Q6600/Asus Rampage Formula - overclocking temperature issue

Selachi

Selachi

Selachi

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Joined
19 Mar 2009
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163
Location
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Ok, first off I'm very new to overclocking. I started reading a couple of days ago and have since been fiddling with my rig with moderate success; I'd be greatly appreciative of any help and advice on my post below. I've had my q6600 and Asus Rampage Formula since October in a machine I built myself, specs below.

Q6600 G0 SLACR 2.4 GHz
TRUE 120 cooler
Antec 900
Asus Rampage Formula (X48)
2 x 2 GB OCZ Reaper 1066 MHz RAM
Corsair 650W PSU
BFG GTX260-216 896mb

Using a TJ Max of 100 degrees (more on this later) I've got idle core temps of 34 30 27 28 ('cpu' temp is 21). As I write this, the system is completely unmodified at 2.4ghz. When I run Prime95 Small FFT my temperatures go up to 65 60 50 47 across the four cores. To me, this seems far too high to start overclocking, which I did last night to 3 GHz and got 72 degrees on core 0.

First questions:
1. Is the gap in temperatures meant to be this big? 65 to 47 seems huge compared to looking at other people's Q6600s.
2. I've got 4 different temperature monitoring programs, and the arguments between which one is more accurate are now bunk I assume, because you can change the TJ Max manually; I'm now using RealTemp. My TJ Max is currently set at 100, which is giving the temperatures above, and in my opinion are too high for me to start overclocking.

Although Intel has released the TJ Max supposedly to be 90 degrees (see http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/intel-dts-specs,news-29460.html), I don't believe this as it would make my idle lowest temp 18 degrees, which is impossible considering I'm on air and my uni room was warm at the time.
Therefore third question;
3. Is it correct to set TJ max to 100? I'd love it to be 90 but I know this isn't the case. According to Uncleweb, it should be 100.

When I set the board to 333x9 and ran Prime95, core 0 hit 72 degrees, which I don't want to be anywhere near, as the thermal specs say 71 is the max. This was with all voltages set to auto.

I've been experimenting this morning with minimising the vcore, and at the moment its set to 1.3v. Other things such as FSB Term, NV core are set to the minimum, and Prime is giving me an error after about 30 seconds, sometimes sooner. I cannot get it stable at the moment, and I'm sure that I should be able to run it at less than 1.3v, as just about every other person running at 9x333 is too. I know all chips are different, but it seems there’s something I'm doing wrong.

Supposedly this board and CPU are meant to be great overclockers, so I wasn't expecting many issues after I'd got the hang of all the terminology. Fourth question,
4. Surely I should be able to run it at 3 GHz without getting anywhere near 70 degrees? Especially considering how low my idle temps are.


EDIT: Just been talking to someone else and he asked me my VID - as far as I can see this is 1.325, see image below. He said this is MUCH higher than anything he'd seen, is this a possible reason why I'm having little progress?
coretemp_vid.jpg


Pic was taken halfway through an OC attempt of 8x400mhz as you can see. I'm back at stock for now.
 
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Gibbo_GTI said:
I have the same vid chip as you and I had no probs reaching 3.6Ghz on air with the AC Freezer 7 Pro.

Have you tried reeating the heatsink? Sounds like its not got the best contact.

The Tjmax setting from Intel for the Q6600 Go stepping is 90
Click to expand...

Ok well at least that makes me think its possible! Thanks. However, 90 is clearly wrong as that would give me idle temps of 17 degrees in a room thats 22 on air. Not possible as far as I'm aware.

I'm going to be lapping the TRUE and the CPU in a few days time when I go home for Easter, I will be reseating it then so I guess we can check it after that and see if they're any better :)
 
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It's been ages since I posted here - I've been waiting for my sandpaper, glass etc to arrive. I'm going to start on this today and I know it's going to make a difference as my heatsink doesn't even get warm when my processor's showing really high temps!

Its hot here today, idle temps currently showing 42 36 34 33, load at 67 62 51 48. Stock voltages.

I'll check back later today and tell you how it went!
 
Well I'm back, and the pc has booted! (I'm always massively paranoid about my pc blowing up after fiddling about with it... first PC I built blew up). I have to say, I'm absolutely amazed.

Temps I posted earlier today:
Idle 42 36 34 33
100% Load 67 62 51 48

Just spent the last 5 hours lapping the HSF and the CPU - temperatures now (exactly the same temp monitoring software - RealTemp with tmax set at 100 as usual)

Idle 28 24 24 25
100% Load 40 37 36 36

So as usual, idle temps aren't affected that much, but it looks like i 've knocked 27 degrees off my load temps! Even bearing in mind that its cooler in here than it was at lunch time, this is still huge. I have taken pictures of the process, but for some reason the only camera in the house I could find was my 2mp phone camera, so they're awful. I'll upload them later.

One thing I did notice is that both my HSF and my CPU were amssively convex, so i guess they were hardly touching at all. I never did manage to get the base of my heatsink completely down to the copper, so eventually I gave up and just carried on with higher grits.

Let me know what you think! And thanks for all your help.
 
On it already ;)

By the way, i missed reading your post at the time Big.Wayne but thank you for the encouragement. I'm aware these chips can go like the wind so I'll be pushing for something around that, i was just so disapointed when I saw how high my temps were to start off with! Obviosuly just needed reseating, but as you'll know, my VID is 1.3250 so it will still be limited slightly i guess.
 
well like i said, i've got a decent cooler and i idle at 35 again now i've overclocked to 3.2 :p Guess the main difference it all makes is to load temps though, which don't increase more than about 10 degrees for me anymore
 
Hi guys,

As always its still a learning process with me but I find that reading over the beginners guide again this afternoon that I understand lot more of the terminology and the effect everything has on everything else a lot more. I'm just working through now increasing the mhz by 5 at a time and increasing the vcore whenever prime starts crashing. Currently running prime now on 3.285ghz and 50 degrees 100% load, but still pushing it. I'll update again when I get stuck

One question I did have was that in the beginners guide, the guy says he's happy with a 20% overvolt on air provided temps are good, I was just wondering what that 20% was over? Is he running on the VID of the chip? I can see that 2 of the posters above me are running theirs at 1.6 and 1.7v... I don't intend to take mine past 1.5 but we'll see I guess.

Edit: Stable 8 hours at 3.4ghz 1.46875v
 
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Ok well after trying to take it up to 3.6ghz just to see if I could do it, I went from 1.46v at 3.4ghz and it took me all the way up to 1.59v at 400x9 and prime wasn't crashing, the whole system was BSOD crashing. I got a CPU voltage error on boot when I tried 1.6v so I've taken it back to 3.4 now.

Any ideas if its possible to get it to 3.6ghz? Am I only meant to be increasing voltage or could something else be causing it? (low north bridge or whatever?)
 
Mine's stable at 3.4ghz on 1.48v, but I can't tell when to stop raising the vcore and when I need to raise the NB/FSB-T instead? If I want to get it to 3.6, what/when do I change other values and how can I tell whats causing it to crash?

I can rule out pencil modding it completely, I know I'll break something. Also, the Rampage Formula I have has an option enabled on the motherboard to "improve V-droop directly"
 
Just wanted to say thanks for the help guys and close off the thread. I've decided to keep it at either 3.2 or 3.4, overclocking it without significantly reducing the lifespan :)

Its a great chip, thanks for all the advice
 
TJmax for the Q6600 is 100, despite intel releasing some ridiculous figure like 80. the reason I know its 100 and not 90 or 80 is because my processor shows as 28 degrees when its set to 100. If it was set to 90, it would say my CPU was 18 degrees, which isn't possible when its 25 degrees in my room on air cooling.

StevenRaith said:
I'm idling [well, idle +20FF tabs+six opera tabs, plus Aero, speedfan, Coretemp, etc]
Click to expand...

If you use RealTemp it'll tell you exactly how much the cpu is being used, as you can't measure cpu load accurately just by looking at how many applications you have open.
 
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I have no idea what these do: PLL, FSB-Termination, Southbridge 1.5v. Could someone explain them to me please? Also, an explanation of why raising the borth bridge and south bridge voltage improve stability too would be great :)
 
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