Q6600 1.55v safe?

3.4Ghz (8x425) seems stable with the 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.

I tried 9x400 = 3.6Ghz with the same settings and it crashed as soon as I started Prime.
I tried 8x440 = 3.53Ghz with the same settings and it crashed after ~5mins on Prime.

My CPU voltage under load drops to 1.44ish otherwise its up at 1.48 range.

What do you guys recommend I tweak next?

I don't have any active cooling on my northbridge and its just using standard heatpipe jobby that comes with the P5E.
 
LeJimster said:
3.4Ghz (8x425) seems stable with the 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.

I tried 9x400 = 3.6Ghz with the same settings and it crashed as soon as I started Prime.
I tried 8x440 = 3.53Ghz with the same settings and it crashed after ~5mins on Prime.

My CPU voltage under load drops to 1.44ish otherwise its up at 1.48 range.

What do you guys recommend I tweak next?

I don't have any active cooling on my northbridge and its just using standard heatpipe jobby that comes with the P5E.
Click to expand...

I would say that the cpu is the cause and mainly because of the vcore. The Vdroop on the P5E is terrible so to take that into account you have to set it higher in the bios (or do the pencil mod :D). Mine needed a big increase in voltage to get from 3.6Ghz to 3.8Ghz, from 1.525 to 1.58v. Needless to say i only had it at that speed for benching etc. I would say yours needs a boost due to the vcore. My board will do 465fsb with a quad but it took a lot of tweaking and trial and error.
 
I'm tempted to do the pencil mod actually if it helps stabilize the voltage drop?

I'm going to spend this week fiddling with the settings but no more, I want to start playing with it :)

BTW, I briefly tried 450 FSB x 6 multi to see if it would boot and it was still a no go, I bumped the voltage up on the north bridge to 1.5 I believe and it still wouldn't boot.
 
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LeJimster said:
I'm tempted to do the pencil mod actually if it helps stabilize the voltage drop?

I'm going to spend this week fiddling with the settings but no more, I want to start playing with it :)

BTW, I briefly tried 450 FSB x 6 multi to see if it would boot and it was still a no go, I bumped the voltage up on the north bridge to 1.5 I believe and it still wouldn't boot.
Click to expand...

Not sure, but maybe it needs another notch on the NB because you are running 4Gb of ram. What bios are you using?
 
I'm using the bios that came installed on my system 0402. I was reading before I bought this board that you could flash it to make it a Maximus/Rampage bios or something and that it gave you more control over settings and a slightly better overclock. I'd be tempted to try it out if I can always flash the bios back to P5E.
 
LeJimster said:
I'm using the bios that came installed on my system 0402. I was reading before I bought this board that you could flash it to make it a Maximus/Rampage bios or something and that it gave you more control over settings and a slightly better overclock. I'd be tempted to try it out if I can always flash the bios back to P5E.
Click to expand...

I am not convinced of the gains to be had in flashing to the Rampage bios. It's only a few extra ram timings and a couple of other bits that get added. I never used 402 as there were reports of it overvolting the ram. I went from 201 to 401 to 502 and now i am on 605 which is excellent.
 
I couldn't find the CPU GTL 0.67x, it stops at 0.63x.
There is a NB GTL of 0.67x which I've seen recommended on another forum, which I will try later.

I decided to do the pencil mod as described here using a HB pencil (i think I did 5 careful strokes over the capacitor) on my P5E and its made a huge difference to my voltages. Previously I had to use 1.525(BIOS) to get a idle voltage of 1.48 and a load voltage of 1.456. Now I've got it set to 1.4625(BIOS) and it idles at 1.448 and under load it goes upto 1.456! Perfect. So far it seems stable, I'm just doing a Prime stress (fingers crossed).

Still running it at 3.4Ghz (8*425), will try to get it to 3.6Ghz once I'm certain that this vdroop has been cured.

Update: Oh yeah.. I also lowered my DRAM voltages to 2.14 as I read that this mobo overvolts it. Seems stable so far... Been doing a Blend test on Prime95 for about 30mins now.
 
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I have no idea if this helps or not (I'm certianly not any OCing expert by any stretch of the imagination!), and I don't have the same mobo as you, but I was having similar issues with getting a stable OC of my Q6600, and to sort it out I had to lower the DRAM Frequency (P5K Premium mobo & G Skill 4GB DDR2 PK PC2-8500C5 memory)

Once I lowered this I could up the CPU Frequency to currently 385 x 9 (going for 400 tomorrow) voltage for 385 is 1.4 in BIOS. Before I simply couldn't get past 355 for love nor money.

This is Prime95 stable for about 12 hours so far....
 
Leave it going over night ;) I always test my overclocks for 24 hours (36 hours on my old P4 as I left it on one morning and didn't go back on my PC till the next night!).
 
Well, I tried again to get my FSB upto 450 and it just wont boot past 448, tried different voltages and GTL values, but it doesn't seem to be having any of it :-/. When I tried 449 it tried to boot but locked up on post.
 
My apologies. I meant chipset GTL, not CPU. Keep the chipset below 47c. Try CPU volt up to 1.575, no more than 70c load. Although it shouldn't need that much juice.
 
I don't really fancy upping my volts to 1.575 now after the pencil mod! That would mean I'd be actually running @ 1.57v with my vdroop being cured.

Surely my CPU isn't holding me back in ataining a higher FSB? Is it possible I've just got a duff X38 that wont hit 450?

BTW, what do you use to monitor NB temps?? I tried everest but it gave me some totally wrong temperature values, I'm currently using Asus PC Probe which shows a MB temperature, but not a NB temp.
 
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why u need so much volts :confused: im running q6600 @3.6 ghz at les then 1.4 volts something like 1.38 have to check tomorrow as im on laptop now.

did u up the north bridge v?

ps.: using x38 maximus formula

weescott is pro guru of ocing :)
 
oh yea that could be the problem i got 1.2625 i think

coretemp.jpg


idle on air
 
I'm not overly worried about my temps, but it does seem my chip needs more juice than others to get where I want it to. I was going to lap my heatsink, but I might not bother if I can't get to my desired goal of 3.6 :(.

here's my idle temps:
CoreTemp34ghz.jpg


I might give up on the higher FSB soon and try to run it @ 9x400.
 
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