dual orthos for a few min to make sure it's stable then reboot, up FSB again etc. increase vCore if system goes unstable (I assume you have PC6400 ram, or ram that can run at DDR2 800 speeds at least which is all you need for getting a quad to 3.6)
 
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