My first OC - Squeezed 4.0GHz

Terrier_Jimlad · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:46

Hi guys,

Never really dabbled with overclocking before apart from the odd graphics card etc ... Have an EP45-DS3P with an Intel Q9650 ... wouldn't know where to start but got some help off a guy on the Gigabyte forums who had the same board, cpu, and ram ... so I basically copied his settings and gave them a whirl

Managed to squeeze 4.0Ghz out of the Q9650 although Windows7 shows up as Q9650 @ 3.0Ghz 4.0Ghz ... Temps have only gone up about 5ºc on each core so not bad (Artic Tower 7 + AS5 paste)

Here's a quick screenshot, does everything look ok?

It's been running stable for about 10 hours now, the only problem i'm running in to is, when for example you right click your "My Computer" icon to go in to properties, Windows Explorer will sometimes stop responding and i have to click restart the program. Is this something that i should expect after an overclock? any settings you recommend to change to stop this happening?

Thanks
roflcakes

Ducky Spud · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:49

Have you run Prime95 or Intel Burn Test at all? Seems like an odd error to be getting but an unstable overclock will make programs crash.

Run one of the stability tests, that will really show you if its a good overclock or not

Its not the best idea to just copy peoples settings, chips and boards and such are all made slightly different so one persons stable settings may not be quite right on anothers. Plus you dont know what steps he's taken to get to those settings if somthing is unstable so it becomes harder to fix

killari · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:52

I'd pick the Intel Burn test over Prime. In my experience the Intel Burn test managed to BSOD my build in 20 minutes, something Prime failed to do in 18 hours. Make sure you run a good number of tests (atleast 20) and select the option that checks to see if the calculation was performed correctly (can't remember what it was called.)

Terrier_Jimlad · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:54

when i run prim95, after about 60 secs, my APC UPS goes nuts and starts beeping lol ... i'll try Intel Burn ... what should i be looking out for?

Terrier_Jimlad · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:57

my UPS also beeps and stresses out when running Intel Burn ... it's just an old crappy one from work ... i assume it's not giving my PSU enough juice?

killari · 3 Jul 2009 at 19:58

roflcakes22 said:
when i run prim95, after about 60 secs, my APC UPS goes nuts and starts beeping lol ... i'll try Intel Burn ... what should i be looking out for?

I'm not entirely sure, but on my system when it wasn't stable it would just send the rig into the depths of BSOD land

I guess if you don't get a BSOD look out for a message that says that the calculation didn't get the correct answer (or something) otherwise you're all green to go.

Terrier_Jimlad · 3 Jul 2009 at 20:03

I'll power my rig off the mains instead of my UPS and run it ... shall I just leave the default settings and do a standard test in Intel Burn?

Terrier_Jimlad · 3 Jul 2009 at 20:30

Got BSOD after the 4th test ... think i'll go back to stock lol, i'm out of my depth with all this lol and reliability and stability are a must for me (on-call)

killari · 3 Jul 2009 at 20:41

You'll prob need to up the vcore as someone mentioned earlier

xyphox · 4 Jul 2009 at 08:21

In your Windows 7 screenshot, maybe the way it is written is the standard and overclocked speeds?

The Q9650 has a standard clock of 3.0GHz and you have overclocked it to 4.0GHz. Kinda cool.

Greebo · 4 Jul 2009 at 10:48

killari said:
You'll prob need to up the vcore as someone mentioned earlier

Although not necessarily. Most q9650 will run at 4Ghz at stock VID core. You need to tweak you mch/vtt IMO.

killari · 4 Jul 2009 at 11:19

Greebo said:
Although not necessarily. Most q9650 will run at 4Ghz at stock VID core. You need to tweak you mch/vtt IMO.

I am a muppet. Thought it was an i7 920 for some reason. This is what happens to me when I don't have near fatal amounts of caffeine

subbytna · 4 Jul 2009 at 14:40

bring it down to 3.8....having it at 4 is not a lot different to 3.8 unless you're wanting bragging rights.

3.8 will be stable