Q6600 1.55v safe?

LeJimster

LeJimster

LeJimster

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8 Jan 2003
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Location
Sheffield, UK
Hi guys,

I've got my Q6600 SLACR set to 3.6Ghz (400*9) using 1.55v in bios, CPU-Z says 1.504v. My idle temps are 30,33,24,31 -- My system would BSOD with everything upto 1.525v at this speed.

Basically is it safe to run it at these volts as I've seen people saying not to go over 1.45v for daily use.

My system:

Asus P5E x38
2x2Gb Ballistix Tracers 800Mhz
Q6600 SLACR 2.4Ghz @ 3.6Ghz (1.55v)

BTW, I've got loadline calibration set to AUTO and my northbridge set to auto. Also I've not touched the Voltage PLL? Because I'm not sure what that is.

Any help appreciated :)
 
Does it really need that much juice to run at 3.6?
Are you sure its not some other settings causing the BSOD?

I've not come across one yet that wont run happily at 1.45 (like mine at 3.6) but I guess it can happen.
 
1.50v (in CPU-Z) is fine if your cooling can handle it.

Load temps of the mid 70's are the sensible upper limit.
 
Loadline to enabled, then mess around with NB temps till you get them right, at that FSB you wont need much at all, without turning mine on, off the top of my head I cant think of lowest setting, think is it 1.2v, so try 1.3v see if it is stable if not add some more.
change your cpu PLL volts aswell, same method again, work your way up.
I find AUTO gives to much volts, especially on cpu.
 
Ok,

I've turned loadline on and dropped volts to 1.53 (1.47 in CPU-Z) - it boots into windows and temps are around the same as before. Will try some stress testing then I'll try dropping volts on CPU PLL and Northbridge.
 
Well, it turned out to be unstable using 1.53v in bios, i kept trying with tiny increments upto 1.575v and I could get further along in the stress test each time, but I still kept getting BSOD's.

I'm not sure I want to go any further atm, so I've set it back to 1.4v @ 3.2Ghz for now.

I'm sure I've read CPU GTL is important with QUAD overclocking, what is it exactly?
 
Its not the chip voltage thats your problem here.
I've only overclocked a couple of these and dont know the settings blind, but your desired overclock is easily possible with the right settings, just stop with the vcore increases!
 
Have you tried adjusting the Northbridge voltage, running a Quad with 4GB of RAM at that frequency may require some extra juice?
 
dr. sarf said:
Its not the chip voltage thats your problem here.
I've only overclocked a couple of these and dont know the settings blind, but your desired overclock is easily possible with the right settings, just stop with the vcore increases!
Click to expand...

Thats the problem tho... What are the right settings?

Da[]San;11499815 said:
Have you tried adjusting the Northbridge voltage, running a Quad with 4GB of RAM at that frequency may require some extra juice?
Click to expand...

I've got my NB set to auto right now, and I'm not exactly sure what voltage it's running at. I can't seem to find any recommended voltages for the NB.. People just seem to be coming to there own conclusions. To be clear though... I'm perfectly stable @ 3.2Ghz using 1.4v on vcore (haven't tried any lower) and thats using 8x400.

I have got my RAM set to a conservative 1.9v (rated @ 2.2v), but I really want to run the ram as low as possible.
 
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I don't have your motherboard so i can't be sure what your NB voltage should be.

It can take time trying different combinations of NB, CPU, RAM volts / RAM timings to get you hightest stable overclock.

I would suggest trying to get say 3.3ghz stable and take it from there.
 
I would definitely set the NB voltages manually with 4gb and a quad. I havent used your board before and not sure what sort of voltages it would need but i would say that its not your vcore holding you back at this point but something else in your system.

Also if your ram is rated @ 2.2v and you running it at 1.9v even at stock settings then that could easily be throwing up errors and BSOD! Try upping it to its rated voltages to see if it it lets you clock higher then dropping in increments until it errors then up it one notch again.

Almost certain it wont be your vcore holding you back at thisd point but one of the other things mentioned in this thread.
 
I'd say get that ram to 2.2v as it might not be stable at 1.9v as others have said. Of course you are running at it's rated 'overclocked' speed so you'll probably need that at it's rated voltage.

I ran my 2x2gb G.Skill PC8000 @ its rated 2.1v and it was only ever slightly warm to the touch.

Once you've done that then test for stability again.

Good luck!

gt
 
try NB 1.5v even 1.6 if you like on your northbridge, CPU PLL on 1.6 for everyday use, I use 1.7 myself, but on a lot higher FSB than yourself.
I am gonna have a play with my PLL see if I can get it a little lower, I know it wont work at 1.6v though, so gonna try for 1.65v
 
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I have a P5E and 8500 Ballistix and also had a Q6600 up to 3.8Ghz. The board needs a lot of tweaking to get that high with a quad.

First off set your Ballistix to the 2.2v that it needs. Quads love the bandwidth so ditch the 9x400 for 8x450. Still gives you 3.6Ghz but with better performance. You will have to alter the memory speed so leave the FSBstrap to North Bridge set to auto and then under Dram Frequency select the closest speed to 800 in the drop down list. My quad did 3.6Ghz with a vcore of 1.525v. With it set to 8x450 try these settings:-

PCI-e frequency 101.
Vcore 1.525v.
CPU PLL 1.60v.
FSB termination voltage 1.50v.
Dram voltage 2.20v.
NB voltage 1.41v.
SB voltage 1.150v.
CPU GTL 0.63x.
NB GTL 0.63x.
SB 1.5v 1.6v.
Loadline calibration enable.
CPU spread spectrum disable.
PCI-e spread spectrum disable.

Everything else was set to auto. Bear in mind i have the CPU and NB both water cooled so heat on the NB is not a problem for me. Don't go mad with the CPU PLL as it can easily kill a cpu.
 
Hi,

Thanks for some example voltages pastymuncher.

I was hoping to use 400*9 rather than 450*8, to help keep the northbridge cool. Is it the case that the higher the multiplier, the more strain on the CPU and the higher the FSB the more strain on the northbridge?

What is the CPU PLL all about? I think it would be useful if there was a site out there that explained these options in detail.
 
LeJimster said:
Hi,

Thanks for some example voltages pastymuncher.

I was hoping to use 400*9 rather than 450*8, to help keep the northbridge cool. Is it the case that the higher the multiplier, the more strain on the CPU and the higher the FSB the more strain on the northbridge?

What is the CPU PLL all about? I think it would be useful if there was a site out there that explained these options in detail.
Click to expand...

There won't be a lot of difference in temps between 400x9 and 450x8 but at the faster fsb there will be a performance increase.

I have to agree with you about the CPU PLL and the other settings too. It should be explained in the manual. I think (not too sure though) it is something to do with the internal cpu voltages and lets you get more stability. You can also kill the cpu by setting it too high. I certainly would'nt go higher than 1.70v anyway. Less with a 45nm cpu. Somebody will explain it better than me.
 
Found a half decent explanation of what PLL is on this forum with a bit of searching.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11319004&postcount=21

w3bbo said:
PLL = Phase Locked Loop.

In a very basic laymans terms, its a circuit in the processor that controls the amount of 'noise' on that given circuit. Increasing the clockspeed will increase the noise on the given circuit due to exceeding the reference clock with the overclock. Therefore raising the PLL will combat said noise by locking onto the input waveform and generating a new waveform usually utilising a multiplier to do so - hence why normally we only see multipliers being 'whole' numbers.

In overclockers terms : It helps achieve higher Front side bus as there is less movement of the voltage and its more 'precise' so to speak. I wouldn't advise going over 1.6v as this setting can easily kill cpu's. I have used upto 1.9v to achieve the 500fsb 4gig run I did with the quad but deffo woulnd't use anywhere near that setting for 24/7 use.
Click to expand...
 
Right...

I tried your settings Pasty.. And it refused to even get past post. To rule out the CPU being the problem I turned the Multi down to 6 and kept the FSB up at 450 and it would hang on post.

So I've dropped the FSB to 425 and multi to 8 and it's booted @ 3.4Ghz and so far seems stable under prime for the last 30mins. I'm using Asus PC Probe to monitor the MB temp but it says its only hitting 27'C also its reporting my CPU temps about 5-10 degrees lower than CoreTemp.

Currently CoreTemp is reading 61,60,50,55

What is the recommended tool for monitoring NB temps?
 
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