before anyone yells at me to read the sticky how-to... i already have. multiple times. Please don't point me there.

I'm new to overclocking and this is my first desktop (had a dell laptop before.) I got the E6750 cause i read all these reviews about getting to 3.3GHz with no problems at all (and even higher up to 3.6!!!). My motherboard is a Gigabyte P35-DS3L and i have G-skill DDR2-800. My issue is that i can't OC over 3.0GHz. completely frustrating. I can boot up at 3.3 but prime 95 fails immediately. I went through the newbie's OC-ing guide multiple times and i have all the power-saving settings disabled. My multiplier is 8x413 with a 1:1 FSB:RAM ratio so the ram is at 826MHz. I have my core voltage at the "normal" 1.35. I've tried increasing the DDR2 voltage +0.1 to 1.9v and that didn't help. (g-skill specs are 1.8-1.9). I have also tried all 3 performance enhance settings (standard, turbo, and extreme(what do these even do? the board manual isn't helpful at all)) all without any luck. My RAM timings are stock/loose at 5-5-5-15. worst of all is that if i set my core voltage to "Auto", CPU-Z reads it as 1.408!! adjusting back to what BIOS would say (assuming its linear and using the "normal" vcore(1.35) at 2.66GHz speed (reads 1.312 in CPU-Z and 1.35 in BIOS) it translates to a 1.4488V! Its completely disheartening that some people are running 3.5GHz on LESS than "normal" core voltage and i can't get mine past 3.0GHz without a huge bump! Is there anyone that can point me in the right direction as to what is going on? Again its an Intel E6750(2.66GHz, VID=1.35) in a Gigabyte P35-DS3L (BIOS version F7) along with 2x 2GB G-Skill DDR2-800. PSU is a OCZ Game Xstream 700W and an EVGA 8800GTS(320MB). Also i'm running XP Pro (32-Bit) with SP2. ( I had XP Pro x64 and it wasn't OC-ing right so I though maybe it had something to do with windows... guess not.)

I appreciate any help anyone can give me. Thank you so much in advance!!!!

-Mike

1. leave performance enhance at standard

2. manually adjust CPU voltage to something like 1.45V

3. try 333x9 or 375x8

4. that board won't post with the fsb the way you had it unless you add some volts to the NB or (G)MCH overvolt. But....I added +0.2v to that this morning and it fried my board.

Good luck, and if you haven't figured out that computers don't always do what you want them to then mabey you should find a new hobby.

I've tried some of these things already...

1. I have, and experimented with the other performance settings. (On a side note I read that under the advanced memory timings on the DS3L there's a control for the NB latency. These "performance" mode things just adjust that with the default one setting it to 11. Manually changing this value overrides the performance setting. I tried ranging it from 8 to 15 with no better stability)

2. I could, but thats defeating my question/purpose. Other people are getting to 3.3GHz on stock or in some cases less than 1.35V.

3. the max multiplier is 8 on an E6750. 375x8 is only 3GHz and i can run that stable. I want to get to 3.3GHz

4. I'm skeptical of raising the NB voltage. First, I've read that P35 chipsets already run hot at stock voltage. Increasing the NB voltage would make it run even hotter, thus requiring a fan (might do anyway, that HS gets toasty!) Second, I don't particularly want to fry my board. Sorry to hear about yours.

Anymore ideas would be very helpful. I can't figure what is wrong.

-Mike

I don't know why I'm even replying to this since you already received some good advice from Dunkel and blew it off. Just because "some people are running 3.5GHz on LESS than "normal" core" doesn't mean you will be able to also. Each chip is different. You may not have got a particularly great overclocking chip. My E6420 requires about 1.42V in the BIOS to be completely stable at 3.2GHz (400x8). I also had to up the voltage on my NB by 0.1v and am running my ram at 2.0 volts and 4-4-4-10 timings. If you aren't willing to add a little voltage then just be happy with 3GHz. Your chip, motherboard, and/or RAM are obviously not getting enough voltage to provide a stable overclock.

mt,
Just because I posted back my thoughts on what he said doesn't mean that I "blew it off". Some of his suggestions did not apply to what I was asking for in the first place. I did take his suggestion on the performance setting, and I have/did try playing with my vcore. His suggestion to put the multiplier at 9 is pointless as an E6750's max is 8. And just because he said he raised his NB voltage and me saying I'm skeptical of doing so is not "blowing it off". I simply won't raise it +.2 like he did. Please don't bother to post if you don't feel the need to, especially if its not relating to the post. Regardless, your thoughts have been noted as well.

-Mike

I would say that if you've tried upping the voltage on your processor without any luck, try narrowing down what's holding you back. I know 4GB kits are a little tougher to overclock (or even get to run at rated speeds for that matter). If the G-Skill specs are 1.8 - 1.9, I would try upping the RAM voltage to 2.0. My Corsair RAM specs are 1.9 and I've been running them at 2.0 for almost a year without any problems. A further small bump in voltage should at least rule out RAM. If that doesn't work, I would try upping the NB voltage by just +0.1. My overclock worked without raising the NB voltage except that my video card link speed would sometimes drop from 16 to 1. If upping the RAM and/or NB voltages don't work, the problem is most likely your processor. Just slowly start raising your processor voltages until Prime95 runs successfully. Like I said, my e6420 took 1.42v in the BIOS to be stable at 3.2 GHz. I have a Zalman 9500A cooler running in silent mode and even with 1.42v it idles around 33C and maxes out at 56C, so if you have a decent cooler upping the volts should be fine. You said you had read the sticky on overclocking so you've probably already done it, but one last thing to make sure you have done is to lock your PCI-E at 100. Sorry if my first post seemed a bit harsh. Good luck!

Thanks for that info mt. no problem!

I actually ran some tests last night.... I'm bummed out by the results.

sorry there's a lot of info i took, but its rather interesting i think.
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mjlamb/Pictures/results.jpg

At 3.04GHz on normal vcore, i got a 33% PRIME95 fail rate.
Any speed higher resulted in an almost immediate fail. At 3.2GHz(normal vcore) i couldn't even boot.

I ran memtest86 for a Wall Time of 7 mins each.
For that 900MHz RAM test, after 7 mins i had 0 errors, but i let it go to 11 mins just to see but it still had 0 errors.

Another note: while performing all of these tests... not during ANY test did my core temperatures exceed 61*C and when Idle was around 34/35*C (using core temp v0.97.1, Tj. Max = 100*C)

I guess my only options left are to:
1. start increasing other voltages(not vcore) to get stable
2. be satisfied with 3.0GHz.

just a question... theoretically speaking, the goal is to keep vcore low. this 1.keeps temps lower and 2. improves the life of the CPU at higher speeds. So are you pretty much negating the effects by increasing NB and etc voltages in an attempt to keep the vcore low? if thats the case, maybe its simply better to throw the 1.4 at the CPU and leave the other board components at normal. Just a thought. Ideas?

-Mike

LOL "Some people" are getting X speed out of X Voltage. Sorry, that is like quoting Wikipedia as a source.


"Auto" settings tend to over-volt, but not by that much. I doubt you can get to 3.3 without raising voltages. I used to have that chip.

As I understand it one way to help find out what's holding you back is to set up the BIOS for 6 X 400 FSB or 415.

See if you can get that stable. If so then the problem is probably a medium OCing cpu. Good luck!

2 more cents.

IMO, the FSB you are using is a lot for that board. It's only a $90 board. If you want it to over perform then you need to crack the whip. Put a 40mm fan on the NB and juice it. Adding .01 to the FSB voltage prolly wouldn't hurt either. IMO.

i think im gonna go ahead and put a fan on the NB so i can raise the NB +0.1 and see if it helps.

dunkel, do i need to put a fan on there asap? or can i try it for a boot or two to see if its stable?

You can add 0.1 to the NB and FSB without an issue. If you're going to continually stress test it, I would put a fan on it. Take the side off your case, add the +0.1, run Prime for an hour and touch your NB to see how hot it gets.

I'm not entirely sure why my board went out, hopefully Gigabyte will give me some in site when they take a look at it. Then again it could have been my chip, I didn't have a spare chip to test the board with.

Why do you keep trying to run @ 1.35V? Like I said at first, try 1.45V. Run Prime for 10-20 min. If you don't get any errors you can go back into BIOS and drop it to 1.43V.

Also take your RAM voltage up to 2.0V.

i'll give that a shot. im trying to run at 1.35 simply because i read about others at 1.35 and are somehow at 3.3/3.4. im just wondering if there's a specific reason mine wont. i know that not all chips are created equal, just simply checking out things.

i just looked at HW monitor and it says my mem is at 1.9 when bios says 1.8. interesting, haha. wonder if that means a +.1 is actually running at 2.0. i'll give the FSB and NB a try. thanks

Try running your RAM ~700MHz instead of over 800 too.

well.... i tried to run at 8x413 so 3.3 with a +0.1 on FSB/NB/DDR2 and a vcore of 1.45 and Prime would fail after ~30 seconds. 3.2GHz(also at 1.45 vcore) ran for ~10 before i stopped it to try 3.2GHz at 1.4 vcore in which Prime failed after a minute or two.

3.1GHz (8x388) also failed Prime at a vcore of 1.35 and the FSB/NB/DDR2 up +0.1

I cant run my RAM any lower. the lowest ratio is 2.0 and my max multiplier is 8. i can run it lower than 800 (750MHz), but then im only at 3.0GHz. should have gone with 2GB DDR2-1066 instead of 4GB of 800

seems like my overclocking adventures are over. only 3.2GHz at 1.45vcore. Im kinda bummed out.

I pretty much got that exact set up. e6750@3.3ghz, Gigabyte GA P35-DS3L, OCZ ATI edition Ram@ 4-4-4-12 2.0v Vcore 1.33. Prime95 for 8hrs perfectly stable. Make sure you overclock a little bit at a time. If your just jumping from stock to 3.3 it aint going to work. Theres a good article here on Toms that gives a good step by step.(Dual vs Quad core) http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/08/dual_vs_quad/
Overclocking: Dual- vs. Quad-Core CPUs | Tom's Hardware I followed this step for step and had no problems. Prime95 max temp-61. Crysis max temp-51. COD4 max temp-50. all on stock air cooling. Hope this helps.

Fisherman,
funny you mention that link. i found that too and was what i based all my figures that i wanted to get to from. Maybe that's my problem then? i mean, the first time i OC'd my chip, i just tried to go right to 3.3. Im kinda nervous about my ram though. im thinking maybe its too cheap, i went for quantity over quality. I'll give it a try though, overclocking to each level they did trying to match their settings and see how i fare. Also, how long did you run Prime before restarting and pushing higher?

Most RAM can handle 2.1V.

What CPU cooler are you using?

Most people who get outrageous OCs, 1) are very knowledgeable and take there time, 2) lied, or 3) spent a boatload on a MB and extra cooling.

I have the Zalman 9500 cpu fan, so im not concerned with my CPU temps. Maximum i've seen is 66 when i had vcore up to 1.45 trying a 3.3GHz overclock for about 5 mins.

I guess i'll give my ram a try with higher voltages. Should i trust HW monitor or the bios? with bios at <auto> HWmon shows 1.9 but if i do a +0.1 bump on it, HWmon still shows 1.9....