Overclocking returning to factory default

[Sirocco]

I bought an overclocked system about two years ago. The CPU is a Q6600 at 2.40Ghz which was overclocked to 3.2Ghz for me. I recently noticed that Windows reports it at 2.40Ghz. In BIOS under "oc guru" it's on factory default rather than user defined. I have a couple of questions:

1) what is the most likely reason for that happening?
2) assuming I only need to enter user defined settings in oc guru, what settings should I use to get back to 3.2Ghz?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[mymorph]

i suspect you may have had a system crash or two and bios has returned to default settings. if its very dusty inside it may have got to hot.

id check in bios to see if the settings have been saved in 'user defined' found on the save & exit page
otherwise its the slow process of test, increase, test etc until you reach the desired overclock.

 

[Sirocco]

It doesn't look like the profile was saved. You'd think when you'd paid for it to be overclocked it would have been.

Here's what I have:

CPU operating speed: 2399(266)
External clock 272Mhz (max 750)
Multiplier factor x9 (max 9)
DRAM speed (CPU: DRAM) deafult (DDR2-816)
1:100
1:1.20
1:1.25
1:1.50
1:1.66
1:2.00
PCI express clock: 100Mhz (max 200MHz)
Voltages control

Overall I haven't a clue what to change, and what the safe limits are, so the chances are I'll just leave it as it is and next time remember to save the profile.

 

[coupe69]

You'll need to set the external clock to 355 to get to 3.2GHz (355X9=3200) the nine is your multiplier so leave that alone. You'll also probably have to up the cpu vcore a touch, 1.4 volts should easily get it to 3.2GHz.

Try and run your memory with a 1:1 ratio with your cpu. So for 3.2GHz your memory should be running at around 711MHz.

It may be helpfull for people if you listed all your components

 

[mymorph]

if the multplier is locked at x9 then your only left with increasing theFSB. to get 3.2ghz the fsb must be 3200/9 so 355mhz.

if your interested, try increasing your clock speed up a couple at a time. it the system fails to boot etc, try increasing the volts by the smallest inremenrts.

and yes i think they should have saved the profile! as it onlt takes a click

 

[Sirocco]

It may be helpfull for people if you listed all your components

You're absolutely right.

It's an Ultima 8800 QUAD. These are the basic specs:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 GO 2.40GHz Quad Core CPU Overclocked too a minimum of 3.30GHz and beyond. (8/9 x 400MHz - 1600MHz FSB)
- Tuniq Tower 120 Pro Blue LED Intel approved cooler
- Arctic Silver 5 Heatsink compound professionally hand installed by our technicians
- Abit IP35-Pro Intel P35 (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- Award winning Crucial 2GB Ballistix Tracer PC2-8500 CAS5 (2x1GB) Dual Channel Kit (Overclocked at 1000MHz+) (Note when upgrading to 4GB overclock drops to 3.25GHz on CPU)
- 500GB Western Digital 16MB Cache SATA-2 Hard Drive
- NVIDIA 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) DirectX 10 Graphics Card
- Pioneer 115DBK 20x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
- Antec NINE HUNDRED Gamers ATX Case
- OCZ 1010W Next Generation Power Supply

I added more memory, so the CPU is limited to 3.2GHz.

 

[Sirocco]

Here's an update:

*external clock to 355
*CPU vcore to 1.395
*memory ratio to 1:1

It did raise it to 3.2GHz, but it's not stable. Sometimes the sound will turn into high pitched noises. That has happened straight after a reboot and also after the PC has been active for three hours.

It has a particular problem when rendering video using Premiere. Yesterday almost as soon as I hit the start render button the high pitched noise started and the PC rebooted. For now I've gone back to the factory defaults.

Any thoughts?

 

[Sirocco]

Just to update this, and it may just be coincidence, but the internal DVD writer now won't read, the drive letters are mixe up - H is now D for example - and on booting today there's a reported fault on the second internal HD and Windows tells me the RAID 0 setup is about to die. Good times.

 

[Redmint]

It's pretty unlikely that OCing your processor would mess up the rest of the system unless something very strange happened on the motherboard.