Has anyone overclocked this board well? It seems as though the overclocking options on this board are very limited, and I'm not having much luck getting a good overclock (highest stable overclock is 2.8 with a e6600). Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Good question. I have an E6600 and D975XBX, with 2G Corsair DRAM rated 4-4-4-12 at 675MHz.

I'm running stable upping the core speed in BIOS by 30%. This seems to be the maximum allowable -- changing to 35 or higher doesn't affect the clock rates. But at 30% o/c, my core speed is (according to CPU-Z) 3120MHz, multipler 9x, Bus 346.6 MHz, and Rated FSB 1366.6 MHz.

One trick that's important is to ratchet down the memory timing according to the O/C guide here. I have mine set it to a 1:1 timing ratio, by setting the mem type to DDR2-533 -- which I gather means that it's running at bus x 2 = 692 MHz.

Hope this helps. Should be able to run stable up to bus speed of 360MHz or more, though. Anyone out there have any idea how to get more out of the Bad Axe? Specifcally, how to get the bus multipler to increase beyond 30%?

You have to mod the board or get the Intel Integrators Toolkit which will allow you to get more than 30%. Thats my understanding. I was thinking about doing the mod myself cause i dont feel to confortable about flashing bios everytime i make a change and the mod looks pretty simple. According to what i have read the mod gives you the same bio info you would get if you had the 6800. 975xbx MOD

same 30% limit here. wierd! please help!!!

I believe most of the OC options that are enable by default on the xbx2 are disabled on the xbx. I thought the newer bios versions on the xbx opened some of this stuff up, but I could be wrong. Either way, there are motherboard mods to enable them. I think they're called "pencil mods" or something like that. A google search will probably give you the answers.

MORE/BETTER HELP PLEASE

Yeah. God forbid someone actually having to ANY research on their own crazy CAPS man. Don't strain yourself typing "d975xbx OC pencil mod" into google.

DONT BE RUDE,TRY TO BE HELPFULL.

I'm guessing the person who posted the original message isn't as dense as you, mr ALL CAPS man. He probably already used his reading comprehension skills and tried the google search (with the specific string suggested).

Hang in there. Get well soon... I hope your pinky finger injuries heal soon. (We're all looking forward to multi-case responses once your strong enough to start using the shift key again.)

Yes I researched it before asking. I dont want to do the hard mod on the motherboard (yet) since I just purchased it 1.5 months ago (dont want to void my warranty). I may simply jump the debug jumpers using something like a paper clip or something of the sorts to get the Extreme overclocking features. I was just simply refering to whether anyone was able to use the very limited 30% overclocking options to work well.

I have the latest revision of the board, and have the bios from the beginning of december installed, and the overclocking options are NOT available.

I see. I would also be hesitant to do a hard mod on such a lovely new motherboard.

The conductive pen used by the author of this post looks like a good solution if you do decide to take the leap: http://forums.legitreviews.com/about6375.html.

mkosma had the right question in his reply... did you set your fsb:mem to 1:1? If so, getting the 30% OC to 3.12ghz should be pretty easily attainable. What kinda memory are you using?

No I didnt, and I think that was my problem. I have 2gb of Corsair XMS2 ddr 2 800 5-5-5-12 @ 1.9v.

Sounds like you need to unlock your full bios with the conductive pen trick.

Note - this will void your warrenty! Haha.
Since it can be removed - is there any way to tell?

Isn't overclocking your CPU voiding your warrenty too though?
Again, any way to tell?

(Honest questions actually - I do not know if there is a way they can tell. I doubt it, but it's quite possible).

I'm getting my BadAxe2 motherboard in this week - and I'll be doing the conductive pen trick in a few weeks. Then maybe just solder it when I'm brave.