Q6600 first overclock noobie help

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Hi
Ran with my Q6600 in auto ever since I had it (years!)
Now I want to O/C, it is related to a poor WOW performance with a brand new 5850 card (replacing a 8800gts). I posted that in the Graphics card forum but people have suggested I should OC the CPU as WOW is more CPU intensive than GFX card.

Screenshots of AUTO settings
Cpuz_cpu_auto.PNG

Cpuz_memory_auto.PNG

Cpuz_spd_auto.PNG


Wierdly, the Core speed starts at show 2400 then goes down to 1603 ??


Afraid I have no idea how to overclock safely, I am told I should be able to do 3ghz easy, I have looked on search and found some posts but none for my board and clear enough for me to be brave enough to make the changes.

Any links to this combo overclock or anyone here with same setup who can advise?
Many thanks

Board: Asus P5K Premium Black Pearl Edition
 
Run coretemp, prime95 and watch as your mhz jumps back to 2400. EIST/speedstep is reducing the speed when its idle.
400 x 9, bump up volts to 1.55 in bios, monitor temps with coretemp to keep below 85. done

Maybe we need a default Q6600 thread that everyone can look at instead of one popping up every week. Diggsy to the rescue... again!
 
Sorry if you think another popup thread, as I said, I searched and could not see one for my Mobo.
Afraid I need more step by step than generic statements like "400 x 9", I need to know what to change so I do not inadvertently blow something!

I have coretemps downloaded, at auto settings above I have between 38-40 for low and 43-49 for high
 
Yep, 1st things 1st, what case do you have? What cooling do you have on the CPU?

Download Prime95...
[32bit] http://mersenneforum.org/gimps/p95v259.zip
[64bit] http://mersenneforum.org/gimps/p64v259.zip

Download CoreTemp...
[32bit] http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/CoreTemp32.zip
[64bit] http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/CoreTemp64.zip

Run Prime95 with CoreTemp open and leave for about 10-15mins for temps to settle, then report back with your temps.

EDIT - Can you also post some screenshots (take pics with digital camera) of your bios screens? Especially the ones listing voltages etc. Will make it much easier to guide you.
 
You need to go to the overclocking section of your motherboard and set the bus speed to 400 and then set the multiplier to 9 if it crashes then set it to 8 for a lower oc. You should also be able to change your memory ratio, set that to 1:1.

Then you need to go to the voltage section and set the voltage to around 1.45, monitor your actual voltage with cpu-z as your motherboard might vdroop. I get vdroop on my IP-35 so in the bios my actual setting it 1.5 volts to get 1.45 volts.

Hope that helps :)
 
My bits are;
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)
Asus P5K Premium/WiFi-AP Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)

PC been running for a while and my AUTO settings show temps low 39-42, high 40-43
After 29 mins Prime95 temps low 39-42, high 58-62
Will try pictures of BIOS on phone camera, my lad dropped our compact and it stopped working
 
With the Freezer 7 Pro you are probably going to be limited to a 3ghz overclock. Anything above that will likely be too much for that cooler.
 
With the freezer pro i was fine upto 3.4 ghz, 1.375 vcore (1.2750 vid q6600). Temps were a bit hot at 74c on the highest core. Before i pushed it any higher i had to invest in a TRUE.
 
Tried to capture more infor for you, default BIOS display
bios_defaults.jpg


Me changing settings, top part
bios_top.jpg

Lower options, unchanged
bios_bottom.jpg

Boot up with those settings;
bios_load.jpg

CPUZ with that and PRIMe95 running;
Cpu_cpu3000.PNG

CoreTemps after 10 mins running Prime at above settings
Coretemps3000.PNG


Prime95 output for that period
[Mar 19 18:15] Worker starting
[Mar 19 18:15] Setting affinity to run worker on logical CPU #3
[Mar 19 18:15] Beginning a continuous self-test to check your computer.
[Mar 19 18:15] Please read stress.txt. Choose Test/Stop to end this test.
[Mar 19 18:15] Test 1, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922945 using FFT length 1024K.
[Mar 19 18:17] Test 2, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19922943 using FFT length 1024K.
[Mar 19 18:19] Test 3, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19374367 using FFT length 1024K.
[Mar 19 18:21] Test 4, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M19174369 using FFT length 1024K.
[Mar 19 18:23] Test 5, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M18874369 using FFT length 1024K.
[Mar 19 18:25] Test 6, 4000 Lucas-Lehmer iterations of M18874367 using FFT length 1024K.
[Mar 19 18:26] Torture Test completed 5 tests in 10 minutes - 0 errors, 0 warnings.
[Mar 19 18:26] Worker stopped.
 
Okay 1st off and very important is lock the PCI-E Frequency at 100mhz. DO NOT leave on auto!

Next will be to adjust the voltages manually as if that board is like most other Asus boards, it is probably setting them pretty high on auto.

Do you have Asus Probe, AI Suite or similar installed that will let you read the voltages in Windows?

If not, see what HWMonitor lists the voltages as.
 
Set PCI-E freq to 100 now

Not installed the Asus stuff, will tomorrow.

Played wow tonight on the 3ghz setting, temps got to 59 according coretemp on the G15 display.
 
Tied the 400x8, not had any kinda crashes but I notice the temps have reached 66c while playing wow full on.

What kind of temperate is too much?

I think the cpu O/C from 2.4g to 3g and now 3.2g has made a big difference to the FPS though, if the components can handle these settings long term.
 
Subscribed :p I've just received a Q6600 (up from a 6420), and want to keep my clock freq. at 3.2GHz. I've been messing about too, and so far have setteld on 9 x 356MHz at 1.336V (in CPU-Z).

Load with stress tools gets the highest core up to 70C, not sure if this is too hot on a Noctua HSF??

Now to stress test overnight.
 
2Drunk2Funk, I notice from your screenshots you're using BIOS revision 0612 which is quite old. I have the same board and I'm on revision 1101, the newest I think. You may benefit from updating. Some of the setting options change name/descriptions from what I remember and this may make setting things up easier.

Bare in mind though if you do update your BIOS, your will have to start from the beginning with your settings, so if you can't remember them you might want to write them down. :)
 
Thanks for info Steve, will look to see what it updates. When it comes to BIOS I am usually in the camp "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I will check it out though.
At the moment I have only changed a few settings and it seems to be stable @ 3.2 400x8 with temps under gaming at 62c max.
Using the CoreTemp prog which conveniently has G15 LCD support so I can monitor in game :)
 
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