Overclocking QX6700 in Asus P5N32-E SLI

[Ar0us3D_P3nGuin]

I have just brought a QX6700 and the Asus P5N32-E SLI motherboard and was first of all wondering if this cpu can be overclocked in this board with out to many issues, e.g frying the board or cooking the CPU, second this is how far will i be able to push the cpu in this board?

 

[airblazer]

First of all..congrats..you've just joined the club of pissed off Asus P5N32 owners. Me included
1. The overclocking is crap in this board..it's highly unstable and the most you can reach on a FSB is 350 and that's pushing it. Best way to overclock is with the multiplier. I can reach 3.34GHz at stable but the northbridge gets extremely hot and you'd need a better cooler for it.
2. Memory compatibility is fairly iffy on these boards..you're fine with 2-3 sticks of ram..buy try getting to 4 (4x1gigs) and this is where you see problems. First off the board ships with the memory voltage underclocked to 1.8v.
Most sticks are 1.9v so the first thing to do is use one stick of ram and change this with the voltage settings. If you have two or more you'll just have a blank screen.
3.The memory overclocking is pretty bad on this board..you definitely won't be getting super overclocks out of your memory.
4. Asus update the bios for this board about every month. However when you see a new bios I'd advise waiting a week and seeing if there are any issues with it before downloading it. The latest version is 1205 which is up there only a week or so. Plenty of ppl are having probs with it. Plus Asus have a nasty habit of updating the bios and then a week later or so telling ppl then it's only a beta. eg. 1203/1201. Both were which were removed from the site and just disappeared.
Apart from the overclocking issues it would be a very good board. Overall I'm happy with it but this is because I got it at about the 1/3 of the price when it came out. I'd be very pissed off though if I had paid full whack for it and there are a lot of these ppl out there

If I was you I'd return the board and get the evga rev a1 680i board.
It's a way better board plus they addressed all the probs with the a0 board not to mention that fact that rev a0 owners got their boards upgraded to a1. People are reporting great stability with this board and reaching overclocks on the fsb of 500. No complaints memory wise either.

 

[Ar0us3D_P3nGuin]

i had a evga board like that 1 and i burnt my fsb out on it so im no going to go back to that board thank you.

So is this board stable to run the QX6700? and 4 gb of crucial ballistix tracer? ill have water cooling on the cpu and i was going to buy a north and south bridge water block also. With that will i be fine?

Cos i read other ppls reviews of the board and they said it was great 1 of the best on the market

 

[T8RR8R]

You can't really "cook" your CPU or Chipset unless you give it too much voltage or have a bad PSU. The only issue you'll really run into is heat and that mostly comes from the FSB and Voltage. Again, the voltage will really increase heat alot more than a FSB tweak. You should be able to lower your multiplier and crank that FSB to somewhere around 460+ FSB.

 

[Ar0us3D_P3nGuin]

how hot do you north and south bridges get? cos i touch mind just now and is bloody hot ae like 80 c is that normal?

 

[airblazer]

You can't really "cook" your CPU or Chipset unless you give it too much voltage or have a bad PSU. The only issue you'll really run into is heat and that mostly comes from the FSB and Voltage. Again, the voltage will really increase heat alot more than a FSB tweak. You should be able to lower your multiplier and crank that FSB to somewhere around 460+ FSB.

If you're running a quad core on this board you are limited to a max of 350 on the FSB.
Dual cores do not have this limitation. This is strictly down to the crap design of the board.
EVGA were able to resolve this in their Rev A1 version of their 680i board.

 

[Ar0us3D_P3nGuin]

ok thanks

 

[ausch30]

2. Memory compatibility is fairly iffy on these boards..you're fine with 2-3 sticks of ram..buy try getting to 4 (4x1gigs) and this is where you see problems. First off the board ships with the memory voltage underclocked to 1.8v.
Most sticks are 1.9v so the first thing to do is use one stick of ram and change this with the voltage settings. If you have two or more you'll just have a blank screen.
3.The memory overclocking is pretty bad on this board..you definitely won't be getting super overclocks out of your memory.
4. Asus update the bios for this board about every month. However when you see a new bios I'd advise waiting a week and seeing if there are any issues with it before downloading it. The latest version is 1205 which is up there only a week or so. Plenty of ppl are having probs with it. Plus Asus have a nasty habit of updating the bios and then a week later or so telling ppl then it's only a beta. eg. 1203/1201. Both were which were removed from the site and just disappeared.
Apart from the overclocking issues it would be a very good board. Overall I'm happy with it but this is because I got it at about the 1/3 of the price when it came out. I'd be very pissed off though if I had paid full whack for it and there are a lot of these ppl out there

If you pick memory off the QVL you won't have a problem. DDR2 is rated at 1.8v and any memory you install should run at that voltage, if it doesn't the memory is faulty.

I have read about the problems with overclocking quads, I have a E6300 which I've had as high as FSB1950 and I've overclocked my Mushkin DDR2 800 to 975 5-5-5-15 2.1v and my memory isn't on the QVL so I don't know what your talking about with that point.

I currently am using the 1203 BIOS and it's fine, the 1205 is on their site and it is listed as Beta so just wait until the final version is up then try it.

To the OP, the NB gets very hot which is common for all 680i boards, I bought a 40mm fan and installed with zip ties and now my NB is just a little warm. I got the fan at Radio Shack for about $15 and it's got sleeve bearings where as most smaller fans use ball bearings, the sleeve bearings produce less noise and last longer.

 

[Ar0us3D_P3nGuin]

this motherboard it ****!!!! After to 5days of owning it im getting a refund and swapping to the Asus blitz forumal

 

[airblazer]

Be aware though that the QVL changes a lot for this board.
Best thing is to go to the asus forum for that board and you'll see all the memory compatibility issues.
This is if you're getting a blank screen at bootup.At default settings the memory is underclocked so you need to set it to at least 1.8/1.9 in order for enough power to get to all slots. It's a well known issue with this board.
Again you're comparing overclocking the FSB on a core duo as compared to a quad. You cannot overclock a quad on this board more than 350 on the FSB. You have to up the multiplier to 11 or 12 to get into the 3.3/3.6 territory.
I found with the 1203 bios that overclocking the fsb wasn't that stable and it didn't go as high with previous bios.
Was thinking of replacing the NB cooler..is there much work in it?

Ar0us3D_P3 : By AUsch's post above it looks like this is a great board for overclocking on core duo's.
Where it fails is it's limited FSB on quad cores. Read the forums at ASUS and I bet you a a lot of the quad-core owners would tell you to stay away from this board.BFG also do a good 680i board and it's supposed to be very good with overclocking on the quad-cores as well.

 

[airblazer]

Sry to hear that mate..couldn't agree more..
BFG do a 680i board as well.

 

[Furnis]

I'd be so happy to reach just 3.0Ghz with my dual core E6600 (2.4GHz), but I can't even reach 2.6GHz stable with my P5N32E-SLI (any BIOS, currently 1203). I'm not an experience overclocker, so I might just suck at it...

If I overclock even by a bit (to 2.6GHz), Windows Vista 64-bit won't resume from sleep. 2.7GHz and over will always bluescreen the computer after a while. CPU temp does not exceed 58C at max load.

I think it's the voltage settings that I can't play well enough. Any examples covering most BIOS voltage and other relevant settings would be very welcomed.

Memory: 4x1GB Supertalent DDR2-800 4-4-3-8, running @ 2.2V (tried also with 2x1GB)
Cooler: Thermalright Ultra 120 + Scythe S-Flex 1200rpm fan

 

[airblazer]

I think there's a faq somewhere on overclocking this board on the asus site.
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx

just select your board. Also the latest bios is 1205. Make sure and turn off all overclocking before updating to this bios as a lot of ppl have complained about blank screens etc while flashing the bios..all of them down to not disabling overclocking.
I presume you're oc'ing via the fsb since that cpu's multi is locked?
You should be able to get about 450MHz (1800) with your cpu so it could be voltage related.

 

[savagehenry]

I wonder if this may ring true with any of you... Been running the P5n32-e SLI 680i got 8gb OCZ PC2-6400 SLi ready memory and a Q6600 (quad 2.4@3.01) and up until now have been running one BFG 8800gt 512. I have latest 1404 bios and have been running stable with an FSB of 1333 with the memory linked 5:4 at 1067.7 with 5-4-4-15 t2 timing, by doing this I have also have to tweak the CPU and DDR voltages to 1.35 and 2.15 respectivly.

Right!! my problems first started happening on installation of second 8800gt, being forwarned about power consumption I uprated an ailing 550 for a 700, put in the GFX card and fired it up. Vista started fine and I decided to run a shader fill test in 3DMark Vantage, it ran for a bout 15 seconds and the whole computer shutsdown. I'm not even talking about BSOD.. Complete powerdown... Fire it up again and you get back into vista fine enough. Devil May Cry 4 benchmark run's for about half the first seen and then same again. complete power down.

I have been trying to figure this out for ages. I have tried everything but pull back the overclock and I am just about at my wits end. I have kind of idea why I am only now experiencing these problems and that is because of the second card, I would love for some other of you ASUS Mushrooms (Kept in the dark and fed on **** ) whether you are experience similar issus with this type configuration

Just thinking out-loud here... Would this mean that a potensially stable overclock with a non SLI-GFX based system, becomes unstable with an SLI system because extra bandwidth being used, stressing out the Memory and causing it to shut the machine down.??? Can any one help answer that.

If there is some sort of problem overclocking that any of you know of with say the P5N32-e and OCZ -PC2 6400 DDr2 and twin 8800gt's could somebody please link me I have been getting really good result up until now with this board and I have to say that I haven't really experience to many other problem it.. like I said run's fin with 1 8800gt.

Came late to the party though bios version was 1302 or something when I got it about 8months ago... have recommended it to other in the past.. although it's been well supassed now by the 780i and stuff...

Signing off now... Thanks GUys

 

[dragonsprayer]

I have just brought a QX6700 and the Asus P5N32-E SLI motherboard and was first of all wondering if this cpu can be overclocked in this board with out to many issues, e.g frying the board or cooking the CPU, second this is how far will i be able to push the cpu in this board?

mobo is bad, best advice is low fsb
you should be able to 3.2ghz with out much issue

 

[Vertigon]

The magic of any QX chip is it's unlocked multi. You can type in anything, 12, 14, 16 or even 10.5 if your bios recognises it so don't freak out. Keep an eye on temps. You should of looked at some Gigabyte X48 or P45 boards which are getting past 500Mhz without hardware mods.

"I have also have to tweak the CPU and DDR voltages to 1.35 and 2.15 respectivly. "

Dude you also have to overvolt the MCH or northbridge, also leave the PCI bus at 100Mhz but overvolt it. Remember heat means resistance.

"how hot do you north and south bridges get? cos i touch mind just now and is bloody hot ae like 80 c is that normal? "

80c is NOT normal. Download PC wizard it has a northbridge temp utility.