Overclocking Q6600 - failing core

fross

fross

fross

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Hi all,

well i finally took the plunge and started overclocking my Q6600. First step was actually to get my ram running at the full speed as the auto setting was slow (5-5-5-18!). That's gone fine. You can see my components in my sig.

I started trying out some settings for hitting 3Ghz, with the FSB at 1333, VCORE at 1.3V, the others on normal. This booted fine, however when I run Prime95, the third core always reports an error (incorrect value) after a minute or so. And running something complicated usually ends in a crash, probably due to that core running something and getting it wrong. it was always that core that errored, too.

I've since scaled back to 2.8Ghz and it's stable (Prime95 for an hour no issues, also been playing WAR on it fine), but I'm wondering what sort of thing can cause this problem, and how to get round it. Would upping the volts probably make it worse or better?

Also, I've found the northbridge on the P5N32-E gets REALLY hot, 100C or so, overclocked or not. So much for that bloody little heatpipe, time to put a decent fan on it. Anyone found any issues with replacing that structure on the motherboard?
 
Firstly you want to leave you RAM as slow as possible when overclocking the CPU, you can speed the RAM up later but you want to make sure when you are stress testing that it is the CPU and not the RAM that is failing..

So make sure the RAM is running at the correct voltage, and then set the timmings really lose 6-6-6-23 and when upping the FSB keep it under 800mhz (although thats an Nvidia board so you might just be able to fix it to 800mhz)

You probably need some more vcore just up it by a notch until the CPU is stable, keep an eye on temps
 
Ah, thanks, I didn't know about leaving the RAM slow. I'll try putting that back to 5-5-5-18 or something.

I suspect it's the core that's failing and not the RAM as it was the same core each time (3 times) and always after about 1 minute. I'll try 3Ghz again and then push the VCore up a notch or two and see if it helps.

Temperature so far has been fine, 65C peak on maximum load after an hour.
 
Yesterday I finally got mine working at 3.3Ghz.

If its one core definatley failing try increasing the GTLREF slightly to see if it improves performance. I beleibe 70% is about as high as you want to go. This will incrase the voltage delivered to that core or a pair of cores hopefully fixing your issue.

Do it in 1% increases not straight to 70%

To get mine to work i used these settings

FSB 367* Multiplier 9
RAM at 1225 1:1.50B (This is only for my DDR3 1333 RAM you may need to set it to lower speed or higher depending on the specs.

I put the CPU on 1.45v and the RAM on 1.6v (RAM voltage again is only for my RAM your may be different, DDR2 i beleibe will go to 2.2v)
 
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RAM voltage entirly depends on the RAM! always check what the manufacture says.. The DDR2 OCZ 9600 I have will sit at 2.3/2.35, most DDR2 RAM needs somewhere between 1.8v and 2.2v but always check!
 
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