Overclock issues.. Help

rodo

rodo

rodo

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Hi, I'm a complete beginner to understanding overclocking. I bought a system from OCUK, specs:

- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
- Abit IP35 Intel P35
- 4GB Corsair PC2-6400 CAS4
- NVIDIA 8800 GT
- OCZ 600W power
- Intel Q6600 GO

The PC was overclocked to 3.1 (It came overclocked), however somehow I managed to update the bios in the Ibit software... Anyway I rebooted and everything seemed fine. However when checking my CPU through everest I noticed that it is running mainly at nearly 2MHZ rather than 3.1. Then every now and then it jumps up to 3MHZ then down again a few seconds later.

I have looked in the bios and made sure it was set up so that the CPU multiplier was 9x and other settings yet this issue still persists with it running at 2MHZ and jumping up to 3MHZ when it feels like it.

Does anyone know what this issue is or how I could correct it? Apologies for however noobish this may sound :p

Screenies of both situations (both within 15 seconds of one another)



 
That will be intels "Speed Step" when idle or in low usage it changes the multiplier to a lower amount to save on power consumption. In this case it changes from 9X333mhz to 6X333mhz. You can disable this in bios.
 
That was it! Thanks, I have read some articles on overclocking the q6600 and set it up as follows to get 3GHZ:

FSB: 333
Multiplier: 9
DRAM divider: 1:1:120 (800MHZ)
RAM Voltage: 1.9

No hickups. Been running Prime95 for about an hour and temperatures seem pretty fixed. (Measured by Everest)

Temps
Under prime95:
All cores range from 45-53 degrees C. normally only a 3 degree difference between cores.

Idle:
All cores idle around 32 degrees. One is always a few degrees lower (maybe deltering) CPU surface temp is normally around 36.

Are these temps good? I normally leave my PC on 24/7 but by no means am I using it anywhere near 100% processing like under this test.
 
Looks fine to me! Raise the FSB and get some more overclock on the go! Also what ram are you using (brand and speed) The voltage may need to be change to get the full potential from it...
 
4GB of Corsair PC2-6400 CAS4, speed 800MHZ I believe.



I was slightly hesitant to increase the overclock just because I want to lower my fans a bit, Antec 900 fans on medium at the front can be a bit of a bitch :p
 
rodo said:
4GB of Corsair PC2-6400 CAS4, speed 800MHZ I believe.



I was slightly hesitant to increase the overclock just because I want to lower my fans a bit, Antec 900 fans on medium at the front can be a bit of a ***** :p
Click to expand...

A quick google reveals that the ram should be set to 2.1V ideally. Also noise over speed pfffft! :p Blasphemy! :D
 
2.1 it shall be then. Thanks for the help! Speed is good but when I'm in my new house I don't know how on earth I'm going to sleep with this bad boy on. It really needs its own room/temple :p
 
Adjusted voltage. It stalled before got to login to windows first time but second time no issues. Seems fine now. Perhaps nothing
 
I was thinking about what you said earlier about memory speed. I looked at Everest and it mentions the memory. If you add the two speeds below together it makes 670MHZ or am I reading this all wrong and being a numpty and the Corsair PC2-6400 CAS4 is 800MHZ?

 
rodo said:
I was thinking about what you said earlier about memory speed. I looked at Everest and it mentions the memory. If you add the two speeds below together it makes 670MHZ or am I reading this all wrong and being a numpty and the Corsair PC2-6400 CAS4 is 800MHZ?

Click to expand...

I think what thats saying is that the memory as a standard should be 5-5-5-18 @ 400mhz which on a 2X memory multi makes it 800Mhz. Next to that it shows what yours is currently set to: 4-4-4-13 * 270Mhz on a 2X memory Multi makes it 540Mhz, which is obviously slower than it should be. What is the memory multiplier in the bios set to at the moment?
 
I reset my RAM in bios to auto DRAM divider and RAM voltage which it then told me in bios I would get 798MHZ.

In CPU-Z I get 399MHZ (see below). Is this one of those things where it is X2 so my RAM is funtioning at 800MHZ near enough??

 
memory is on a Double Data Bandwidth and Processors are on Quad Pumped Bandwidth so a processor at say 2.8Ghz would be 400Mhz Quad Pumped @ 1600Mhz.

If your divider is set at 1:1 then the memory would be doubled from its standard 400Mhz to 800Mhz.
 
In order to have your Quad on a 1:1 Ratio with your memory at 800Mhz, you would have to increase the Quads FSB to 400 (1600mhz Respective).

That would give you an overclock of 3.6Ghz on your Quad with your memory at 800Mhz.

Now as you have 4GB of the stuff, you may not be able to get the Quad to 3.6Ghz although I have seen it done.

However, if you were to drop the multiplyer on the Quad to 7x (as at stock it comes with a 9x multiplyer), and the FSB to 400, that would give your Quad an overclock to 2.8Ghz and your memory would still be at 800Mhz and your ratio is 1:1

You with me so far? Good!

Now you can overclock the 2 a little more keeping the ratio at 1:1 and knock the FSB of the Quad to 450 and the memory to 900Mhz. With the multiplyer still at 7, you have an overclock on the Quad of 3.15Ghz and a 100Mhz overclock on the memory.

Try it with the Multiplyer at 8x. Unfortunately they are not locked upwards, only downwards.

There has been talk for years that 1:1 ratios dont really show much of an increase in performance with Pentium Chips but since the C2D chips have been introduced it has been proved wrong on many occasions.

Trial and error really but give it a go, bench it and see what suits you.

Good Luck :)
 
I will try that. I'm starting from stock again as last night I started getting 0X0000001A error messages. I think my RAM was running at 850MHZ on the stock voltage. Since changing the FSB to 266 to make it 800MHZ I haven't had the message.

I will try what you have suggested above since the system is now back to stable. Do you have any recommendations on voltage needed? I have heard that the q6600 can manage 3GHZ on standard voltage but I have struggled to get to 2.8 on standard volts
 
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