E6600 Overclocking Help

SiriusB

SiriusB

SiriusB

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OK unless I have missed something it seems I have managed to get the worst E6600 on the planet!

I cannot get this damned thing stable at 3GHz at all. I have had the voltage all the way up to 1.5V and it still crapped out after a few minutes in Orthos. Even with the RAM only running at 333MHz I can't get anywhere!

Specs:

E6600 [Scythe Ninja rev B]
Asus P5B Deluxe
GeIL 2GB PC6400 Ultra Low Latency 800MHz [4-4-4-12]

I used the guide here: http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Core2Duo-Overclocking-Guide-v1-ftopict197995.html

And so far no luck!

If anyone has a successful overclock with the same hardware I would love to know what settings you used. I refuse to believe I have managed to buy an E6600 that is this crap :(
 
Not sure about the board, but ive cranked mine up to 3.33ghz. Start at 1.40 volts, and try going up 0.025 volts at a time.

It worked for me.
 
It is at 1.42V now and has just bummed out at a few minutes. The E6600s were supposed to be virtually guaranteed to reach 3GHz. Starting to think I have just become the exception :(

This is quite aggrivating for me as my last CPU [4400+] was a bit of a duffer too.
 
If your temps are normal then try just using one stick of RAM at a time and see if that works. I know you said you were underclocking the RAM, but I had a duff stick of Geil that was stopping a CPU overclock with the RAM at stock.
 
OK will give that a shot

EDIT: Uh oh! Looks like I have a duff stick of RAM. Tried one on its own and it flaked at about 2 minutes. Second stick went in on its own and it has been going for just over an hour. Longest it has been stable with both sticks has been 15 minutes so it seems an RMA is in order :(
 
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This situation just got more complicated!

The single stick of RAM that appeared to work correctly went for over 2 hours before I stopped the orthos testing. I then decided to put the same stick of RAM into the other DIMM slot and to my horror, 10 minutes later it flaked out!

So it would appear I have a dodgy motherboard, and not dodgy RAM.

Now in order to RMA my board I assume OcUK or ASUS will test the board. The problem is, I have been testing the same stick of RAM in the apparantly broken DIMM slot with everything at stock and so far no errors after 40 minutes.

I really don't know what is going on or what to do. While OCd it appears the board is unstable/broken with regards to the DIMM slot, but now at stock the problem appears to have gone away. Is it a broken motherboard or is there something in the overclock that is causing problems?

This is really getting on my **** now because it seems every time I solve something a new problem crops up
 
SiriusB said:
This situation just got more complicated!

The single stick of RAM that appeared to work correctly went for over 2 hours before I stopped the orthos testing. I then decided to put the same stick of RAM into the other DIMM slot and to my horror, 10 minutes later it flaked out!

So it would appear I have a dodgy motherboard, and not dodgy RAM.

Now in order to RMA my board I assume OcUK or ASUS will test the board. The problem is, I have been testing the same stick of RAM in the apparantly broken DIMM slot with everything at stock and so far no errors after 40 minutes.

I really don't know what is going on or what to do. While OCd it appears the board is unstable/broken with regards to the DIMM slot, but now at stock the problem appears to have gone away. Is it a broken motherboard or is there something in the overclock that is causing problems?

This is really getting on my **** now because it seems every time I solve something a new problem crops up
Click to expand...

Could be uncompatible memory, try a couple of sticks from the approved list in your manual.
 
Typhoon said:
Could be uncompatible memory, try a couple of sticks from the approved list in your manual.
Click to expand...

A nice idea but I don't have the money to buy RAM to test with :)

Have you run Memtest86+ to make absolutely sure its not your ram?
Click to expand...

Will set Memtest to run when I go bed and see what the results are in the morning. However I think it rather odd that the RAM works fine in one DIMM slot and not the other - although as said only when my CPU is overclocked.

To be honest I am just baffled by all this.
 
UPDATE: OK I have just finished running Memtest86+ for just over 8 hours and there are no errors whatsoever. This is with both sticks of RAM and everything at stock.

From the above result all I can assume is

1: There is an instability that I may be able to correct when overclocking
or

2: The board is a duffer but only shows problems when overclocking.

I am hoping it is the former as that means I can do something about it but me being me it is probably number 2 :(
 
MemTest86 is less than infallible at detecting RAM problems. The faulty module I mentioned would happily pass MemTest for hours but would fail to even boot into Windows half the time and booting into Ubuntu Live CD died every time.

You may have a problem with one slot, or you may have a problem with one stick, or you may have a problem with the sticks when paired. You're going to have to try some variations to see which it is. In terms of detecting the problem, I found that Ubuntu was a good test, but a more conventional test would be running Orthos Blend, which killed my machine within a few minutes with the faulty stick in on its own or as the first module in a pair.
 
Gawd this gets harder all the time! You'd think a dedicated memory testing utility would in some small way actually test memory :p

I have just updated my BIOS as for some reason I only updated it to the 0804 version. Imagine my surprise at seeing 1101 :o So I have set my original OC settings and giving Orthos a bash now.

If this fails in the next 10-15 minutes I will have to start doing some playing around with the RAM. When you say Ubuntu usually finds the issue is it just a case of loading the Live CD and seeing if it dies a death? Ubuntu is usually my main OS so I am stuffed if I can't install it :eek:

Assuming I can find a definite culprit what are my RMA prospects? Would "my board/RAM flakes when overclocking, can I have a new one?" cut it? Especially as it all seems to work fine at stock.

EDIT: OK things are looking good. Running at ~3GHz and Orthos has been going almost 50 minutes with no errors. This is the longest it has managed with both sticks of RAM. Previous best was 15 minutes. So it would appear it was the old BIOS revision I was using that was causing problems.

Will keep you posted just in case things take another turn for the worse :p
 
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I just used an old Ubuntu 6.06LTS LiveCD I had and booted to safe mode. It would segfault or kernel panic seven or eight times out of ten before getting to the desktop. I think Linux is just more sensitive to memory issues than Windows in general. It doesn't mean that it will find your issue though. I'm just saying that it found mine. Booting to a Live CD has now become part of my standard testing procedure after having to re-image Windows after crashes too many times.

As for an RMA. If it works at stock then I personally don't RMA and seeing as overclocking voids most warranties, I doubt that "Can I get a new one as this failed when I overclocked it" would go down very well. Give it a good hammering with Orthos blend at stock and hope that the instability is present there too, I guess.
 
The Orthos testing has been going for well over an hour now so I am going to assume for the moment that it was a RAM issue with an old BIOS.

Going to give it another 20/30 minutes and if all is well I shall see about getting this baby higher :D

Thanks for your help mwtb and everyone else. I think I may have this licked :)
 
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