Can't get my e6600 to 3 ghz, please help!

[ChefOfDeath]

Hey everybody. This is my first attempt at OCing, so I need some help here. I've read a number of guides and believe I know what to do. Everything went smoothly, but I seem to have topped out at 2.88 ghz (320x9). I just need those last 13 mhz on the FSB, but it won't boot into windows at that point. I have my CPU voltage at 1.425v, RAM voltage set to auto, and the motherboard voltage thingy at auto (although it has some weird name, like FSB voltage limit or something like that). I belive I have all the weird BIOS settings for auto speed control off.

I just know it's right under my nose, but I really don't know what is holding me back. Is it a voltage thing? (my guess is probably either RAM of mobo, but I am afraid to tamper with those because I haven't encountered much on voltages for them)

Advice would much appreciated.


By the way I'm using an ASUS p5b (not deluxe), corsair XMS2 2 gig (DDR2-800), e6600 (already said that) w/ zalman cnps9500, and a cooler master 550w power supply.

 

[markymoo]

find out your temps first. keep your temps under 60C

take off auto settings and increment your northbridge voltage

increment your cpu voltage, you may have to up your ram voltage so take that auto off and select the next voltage up from default of your ram. raise the fsb to 334

just use small increments and you be safe.

 

[3Ball]

try using a ram divider! The mobo might say for your ram speed in the bios (DDR2 667 or 675 instead of 800mhz) and use that then set your FSB setting to 334mhz and set the vCore back to stock until it wont boot if it will boot with stock then run prime95 over night and see how it does if it give you error or restarts then raise the vcore 1 more step up!

Use CPU-Z to see what your ram speed is at and if it is at 800mhz or alil above (it will say 400mhz but it is effective 800mhz DDR2 speed) and you should be fine and if you have to raise the DDR2 voltage, but dont go above 2.1v on the ram or 1.46v on the cpu if you are only using air cooling and you should be fine!

Its all a game of guess and check!

Best,

3Ball

 

[ChefOfDeath]

Thanks for the advice, I don't think I am going to try anymore tonight, but tomorrow I will experiment more with RAM and FSB voltages. By the way, I did finally get it to boot into windows, but I had to lower my RAM to DDR2-667 and it failed the prime95 torture test 4 minutes in, so I still have some work to do. I'll update on my progress tomorrow.

Although I don't know how to manually set dividers on the Asus p5b...anybody know? Does it do it automatically when I change the RAM frequency?

 

[ChefOfDeath]

Ok, back to work. One more question though, what voltage should I set my "FSB termination voltage" to? I haven't read anything about the chipset voltage (which I'm assuming this is), so I don't have any idea, the BIOS and manual don't say what the default is. The choices I have are: auto, 1.2v, 1.3v, 1.4v, and 1.45v (it shows this last voltage in red if I select it).

 

[ChefOfDeath]

It's in the Core2Duo guide on the top of this forum along with other voltages.

You say to increase it by +0.2v from the DEFAULT. My problem is that I have no way of knowing what the default is. I imagine the default setting is [auto], but it doesn't say what voltage that is. I was hoping to get some frame of reference from somebody. The highest it will go is 1.45v. Is that fine? Too high? The lowest is 1.2v. Is that far too low? My problem is that I simply don't know what's safe and what isn't with the FSB voltage.

 

[ChefOfDeath]

Ok, here's where I stand: got the FSB at 1.45v (the highest setting on this stupid BIOS), got my Vcore at 1.425v, have my RAM at 1.9 (won't boot higher than that, unfortunately), RAM speed is DDR2-672 (again, won't boot any higher than that, for some reason) with timings of 5-5-5-12.

I have my desired clockspeed of 3 ghz, but I can't run Prime95 for more than a few minutes without errors. I'm going to try upping the Vcore a bit, since that is really all I can change now, except for RAM timings. Temps are reasonable, with CPU idleing at 47 and going up to 55 during the stress test. Mobo temps at around 39.

EDIT: Hmm, I brought the Vcore up to 1.45v from 1.425v, and now it won't run Prime95 for even a minute. Maybe I need to lower the Vcore?

 

[markymoo]

have you flashed the bios to the latest one. you need to do that if not

0507 is latest

 

[ChefOfDeath]

0507 is latest

Are you sure? The Asus website still shows 0309 to be the latest BIOS, which is the one I have.


Interestingly, CPU-Z and Asus PC Probe II show my CPU at 1.38v, instead of the 1.425 I set it to in the BIOS. Bad software? Or are my Vcore changes not taking effect?

 

[ChefOfDeath]

Ok, so I set it to 1.4v and CPU-Z reads it a 1.3v

Prime95 still won't run for more than a minute. I just wish I knew which part is being flakey. I'm going back to 1.425v and see if I can get the ~8 minutes w/o error there, as opposed to the ~1 minute with 1.4v and 1.45v.

EDIT: ooookayyy...It only ran for a minute at 1.425v. I wonder what the problem is. Should I loosen the RAM timings?

 

[ChefOfDeath]

You sure? Speedfan is showing 2.72v for core A and 3.66v for core B...

Anyway, any tips for increasing stability? I'm not having any luck so far.

 

[markymoo]

Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi revision 0507 ftp://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5B Deluxe Wifi-AP/P5BD0507.zip

Asus P5B Deluxe revisions 0507 ftp://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5B Deluxe Wifi-AP/P5BD0507.zip

 

[ChefOfDeath]

By the way I'm using an ASUS p5b (not deluxe)...

Like I said, I'm using the vanilla P5B, not the deluxe version. The BIOS for that is still 0309.

EDIT: Holy crap, I was just running the SiSoft Sandra stress test, I went downstairs for a moment, and my system started making this horrific sound! I'm pretty sure it was coming from the speakers, not the tower, but i didn't check anything before rebooting, I was too freaked out.

 

[ChefOfDeath]

Alright, I ran memtest86+ twice, the first time it found no errors, the second time it found one. I don't know much about memtest, so I can't really tell if that's a good result or not. My primary suspect for the instability is the FSB voltage, I think. The CPU is running fairly cool at the voltages wusy posted on his article, and the RAM doesn't seem to faulty (I'm assuming here that the memtest result wasn't too bad, besides, it's running below it's stock speed, so it should be fine). Wusy suggested running the FSB at 1.6v or 1.5v, neither of which I can reach because the BIOS only takes it up to 1.45v. Unless something else comes up, I'm afraid that I'll have to wait for a BIOS update letting me take it higher, because that's the only thing left I can think of.

If anybody has any ideas, please speak up. For now, I think I'm going to take it down a couple hundred mhz.

 

[lcandy]

I'm not too sure about sppedfans accuracy, it says Vcore1 1.18V and Vcore2 1.97V. After having major problems I restored the default settings on my board, so think thats one of the features auto undervolting it. The second value beats me.

ChefOfDeath, you know, I have this really nasty feeling its your ram. I've been going through similar things and having some stability problems. I finally cracked it and it turned out to be the memory, which was dreadfully unstable at 2V and above. It finally has settled into what appears to be its sweet spot of 1.95V lol. I too had mostly decent temperatures while overclocking, yet cant get the system stable when I do. Also the fact that it failed memtest86 isn't a good sign.

Im in the process of scowering Corsairs website trying to find the information on what their ram likes and does not like. Is your ram the CM2X 1024-6400C4 modules?

Edit: in the process of editing the post, my computer rebooted all on its own after running memory at 2.1V. Using another site to get the information on their memory, one of these should be yours (Corsairs website is rubbish for searching)..

http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/specs/TWIN2X2048-6400C3.pdf
http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/specs/TWIN2X2048-6400C4.pdf
http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/products/specs/TWIN2X2048-6400.pdf

These tell you what your memory should run at, at a bare minimum. Mine does not, at all. So I wonder if yours will? Something tells me, its either rubbish memory or rubbish board :roll:

 

[ChefOfDeath]

Yeah, since wusy amended his statement about FSB voltages, that really only leaves the RAM. I've got the Twin2x2048-6400, not the C3 or C4. I'm also unable to run it above 1.9v, but I didn't think I would have to increase the voltage since I dropped it back to DDR2-667. What you're saying though is probably true, and I think it's the board. If I remember correctly, reviews on newegg said that the mobo wouldn't take any RAM above 1.9v, I think. However, that wouldn't explain why it was still unstable at 1.9v...

Anyway, what's the best I could get then with RAM on default voltages? I know I could probably find out with a lot of experimenting, but to be honest I'm kind of losing interest in this. Unless I can get some results fairly soon, then I'm afraid lazyness will get the better of me. Besides, I think the biggest bottleneck in my system is the video card. It's a 7900GT KO, which is nothing to laugh at, but from what I can tell it's the only reason I'm getting 15-30 FPS in FEAR at max settings, all the other components seem to be handling it fine (it doesn't hiccup or freeze, it just runs at a low framerate, which is highly variable depending on what I'm looking at). Maybe overclocking my video card is what I should be focusing on, instead.

 

[RAiMA]

Yeah, since wusy amended his statement about FSB voltages, that really only leaves the RAM. I've got the Twin2x2048-6400, not the C3 or C4. I'm also unable to run it above 1.9v, but I didn't think I would have to increase the voltage since I dropped it back to DDR2-667. What you're saying though is probably true, and I think it's the board. If I remember correctly, reviews on newegg said that the mobo wouldn't take any RAM above 1.9v, I think. However, that wouldn't explain why it was still unstable at 1.9v...

I'm running the same ram. Besides the tested timings of 5-5-5-12, it's fairly good. I'm running mine at 2.1v and I've had them up at 510Mhz.

I would suspect it's something to do with the motherboard bios. Might be worth logging a ticket with ASUS about updating the bios to provide better ram compatability.