** The Official ASUS P5N-E SLI & Ultra 650i Thread **

[EvilGrin]

There have been loads of threads about the new recommendation to put a line down the middle, but what I reckon it really comes down to is this;

1. You could have a dished/concave IHS, in which case reapplication isn't going to help.
2. You could have poor contact between the IHS and the cores, in which case reapplication isn't going to help.
3. You could have very poor airflow in your case where either the CPU fan is being starved of air or the air it gets is hot air, in which case reapplication isn't going to help.
4. When you re-apply the thermal interface material (TIM) you could damage the motherboard, processor or fan, which isn't going to help.
5. If you have followed the common line of advice and turned on the extra +100mV then you are having to disappate 8% extra power from the processor. You are only applying that extra 8% voltage to make up for a droop at times of high power requirement. If that requirement isn't there (eg. in your low overclock) that extra voltage/current/power has to go somewhere and it's lost as heat. It's a possible reason why you are running so warm at such a low overclock, and again, reapplying the TIM isn't going to help.

47C under load isn't a bad temperature. Leave it a couple of days. I'm fairly sure it will settle down. You could always follow Big.Wayne's example and set up outside on the balcony on the coldest night of the year so far to get a REALLY decent overclock

Thanks a lot for that, sound advice. Hadn't given thought to the extra +100mV being dissipated as heat actually, so that's somewhat reassuring! Been running orthos again for about 20 mins today and the temperatures are varying at 39-41 on core0 and 35-36 on core 1 at load, should I take an average over the 2 cores as my CPU temp? This is with the extra +100mV still on too. Mind you, i've only just turned on the computer and started orthos up straight away and the heating is off in the room just now, so its a lot colder in here than yesterday! Think I should OC a bit further or leave it for a few days and be patient?

 

[WJA96]

Cheers, guess I'll order 120 ultra and slap a fan on it, ty for the advice.

yeah arctic 7 pro is a lot smaller than tuniq or 120 ultra, one of my mates got one, seemed fine when he first installed it but now its a bit loud and high settings and I'm no too impressed with it's performance.

To be REALLY honest, if you're not that impressed with the AC Freezer 7 Pro, you're probably going to be disappointed by the tuniq and the Ultra. If you want REAL cooling, then you need to go water. And I mean proper £150 minimum water cooling. Overclocked processors run hot and that means noisy fans to cool them, if you don't want to compromise the temperatures. You could easily spend £50 on an Ultra-120 and a quiet fan and then you'd spend another £20 on an HR-05 and a quiet fan, and it would still be a relatively inelegant bodge.

If you really want sub-50C, quiet (not silent) cooling on a 3.2-3.6GHz overclock, then you need water cooling. Especially on this board, the Northbridge definitely benefits from water cooling.

 

[Dravic]

Agreed there, I think watercooling the NB would be a huge advantage on this board.

I'm seriously tempted with investing in watercooling again, not sure that I can justify it at the moment though, it'll probably start me on a slippery slope to phase.

 

[WJA96]

Thanks a lot for that, sound advice. Hadn't given thought to the extra +100mV being dissipated as heat actually, so that's somewhat reassuring! Been running orthos again for about 20 mins today and the temperatures are varying at 39-41 on core0 and 35-36 on core 1 at load, should I take an average over the 2 cores as my CPU temp? This is with the extra +100mV still on too. Mind you, i've only just turned on the computer and started orthos up straight away and the heating is off in the room just now, so its a lot colder in here than yesterday! Think I should OC a bit further or leave it for a few days and be patient?

The manufacturer's of AS5 say that the optimum bond will be achieved after 2-3 weeks and that, at most a reduction of 1-3C will be achieved once the TIM has cured.

It's totally normal to have a 2-3C difference in the cores for a whole host of reasons. If you're happy with the Windows install then why not try another 100-200 on the QSB? That will bring you upto 2.4 or 2.7GHz which is still a pretty modest overclock. I would think you should be aiming for 400/1600MHz QFSB which is 3.2GHz on your E6400. At that your RAM isn't overclocked so it'll run nice tight timings. To be frank, you'll only know how hot it's going to get if you try it

 

[EvilGrin]

The manufacturer's of AS5 say that the optimum bond will be achieved after 2-3 weeks and that, at most a reduction of 1-3C will be achieved once the TIM has cured.

It's totally normal to have a 2-3C difference in the cores for a whole host of reasons. If you're happy with the Windows install then why not try another 100-200 on the QSB? That will bring you upto 2.4 or 2.7GHz which is still a pretty modest overclock. I would think you should be aiming for 400/1600MHz QFSB which is 3.2GHz on your E6400. At that your RAM isn't overclocked so it'll run nice tight timings. To be frank, you'll only know how hot it's going to get if you try it

Its Ceramique i'm using actually, which apparantly takes 25 hours (according to the guidelines..). Windows install is perfect, no issues with it so far. Also its an E6300 i'm using, so at 1600 QSB i'd hit 2.8 GHz. I'm running the ram at the prescribed 4-4-4-15 with 1.9v just now, think i'd need to pop up to 1600 in linked mode and leave the ram timings/voltage as is? Obviously i'd get up to that in stages, probably as you suggest, going 100 QSB at a time (at 1200 just now). After I hit the magic 1600 QSB with nice stability, what should be the next step to get past it? Cheers for all the advice mate, helping a lot!

 

[WJA96]

Its Ceramique i'm using actually, which apparantly takes 25 hours (according to the guidelines..). Windows install is perfect, no issues with it so far. Also its an E6300 i'm using, so at 1600 QSB i'd hit 2.8 GHz. I'm running the ram at the prescribed 4-4-4-15 with 1.9v just now, think i'd need to pop up to 1600 in linked mode and leave the ram timings/voltage as is? Obviously i'd get up to that in stages, probably as you suggest, going 100 QSB at a time (at 1200 just now). After I hit the magic 1600 QSB with nice stability, what should be the next step to get past it? Cheers for all the advice mate, helping a lot!

To get over 400FSB I need the 1.539V setting on the Northbridge. To get over 450 FSB I need the 1.793V setting, at which point the air cooled NB heatsink is warm enough to cook on. You might need to add an extra click or two of voltage to go over 400FSB - and unlinked does seem to work better in that region. Once over 400FSB you seem to need to be careful of the QSFB figure - try not to end in a 0. I don't know why, it just doesn't like QFSB's ending in 0

 

[mikka84]

To be REALLY honest, if you're not that impressed with the AC Freezer 7 Pro, you're probably going to be disappointed by the tuniq and the Ultra. If you want REAL cooling, then you need to go water. And I mean proper £150 minimum water cooling. Overclocked processors run hot and that means noisy fans to cool them, if you don't want to compromise the temperatures. You could easily spend £50 on an Ultra-120 and a quiet fan and then you'd spend another £20 on an HR-05 and a quiet fan, and it would still be a relatively inelegant bodge.

If you really want sub-50C, quiet (not silent) cooling on a 3.2-3.6GHz overclock, then you need water cooling. Especially on this board, the Northbridge definitely benefits from water cooling.

Hmm, water is a bit outta my set budget, plus I don't need my PC to be uber silent, i don't really mind the noise at all since most of the time i use headphones and don't leave my PC on when i go to sleep. Right now i got 3 Scythe 1600rpm 120mm fans in my case and they aren't as quite as they say. Plus I really don't like the idea of Water cooling (I know what u might say...when you install it properly it ain't be dangerous, but thats me, i just don't like the idea of it, call me old fashioned air-colling jockey ). as for AC pro 7, my mate is running it at max rpm and his temp go up to 60 on load (2.8 e6300). now it might be concave IHS or he didn't aplly thermal paste properly, I dunno, but i prefer to stick to high-end heatsinks (of course i wont by Amanda cause 65 quid for a heatsink EVEN with 2 fans on it is asking too much).

But thanks for the advice anyway, I'll order that hr-05 with ultra-120, if they won't be compatible i will leave the hr-5 till better times when they will leave more space between cpu and NB. As for buying fans, I got plenty of them lying around in my garage, pretty sure i can even find the 70mm one for the hr-05.

ty

 

[Dravic]

An 80mm fan fits on the HR-05 fine if you can't find a 70mm

 

[EvilGrin]

To get over 400FSB I need the 1.539V setting on the Northbridge. To get over 450 FSB I need the 1.793V setting, at which point the air cooled NB heatsink is warm enough to cook on. You might need to add an extra click or two of voltage to go over 400FSB - and unlinked does seem to work better in that region. Once over 400FSB you seem to need to be careful of the QSFB figure - try not to end in a 0. I don't know why, it just doesn't like QFSB's ending in 0

Oof, guess that means I won't get over 3.15GHz without some mad cooling on the northbridge then as the E6300's only have an x7 multiplier?

By the way, was thinking about the airflow in my case. I've got a Thermaltake Tsunami Dream with a 120mm intake at the front, 120mm exhaust at the back with a tuniq on the CPU, i've also got a 92mm intake fan on the sidepanel, but when the sidepanel's fitted, the fan is basically no more than 1mm away from the top of the bottom right hand corner of the tuniq, think the sidepanel fan will be doing more harm to the airflow than good?

Edit: Have it sitting pretty fully loaded at 43-44c for 10+ mins @ 2.45GHz, so thats not too bad. Thats with +100mv disabled though. However its getting pretty hot in here as the fiancée's feeling cold so pumped up the heating!

 

[mikka84]

An 80mm fan fits on the HR-05 fine if you can't find a 70mm

Thats brilliant, cause i don't have one, got a delta 80mm and sum crappy 80x80x15 fan (which i think should be enough to cool it, don't want to use deltas, brilliant fans, shift a lot of air but WAY too loud)

 

[Dark_Angel]

Hey,

I have en E4300, and having trouble getting it past 2.8GHZ.

I have:

Voltage : 1.4V
Offset 100MV
USB legacy off
Spread Spectrum options off
NB voltage: 1.563
CPU Config: off except Exception Execute Disable
Jmicro Sata: Off

I can get it running at around 1255FSB (around 313 bus speed) but I can't get it to load windows or post much higher.

I am thinking it is either because I have a 400 Watt PSU at the moment, with only a 20 pin plug (the Corsair I ordered doesnt work correctly, so need to need to send it back) OR because I have the Retail H/S fan...

Either that, or I dont have the options right. How much voltage could I put thru an E4300?

Temps in BIOS read low 40's BTW.

Thanks for any help/support on this issue.

 

[EvilGrin]

This is where i'm at now..

Temps have come down a tad since then, sitting at 50c under load. I think i'm quite happy with the result at this early stage. My northbridge is sitting pretty damn hot at 1.563v, so I stuck an extra 92mm fan blowing air down toward the northbridge. Not sure if its really going to help much though! Infact I bet its actually screwing up airflow.. what do you guys think?

Also, not sure whether the fan in my sidepanel's doing anything to help or harm airflow too:

 

[WJA96]

This is where i'm at now..

I think that's a superb overclock considering you were claiming you knew nothing.... And considering all the other people who're struggling to breach 3GHz with more oomphy processors. Methinks you were being modest.

Temps have come down a tad since then, sitting at 50c under load. I think i'm quite happy with the result at this early stage. My northbridge is sitting pretty damn hot at 1.563v, so I stuck an extra 92mm fan blowing air down toward the northbridge. Not sure if its really going to help much though! Infact I bet its actually screwing up airflow.. what do you guys think?

How hot is the Northbridge? As a decent rule of thumb if you can comfortably put the back of your hand on it, it's 25-35C, if you burn the back of your hand it's 40-50C and if you burn the tips of your fingers it's 60-70C.

If it completes 1 round of Orthos (12 hours) then it will probably run forever like that. The CPU is obviously a "good" one in that it's lovely and cool at 3.2GHz

What usually happens is once you've established the length of your ePenis (with 3.2GHz from an E6300 you can get changed in public ) most folks will back off to a comfortable overclock (say 2.8GHz) and bask in the knowledge that if they want to, they've got another 400MHz in the bank.

 

[WJA96]

Hey,

I have en E4300, and having trouble getting it past 2.8GHZ.

I have:

Voltage : 1.4V
Offset 100MV
USB legacy off
Spread Spectrum options off
NB voltage: 1.563
CPU Config: off except Exception Execute Disable
Jmicro Sata: Off

I can get it running at around 1255FSB (around 313 bus speed) but I can't get it to load windows or post much higher.

I am thinking it is either because I have a 400 Watt PSU at the moment, with only a 20 pin plug (the Corsair I ordered doesnt work correctly, so need to need to send it back) OR because I have the Retail H/S fan...

Either that, or I dont have the options right. How much voltage could I put thru an E4300?

Temps in BIOS read low 40's BTW.

Thanks for any help/support on this issue.

The one thing you haven't mentioned is whether you are running linked or unlinked and if you are running linked, what is your RAM:FSB ratio set to? And is your RAM completely set to AUTO or have you set it up in Chipset?

 

[WJA96]

Thats brilliant, cause i don't have one, got a delta 80mm and sum crappy 80x80x15 fan (which i think should be enough to cool it, don't want to use deltas, brilliant fans, shift a lot of air but WAY too loud)

Acoustifan make a very good 70mm fan. Not cheap (£10-ish) but near silent and it moves a reasonable chunk of air.

 

[silversurfer]

Looks good to me, what superpi time do you get with that. Ive had a similar speed with a 6400 so your fsb being that high is very good really

Sidefan will probably help, my study on fluid dynamic chaotic air flow is on hold for the moment but more air is usually good just so long as you have an equally good in and outtake fans.

Anything drastically wrong with the airflow would show in much worse temps then that.

Make sure you monitor the MB temp as this can affect stability, 40 or below is good

 

[jp.pilot]

So do you reckon the hr-05 will fit if i use TR ultra 120? I've seen big.waynes thread but wasn't sure if there was enough room for the the hr-05. ty for the reply btw

Had a thought...

What if you used the TR 120, or Tuniq tower 120 (sorry, I always get confused with those two), used the lower SLI slot, and used this version of the NB heatsink instead?


I don't know if there will be enough clearance (you might want to check out dimensions etc), as this might provide you with a bit more extra space to be on the safe side.

JP

 

[EvilGrin]

I think that's a superb overclock considering you were claiming you knew nothing.... And considering all the other people who're struggling to breach 3GHz with more oomphy processors. Methinks you were being modest.

How hot is the Northbridge? As a decent rule of thumb if you can comfortably put the back of your hand on it, it's 25-35C, if you burn the back of your hand it's 40-50C and if you burn the tips of your fingers it's 60-70C.

If it completes 1 round of Orthos (12 hours) then it will probably run forever like that. The CPU is obviously a "good" one in that it's lovely and cool at 3.2GHz

What usually happens is once you've established the length of your ePenis (with 3.2GHz from an E6300 you can get changed in public ) most folks will back off to a comfortable overclock (say 2.8GHz) and bask in the knowledge that if they want to, they've got another 400MHz in the bank.

Well, this is my first Core 2 duo, and its been a long time (2 1/2ish years) since I last dipped my foot into the tepid waters of overclocking! But i've always kept my eye on things somewhat.

It seems to me that the fan I put blowing air down to the northbridge is actually really helping, its gone from being too hot to leave my fingers on for more than 4-5 seconds to being able to comforably rest the back of a finger on. Can't quite get the back of my hand in there though as you can see below there isn't that much room!

I think you're right though, I'll see how far I can push it before I have to up the northbridge voltage, which i'm not too comfortable doing as i'm worried about burning out the board and probably leave it at that, or even dial it back down to the stable 2.8GHz oc I had with the northbridge at 1.393v and perhaps take away that extra 92mm fan as its really cluttering up the inside of my pretty case!

Thanks again for all the help mate, your advise has been golden!

 

[WJA96]

...take away that extra 92mm fan as its really cluttering up the inside of my pretty case!

At least you have it properly secured with a Zalman bracket - in another thread someone was encouraging people to "just lay the fan inside the case". Nightmare!

It will be very interesting to see how far you can push the FSB on 1.59V. I'd definitely get the Orthos 12 hours out of the way first though or Easyrider won't let you into his big overclocking club

I think the E6300's are proving better clockers than the E4300's too.

 

[EvilGrin]

At least you have it properly secured with a Zalman bracket - in another thread someone was encouraging people to "just lay the fan inside the case". Nightmare!

It will be very interesting to see how far you can push the FSB on 1.59V. I'd definitely get the Orthos 12 hours out of the way first though or Easyrider won't let you into his big overclocking club

I think the E6300's are proving better clockers than the E4300's too.

Lol, yeah I was considering doing that as a temporary solution as I was having difficulty positioning the zalman bracket. There's a metal part that overhangs the top of the graphics card, was worried about it slipping and shorting the board, so what i've done is cable-tied it with a bit of an anti-static bag. Doubt it'd slip considering the thing's screwed in but better safe than sorry when it comes to a £250 graphics card! The bracket itself was robbed from a very old socket A system I have which has a zalman flower heatsink. Thought it was a terrible heatsink, ah well at least the bracket's going to good use now!

I'm pretty happy that I opted for the 6300 over the 4300, seems like its a nicer clocker (again, if you're lucky!). I'll start the 12 hour run tomorrow while i'm at work, then do some testing pushing up the FSB on 1.59v, i'll let you know how i get on.