tips on clocking my new Q6600..

[OzZie]

What are the first things you will do to make it easier to iron out any potential issues?

At the moment i'm on a P5Q-Pro with 4gb PC8500 (2x2GB) and a Sunbeam CPU cooler. Everything is set to auto at the moment apart from the first option in the BIOS AI Tweaker screen (just unlocks controls) and have set my memory timings and speed to their default settings.

However, i am unsure about what controls in the BIOS i actually need to touch in order to overclock, as there are so many. All i know of at the moment are CPU voltage (set to what coretemp gives as the VID at a minimum), RAM voltage (which i'm unsure about still auto) and northbride voltage (again unsure about any kind of relative values. still on auto). For speedstep to be disable, disabling 'speedstep' and 'C1E' is all that's needed?

Then what would you adjust and in what order? As far as i understand, make sure your ram doesnt exceed its rated speed (533mhz in my case) and then up the FSB. In what increments are safe? Some vids on YouTube go straight to 333FSB (3.0Ghz) which seems a little crazy for someone who was always told to overclock slowly!

I guess my main questions would be:

-How do i know what values i need to set for my RAM voltage and Northbridge voltage?
-Is it ok to leave Speedstep enabled with a mild overclock of 3Ghz? (for idleing purposes)
-What increments do people increase their FSB by?
-When an overclock fails, which things do you look to adjust?

Many thanks!

 

[JonJ678]

You've got about the right idea. I think you'll do well at this.
1066mhz ram should be quite happy up to 533fsb, which would be 4.8ghz. Your q6600 isn't going to do that, so ram shouldnt be an issue at any point. Youve got two sticks, which makes life a lot easier than the four im trying to use. The ram voltage should be printed onto the ram, or can be found on the manufacturers website. Mines rated at 2.1V for 1066MHz.

I've got speedstep enabled oddly, but its something to try if the system wont go stable. Introduction over, your answers

1/For ram, stick within manufacturers ratings. Its far too easy to kill ram by overvolting it. Northbridge is likely to be fine at stock for a while, when you find you have to put several notches more voltage through the cpu to get it slightly more stable, its probably the northbridge to increase next. I'm on a P5Q board too, recommended northbridge limit is 1.4V. Same for FSB termination, which you'll also probably need to increase. Mine tends to train northbridge voltage by about 0.02V.

Speedstep will be fine at 3ghz. To be honest its hard to go wrong at 3ghz on a q6600

I tend to increase by 5mhz until prime fails on me, then try to stabalise there.

My system likes vcore a lot, and northbridge voltage only slightly less. So I'll change these first. When you start to get the thing moving much faster, gtl skews and so forth come into play. You'll probably need more vcore first (dont leave this on auto), I think the northbridge volts I need are my fault for running four sticks of ram.

I suggest overclocking the processor, then playing with ram afterwards.

Jon

 

[OzZie]

Thanks John, appreciate such a quick and detailed reply!

I have a couple of other questions though

1) What would you suggest as the limit to CPU temperate (on the highest core) under full prime testing? I've always assumed that keeping it under 60deg is excellent, and somewhere between 60 -70 is normal for stock cooling or bigger overclocks with more voltage.

At the moment i hit 45deg under full prime test (and this is with a crappy generic case with no case fans!). Should i have a limit of say 65deg, or do you think this is too high? My VID is rather high on this chip 1.325v, so i imagine 3.0ghz might raise these temps a little.

2) What is the easiest way to record/monitor the temperature under testing without actually being at the PC? For my first prime test i just had coretemp open and running so i could see, but what about if i want to test it for an hour and make sure it doesn't peak?

3) 2.2v i assume then for this memory?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-039-KS

Thanks again.

 

[JonJ678]

1)Below 60 is lovely. Above 70 is starting to push your luck for long term use, but the 65nm architecture is theoretically quite resilient. So yeah, you're basically right. Briefly over 70 isn't going to cause harm, its when you run it at 75+ continually that things can start to go wrong.

Case airflow can help immensely, becoming slightly obsessive with cable management is generally considered a good call. No case fans at all might make life more difficult for you, but only time will tell.

2) I tend to watch it for the first few minutes on small fft when worried about termperature. It tends to go up really fast then stabalise, as long as its looking reasonably (thermally) stable after 5 minutes or so and isn't over 70 you're probably going to be fine. No case airflow may mean it takes longer to reach equilibrium temperature. My one has made it to 51 degrees within about 3 minutes, and will still be under 55 if by some miracle it's still running in a few hours time.
Plus too hot => unstable, one core will tend to fail prime, and so the chip cools down with only 3 running anyway

3)at 5-5-5-15, 1066mhz yes. If you set the ram speed to match the fsb, say 333fsb => 667mhz ram, its rated at '800Mhz timing of 5-5-5-18 at 1.8V'. So I think ram should be fine at 1.8V until your fsb breaks 400, and your q6600 is then running at 3.6GHz.
So you probably want ram set to 1.8V while overclocking the processor. If changing vcore/nb/fsb term all fails to get it stable, especially if its blend its failing, then slightly increasing the ram voltage may solve the problem.

No worries man, I'm trying to get my quad running faster as we speak so its somewhat on my mind anyway


(p.s. this probably does mean you didn't strictly need 1066mhz ram, but once the processor is stable you get a lot more options for ram speeds and timings as a result, and the system is going to be quicker than with 800mhz ram)

 

[OzZie]

So far having issues.

At all seems fine at 2.88Ghz, but at 333FSB (3.0ghz) i get one core failing on Prime instantly. This is with the memory running at 800 at 1.9v 5-5-5-18, so i dont think thats the problem

CPU voltage is about 1.360v (VID = 1.3250v) and northbridge is at 1.2v. (1.1v standard)

The problem being i dont have any idea what kinds of values are acceptable for 3.0ghz. Is 1.2v enough for the NB, or can i go higher? Should i set a limit of 1.4v for the CPU, as if it doesnt pass 3Ghz at this voltage something else is the cultprit?

Thanks.

 

[JonJ678]

I agree that the ram should be fine at that. What voltages have you set? FSB termination and CPU PLL shouldn't be on auto, set both to one above minimum. Voltages otherwise look reasonable.

How stable was it at 2.88? An increase of 13 fsb is quite a lot to do without testing any of the intermediates, particularly from a setting that you weren't completely sure of.
Prime can take a long time to find instabilities. The strategy I adopt tends to be to not run any faster until its made it to at least half an hour on prime, and periodically test for much longer. I tested for most of a day at 3.2 and 3.5ghz, but only for half an hour or so at the speeds between these.

Your best call is probably to leave the current voltages where they are, and lower the fsb until its nearly stable. Then work on that speed, trying moving one voltage one step and retest, putting it back if it doesnt help. Once you're very sure its stable at that speed, try for a faster one.

Finally, more voltage isn't always helpful. Currently if I move northbridge up a notch on mine it fails prime immediately. Its generally a specific combination that works, and as speeds increase the range of values you can use for the combination decreases