Serious Noob Help needed OC'ing E8400 P5N-D 750i

bmwbenjy

bmwbenjy

bmwbenjy

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I recently built my first performance rig (all ordered from OCUK, brilliant service, thanks guys!!!!) specifically to have some fun overclocking and have managed to fail dismally! Im feeling extremely frustrated and really need some help. I bought all the components after doing research on the forums (with the exception of the MB which was an ego decision - fancied the latest just in case I ever SLI!) and wanted to be able to get the best out of each part.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail

Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ)

BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Western Digital Raptor X 150GB 10000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM + Battlefield 2 Complete Collection (WD1500AHFD)


Samsung SH-S203PRSMN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail

Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g)

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Sound Card - Retail

Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos Silent Full Tower Case

OCZ GameXStream 850w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply

Saitek Eclipse 2 Illuminated Keyboard - Blue/Red/Purple

LG L227WT 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor


Ive read the various stickies but can get nothing out of the machine.

Ive tried altering the bios settings to increase the FSB (not touched the multiplier or chip voltages) and can get the machine to start to boot Vista 32 at 3150 mhz but then it just freezes.

Ive tried different ram voltages and dropped the ram to the default 800mhz, tried just a single bank of ram, updated the bios to the latest version, all to no avail.

Where it gets a bit wierd is the Asus AI software (AI Booster) that comes free with the motherboard, seems to run the cpu happily at 3150mhz when put under load, (but drops the CPU to 1999 when idle) however I cant get a bean out of the damn machine through the BIOS?

I guess I probably havent provided enough info but please feel free to tell me what Ive missed off or point me in the right direction!!

Separately, the CPU temp, Whats going on? I bought a decent cooler (I thought?) used arctic silver paste, but am getting up to 40 degrees in Asus Monitor (50 in Coretemp!) before I even put any load through the cores and the Northbridge reads 43 c, even after adding the extra NB fan that comes with the MB!

Alternatively, does anyone live in North Bham/Sutton Coldfield area and fancy teaching a Noob some fundamentals of Overclocking? Your place or mine, Happy to exchange time for money!

Many thanks in advance.
 
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I didnt realise there was a new nvidia chipset released allready. I own the previous revision which has been top class imo, maybe someone will start a new thread for your type of chipset 750i

I think the limit on sigs is 4 lines btw, before the commandant get you

I presume the board is similar to 650i in which case you should lock the ram speed before trying to change the cpu speed and vice versa.

Make sure the ram timings are correct, read the SPD with cpu-z

download speedfan and use that as well.

Have a read of this thread
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17825568

780i is similar to 750i Im pretty sure


Read here too
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17668494&page=559

650i will be similar also and asus tend to always have the same bios features, mine has overboost too but I preferred a manual overclock
 
Thanks Silversurfer, much appreciate the advice. Have changed sig...Sorry Mods! Am reading the links you suggest now. I think the motherboard is covered on the forums already, I may have made the mistake of being an early adopter as in the usual OCUK fabulous service, I got the board the day after they did! I do hope I just have a bios update problem?

However, still getting an Auto overclock out of the AI gear software of 3150 with the software using FSB 1400 and 350mhz and a 9x multiplier. Machine still hangs on boot if I try and alter the FSB settings myself. Have locked the ram to 1000 and the timings are set to 5-5-5-15 but still no joy?

Very annoying that others seem to have no problem getting to 3.6ghz on air without touching CPU voltages and even 4ghz on air with minor voltage increases. I dont understand it (hence the personal tuition request!!!) All this is before I even worry about the temps.

Any further advice appreciated, back to reading others posts!
 
bmwbenjy said:
Very annoying that others seem to have no problem getting to 3.6ghz on air without touching CPU voltages and even 4ghz on air with minor voltage increases. I dont understand it (hence the personal tuition request!!!) All this is before I even worry about the temps.

Any further advice appreciated, back to reading others posts!
Click to expand...

Those threads where people say they've just done this or that are REALLY annoying, as they have generally done far more than that.

You really do need to overclock in the BIOS.
You need to turn off the Intel power saving features (C1E, speedstep)
You need to set the CPU voltage manually. AUTO is not the same as stock. AUTO means just that - the board does what it thinks it should. The maximum stock voltage is printed on your CPU box. That is stock when set manually.
RAM that runs at 1000MHz (and I'm sorry but your colour choice for your system specification is almost completely illegible) will need to be manually over-volted.
I've never had good experience with running asymetric RAM/CPU speeds on NVidia chipsets. It is much better in my experience to set the divider to 2:1 or 3:2 and let them clock up together. Yes, you will get a slighter under or over clock on your RAM, but it has always been more stable for me, and lets face it, it's really the CPU overclock that gets the big performance increases.

Then. make sure your chipset cooling is adequate. If the Northbridge or Southbridge heatsinks are REALLY hot, then they'll need a fan near them.

Try that and see what happens. The overclocking software is only any use for about a 10-15% overclock or under phase cooling.
 
WJA96

Many thanks for the advice and suggestions, I will make the changes to the ram and CPU voltages and see if there is any joy. I'll report back in a tick!!!!
 
Right, had partial success but very confused again!!!

I have set the ram voltage to 1.2v (as recommended by OCUK helpline), frequency is now "unlinked" to FSB and set to 1000mhz which is the correct setting for my ram.

I then increased the vcore to 1.35v in the bios, which is just below the max recommended 1.3625, this setting however shows as only 1.312 in CPUZ.

I then set the FSB to 1400 (from 1333) which I have now worked out is a "QDM"? and basically 4x the normal figures for a fsb? so 333x9 is actually 1333 in my boards settings. This correctly gave me 3150mhz on my chip in CPUZ.

Thought i'd be a bit more adventurous and try and hit 3.6ghz so changed the fsb to 1600. CPUZ and the startup are reporting the processor as a 3.00ghz E8400 chip? WHAT!!!!!!!

Its gone down?

What has happened? Surely I must be able to overclock past 5%?
 
Did you knock off the C1E/Speedstep? If it's dropping the multi, then you'd get something similar.
 
Yes, Ive knocked off the speedstep and all CPU voltage controls.

The rated FSB (QDR which I still dont understand but accept!) is 500-3000 so I guess that 125-750 real world!

It is so strange, I have no problem getting the chip to overclock to 3150 or 5% (1400 FSB QDR), any other figure just sends the system back to 3000 (1333 FSB QDR). i.e. the settings are accepted and show in the Bios setup even after a reboot, but the machine boots showing the regular 3000 ghz 1333/9 multiplier?

Could it be a Bios problem with my board as its pretty new? There has only been 1 bios update since release so far?

Otherwise could it be the HT, NB or SB voltage settings as I've left all these on Auto?

Any ideas Gents?

Cheers
 
thats why its always best to wait a few weeks after release of major components like mobo/cpu/gpu to see peoples reactions. its better when you know what to expect when starting to overclock.
good luck mate
 
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