Q6600 P5N-D help getting to 3.5 ghz

[polorsport]

Ok, so I still have a stock 2.4 ghz go stepping Q6600. In preparation for the evga 560 GTX ti I want to finally overclock this chip. I do however keep my pc on for days at a time, so I don't know if 3.5 ghz might be pushing it to far. Please advise me this is my setup. I'm a total noob so, I really don't know what I"m doing.

System Manufacturer/Model Number ME
OS windows 7 Pro x64
CPU Q6600
Motherboard ASUS P5N-D
Memory CORSAIR 8GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Graphics Card Evga Superclocked 8800gt
Monitor(s) Displays SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22



PSU SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT 650W ATX12V V2.3
Cooling Tuniq Tower 120 Universal CPU Cooler 120mm Cooling Fan and F
Hard Drives 2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD2001FASS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5

 

[Luca-d]

your CPU should hit 3.4ghz no problem, the P5N-D is a decent board and should be able to handle it.

have a look at the below guide it should be of help to you.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/259899-11-core-overclocking-guide

 

[thyrokio]

Your target FSB is 388 (I'd do 389) if you keep the multi a 9. At that speed, you don't even need to overclock your ram which makes things easier.

I'd check how high it can go on auto settings (auto on all voltages etc). Do it something like 30MHZ at a time. Do a quick Prime95 blend/small fft for 10min each time you go up to see if you're minimally stable.

Your stock FSB is 266 if I'm not mistaken (or 267), so for example raise it to 297 on auto settings and check if you can run prime for 10mins. That's 2.67GHZ, not huge but if it's stable then go a little higher and retest. Be sure to check round off checking in Prime95 under advanced. If you see an error during the 10min then you're really not stable (that means increasing voltages and other settings).

You're Northbridge's FSB is 1333MHz so after 333FSB (cpu) you might want to give it a little more juice (NB voltage or sometimes called MCH) not much more but a little.
(333 quad pumped(x4) = 1333MHZ)

You should download Coretemp (or something similar) to check your CPU's temps so that they don't exceed something like 80C (a CPU shouldn't be this hot for long) and CPU-Z to for alot of info about your CPU and something to monitor Vcore. And prime95 too of course lol.

According to Intel datasheets, you shouldn't go higher than 1.55V(max) Vcore I'd even recommend trying to keep it at 1.48 or something.

If you set 1.38Vcore in the bios Cpu-z will read something like 1.35 or perhaps lower.

After you hit a barrier, you should set voltages manually.

*To successfully overclock you must know what every setting in you bios does (maybe not EXACTLY but you need to have a good idea).

That means research, taking a lot of notes and patience.

I overclocked my Q9400 from 2.66Ghz to 3.6Ghz in a couple of weeks. I research alot and messed with every settings without setting any dangerous voltages and I succeeded. I started out as a total noob too.

According to intel datasheets my max Vcore was 1.45, I didn't go any higher than 1.39 and I'm fine.

I could go up to 400FSB (3.2GHZ) on auto.

I'll post you my settings (you have to find your own because our machines are different) to give you an idea.

FSB 451 (333 original)
Multi 8 (locked)
PCIE Frequency 100 (going higher can cause data corruption I think 105-110 is safe but I'm paranoid)
Ram (at 903MHZ) (original 800MHZ)
Vcore 1.39
Vtt 1.26 (something like 1.1 default (not sure))
V PLL 1.56 (1.5 default)
V NB(p45) 1.18V (1.1V default)
V SB 1.2v (1.1v default)
V Dram 1.9V (1.8 default)
Cpu clock screw 100ps (eliminated brief mouse freeze (bout 0.4sec) at startup when Kaspersky loads)

CPU and pci spread spectrum Disabled (can interfere with overclocking and is almost useless)

Load line calibration (LLC or Vdroop improve) enabled (makes it so that Vcore doesn't drop on load and makes it easier to stabilize a build) can induce 0.05V voltage spikes

My cooler keeps my CPU below 60C full load and I'm satisfied with that (had to buy a coolermaster hyper 212+).

I can't go any higher than that without raising Vcore which I don't want to so that's my 940MHZ (0.94GHZ) overclock. If you really want it at 3.5Ghz you'll probably have to make your machine sweat a little but it shouldn't be impossible.

When a voltage is on Auto you can't really see what's the default so you have to research each chip's default voltages.

You should check what you max voltage is for every setting and mess around.

Note what works and what doesn't and learn how to clear you Bios(or cmos) incase the system doesn't boot after an ambitious attempt (running your memory at 1000MHZ when it's 800MHZ or something).

Keep an eye on Vcore with CPU-z and on your temps and you should be good.

When you're at a point that nothing works, mess around with clock screws/ GTL ref if you have those settings. After appropriate research of course.

Hope this can be of some assistance (from the perspective of a guy who's also new but didn't do too bad).

If you want to see my rig click on my profile.

 

[polorsport]

Thanks for the replies. But, for the life of me I can't get any overclock settings to work. I even tried to go as low as 3ghz. For some reason whenever I enter them and hit save and exit. I get just a black screen. The pc freezes and I can't even shut it down on the front. I have to hit the switch the back of my case.

I did a few searches and noticed others have had this problem on the asus board. I posted a question on it as well but no response thus far. Very frustrating.

 

[thyrokio]

Seems to me like that's board specific... Do you have the latest bios update? Sometimes they correct major problems. (each update usually has a list of what it does, some are almost useless and some are needed)

 

[saaiello]

The problem is you are trying this on a Nforce chipset which are by far the worst to overclock on especially a quad core. Most Nforce boards I see can barely push more then a 400 MHz OC after that you are SOL sorry, but at around 3GHz which should be doable will not bottleneck the 560 TI much maybe 5 to 10% at the most.

 

[geekapproved]

Thanks for the replies. But, for the life of me I can't get any overclock settings to work. I even tried to go as low as 3ghz. For some reason whenever I enter them and hit save and exit. I get just a black screen. The pc freezes and I can't even shut it down on the front. I have to hit the switch the back of my case.

I did a few searches and noticed others have had this problem on the asus board. I posted a question on it as well but no response thus far. Very frustrating.

You have to realize when you do this if your ram is the problem. When you overclock, it automatically raises the ram speed, so even if the cpu can handle the overclock, the ram may not and cause it to not boot.

You have to change the fsb/dimm ratio so that the ram stays at or under 800mhz or it may not boot. You do this in the bios, you can see when you raise the multiplier, you will also see the ram speed go up, just change the ratio to bring the ram speed back down.

Your VID (voltage id) has a lot to do with how well your processor overclocks. I've had my Q6600 running stable at 3200mhz for almost 2 years now, never once had a crash. But it won't even boot at 3300, no matter what ram speed, ratio, or voltage or multiplier I've tried.

FYI I have a Intel 965P chipset.

I'm happy with 3200mhz, it's fast enough to keep up with my HD5850.

 

[saaiello]

One good thing about Nforce chipsets is that it lets you unlink the memory so it does not increase with the FSB however it would be more useful if the board could handle a decent OC which it can't.

 

[geekapproved]

One good thing about Nforce chipsets is that it lets you unlink the memory so it does not increase with the FSB however it would be more useful if the board could handle a decent OC which it can't.

Yes my old board doesn't allow that so I have to change ratio and run my memory at 700mhz instead of 800mhz.

 

[thyrokio]

The OP has 800Mhz ddr2 and wants a FSB of around 388, for the ram to be overclocked he'd have to go higher than 400fsb (I tested it myself with same memory and got up to 451FSB which OC'ed the ram to 903MHZ (400FSB = 800MZ memory and a 1:1 Dram/fsb ratio)).

I didn't know that Nforce chips didn't overclock well though, seems he won't be able to reach his goal. I'd research the board's overclock-ability a bit.

 

[polorsport]

I'd settle for 3.2 ghz at this point, or even 3ghz. I looked at my ram settings for overclocking and it should be:

Tech Spec

Capacity
4GB (2 x 2GB)

Speed
DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Cas Latency
5

Timing
5-5-5-18

Voltage
1.8V

Multi-channel Kit
Dual Channel Kit

At least according to newegg where I ordered it from

 

[thyrokio]

Mine has exactly the same specs (Kingston), so I strongly doubt the ram's the problem. Unfortunately, I have 0% experience with any Nforce chipsets sorry.

 

[geekapproved]

Either way, any board should be able to get that cpu to at least 3ghz.

Just make sure you unlink the ram from the fsb.

 

[polorsport]

I'm open to any suggestions. Nothing seems to work. I even tried booting with one ram stick and doing the oc. It got a little further in the booting process, but ultimately failed.

 

[thyrokio]

Is your bios the latest version? Post one of your best attempt's settings.

Stuff like FSB Vcore VTT SB and NB voltages PLL voltage etc (include what they are at default too if possible).

Did you disable speedstep and c1e? (power saving features might mess with an OC).

 

[polorsport]

Yes, my bios is up to date. Nothing has worked, but this got me almost to a boot screen but froze on the blue windows screen. Not bsod.

Vcore 1.42v
NB 1.44v
HT 1.44v
SB Auto
Multiplier 8x
Fsb 1600



Speed
DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Cas Latency
5

Timing
5-5-5-18

Voltage
1.8V

disable these
limit cpuid
enhanced c1
intel speedstep tech

 

[thyrokio]

What's the default NB voltage? mine was 1.1 and I wouldn't go higher than 1.4.

New info!

Taken from http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/asus-p5n-d_10.html (it's down but I got it from google cache).

''The results of our Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocking experiments performed on different mainboards vary between 4.05GHz and 4.1GHz. In other words, for the nominal x9 frequency multiplier the FSB speed should be pushed to 450-455MHz. The system failed at 455MHz FSB: the mainboard started but didn’t boot Windows. However, at 450MHz FSB the system remained stable in Prime95 load test for some time.

Partially satisfied with this preliminary result I decided to continue next day. However, in the morning the mainboard refused to boot at all, although nothing has been changed since last night. I recalled that last night I managed to get to pretty high FSB frequencies by starting low. So, I lowered the FSB setting. The mainboard worked for some time, warmed up and started just fine at 450MHz. As for 455MHz, I still couldn’t get the board to work at this FSB frequency.

I can hardly imagine an overclocker who would be willing to “warm up” the mainboard at low FSB speed, like a car in winter, in order to later on enjoy the advantages of maximum overclocking. Looks like ASUS P5N-D cannot really boast much here.

I had to check out one more rumor about Nvidia nForce 750i SLI chipset claiming that somewhere between 450-480MHz FSB there is FSB Strap, i.e. the performance drops dramatically. We already know the parameter settings with which ASUS P5N-D mainboard is operational up to 500MHz FSB frequency. So, we used these settings, lowered the processor clock frequency multiplier, locked the memory timings. We tested the memory subsystem in Everest program starting with 400MHz FSB and moving up with 10MHz increments in order to detect at what frequency the performance will drop. Up to 440MHz performance grew gradually and at 450MHz… No, no drop, the mainboard just stopped working.

I would have also stopped working with an unstable board like that, but I had to check out its performance during quad-core processors overclocking. If it couldn’t overclock a dual-core CPU, then it should definitely fail the quad-core. So, the obtained results were not surprising at all. I used an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 that is capable of working at 475MHz FSB on good mainboards. My attempt to start the system with this processor failed at 440MHz FSB, as well as at 430MHz. I decided not to go any lower, because it didn’t really make any sense already.

I could probably get very frustrated with overclocking-unfriendly ASUS P4N-D mainboard. However, these mainboard tests performed a purely control function. A few days earlier I checked out MSI P7N SLI Platinum mainboard based on the same Nvidia nForce 750i SLI chipset. The results of our overclocking experiments were very disappointing: maximum stable FSB frequency for a dual-core processor was only 485MHz, and a quad-core CPU didn’t overclock at all. That is why I decided to check out ASUS P5N-D mainboard to see if it was MSI’s fault or Nvidia’s weak chipset. Looks like a lot of problems lie in the chipset. No wonder, since it is built on not very new Nvidia nForce 6 core logic.

However, in order to make any final conclusions I had to test a reference mainboard and luckily, I got this opportunity. I believe “FTW” in the name of EVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW mainboard stands for “Engineered For The Win”. Or maybe the slogan was offered for the abbreviation, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the mainboard’s inability to overclock.

The board looks very attractive, but is hardly an overclocker product. ASUS mainboards have really smart BIOS. It doesn’t interfere during not very aggressive overclocking and then starts increasing the processor and chipset voltages little by little. The BIOS of EVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW mainboard is not that smart. It raises the voltage even during most insignificant overclocking disabling power-saving technologies in this case. It is even worse than by ASUS mainboards. Besides, with the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor multiplier lowered to x6 the mainboard could only start and boot the OS at 425MHz FSB, not any higher. So, no wonder that ASUS an MSI preferred to develop their own mainboard design, although they still failed to cope with the tricky Nvidia nForce 750i SLI chipset.''


To sum it up in a few words, overclocking a core 2 duo was unstable and overclocking a quad core didn't work at all on this board. He used a brand new one too.

 

[polorsport]

I think I'm going to have to just take the loss. Save up, or find some way to get a better mother board and a new processor. Thanks for your help

 

[thyrokio]

No problems, sorry bout that.

 

[Mpower96]

You need much higher vcore than that. I was running 1.575. It ends up being around 1.48 under load. But after a year running @ 3.6 like that it is no longer prime95 stable. Think I will have to turn it down a bit.

Yes, my bios is up to date. Nothing has worked, but this got me almost to a boot screen but froze on the blue windows screen. Not bsod.

Vcore 1.42v
NB 1.44v
HT 1.44v
SB Auto
Multiplier 8x
Fsb 1600



Speed
DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Cas Latency
5

Timing
5-5-5-18

Voltage
1.8V

disable these
limit cpuid
enhanced c1
intel speedstep tech

 

[jsc]

Some good advice and some not so good advice above.

First, run the internal multiplier at X9 (Q6600). Do not bother trying to maximize FSB speed. Performance does not scale linearly with FSB speed and it will decrease memory stability.

Second, run with SpeedStep enabled. If you need to disable SpeedStep, you do not have a stable overclock. I have several OC'd Core2 systems: Q9550 (C3 core) @ 3.6 GHz, Q6600 @ 3.6 GHz, E7500 @ 4.1 GHz, and an E6500 @ 3.87 GHz (FSB limited G41 board). All Gigabyte boards, all 24 hour Prime95 stable. All running with SpeedStep enabled. All running FSB:RAM ratio of 1:1 at max internal multiplier.

Had an eVGA 680i board with a Conroe E6600. That was running at 3.6 GHz. Bought it before anyone including eVGA knew that it wouldn't support the 45 nm quad cores. My board also did not do to well with the 45 nm Wolfdale CPU's either.

The nforce chipsets will let you completely unlink memory clock from the FSB freq.

To increase RAM stability, set your RAM voltage to 2.2 volts.Set your RAM:FSB ratio to 1:1. Try the Linked setting first. If that doesn't work, try Unlinked with manual RAM settings.

For a Q6600, do not exceed 1.50 volts vcore. Keep your load temps under 70C.
----------
Overclocking since 1978 - Z80 (TRS-80) from 1.77 MHz to 2.01 MHz

Oh, I just noticed the date stamps on this thread. Mpower, please do not resurrect a dead thread.

 

[polorsport]

Best answer selected by polorsport.

 

[wakkierob]

Thanks for the replies. But, for the life of me I can't get any overclock settings to work. I even tried to go as low as 3ghz. For some reason whenever I enter them and hit save and exit. I get just a black screen. The pc freezes and I can't even shut it down on the front. I have to hit the switch the back of my case.

I did a few searches and noticed others have had this problem on the asus board. I posted a question on it as well but no response thus far. Very frustrating.

Yes when you press the front button and nothing happens then you haven't held it for 5 seconds or longer, if you do this it will defo shut down or it should!