Q9400 won't overclock at all! Please help...

markyboy1980

markyboy1980

markyboy1980

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Recently built a system using a Gigabyte G41M-ES2L motherboard and an Intel Q9400 2.66 Core 2 Quad, that will not overclock no matter what! I researched before hand that both the board and the processor are pretty good for overclocking, but it just won't do it at all!

This is really frustrating me, so any help is very welcome. Rest of the system should be more than up to the job too, RAM is 2x2GB DDR2-6400 sticks of OCZ Gold, PSU is a 650W Coolermaster GX, GFX card is an EVGA 8800GTS 640MB. So none of it should be holding the board and CPU back from overclocking.

Any ideas?
 
Multiplier won't go above 8x (same as stock) so tried upping the frequency from 333. Tried 400, nothing. 375, nothing. 350, nothing etc... Won't boot unless it's on 333 basically...

I also upped the Vcore a little too, but unsure exactly how high I should go.

Should I also be messing with the RAM timings and settings?
 
If you have good cooling set the vcore to 1.36 then you no you will not have any issues with that.

Disable speed stepping

up the frequency to 340 and go from there.

Is your ram set to the correct volts and timings
 
OK will up the Vcore and try that, wasn't sure how high I could safely go.

Will disable the speed stepping, then try increasing little by little.

RAM is set to Auto, though I know my sticks are 5-5-5-18, should I set to manual? And what voltage would you suggest?

And cooling isn't a problem, got a Zalmann 9500 heatsink on the processor, doesn't go above 58degrees currently under 100% load on all 4 cores, idles at around 35-37 degrees.
 
markyboy1980 said:
OK will up the Vcore and try that, wasn't sure how high I could safely go.

Will disable the speed stepping, then try increasing little by little.

RAM is set to Auto, though I know my sticks are 5-5-5-18, should I set to manual? And what voltage would you suggest?

And cooling isn't a problem, got a Zalmann 9500 heatsink on the processor, doesn't go above 58degrees currently under 100% load on all 4 cores, idles at around 35-37 degrees.
Click to expand...


That is supposed to be the max safe for your chip but you can go higher if you like.

Set the ram. Google the sticks and see what volts they are and set the to that.
 
Well, after getting stuck in a non-boot loop for a few minutes, it finally booted up at 2.72GHz (340 clock speed), gonna try and increase it slowly by playing with the RAM settings etc.
 
This is turning out to be a fruitless exercise... Can get no further than 340 clock speed resulting in a 2.72GHz processor speed. I've tried everything that's been suggested and it only just managed that!

What do you think it is? Might I just have a duff processor? I've seen some Q9400's at 3.6GHz in the past...
 
My experience with the Q9550 was a 400FSB was about the limit which gave me 3.4GHz with the stock 8.5x multiplyer. It is very dependant on the motherboard voltages. You can up the northbridge voltage to about 1.2 to 1.25V and the vcore up to about 1.38V As your ram is 800MHz stock you should set this lower to 667 or 533Mhz in the bios before upping the FSB as this will affect the ram speed unless you can lock it to 800. leave it at 1.8V although it will be OK at 1.9V if necessary.
 
Damn and blast!

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2036205

Seems that though the board is supposed to be a good overclocker, only with processors with a low clock speed and high multiplier in general. That review states that he got an E5200 Pentium Dual Core to boot at 340MHz, up from 200, but no higher. Then tried it with other processors with higher standard clock speed, and still none of them went above 340...

This might be my excuse to just go and buy a P67 and 2600K after all!
 
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