E6300 Core Duo and Gigabyte D3 Overclocking

The Old Man · 26 Aug 2006 at 12:30

Hi all,
I could do with checking some things on overclocking my new E6300 on a DS3 board with F4E Bios.

Firstly, I have set the CPU to 3Ghz (7x429Mhz FSB), Geil RAM at 800Mhz approx at 2.1v but CPU-Z shows some strange goings on.

The PC booted fine overclocked to 3Ghz at stock voltage (1.325v) but when I tried to play Far Cry it gave me the BSOD. I've since upped the voltage to 1.40000v to see if that will help and also I have just changed the PCI-Express from Auto to 105Mhz as read elsewhere. Apparently on 'Auto', it sets the PCI-E graphics to x1 instead of x16, don't know if this is true but it might account for some lower than expected FPS in COD2.

CPU-z is showing though:

Core Speed: 2568Mhz (1.392v)
Multiplier: x6 (Bios is set to 7)
FSB: 428Mhz (near enough!)
Bus Speed: 1712Mhz

The CPU-Z RAM timings page is showing:

Frequency: 428Mhz
FSB

RAM at 1:1
5-7-7-20 (despite my RAM being 4-4-4-12!)

Now I went into the BIOS and disabled the EIST as follows:

CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E): Enabled
CPU EIST Function: Disabled
Virtualisation Technology: Enabled

yet the CPU-z is still showing the core speed fluctuating around 2568Mhz not 3Ghz. Have I missed one of these settings? If I start SP2004 dual core version, the jumps to around 45C from 31C and seems okay and CPU-z then confirms I'm running at 3Ghz. When overclocking, are we supposed to have the EIST disabled?

Any advice would be most apprecaited.

The Old Man · 26 Aug 2006 at 14:29

Thanks Snowdog, will do!

I benchmarked Far Cry already and it went from 89.40 FPS (1.83Ghz) in 1280x1024 to 120.93 FPS using 3Ghz! Must have been the CPU holding back the 7900GTX!

The Old Man · 26 Aug 2006 at 14:53

Disabling the C1E seemed to do the trick. Its now running at 457x7=3199Mhz at 1.40v. Using SP2004 Orthos the temperature went from idle 32-34C to 52C. Is this okay? Not sure if it'll do much more. I tried it at 485Mhz FSB*7=3395Mhz but it wouldn't load Windows.

The Old Man · 26 Aug 2006 at 15:28

Hi,

No sorry its 52C under full load, both cores with SP2004. Its idling at 32C.
I've dropped it back to 430x7=3010Mhz at 1.40v (to breach that magical 3Ghz barrier) and its still idle at 32C.

I'm not sure what the (G)MCH voltage is, but at the moment its set to normal. Unlike yourself, mine wasn't stable in Far Cry at 3Ghz stock voltage (1.325v) it gave me the BSOD. So I picked 1.40v at random! It might do 3Ghz on a little less I haven't tried it, but this (G)MCH voltage you mentioned I haven't touched at all.

Updated: When far Cry started playing it bombed out to Blue Screen of Death again so I'm trying 1.45v instead of 1.4v now.

Edit: BSOD again at 1.45v. I've dropped it to stock as suggested and added 0.1v to (G)MCH.

The Old Man · 26 Aug 2006 at 15:41

Well Far Cry lets me play now at the suggested (G)MCH setting of 0.1v and stock cpu voltage. Strange but thanks for the tip!

The Old Man · 26 Aug 2006 at 15:58

Hi,
Thanks guys. Far Cry let me play as mentioned but only for about 10 mins before it crashed and locked up the machine. I'll try it again still at stock voltage but with 0.2v (G)MCH instead of 0.1v but my instinct tells me that I should stop messing around with voltage settings I don't understand, even if it means going back to a slower FSB!

The Old Man · 28 Aug 2006 at 11:41

trojan698 said:
some are using +0.3v on the gcmh (chipset voltage) although I wouldnt do that without active cooling. Have you tried +0.1v on the fsb ?! and maybe increasing the ram also?

Hi Trojan,
No I haven't tried adjust voltages on the FSB and RAM. The RAM I already have +0.3v addded to get the desired 2.1v. I don't have active cooling on the chipset either and I recall it already gets quite hot accoridng to what I've read here. I thought leaving the RAM at stock was a good idea until I found the max for the CPU. I thought it would do better than the current 3Ghz though, although its a huge overclock already. Its absolutely fine in Windows/Internet etc, just doesn't seem to like gaming for long at stock voltage and +0.1v on the (G)MCH. Can you add volts to the CPU and the chipset at the same time? I'm not sure what the max is for the CPU.

Gra.

The Old Man · 3 Sep 2006 at 18:56

Hi,
I've been seeing how it goes but I'm getting occasional blue screens of death, sometimes something about a kernal and shuting down my PC to prevent damage. This is happening in Windows as much as it is in games.

I haven't overclocked my RAM yet, its default 4-4-4-12 at 2.1v although at the current CPU settings, the BIOS says the RAM is at 860Mhz.

I have the E6300 at 430FSB (3Ghz) stock voltage and +0.1v on the (G)MCH.
I have the speedstep disabled but am considering re-enabling it if it adds stability. I'm confused how most seem to be getting 3Ghz stable with this CPU. Idle temp is 31C.

Any suggestions would be appreciated as the missus is sometimes ringing me at work to complain the PC crashed when she was typing a long email!

The Old Man · 3 Sep 2006 at 22:20

Thanks for this. I checked and this was very similar to how I had it but now its:

Cpu host clock control= Enabled
Cpu host Frequency(mhz) = 430
PCI Express =100
C.I.A.2 =Disabled
System memory multiplier= 2.0
Vdimm voltage +0.3 = 2.1 Volts
pci-e voltage +0.1
FSB Voltage +0.1
(G)MCH Voltage +0.1
I have the CPU Voltage at 1.375v at the moment as I assumed it needed a bit more juice.

The weird thing is the RAM though, as you pointed out its overclocking it.
The RAM multiplier is still at 2 yet the ram shows as 860Mhz. However, I ordered this RAM becasue Gibbo started a topic pointing out how good it was and that it overclocked easily. I haven't a clue why its at 860Mhz but Gibbo said it would go higher than this anyway. CPU-Z is still showing the timings as 5-7-7-20, yet I set it in the BIOS to be the default 4-4-4-12.

Screen Capture

The Old Man · 4 Sep 2006 at 11:12

Thanks, I put in the ram timings as marked on the RAM's sticker 4-4-4-12 in the BIOS. Strangely CTRL&F1 no longer seems to work in my BIOS vF4e! I'll double check though. With the CPU overclocked and hence the RAM, is it best to change the default RAM settings to something other than 4-4-4-12 or is it okay to leave it that that?

Funny how your RAM timings are showing accurately in CPU-z and not mine! I'll put the CPU voltage back to normal too as when I first switched on today it blue screened immediately Windows started loading.

Edit. Checked my RAM timings and I think they are correct but it was set to Auto, I've now changed it to Manual:

Ram timings screenshot

The RAM timings are now showing correctly in CPU-z (although the SPD still misreads them, the memory tab shows them fine). Possibly this means they were not running at those timings before with Dram Timing Selectable set to Auto, not manual.

The Old Man · 4 Sep 2006 at 21:36

Yes, its in the BIOS. I have mine disabled too. Best of luck with your friends overclock. Mine hasn't blue screened all day since I forced the memory timings as Manual and not Auto, even though they were detected properly in the BIOS and grayed out, CPU-z wasn't seeing them so I assume they weren't working properly.

The Old Man · 14 Sep 2006 at 12:28

Hhhm, for the last few weeks my system has seemed completely stable at 3Ghz using the above settings. Forcing the RAM settings to 4-4-4-12 seemed to do the trick. I might re-enable the throttle feature if it will help improve the lifespan of the chip.