First attempt at overclocking.. oh dear

Scope · 11 Jan 2007 at 19:27

I've done a bit of reading and thought I'd try to overclock my 6600 on Gigabyte S3 motherboard with "OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit" ram.. My understanding is that I can start by upping the FSB, which I did, to 333 (making it 3ghz), but when I did it first shutdown, then it would restart every few seconds, without displaying anything on the screen.. I held the power button which stopped it doing this, and luckely it reset the settings in the bios so I didnt have to disconnect the battery, etc.. I also tried a smaller FSB, but same thing happened, expect this time the speaker first beeped quickly 5-6 times, before starting to reboot, etc..

Anyway, what am I doing wrong? Should this work?

(everything else was left at their default setting)

WJA96 · 11 Jan 2007 at 19:55

Hi,

Yes, this should work just fine. You need to make about a dozen changes to the BIOS to make it all work though.

WJA96 said:
OK - I don't think this should be a problem.

Reboot the PC, press the DEL key to get into the BIOS.

Once in the BIOS, arrow over to 'LOAD OPTIMIZED DEFAULTS' and select that. It will ask if you are sure, confirm that you are the PC will reboot.

Use the DEL key to get back into the BIOS again.

Go to ADVANCED BIOS FEATURES and select that.

Set the following to Disable;

CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)
CPU EIST Function
Virtualization Technology

Press ESC to come out of that menu.

Go to the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker (MIT) and select that.

Set CPU Host Clock Control to Enabled

You will now be able to change the CPU Host Frequency.

Set it to 333 to start with.

Now set the PCI Express Frequency to 100

Now select System Memory Multiplier

Set that to 2.00. Your memory will now happily overclock with the CPU up to FSB of 400, which is 3.6GHz. After that the memory will also be overclocked.

Depending on your Memory, you may need to adjust the DIMM overvoltage control by between 0.1 and 0.3V to give between 1.9V and 2.1V.

Leave all the memory options on AUTO for the moment. It's not optimal, but it's not going to slow you down much either.

Press F10 to save and restart. If that's nice and stable - use SuperPi 1M places as a quick test, then go up 5MHz.

That should be stable. The most common mistake I see is people over-clocking the RAM by increasing the System Memory Multiplier when they should be decreasing it.

Give that a go up to 360MHz FSB in 5 MHz steps and let us know how you get on.

If it goes too hard, the system will auto-reset and let back in at the last settings that worked, so don't worry.

PLEASE DON'T INCREASE THE VCORE VOLTAGE AT THIS POINT - IT'S NOT NECESSARY and it's the only way to damage you processor.

Scope · 11 Jan 2007 at 19:57

WJA96 said:
Hi,

Yes, this should work just fine. You need to make about a dozen changes to the BIOS to make it all work though.

Thank you, I will try this.

Scope · 11 Jan 2007 at 20:31

Yes, im up and running.. Thank you for a very helpful guide.

You mentioned Memory options as Auto.. Did you mean the overvolt options? They were all set as Normal, and I left them normal + I didnt change the "DIMM overvoltage control", but it all seems to work.

Also, do I leave the multiplier at 9? Just play with the FSB? (and voltage if needs be)

Im currently running superPi, but all is looking good so far.Idle temp went up by 5 degrees, but no worries yet.

Im hoping to reach 3.2, then I think I will stop.

WJA96 · 11 Jan 2007 at 20:54

Well done! The first 800MHz are the easiest! TO get to 3.6GHz is the real target. Your RAM is good for it, so why not?

Anyways...

Yes, just leave everything at normal. You may need to add [+0.1V] or [+0.2V] on the RAM, but mine seems quite happy at 400MHz on the stock volts. Once you're reached 3.2GHz then post again and I'll talk you through tweaking the RAM.

beast · 11 Jan 2007 at 21:17

What BIOS are you using? if you are using F8 or F9, that's your answer. I had the exact same probs. F7 is the only one for o/clocking.

Scope · 11 Jan 2007 at 21:27

beast said:
What BIOS are you using? if you are using F8 or F9, that's your answer. I had the exact same probs. F7 is the only one for o/clocking.

Isnt F7 the latest one for the S3 board? I know DS3/4 has higher versions.. Im on F7, for S3.

Kaiju · 11 Jan 2007 at 21:35

Keep overclockin' mate, if you can get that illusive 3.6GHz with that RAM, i'll get me some tonight.

beast · 11 Jan 2007 at 21:36

Scope said:
Isnt F7 the latest one for the S3 board? I know DS3/4 has higher versions.. Im on F7, for S3.

I thought the S3 was just a DS3 with non solid-state capacitors. It's exactly the same otherwise. Anyway if you're on F7 then it doesn't matter!

Scope · 11 Jan 2007 at 23:14

Im now on FSB 356 (3.2ghz) with idle temps around 35 (pretty much the same as when running 3.0ghz), full load temp is around 47 degrees (so far). Is this good?

I am tempted to leave it at 3.2ghz for a while, and perhaps go further later on. Scared to fry the £200 chip you see.

Scope · 11 Jan 2007 at 23:29

According to CPU-Z the timing for my ram is as follows:

Freq: 356.8
FSB : DRAM: 1:1
CAS Latency: 5
RAS TO CAS lat: 5
RAS precharge: 5
Cycle Time: 17

Is this something that can be improved on? I take it the RAM can go faster? Or does it have to be 1:1 with the FSB and not changeble?

WJA96 · 11 Jan 2007 at 23:43

Scope said:
According to CPU-Z the timing for my ram is as follows:

Freq: 356.8
FSB : DRAM: 1:1
CAS Latency: 5
RAS TO CAS lat: 5
RAS precharge: 5
Cycle Time: 17

Is this something that can be improved on? I take it the RAM can go faster? Or does it have to be 1:1 with the FSB and not changeble?

Right, you have a choice to make!

Do you want to push the CPU any harder?

If you want to, then leave the RAM speeds on AUTO.

If you're happy with 3.2GHz then you need to get into the 'special' menu. In the main BIOS screen press CTRL+F1 then go into the overclocking menu and you will have about 6 or 7 extra options. Set the first 4 memory options to 4, 4, 4, 12 and set the DIMM voltage to +0.2V

Reboot and you should get a small improvement in your SuperPi time.

Andeh · 12 Jan 2007 at 02:30

thats a good overclock mate, you should go higher!
I got my E6300 up to 3.01ghz on the stock cooler, and it still remains below 60 degrees at full load. I also have the same memory, which CPU-Z reports as 5, 5, 5, 12
Should I change this to gain a performance boost?

WJA96 · 12 Jan 2007 at 07:59

@Andeh - well, you're in a different position - The OcUK Value RAM is rated at 5-5-5-12 and 400MHz. At 3.01GHz you're running @430MHz and it's probably getting close to the limit of the RAM's ability. If it will let you tighten the timings then by all means, do it.

@Scope - how are you getting on?

Scope · 12 Jan 2007 at 08:01

WJA96 said:
@Scope - how are you getting on?

Not been able to change anything yet - and now im off to work.. I'll see tonight if I can have a play again. Thank you very much for your help so far.

WJA96 · 12 Jan 2007 at 08:07

Scope said:
Is this good?

The overclock is slightly above average, the temperatures would tend to indicate you've got a 'good' chip with good contact between the cores and the heat spreader. You are using TAT or Coretemp for those temperatures aren't you?

Scope said:
I am tempted to leave it at 3.2ghz for a while, and perhaps go further later on.

It's a good plan as the thermal paste doesn't set up fully for a couple of weeks and there is a 'burn-in' theory that says you should run a CPU hard for a bit and then go back and clock it some more.

Scope said:
Scared to fry the £200 chip you see.

As long as you have left TM1&TM2 enabled in the BIOS you really can't overheat the chip. It will just shut down in a nice, controlled way. An Intel CPU in an Intel Motherboard is almost indestructible assuming you don't cludge dropping the CPU into the LGA socket. And they really don't need a lot ef extra voltage either on the S3 board as it has very, very stable voltages.

It sounds like, between the S3, OcUK Value RAM and the good temperatures, you've got yourself a nice, cheap clockmonster

Scope · 12 Jan 2007 at 14:26

Just out of interest, which one is better: 400*8 or 356*9? Both giving 3.2ghz..

Kaiju · 12 Jan 2007 at 14:34

Scope said:
Just out of interest, which one is better: 400*8 or 356*9? Both giving 3.2ghz..

Run a program called SuperPi if you haven't already to see which is faster. I'd vouch the higher FSB would be faster though.

WJA96 · 12 Jan 2007 at 16:53

Scope said:
Just out of interest, which one is better: 400*8 or 356*9? Both giving 3.2ghz..

400x8 will be harder on the Northbridge but most benchmarks like clock cycles to speed them up. Personally, if your cooling is up to it, then I would say you'd be better trying for 400*9 as that is your optimum for the RAM and the CPU. You'll probably need to add a couple of clicks of voltage and maybe put an extra [0.1V] on the MCH Northbridge to get there.

Kaiju said:
Run a program called SuperPi if you haven't already to see which is faster. I'd vouch the higher FSB would be faster though.

Agreed.