Help me make my Q9550 stable :)

[k3wt]

After questioning whether i should OC for a a fair few months i now intend to make my PC stable at a high clock speed but unsure on the best way of going about it and what i might need eg fan controllers, type of fans and brand etc. i find stock fans noisy

Heres my spec rundown:-

Lian Li PC- V1110 in silver all stock fans (except CPU)
Q9550 currently at 3.31ghz or (3.21....cant remember but its stable)
Noctua CPU Cooler NH-U12P
Asus Rampage Formula
OCZ Platinum 8gb ram
Win 7 Pro.

I use the onboard Asus mobo software to OC and the highest it will go to is 3.51ghz. having stress tested it with (i think) intelburn on max stress with my fans on highest setting (swtich on back of case to high) after an hour (or two?) it fails.

So first off im thinking i need a fan intake in the front; top half of my case - and need one of these from Lian Li BZ-502 - which is a a replacement part to fil 3 of my 5.25" drive bays with a built in 120mm fan feeding air towards the CPU... right? then perhaps change all other fans to Noctuas to match my CPU cooler - plus i find the stock fans very noisy, especially on high speed with little cooling improvement.

Drive bays - BZ-502

Replace with this? -

Also replace fan at rear and fan leading to cpu?:-

Also which 140mm fan (front) what would u recommenfd to replace it with? Comment on OCUK says the new 140mm Noctua is noisy. From what a read a few months back Scythe are good for fans that size? Noise is my main concern.

Existing 140mm front fan in lower part of case - http://lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upload/image/V2010/v2010u4.jpg

Spec of the case:-

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...210&cl_index=1&sc_index=38&ss_index=96&g=spec

i know very little about OCing and case modding so any advice welcome

Thanks in advance OC'ers

 

[k3wt]

not sure? i got the whole lot on the date the pics were taken, last sept? so if there have been revisions since then it wont be the latest...?

 

[k3wt]

post your vcore and temps

youve lost me already

What are the load temps anyway, pushing more and more cooling on a system thats unstable wont automatically fix it. Have you upped the voltages on the cpu and memory as you increased the clocks. Overclocking isnt just a case of ramping up the clocks and piling on more cooling.

The harder you overclock, the more you need to try and tweek the multipliers to get a combination of FSB & Final clock that work for your chip and your motherboard.

As you overclock the CPU the memory is generally being overclocked as well, faster you go, the more you need to tweak timings and voltages on there too.

I used CPU Level up onboard the MOBO in the bios. i didnt manually adjust anything. I really know that little

 

[k3wt]

i think your cpu cooler should be rotated 180degrees, looks like its blowing to the front of the case when it should be blowing through into the rear fan

yeh ive changed that as soon as i realised...u mean like this:-

comon gimme a break its my first ever PC build

 

[k3wt]

what stepping is the cpu?

Does that tell u the stepping?

wil check those links when i get more time, at present it looks a bit daunting

EDIT:- I wont be watercooling. i anticpate this pc to last until june/july next year and probably turn to the darkside of Mac ownership

 

[k3wt]

thanks for that

so the BZ 502 in the OP is a good option? i will probably replace the fan with a scythe or another noctua? also will probably need to move the DVD and card reader slots to the bottom rather than the top - for more direct air flow to the CPU cooler fans?

RE scythe slipstreams they dont come in 140mm so might be forced to get the 140mm noctua NF-P14 as there are no other 140mm options

 

[k3wt]

i think it was getting hot because i remember looking on the log sheet after it happened. doesnt it bluescreen/shutdown at 70 degrees or something?

im reading core temp now but i guess that wont make any difference until i stress test it? my idle temps are quite 'warm' tho with highs at 35 35 45 38

anyway i cant do anything till ive read the overclocking guide! however more cooling is beneficial isnt it?