Simple, easy foolproof OC for Badaxe2

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badaxer

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Joined
Mar 17, 2007
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Hi - Nikki here. I am a photographer seeking help with overcloscking. I have a new computer:

Intel Core2 Duo E6600 Conroe
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Badaxe2 D975XBX2 ATX motherboard
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4 x 1 gb sticks OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 SLI-Ready Edition Dual Channel
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1 x 36 GB Raptor
2 x Caviar 320GB
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BFG e-GeForce 7600GT
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1 LG DVD RW 18x
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Antec P180 case
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Antec TruePower 550W PSU
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Zalman NPS-9500-Cu-LED CPU cooler
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Vantec Stealth 120 mm fan
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Windows XP Pro Edition

I am a partner in a website. My role is to provide the content - photos. I need the PC to be solely dedicated to processing large batches of multiple RAW and TIFF files in PhotoShop CS2. I plan to use an even more memory intensive program in the future Adobe Lightroom with Vista 64 BIT. It will NOT be used for gaming, Internet or MP3 burning/ripping. I do NOT overclock right now. I think I WILL get in to oc’ing as this system gets older and I need to squeeze everything out of it but that is maybe 3 years down the road when I decide to learn more about oc’ing. My passion is nude and landscape photography not computers – but now that photography is digital I am going to commit myself to learning this stuff since it will improve my photography and business. I have a Maxtor OneTouch external HD for backup.
Yes - I seem to have more money than sense (computer sense)

Overclocking bewilders me – latency, pins, arrays, DIMM, frequencies, voltages...gets my head spinning. I can’t seem to grasp it. Thus I seek your help.
I am a photographer, not a techie. So I ask you bigger-brained guys: Anyone know of any "Easy 1-2-3 Conroe E6600-Badaxe2 Overclocking Guides for Computer Noobs"? Didn't see any at Amazon -LOL.

Whenever I read about the OC process it scares me. I don't want to deal with a mobo that won't boot or crashes as I try to find an optimum voltage or whatever. With this RAM and mobo is there a simple and easy OC I can do that will not increase system instability? This PC is not a gamer PC - it has some irreplaceable photos and data. And PLEASE, no requests for copies of the photos I create -ok boys?

But is there a simple and easy oc I can do that will improve performance? Something that doesn't require alot of effort, risk or BIOS voltage changes?
I will oc in the future when I learn more about it. Now that I have my computer I am spending my time with my real passion - photography. So I've little time or inclination to learn about overclocking at this moment. I am having too much fun doing other things ...

Any easy, simple performance enhancing tricks for a Badaxe2, E6600 and fat DDR2 800 RAM that a noob like me can do?
 
1. If the machine is mission critical and used for work I would think twice. My work machine is never overclocked but thats just me.

2. Your overclocking will be done mostly by use of the bios and may invove voltage changes so you will have to get used to that.

3. Since every Mainboard is different you should seek out threads about the Badaxe2. I believe there is a big one here and at Extremesystems there is another huge thread. If you spend some time reading you will get an idea of what people are generally doing to get their system OC'd and you can ask questions in the thread and people will be able to help you since they use the same board.
 
I am a partner in a website. My role is to provide the content - photos. I need the PC to be solely dedicated to processing large batches of multiple RAW and TIFF files in PhotoShop CS2.
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theres just about NO reason NOT to overlclock right off the bat, even just a moderate overclock, you will see tremendous performance gains when using those programs. core2s are amazingly easy to get to 150%+ of their stock speeds.


I think I WILL get in to oc’ing as this system gets older and I need to squeeze everything out of it but that is maybe 3 years down the road when I decide to learn more about oc’ing.
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even if you were to wait till the system got outdated, youll only have to wait about 6 months :p

My passion is nude and landscape photography not computers –
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hey what a coincidence, my passion is computers AND nude photography ;)

Yes - I seem to have more money than sense (computer sense)
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as do most people on this board.

Whenever I read about the OC process it scares me. I don't want to deal with a mobo that won't boot or crashes as I try to find an optimum voltage or whatever. With this RAM and mobo is there a simple and easy OC I can do that will not increase system instability? This PC is not a gamer PC - it has some irreplaceable photos and data.
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you probably want to have a RAID-1 and/or tape drive backup. you have 1x36gb im guessing for the OS and 2x320s for storage? if you need 600+gb of storage, i would buy another 2 of those same drives and put them in RAID1 meaning the data is mirrored to both 2x320 pairs (total of 4 320gb disks). that way when (not if) one drive fails you can take it out, buy another and replace it, then it will repopulate the RAID (restore the data) as if nothing happened, usualy automaticly. also buy a separate PCI RAID controler card, that way if you fry your motherboard somehow you can take the RAID set and the controler card (which knows how to read the drives) and put all of them in another PC and get it back easily. trying to get another motherboard of the same model, possibly with different firmware, to read the array again can be a pain in the ass.

And PLEASE, no requests for copies of the photos I create -ok boys?
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damnit


But is there a simple and easy oc I can do that will improve performance? Something that doesn't require alot of effort, risk or BIOS voltage changes?
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any way you look at it your going to have to mess with voltages to see any decent gains. its not as hard as you think though you just have to read around about each peice of hardware and know its limits. and especialy monitor component temperature religiously



what i suggest is that you play around with the computer now, get used to the hardware and get it running where you want it BEFORE you start using it for work. that way if something catches fire or explodes (joking......sort of) its only a hardware loss, no photos.
you could also keep another different computer, with enough hard drive space to mirror your photo collection onto. it doesnt have to be fast or high tech, just a place to keep backups.

with that zalman you can probably get to around 3.4 before temperature becomes a problem, and sence its a work computer i would stop around 3.2, which is a nice moderate overclock but not close to being dangerous.

heres the numbers part you want:

you will probably need around 1.36-1.38vCore (voltage of the CPU).
in your BIOS go to the performance tab under processor overrides CPU voltage override is the vcore i was taling about, set it to 1.36 for starter.

fsb voltage override- leave this at stock for now.
MCH is the northbridge, you may have to raise this later one or two notches but leave it for now.
leave everything else on this page as it is for now.

under memory overrides:
set SDRAM control to manual
leave memory freq on 667 (though if your not going for more then 3.2ghz you can probably increase this later for a little memory gain)
put the next 4 settings to your default RAM timings, which should be 5-5-5-15 for those sticks
DDR2 voltage, set this to the default RAM voltage, it should say on the sticks probably 2.1v or 2.3v

in the advanced tab, set the FSB from default (266) to 350. it should handle the jump and boot fine and this is 3.15ghz right around where you want to be. reboot and see if you can get it to post. horray you did it.

theres a place to start, post back your results and people can tell you how to fine tune it.
 
excellent reply!! Thanks...
Still that does seem a bit more involved that what I had hoped for. But c'est la vie!

I have the photos also saved on an external Maxtor OneTouch. I do have another rig (my old one connected to the internet). I want my new rig to be virus-free, spyware and trojan-free so no internet access with it. She's my baby (yes it is a she).

Maybe I'll give your suggestion a try. I was hoping for an easier oc than that - but then again I have no idea what is involved with oc'ing. I was hoping/wondering if there was something I could do to make a quick hit improvement to my PC without having to learn about BIOS settings, voltage setting, pin settings blah blah blah.
But if not, I can always do it later when my heart is in to it. I'm not oc'ing because I want to prove anything - just because it looks like increased perormance - for free!

And I am looking for a small easy moderate oc - not something that might cause a meltdown or parts failure.
 
The badaxe is known to be the MOST STABLE 975X BOARD! Great choice there.

You also have all the required components for overclocking, (fast RAM, Good CPU Cooler)

PSU is a bit weak, but it should do. I'm surprised that with such machine, you didn't choose a 600 or 700W PSU from OCZ or Fortron.

Anyway, in the bios (Press DEL or F1, F2, whichever)

You need to find and disable C1E, Speedstep and Thermal Control. Also anything throttle or spectrum related.

Enable CPU Power Slope.

Set your RAM or DIMM Voltage to the advertised RAM voltage (Whatever the manufacture says it should be for your RAM (No overclocking or voltage change needed here)

For RAM Ratio, what does it show, 533? (in windows, run a program called cpu-z www.cpuid.com and under the RAM or SPD tab look at the RATIO setting)

Some CPU's can overclock better than others. Some people can get their E6600 to 3.0 or 3.2ghz without even touching the voltage.

Since you have GREAT RAM, all you need to change is the FSB rating which defaults @ 266mhz. You CPU has an internal multiplier of 9X, so 266mhz X 9 = 2.4ghz (original speed)

The needed RAM for a STOCK system is 533mzh (or 2X your FSB). You have DDR2 @ 1066mhz. OVERKILL.

If you change your FSB setting from 266mhz to 300mhz, you'll get a CPU running @ 2.7ghz (your first overclock.

Try that. There is no way that your E6600 won't do 2.7ghz wihout changing anything else

If you feel lucky, try 333 FSB for a 3.0ghz overclock.

In windows, you can run applications like Intel's TAT, CoreTemp to monitor temperatures. CPU-Z for Speed, RAM and CPU Voltage. You can also use Intel's Desktop control center that came with your motherboard's CD.
 
I'm going to suggest that for a professional production machine, especially if you are not comfortable overclocking in the first place, that you do not overclock.

Not that there is a huge chance of something going wrong but you really don't want to give your system any reason to not work and therefor possibly hurting your ability to support your self.

When you do decide you need a new system I recommend you really sit down and figure out exactly what you are going to need. This way you can spend the extra money where you need it and save money where you dont.

I also noticed one other thing about your system. You have 4GB of ram and run windows XP Pro. I am assuming your not running XP x64 which means that your not actually getting full use out of your 4GB of ram. Yes, Windows XP x32 can address up to 4GB of memory however some of that memory space has to be reserved for other things. So what your really getting is 4GB less whats needed for general IO, Video memory, and other miscellaneous hardware. For example my system in XP 32 only allows me to use 2.75GB of memory due to the fact that my 8800 has a large amount of memory.

In addition unless you running multiple photo processing threads simultaneously you probably didn't need 4GB in the first place. The first reason being no single application by default in windows XP can access more than 2GB of physical memory at any given time. This limit can be expanded to 3GB however. The effect of this is really dependent on what application your running, what process, and how big of an image your working with.

Also depending on how your using your system to manipulate images you may actually get a large performance boost by upgrading to a SCSI or SAS setup. This wont be cheap but it may give you a good boost. Also having either RAID 0 or 5 might be a good idea so you have data redundancy.
 
oh cr@p. I am a slow typist. After I typed a long response the site asked me once AGAIN to log in. I lost my message/post. That was the second time too...

OK - here's the much abreviated version.

thanks for all your responses they are SINCERELY appreciated

I have access to other pcs should this one go down.

I paid a lot of money for a PC that is stable AND overclockable. I WANT to learn and I WILL learn but only when my heart is in it. My heart is in to playing and using my new PC with my photos right now.

That is why I only ask for quick easy noob-able moderate OC's now - I'll learn more in the future.
 
well as long as your not going for balls-to-the-wall speed, and you have other computers incase of the worst, the most likely thing that will happen is you dont set stuff correctly and it wont POST (power on self test) i forget if this board has some failsafe like a few do, where if this happens it sets everything back to stock and reboots automaticly, if not you just have to move a jumper on the motherboard to clear the bios then restart it and your back. the chance of actualy frying something is very small because you arent going to the outter limits.
 
You are thinking about this way too much.

Overclocking these Core 2 Duo chips is the easiest thing in the world.

You have all parts needed, and overclocking from 2.4ghz to 3.0ghz doesn't even require adjusting any voltages at all if your CPU allows it.

All you really have to do is change the FSB frequency from 266 to anywhere from "266" to 335mhz and see how your computer does. If things don't work, just reset the settings. You are not going to damage anything unless you exceed voltage limits (1.55 on the CPU should be the maximum)

The memory part has to be adjusted manually, even if you are not overclocking. You need to set the timings correctly, as well as the voltage it needs. This infomation is available from the manufactures and most boards won't set this for you automatically.
 
Some more BX2 minutia for you to assemble into a plan...

My 6600/BX2 does 3.4 GHz on stock voltages everywhere.

Set cpu voltage to 'manual' (it's probably at 1.325 volts stock depending on your CPU)

Forget about C1E, it is stuck 'on' on the BX2, meaning it will drop the multiplier to 6x w/no load no matter what, but since you set the cpu voltage to 'manual', it wont drop the volts on you possibly crashing your machine.

Download Orthos and TAT to test for stability and to see if your CPU cooler can dissapate the heat (C2D cpu's are known to have poor physical packaging causing heat issues when used beyond the 'stock' thermal envelope). Generally you do not want to exceed 60-65 read in TAT running Orthos. If your machine can sucessfully run Orthos for at least several hours, it should be good.

I dont know if overclocking via internet message board suggestions is such a good thing, I feel that having an understanding of what you are doing is preferred when playing with this stuff, but that's just me. Good luck!
 
Probably the simplest, easiest, most foolproof OC would be increasing the FSB by 1MHz
 
AndyM said:
I dont know if overclocking via internet message board suggestions is such a good thing, I feel that having an understanding of what you are doing is preferred when playing with this stuff, but that's just me. Good luck!
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You may be right. But I had to see what suggestions/possibilities were out there first. I think from the ones I've received that I still will be required to know a fair bit.
When it comes to stepping in to the BIOS and changing settings I think I'll have to know with certainty what I am doing. The suggestions so far make sense to everyone with some background knowledge - but not to me. I will proceed with caution. I love using my new PC now - and don't want to have to bother with possible manual voltage adjustments, a pc that might not reboot.
But I am getting to understand the scope of my task - thanks everyone.
 
I guess a thread like this scared me:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1156504

If ol' Slappynuts was having a tough slog trying to make it go, then maybe I would too. Ol' Slappynuts seems to know a heck of a lot more than me...

Looks like I'll have to hit the books some day...but I'd rather play with my new PC first.
 
Oh yeah, I remember that thread.

The new Badaxe 2 board has an option called "watchdog". This was the main reason for his problems!

Disable that as well!
 
I am looking for a rock-solid moderate overclocking board, and it sounds like the Badaxe 2 might be the ticket. I have been using an ASUS P5W64 WS Pro to run a C2D E6600 at around 3.4GHz with passive cooling, but the board has gone a little bonkers on me recently, locking up in BIOS setup, etc. (although it will Orthos and Memtest for days without error) and it is just time to get it out of my sight. I can't be troubled with flakiness.

Anyhow, as for the Badaxe 2...

Is it truly the most stable board around?

Much easier to overclock than the original Badaxe?

With the ASUS, I pulled the NB and SB and put AS5 instead of the crap they use.
Is this necessary to do with the Badaxe 2 or did Intel use some decent thermal goop?
(They did seem to use decent heatsinks).

Thanks,
Andrew
 
kent said:
The truth hurts, doesn't it?
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Of course you'd have to ask as you couldn't possibly know. If truth hurts then you're feeling no pain. You must be blissful.
I asked for "(a)ny easy, simple performance enhancing tricks"
Your idiotic suggestion was not performance enhancing.

Luckily the other people on this board are not as repugnant as you are.

Thanks everyone else!
 
@aalmsel- dont hijack threads. start your own. but now you dont have to il just answer your question. 98% of all stock components come with garbage paste, as a rule of thumb, you will always always always need to replace it.
unless your not overclocking at all, there is no such thing as a stable board. some are better then others but every single motherboard made in the past 1-2 years has flaws. some have less flaws then others, the badaxe is one of the better ones, there is a reason they are already on the second revision of a 6 month old board. this time around its much better.
I have been using an ASUS P5W64 WS Pro to run a C2D E6600 at around 3.4GHz with passive cooling, but the board has gone a little bonkers on me recently, locking up in BIOS setup, etc
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if you werent watching your temps thru the entire few days you were running orthos, chances are with a passive heatsink those restarts are tell tale signs of overheating, you might have fried your cpu. its not the board thats flaky its most likely the user. the w64 is a workstation board held to higher standards (and much higher priced) then most boards and it generaly has less problems then 'regular' boards
 
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