Q8300

[paradisiac]

My only response is: Unless you want history to repeat itself - get a better PSU. I have had a read up on the EZCOOL 650W and I can only find bad things and angry people. It is possible that the PSU is causing your instability problem - but I would try out manually increasing the CPU voltage first.

we can only really get Evo-Labs through work, and most of my stuff i get on credit as wages aint great

 

[paradisiac]

Is that offered when you go click on the [Start Up] option?

If so, I would try the 0.012 and see how it goes.

yeah

As for the memory voltage, what is 1.9V the specified voltage of your RAM sticks? Most 1066 sticks I use are 2.1V.

i thought so too, will have a look at what the sticks say, the settings are all default i think, apart from i had to force it to 1066 ram

 

[paradisiac]

error on core 1 now

 

[paradisiac]

With the voltage bump?

I suggest putting it up one more level. If that doesn't help then i'd start looking at other causes.

yup, what else would cause it, faulty hardware?

 

[paradisiac]

mid 60s i think, i have reset bios and upped ram to 2.10v, and running again, been going for longer this time but wont hold my breath

 

[paradisiac]

bonus, it didnt fail, here are the final results, does it look like i have room to OC or am i safer leaving as is?

 

[paradisiac]

Well the temperatures seem to top out at 65 and the Intel spec is 71 - so I guess you have a bit of headroom, though I would strongly suggest getting a decent little cooler if you really want to push it.

If you want to do a bit of overclocking, try seeing what kind of clockspeed increase you can get to stick using stock volts and keeping the temps below 71.

Do this by increasing the FSB frequency slowly. Make sure that you change the RAM frequency (ie the divider) so that the RAM isn't running faster than stock.

i was aiming for 3GHz which i believe is possible with stock volts. thing is my knowledge on which settings need to be changed and which are safe to go up to is limited, from my little experience i have only really played with upping the fsb until it BSODs and going back down to a safer fsb.

 

[paradisiac]

That all said, bear in mind that for all the hassel you will get no better performance in games. At least the system is stable now, I suggest running it for 8 hours + on OCCT stress test to ensure it is properly stable (this is the gold standard).

ok will try the DVI-HDMI in a bit and then set OCCT off over night when the kids wont be around to accidently press buttons and see how it gets on

 

[paradisiac]

will leave the OC til i get the gfx sorted. have tried the hdmi, posted in the other thread the results, not soo good

 

[paradisiac]

right well i left it running last night but didnt make it to the 8hours as i stopped it to do a temp test while doing 3dmark06 (couldnt get vantage to work properly) but everything seemed ok. do these look ok for the 7.5hour and 3dmark tests?

sorry for all the pics, just want to make sure everything looks ok.

also, is it normal for there to be an 8degree difference in 2 of the cores?

 

[paradisiac]

Looks good, I would be happy leaving it like that

As for the core temperature difference, it is a bit big but not a massive worry. You may want to reseat the heatsink, what thermal paste did you use when installing it?

just what was on the bottom of the heatsing, didnt apply anything else as didnt think they generally needed it.

 

[paradisiac]

Ah. As you are in a computer shop do you have any good thermal paste and thermal paste remover?

The stuff that comes with them is OK, but using after-market thermal paste should drop the temps a degree or two and may even out the core temps.

haha sorry i didnt explain very well. i work in a computer shop in a small village. the company is owned by someone that believes in buying in cheap rubbish and selling for twice the price of decent stuff.

we do have some thermal paste, unbranded though which we use on builds, thing is we dont do any high end builds due to our prices, so i dont get any experience with good stuff

 

[paradisiac]

Right, I understand. I suggest just sticking with how it is - its perfectly safe and the OCCT test is more stressful that anything you are likely to throw at it.

If you ever want to try some overclocking, I suggest getting a tube of Decent thermal paste (MX-3 is very good) along with a new cooler.

ok kool, will keep that in mind. if im not going to gain anything other then being able to say my Q8300 is running at 3.5GHz then will give it a miss for now.

just sort out my display issues and will be sorted

 

[paradisiac]

ok just noticed something

ami right in thinking the multiplyer is supposed to be 7.5 on the Q8300

 

[paradisiac]

ok, .5 wont be much of a loss will it?

 

[paradisiac]

CPU Clock Ratio
This item allows you to select the CPU Ratio.
Min= 6 Max= 50, Key in a DEC number.
The Choices: 6X (default).

from the online manual, which according to biostars website does not support my cpu, even though its running it.

 

[paradisiac]

the site also says it doesnt support ddr 1066, which it clearly does, im confused now.

 

[paradisiac]

i have at home a gigabyte G31M-ES2L still in the box which i was gunna use for my internet build, would it be worth swapping the boards, bearing in mind its only a micro-atx with 2 ram slots.

 

[paradisiac]

The Gigabye G31M-ES2L does indeed support the Q8300 - so if you used that it would work at its correct speed.

However, as you say -it only has two RAM slots so you could only use 2GB of your current RAM. Also, overclocking your CPU is not gonna happen on a G31 board.

What CPU/RAM were you planning to use in your "internet build"?

i have got an E5200, and 2x2GB kingston DDR800 to go into it, just havent got round to doing it yet.

 

[paradisiac]

Ah, I see. Do you need the Internet build to fit in a small microATX case?

If not, I suggest swapping the motherboards and putting the Q8300 in the Gigabyte board and use the 2x2GB RAM in it. Then you will have a working PC running at the correct CPU clockspeed.

Then for the internet build, put the E5200 in the Biostar + the 4x1GB RAM.

How does that sound?

nah size isnt an issue, its just i had the biostar and P5Q mobo to do both builds, the psu went bang and killed the P5Q so i decided to use the biostar until i got money for a new mobo as i wanted the QC pc running. then my boss game me the gigabyte mobo as compensation, i know its not the same but better than nothing.