Q6600/p5b deluxe overclocking instability

[raf]

Bit of a wall of text incoming, sorry.

I got a q6600 to add a bit of umpf to my aging e6600 setup and have been having a few problems with the oc which I'm sure are related to my Asus p5b deluxe mobo.

I initially tried to run it at an identical oc to my e660 of 3.2ghz (400 x 8, 4-4-4-12 timings, 1.4375 vcore, all other voltages on auto) which was rock solid in prime 95 never going above 53 and idling at around 20 under normal desktop usage. There was a major problem though: the pci-e link width was locked at 1 at all times. I used to have this issue with my e6600 if I tried to restart and the way to avoid this was to wait a few minutes before turning the pc back on. For some reason using these settings on the q6600 results in my graphics card never switching to 16 mode.

I've tried numerous fixes: various tweaks to the pci frequency, disabling bios settings, updating the bios, changing the fsb to 401 rather than 400 and the usual waiting several minutes for a cold boot but nothing I could do would enable the optimal link width. A bit of a shame as the system was 100% rock solid in prime at these settings.

At this point I decided to go with a slightly lower fsb and a higher multiplier (9 x 380, ~3.4Ghz, 1.45 vcore, 4-4-4-12 timings, all other voltages on auto) et voila 16 link width at all times! Only drawback was that the pc was horribly unstable and would randomly blue screen not long after posting. I assumed this was the memory so set the memory voltage to 2.2 and the nb voltage to 1.4 and I was able to play Rift with no issues and also run 3dm without a hiccup. No dice in prime though as within a few mins the pc rebooted.

If it is the memory I don't get it as it's effectively running at 720 rather than the usual 800 at the new overclock I'm trying. Are there any further tweaks anyone could suggest please?

 

[logi-cat]

You got to remember thats the chips are completely different. If it was me i would start from the beginning and slowly raise the FSB and voltages and test it in prime. If you get a successful go again. It might seem like a long technique but i think thats the only way.

 

[Michaeljcox24]

P5b-Deluxe is an excellent board that clocks 775 chips to their maximum potential. There must be something fundamentally wrong in what your doing, like the lad above says mabe, I would go back to first principles.

 

[raf]

It seems I wasn't accounting for the vdroop which was causing the instability, I can't remember it being this pronounced when I was tinkering with my e6600 overclock a few years back but I have that side of things sorted now.

I'm stuck at 1 link width with any combination of settings even on a cold boot which is what I'm trying to sort out this morning.

 

[Michaeljcox24]

If the link is locked so low and greyed out I would be e mailed Asus myself

 

[raf]

I finally managed to get it to boot at 16 link width by forcing the northbridge to 1.45v and bumping the pci-e frequency back to 100 (changing it from 100 to various other values hadn't worked previously so I'm not sure that had any effect on fixing it this morning). Never had to do that before but at least it's up and running. I'm now terrified to shut the pc down for fear of seeing the dreaded 1 link width in cpuz

I'm impressed with this cpu thus far anyway, got it sat at 3.4 (380x9) at the moment and it seems nice and stable but about 10 degrees warmer in prime at 67 than it is at 3.2 (400x8) as that extra 200mhz requires a fair bit more vcore to be prime stable for me.

Had a quick spin in Rift this morning and my fps has risen from 30-40 outside of cities to being locked at 60 for vsync so it seems the additional cores are doing the job there.