Overclocking my Q6600 problems?

Diggsy · 3 Mar 2010 at 15:16

wt123 said:
Yup quite a few, all above 850 though =]

Okay, then the memory is running above spec and might be crapping out, so try this...

CPU RATIO - 8x
FSB - 425
DRAM Frequency - Auto
CPU Vcore - 1.52
CPU PLL - 1.55
FSB TERM - 1.25
Northbridge - 1.4
Southbridge - 1.05
RAM voltage - 2.0

Don't do anything else yet. Let me know what happens. I am popping out, will check back later.

wt123 · 3 Mar 2010 at 15:17

Diggsy said:
Okay, then the memory is running above spec and might be crapping out, so try this...

CPU RATIO - 8x
FSB - 425
DRAM Frequency - Auto
CPU Vcore - 1.52
CPU PLL - 1.55
FSB TERM - 1.25
Northbridge - 1.4
Southbridge - 1.05
RAM voltage - 2.0

Don't do anything else yet. Let me know what happens. I am popping out, will check back later.

Sure mate will do, thanks, talk again later

.

wt123 · 3 Mar 2010 at 15:24

Didn't work =[

Diggsy · 3 Mar 2010 at 16:45

wt123 said:
Didn't work =[

What did it do though? I need to know...blue screen...reboot...Prime crash??

We need to find the sweet spot

wt123 · 3 Mar 2010 at 17:35

Diggsy said:
What did it do though? I need to know...blue screen...reboot...Prime crash??

We need to find the sweet spot

Blue screen mate

Diggsy · 3 Mar 2010 at 17:43

wt123 said:
Blue screen mate

Hmmm, I was kinda hoping that Prime had just crashed.

I wonder if there is a little FSB hole that you are hitting? Its possible.

Try the same settings only this time try 410 FSB, then if stable 420, and go on to 430.

When it boots up have a look in CPU-Z and see what your RAM is running at.

Report back with your findings.

wt123 · 3 Mar 2010 at 18:07

Diggsy said:
Hmmm, I was kinda hoping that Prime had just crashed.

I wonder if there is a little FSB hole that you are hitting? Its possible.

Try the same settings only this time try 410 FSB, then if stable 420, and go on to 430.

When it boots up have a look in CPU-Z and see what your RAM is running at.

Report back with your findings.

Nope didn't work =[, I did get 401 ^^

Diggsy · 3 Mar 2010 at 18:17

Okay, I think you might be at your limit then. Although it could just be one setting is not quite right.

I wonder if the board just doesn't like frequencies above 400. Hmmm...

Can you tell me what options you have under FSB Strap? Is it 333, 266 and 200?

Can you select each option you have (without exiting the bios) and tell me what effect it has on the RAM Frequency when left on auto?

Coffington · 3 Mar 2010 at 18:26

It's probably the mobo that is holding the overclocking. Also I'd check the NB cooling.

On Asus P5Q I'm getting Q6600 to run at 3.52GHz (1.3000VCore) 8*440FSB / 4*2GB DDR800. Air cooled and stable. There is Thermaltake heatpipe cooler on the NB.

P5Q setup could probably go about to 3.8GHz quite easily ramping the volts up and by enhancing the cooling.

wt123 · 3 Mar 2010 at 19:12

Diggsy said:
Okay, I think you might be at your limit then. Although it could just be one setting is not quite right.

I wonder if the board just doesn't like frequencies above 400. Hmmm...

Can you tell me what options you have under FSB Strap? Is it 333, 266 and 200?

Can you select each option you have (without exiting the bios) and tell me what effect it has on the RAM Frequency when left on auto?

That sucks =[

FSB Strap has 400, 333, 266 and 200

What do you mean? ^^

Diggsy · 3 Mar 2010 at 19:12

wt123 said:
That sucks =[

FSB Strap has 400, 333, 266 and 200

What do you mean? ^^

Ah, set the strap to 400 with the previous settings and see what happens.

EDIT - Oh and set your RAM Frequency to DDR2-800 if possible

wt123 · 3 Mar 2010 at 20:02

Diggsy said:
Ah, set the strap to 400 with the previous settings and see what happens.

EDIT - Oh and set your RAM Frequency to DDR2-800 if possible

Tried, didn't work =[ could only get 850 on RAM Freq to

Diggsy · 3 Mar 2010 at 21:19

wt123 said:
Tried, didn't work =[ could only get 850 on RAM Freq to

EDIT - Ignore me I was being daft!!! /facepalm

I have done a little more fishing and the Memory Frequencies on this board allow for the following...

1:1, 5:6, 4:5, 3:4, 2:3, 5:8, 3:5 and 1:2.

To help you understand, those are dividers of your FSB....

400 FSB 1:1, RAM = 400 (x2 for DDR = 800)
400 FSB 5:6, RAM = 480 (x2 for DDR = 960)
400 FSB 4:5, RAM = 500 (x2 for DDR = 1000)

...and so on. Now apparently not all of these dividers are always available. It depends on the FSB.

So you can see that every time you raise the FSB above 400, your memory is going to go with it, even on the lowest divider (which is running in sync) 1:1.

Given that your memory is only rated for 400 (x2 for DDR) then that could be an issue.

So, with that in mind, maybe we should go back to the 9x multi and see where that gets us...

CPU RATIO - 9x
FSB - 367
CPU Vcore - 1.52
CPU PLL - 1.55
Northbridge - 1.3
FSB Termination - 1.25
RAM - 1.9

Memory Frequency - DDR2-734 (1:1 to the FSB) if available

EDIT - with any luck that will get you running at 3.3ghz.

wt123 · 3 Mar 2010 at 21:59

Diggsy said:
EDIT - Ignore me I was being daft!!! /facepalm

I have done a little more fishing and the Memory Frequencies on this board allow for the following...

1:1, 5:6, 4:5, 3:4, 2:3, 5:8, 3:5 and 1:2.

To help you understand, those are dividers of your FSB....

400 FSB 1:1, RAM = 400 (x2 for DDR = 800)
400 FSB 5:6, RAM = 480 (x2 for DDR = 960)
400 FSB 4:5, RAM = 500 (x2 for DDR = 1000)

...and so on. Now apparently not all of these dividers are always available. It depends on the FSB.

So you can see that every time you raise the FSB above 400, your memory is going to go with it, even on the lowest divider (which is running in sync) 1:1.

Given that your memory is only rated for 400 (x2 for DDR) then that could be an issue.

So, with that in mind, maybe we should go back to the 9x multi and see where that gets us...

Alright nice, yeah lets try that then

JTrickle · 4 Mar 2010 at 08:45

Diggsy said:
Given that your memory is only rated for 400 (x2 for DDR) then that could be an issue.

It wont be with a q6600 unless he wants to go > the magic 3.6. The 1:2 divider at fsb 400 = 800mhz mem and 3.6ghz cpu.

alexx · 4 Mar 2010 at 09:00

excellent thread guys ill be using it as a base to get my 6600 from 3.2 to 3.6

thanks

Diggsy · 4 Mar 2010 at 10:31

JTrickle said:
It wont be with a q6600 unless he wants to go > the magic 3.6. The 1:2 divider at fsb 400 = 800mhz mem and 3.6ghz cpu.

Yeah, but its nice to have a little headroom and allow for switching to the 8x multi. Sometimes better overclocks can be acheived just by switching multi and raising FSB.

In this case it could just be the board has no intention of allowing much more than 3 - 3.2 no matter what the setting. Reminds me of my old 680i board. No matter what voltage I threw at it I just couldn't get anything above 3.0 stable. Yet with the same CPU on my IP35Pro it went straight to 3.6.

alexx said:
excellent thread guys ill be using it as a base to get my 6600 from 3.2 to 3.6

thanks

Thanks

Good to hear it helps you out in some way.

Dale · 4 Mar 2010 at 15:09

Just want to add my ditto for what Alexx said - Top thread, and thanks for your input Diggsy.

I have my Q6600 running 3.6, it is chewing voltage (something like 1.53) and so far the OS hasn't crashed at all (work / gaming etc) except when I try to Prime the thing, in which case it stacks after a whopping 2min lol - oh well!

albert · 4 Mar 2010 at 16:03

To the OP .... i think it's time to bury the Q6600 ... it's now showing it's age. I had this CPU for a couple of years and it served me well , but the best thing i ever done was upgrading to a AMD Phenom 965 ......

JTrickle · 4 Mar 2010 at 17:28

Gona need to post a bit more than that

I'm pretty happy with mine that I picked up last month. Been with a core2 3.8ghz for ages. Decided to go for the quad after coming across a few games now that use them. And also, as they seem to be going up in price now, not down.

On paper, a 4gh amd Phenom2 is only 10% faster than a 3.6 core2quad /w 2+mb cach per core.