what am i doing wrong?

paradisiac · 7 Jan 2010 at 19:23

ok, had my q8300 running at 3.2GHz stable on my biostar motherboard

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18088504

i then had the opportunity to 'upgrade' to a P5Q-E motherboard. now the thing is i cant get it to oc stable at all really

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18096398

. now the thing is, at the time of upgrading the motherboard i also upgraded my psu and graphics cards. is there something i am doing wrong? could one of the other upgrades be causing the problem? any input would be very helpful.

paradisiac · 7 Jan 2010 at 19:45

just done some google searching, and found this

With a good motherboard, you should be able to hit at least 450MHz - but very few motherboards will run reliably at much over 460MHz. Oh sure, you can POST at 500MHz - and there have been reports of posting at 600MHz or more - but there is a huge difference between posting, booting to windows, and being running crash-free after twenty different benchmarks.

I was able to reliably run at 7.5x460Mhz - a 38% overclock that got me to 3.45GHz.

3.45GHz is nothing to sneeze at, but with a higher multiplier I think 4GHz+ would have been within reach.

All that was required was:

* set Vcore to 1.45V
* set Vfsb to 1.45V
* set FSB strap to 400MHz FSB
* run the DDR3 memory at 1380-8-8-8-24

I could run most benchmarks without many problems at 475MHz, and could post at 500MHz, but I hit the FSB wall (reliably) at 460MHz.

and wondered, does it sound reasonable, or is 1.45v too high?

PeterTheGreat · 7 Jan 2010 at 20:23

1.45 v is too high and q8300 is bad for overclocking - the multiplier is too low.

paradisiac · 7 Jan 2010 at 20:27

is the multiplier locked? my mobo gives me an option to change it but havent tried incase its not safe.

PeterTheGreat · 7 Jan 2010 at 20:29

You can't make it higher - only lower

paradisiac · 7 Jan 2010 at 20:34

oh right. so any ideas why it oc'd on the biostar mobo and not on the asus?

PeterTheGreat · 7 Jan 2010 at 20:43

It can be everything - from bad bios and memory to lack of luck and awful weather

paradisiac · 7 Jan 2010 at 20:46

ok, not what i was hoping for

Big.Wayne · 7 Jan 2010 at 23:21

paradisiac said:
is 1.45v too high?

* set Vcore to 1.45V
* set Vfsb to 1.45V

Click to expand...

Are you talking about the vTT/vFSB or vCore?

The vCore is fine to run @ 1.45v although the chip will possibly get toasty under load but 1.45vFSB is too high I think . . . . also I am led to believe your not meant to run vFSB higher than vNB, it's negates some of the advanced functions of the Intel® AGTL+ design . . .

*if* the used motherboard is working well then getting your Intel® Core™2 Quad Q8300 to 3.2GHz should be as easy as pie!

7.5x427 = 3.2GHz

I'd be suprised if you couldn't do that with everything on [Auto] apart from maybe vCore and memory frequency . . .

Are you using the same settings as your previous board?

Temi_D · 7 Jan 2010 at 23:35

What RAM have you got and also, what is the FSB : DRAM? You can use CPU-Z to check that

paradisiac · 8 Jan 2010 at 08:56

Big.Wayne said:
Are you talking about the vTT/vFSB or vCore?

The vCore is fine to run @ 1.45v although the chip will possibly get toasty under load but 1.45vFSB is too high I think . . . . also I am led to believe your not meant to run vFSB higher than vNB, it's negates some of the advanced functions of the Intel® AGTL+ design . . .

*if* the used motherboard is working well then getting your Intel® Core™2 Quad Q8300 to 3.2GHz should be as easy as pie!

7.5x427 = 3.2GHz

I'd be suprised if you couldn't do that with everything on [Auto] apart from maybe vCore and memory frequency . . .

Are you using the same settings as your previous board?

not sure what they meant as i took that from another site.

no my settings are not the same unfortunatly. the previous biostar mobo allowed me to up the fsb of the cpu and leave the ram set to 800, the problem is the new asus mobo doesnt allow me to keep the ram at 800, it adjusts the options to suit the fsb, which might be whats causing it to fall over.

Big.Wayne · 8 Jan 2010 at 17:01

Hey paradisiac,

I think probably the mistake you are making is trying to do to much . . too quickly. In some respects overclocking can be easy but in other respects it is quite complex . . .

It took me about 18 months to really understand what I was doing on the LGA775 platform instead of copying what others told me to do . .

If your more patient and put time aside to experiment with the different settings and test you should get a good result . . .Rome was not built in one day!

Do not underestimate the [Auto] features of the board as its all been fine tuned sinced the board first came out. If you getting in a lather then just reset the BIOS and slowly but surely work your way up . . . if you adjust the settings like this it will make it very easy to observe when the problem strikes!

Just one last thing, try to consolidate your support threads as it makes it harder for people to get on to speed with what you been doing if they have to skim through several different threads . . .we want to help but we have limited time to devote to user support!

Good luck and have a nice weekend!

paradisiac · 8 Jan 2010 at 17:07

Big.Wayne said:
Hey paradisiac,

Just one last thing, try to consolidate your support threads as it makes it harder for people to get on to speed with what you been doing if they have to skim through several different threads . . .we want to help but we have limited time to devote to user support!

Good luck and have a nice weekend!

yeah i understand that and take the point onboard, its just when a thread title says q8300 in it then 99% of people will ignore it as they dont own one.

thing is, with the biostar was nice and easy, set the ram to 800mhz, set the vcore to 1.34 and then slowly adjust the fsb until unstable and got a good 3.27GHz out of it. unfortunatly the P5Q seems a bit more tricky and im really stumped on why one mobo allowed the oc soo easily yet to get any increase on this board is very difficult.

Big.Wayne · 8 Jan 2010 at 17:33

Hey paradisiac,

What's your full hardware spec please?

paradisiac · 8 Jan 2010 at 17:35

Q8300 CPU
P5Q-E Mobo
Kingston DDR800 (2x2GB) Ram (not sure on the figures)
9800GTX+ GFX Card
Antec 550W PSU
Some ICEMAN cooler thing

paradisiac · 8 Jan 2010 at 17:38

my old setup was same cpu and cooler but had A Data DDR2 1066+ Extreme Edition (4x1GB) Ram, 9500GT GFX, 650W EVO Labs PSU and a biostar P35D2-A7 Mobo

Big.Wayne · 8 Jan 2010 at 18:41

paradisiac said:
Kingston DDR800 (2x2GB) Ram (not sure on the figures)

This memory is rated to run at 400MHz (DDR2-800). The BIOS on the ASUS is probably setting it up differently to the BIOSTAR?

Technically that will hold you to 400MHz-FSB. I would suggest doing some memory overclocking tests with the system at stock speed, with a full BIOS reset it will be *very* easy to isolate the ram and see if you can get it stable at higher frequencies under Memtest :cool:

paradisiac · 8 Jan 2010 at 19:03

i was originally trying to oc on the asus with my 1066 ram but was told that the kingston might be better. how exactly do i overclock ram?

paradisiac · 8 Jan 2010 at 21:15

am i better off putting in the ram settings manually?

paradisiac · 10 Jan 2010 at 09:06

right well i refitted my 1066 ram and have managed to get it stable at 2.7GHz, not a huge increase but its a start. im pretty sure its the ram settings on this board causing the problems, so now its a case of working out how to oc ram.