Mild overclock on a Q6600 with Asus P5K : How are these values?

[Draeger]

Hi folks,

Just got a Q6600 from here in the MM to replace my excellent little E6300 which was sat at 3.2Ghz on air on my P5K board.

A while back some kind soul here posted some values to use for the E6300 and once I installed the Q6600 I basically used the same ones in the BIOS with a couple of minor changes. Can someone in the know take a look at the values I have and advise?. Ideally I'd like it to sit at around the 3.0-3.2 Ghz mark. I'm using a vanilla P5K with 4Gb Geil ULL DDR2. The Quad is now sat at :-

Advanced --> CPU Configuration
CPU Ratio Control = Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting = 7
C1E Support = Disabled

Advanced --> JumperFree Configuration
Ai Overclocking = Manual
CPU Ratio Control = Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting = [See above]
FSB Frequency = 450
PCIE Frequency = 101
DRAM Frequency = DDR2- 800 MHz
DRAM Command Rate = 2T
DRAM Timing Control = Manual
CAS# Latency = 5
RAS# to Cas# Delay = 5
RAS# Precharge = 5
RAS# Activate to Precharge = 15
TWR...to...TRTP = Auto
DRAM Static Read Control = Auto

Transaction Booster = Auto
Clock Over-Charging Mode = Auto

CPU Spread Spectrum = Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum = Disabled

CPU Voltage = 1.3000
CPU Voltage reference = Auto
CPU Voltage Damper = Enabled
CPU PPL Voltage = Auto
DRAM Voltage = 2.10v
FSB Termination Voltage = Auto
North Bridge Voltage = 1.25v
North Bridge Voltage Reference = Auto
South Bridge Voltage = Auto

Many thanks in advance for any assistance!!.

 

[Draeger]

Okeydokey. After 35 mins of Prime95 I get these below. I did notice during the test that Core Temp ( and to a certain extent CPU-Z but not as noticeably ) showed the frequency fluctuating between 2799.64Mhz - 399.95 x 7.0 and 2599.67Mhz 399.95 x 6.5. Not sure why that was?. Anyway, here are the results :-

 

[Draeger]

Thing is, I'm not exactly sure where to start as far as changing things goes!!.

Just "up" the FSB and Vcore to begin with, a little at a time?. Roughly what basic settings should I be looking to start changing to get me a base of 3.0Ghz to begin with?. The cooler is the same one I had on my E6300 - Arctic Seven Freezer Pro, the old type not the revision one. Used AS5 paste on it. Was thinking of sourcing a Tuniq Tower but if the temps I get look fine then I'll stick with the Arctic 7 for now.

Oh, and I didn't have a clue what that "AUX" temp of 119 deg was until I Googled it!!!.

Found this :-

Also, SpeedFan's "Aux" is simply an unassigned spare input, which may randomly toggle through values upt to 127. This is a known issue, is not a problem, and can be deselected for display, and disregarded.

 

[Draeger]

Bumped it up to 400 x 8 but although it booted to the desktop when I began to run Prime it spat the dummy and I ended up with a BSOD Code 124.

Can't help thinking that I have missed something in there that needs changing as surely it should achieve 400 x 8 without much hassle?. My DRAM Frequency was still at "Auto" for some reason so I changed that to 800Mhz.

Also can't seem to find where to turn off Speedstep?. I have CPU Spread Spectrum and PCIE Spread Spectrum disabled as well as C1E Support disabled.

Read on another forum that if you change the Ratio CMOS Setting from 6 to 9 it turns off Speedstep completely but haven't tried that yet. Is there any real benefit to turning off Speedstep?. I'm sure I read somewhere about it dropping volts when it fluctuates between the 6 and 9 values when it turns on and off?.

 

[Draeger]

Did you up the volts when you when to 400x8 since you were running it at 1.184v before and im pretty sure that won't handle 3.2 its vid is 1.3v so maybe try 1.25v.

Have you got a LLC option anywhere? load line calibration (I think its called)

Can anyone confirm CPU PPL Voltage is CPU PLL (might need to tweak that, read around for best settings)?

Hmm. I see what you mean. What voltage setting needs changing from 1.184v?. I have my CPU Voltage at 1.3000v and Northbridge at 1.25v. Whereabout do I change 1.184v as I can't see it anywhere?.

**EDIT** I think it is showing 1.184v because of this damn Speedstep again!!.

I'll have a look for LLC and see if that is in there somewhere.

 

[Draeger]

Ok, I went back in and reset the BIOS values to default then started from scratch. This time in the BIOS I could see Intel Speedstep. Apparently if you start setting some of the overclocking options to "Manual" the Speedstep option vanishes whether it has been changed to Disabled or not. Pretty annoying!.

So I Disabled it and went back through the settings again and changed them to pretty much what I had. Set the Multiplier to 400 x 8 and the vCore to 1.3250v.

Booted up and it seemed fine. However, Coretemp is still displaying the Multiplier as x 6 for some reason? :-

CPUZ says otherwise as you can see. Whats that all about?. Which one is right?.

As well as that, despite setting the vcore to 1.3250v its only showing in CPUZ as 1.280v. I assume that is the vdroop issue?. So should I bump up the vcore higher in order to compensate, is that what you mean?.

I apologise for what must appear to be a load of daft newbie questions. Appreciate you guys taking time to post and assist me!!.

 

[Draeger]

Doesn't appear to be - no.

I turned off everything under "CPU Configuration", C1E, CPU TM, Vanderpool etc. I can't see where else there would be another energy saving setting that needs disabled in order for Core Temp to show the same ( x8 ) Multiplier that CPUZ is showing.

There must be some setting I'm missing though because as soon as I start Prime, Core Temp shows the same fluctuation in multiplier as I noticed before and under 100% load Core Temps reading increses to that of approx the one CPUZ shows. Stop Prime and Core Temps reading drops back down to the x6 multiplier again.

 

[Draeger]

Idle, vcore is shown by CPUZ to be at 1.352v ( as I said, set it in BIOS at 1.4000v ). Running Prime it goes to @1.280v.

As far as updating the BIOS goes from what I have been Googling this afternoon the Asus BIOS updates were a hit or a miss when it came to allowing Speedstep to be "properly" turned off. I can't recall what BIOS version I'm running, will check though. As far as I can see ( maybe you guys can confirm ) my overclock to 3.2 appears to be working fine when it should as when running Prime Core Temp shoots up to that level. Then at idle it drops back to x6 multiplier. So I guess thats not too tragic?. Suppose I can live with what appears to be Speedstep stuck on as long as it isn't affecting my overclock when I need it to step back up to 3.2?.

At least it isn't the other way around, one guy I read about said his did the opposite - started off at his overclocked value and under load it stepped down to x6!!.

Would still like to know why it does that in Core Temp and not in CPUZ though?. Surely if Speedstep was working as it should then CPUZ would show the fluctuation and change in multipliers also?.

 

[Draeger]

Also you may want to back into the bios and turn on speedstep / c1e back on if you can't get it to drop properly, it might show the drop in cpu-z then.

/slaps head

I didn't even think of that. Probably why CPUZ isn't showing the change. Will try an older Core Temp and see how that goes.

Had a look, I'm running the 603 BIOS. Certainly won't change up to the 705 that the bloke who had the opposite problem was running!. I had read that the P5K suffered from horrendous vdroop, there it is confirmed again!.

 

[Draeger]

Have you tried coretemp 0.99.5? To make sure.

Well I eventually tracked down a copy of CT 0.99.5 and tried that and guess what?. It's now showing what would appear to be the correct multiplier, same as CPUZ is. Reading on the CT forums there are quite a few folk having issues with incorrect readings despite a "fix" being released so I think I'll stick with 0.99.5 for now! :-

 

[Draeger]

Excellent. Thanks very much indeed for all your help, been very informative.