OC'ing newbie - need a few tips please!

beneaton4

beneaton4

beneaton4

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Joined
5 Feb 2007
Posts
13
Okay, first of all, hello everyone!

Secondly, here is my new machine spec:

Antec NeoHE 550W Modular ATX2.0 PSU
Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Silver)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB)
EVGA nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Zalman CNPS7700-CU Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - Retail
Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x512MB)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
EVGA GeForce 7900 GS 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Sony AW-G170AB2 18x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer - (Black)

Before anybody asks, I know that the 7900GS is not the most powerful card that I could have stuck in this rig, but it currently beats the socks off the first-gen Galaxy Glacier GF6800GT from my previous rig, and is a stop gap until the next generation of 8xxx GeForce cards come out (when all teething problems are sorted and decent drivers abound!).

I also know the E6300 is not the most powerful chip, but I got it for the stupid overclocking ability.

The BIOS revision is apparently P23. All the latest drivers etc

Currently I have unlinked the memory (4-4-4-12 I think, but it seems to default to 5-4-4-17 in the BIOS) and the FSB. I am currently running the FSB at 1600. This gives a CPU clockspeed of 2.8GHz. The voltage is on auto and has ramped up 1.465V - I'm concerned this is a bit high. Under load - Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., 3DMark06, 1080 HD video playback, PSP movie recode - I am getting a peak temperature of 49 degrees according to nVidia Monitor. The three case fans in the Antec case are set to medium (for the lower PSU compartment) and low (for the two upper fans at the top-rear of the case). I haven't bothered to install the external fan control for the Zalman, so it's whirring away at 100% quite happily (not that it's that audible through the beast of a case!).

I have seen another thread (can't remember where, if I find it I'll post a link) that advocates switching the memory count off Auto(2T) to just 2T. It also gives voltages for various components. Should I set the voltages to specific levels to reduce overheating? How high do you think it is possible to drive the E6300? I'm hoping to try and get 3.2GHz out of it - I'd need to hit 1830MHz on the FSB for that, but the voltage might climb to high and I don't particularly want to fry the board! :eek:

What do people think? My last rig was not really overclockable due to a poor choice of motherboard and processor (Gigabyte GA-8S655FX-L rev 1.0 and Prescott 3.2E - put those two together on the original BIOS revision of P5 and laugh as you realise that it underclocks to 2.8GHz and won't clock back up!) but I've put together this one to get started on the path of high clockspeed glory...

Want to get going - Supreme Commander arrives soon... :p
 
Put the vcore to manual, otherwise everything seems to be going fine. Already got quite a nice overclock there. Follow the sticky and you can't go wrong...
 
Thanks for the tip. Why does the memory set itself differently to the recommended manufacturer's timings? I've noticed it go to 5-4-4-11, which is surely outside its safe operating range. Should I set these manually to 4-4-4-12 as well?
 
The SPD on the memory should tell the mobo what speed and timings to default at - maybe it is being read incorrectly.

Set it to 4-4-4-12 manually, should be fine.
 
Hmmmm....upgraded to P24 BIOS to get more accurate temperature readings. Under load it's clocking at 50-52 degrees on the CPU. 7900GS temp is at 45-50 under load. Both of these under the new overclocks - see below!

Overclocked to 3GHz now. I've overclocked the 7900GS to 600MHz (and whatever the associated overclock is on the memory - it was done via the nVidia performance utility). Getting 5572 on 3DMark06 with that setup - seems reasonable for a single mid-range card setup, so I'm happy for the meantime.

Setting the memory timings to 4-4-4-12-2T from the auto setting of 5-4-4-17-Auto(2T) created issues though - the computer had problems booting and the BIOS actually booted into its own safe mode...

Any idea why this is? I've set the voltages to auto as well - nothing is over 1.4V at the moment except for the CPU which is at 1.5V.

The memory is still unlinked and I've disabled spread spectrum for the meantime.

I think this seems fairly reasonable for the moment - any thoughts?
 
If its causing problems, then set the RAM timings to the looser settings, there isn't much (if any) impact in real world usage on the core 2 duo platform. You might find manually setting the voltage on the RAM to its intended amount might do the trick though.

Alternatively, you could leave the RAM at its looser settings, set the RAM voltage manually to its intended amount, and then crank up the RAM speeds (MHz) :D
 
The ram voltage is ranked between 1.8 and 2.2 apparently. Not too sure I want to boost it though as I've read about some strange things happening with the 680i and memory at 2V+.


I'll run it as is at the moment and see how things progress. Thank you for your help - much appreciated!
 
No. It just powered through them. TBH I think there's still more overhead with the unlinked fsb, but I'm going to stick at this level for a while.

On my original overclock I just jumped straight to FSB of 1600MHz - it seemed like a nice round number! In hindsight maybe should have been more cautious, but the setup seems to stay relatively cool, even under load at overclock.

Just make sure you unlink. There were times when it wouldn't boot when it was linked - generally anything above 1600MHz that wasn't a multiple of 40 (i.e. 10MHz jumps on the quad pump). Unlinking solved this, so I guess it was just running the memory too high and increasing the voltage to that 2V region where the 680 becomes unpredictable.

Still a bit of a n00b at this overclocking thing, so sorry I can't be more help than that!
 
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