Q8300 Overclocking help wanted!

353mhz at 2.6ghz now, just need to find out how to change the vcore, ive tried pressing F9 and enabling advanced setup but still doesnt let me change it
 
Its just basically not loading up now

Can you get back into the bios to revert settings? If not you'll need to clear the CMOS (there's a jumper on your motherboard to do this) to go back to default settings.

It's usually below the CPU socket. A little piece of plastic connecting 2 of 3 pins. Should say "clear" or something to that effect on the motherboard next to it. Turn off your power supply first, then swap it over to connect the other two pins and leave it for a few minutes before swapping it back and powering on your pc.

If that fails, turn off your power supply, remove the motherboard battery for 10 mins or so, then put it back in.
 
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just some key things to remember about clearing the CMOS:

Always do it with the power supply turned off and disconnected (if you prefer)
Never switch the power on with the CMOS jumper in the clear position.

If you're like me I prefer to do it with a screwdriver to short the pins so I don't forget to remove the jumper.
 
Just took my mobo battery out :) thanks for all the help from everyone btw. I'm actually getting somewhere now. Really appreciate the help thanks a lot :D

It's all a bit scary and confusing at first, but it's fun once you get your head around the whole thing. Occasionally things do go wrong (my motherboard is in an RMA bin in the Netherlands right now), but in general it's hard to go far wrong if you stick to the basics.
 
Everythings working again :) will it do that everytime I try 2.7ghz?

It's possible. What we know now is that your system isn't stable at those settings. Your ram will be running at 1440mhz at that fsb (quad data rate), which is a bit of a push from the 1333 it was at before. So it might be that your CPU still has headroom at that voltage and your ram could be holding you back. You can't raise the CPU multiplier any further so the only way to increase CPU speed is to raise the fsb which also raises your ram speeds.

Boot into windows and run CPU z, in the memory tab it should have the different profiles for your ram (timings for each speed). Whatever the highest speed is in that tab (333 would = 1333mhz) is the fastest your ram will go at stock volts. If you can't raise voltages to stabilise the ram/cpu, then you can't go much further without upgrading hardware. Are you sure there's no setting to unlock manual voltage control?
 
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there could be, maybe I just can't seem to figure it out. I know that 3 of my sticks are 400mhz and one is 333mhz if that's any sort of downfall?

Yep. That one stick that is rated for 1333 will hold you back as you push the fsb up. You could try removing it to see if you're stable. In theory you could get to 3ghz (400x7.5) if 1.24v is enough to keep the CPU stable.
 
ah right will try that, will going from 2.3ghz-3ghz be noticable in games and would it be worth losing 2gb of RAM?

It's a bit of a trade off, considering that the third stick won't be running dual channel with its pair gone. Saying that, you would benefit much more from the CPU clocked up a bit.

Keep in mind, it may not be the ram. It may be that your CPU needs more volts. Or it could be both. See how far you get, and if you can't get past 2.8/3ghz then I would keep the ram and leave it at 2.6ghz.

There are quite a few games that will benefit from the faster CPU like BF3, Far Cry 3, strategy games, MMOs. Do some testing and see what gains you get.
 
Hmmmm im on phoenix award bios on p45-t2rs and all the voltage options are dimmed and I can't go to them, is there some other options I need to change for the voltages to become changable?
 
Tbh I'm not familiar with the board so I can't help there. If you want you can stick some pictures of the bios menus up in case we can spot it, but it's usually something along the lines of "enable manual voltage control" or something that you'd be able to work out.
 
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