Q6600 G0 issues overclocking to mild settings

[icicle22]

First of all, I have been reading threads and looking for answers all over the internet for days and I am overwhelmed with too much info bouncing around in my skull..

I have experience overclocking in the past but it has always been relatively simple until the q6600. I tried a year ago when I got the q6600 but couldn't push it beyond 2600 (290x9). I had the stock Intel Heatsink at the time and PC6400 DDR2 Ram with a DFI-INfinity-P965-Dark board.

In January I took the plunge and bought a Zalmann 9700 thinking that would do it. Nope. Same limitations, only now the CPU was much cooler. FIgured it was a RAM or FSB issue. I discovered that my q6600 was a B3 stepping and that G0 would be much better. I recently Built a PC for a client and got a new G0 Stepping and slapped it into my case.

Much cooler. Setup and ran all night at 2.6 and orthos. Pushed to 2.8 and still great. Pushed to 3.0GHZ and it ran orthos for 3 hours before it crashed and rebooted. Pushed it back to 2.8 and it errors out when trying 3dmark 05 Can't get through it at all.(haven't tried orthos again). Pushed it back to 2.4 and 3dmark runs ok. Even pushing it just 2.6 gets errors in 3d mark. PCI-E is locked at 100. C1E is disabled. Spread Spectrum is off.

This same setup with an older q6600 B3 ran stable at 2.6 for a year. Now with a Q6600 G0 it is acting funny even at this mild overclock. The voltage on the G0 is lower to begin with so I am not sure if I Should step this up or not.

So, I oredered some OCZ PC8500 DDR2 RAM that is rated for 1066. I am hoping to run it and eliminate the RAM as being the culprit. First thing to act weird is the BIOS doesn't like me setting the DRAM Volage to 2.2v as is required on the RAM. I force it to 2.2 but the bios text turns red when I do this as it thinks this is too high of a voltage. I boot up anyway and my motherboard monitoring software is going crazy telling me I am over the 1.8- 1.9 threshhold. I turn off this sensor and move on. First test at 2.6GHz - Ram capable of 533 running around 290 in bios (up from 266 stock). Boots and runs 1 pass of 3dmark 05....that is encouraging. However there are little green dots and corruption areas on the main monitor now. This looks like what I would expect from overclocking the graphics card but I am not. The PCI-E is locked at 100. Could increasing the voltage on my RAM cause this? Doesn't make sense to me. I have never tried to overclock my Geforce7950 but regardless this is the first I have seen these artifacts at all. Temp of CPU never hits 40C and Northbridge in the high 45-49C area. So I doubt it is heat reltate at all.

What is going on here? All voltages are at stock except possibly the RAM that says it is 2.2V that I had to manually set. Everyone says the q6600 G0 should hit 3ghz easily and proably 3.2-3.4 but not for me so far.

Anyone? I am not looking for an Uber Overclock....just maybe 3GHZ-3.2GHZ to get a little boost. I'm looking for ideas that I can try or check that I may have overlooked.

Thanks in advance.

Icicle22

 

[tmike]

to get my G0 to 3.0 i had to adjust several voltages (very) slightly upwards; since the adjustable voltages vary among MBs, my enumerating the specific ones probably wouldn't help you - but off the top of my head i know that it included PCI, FSB, and MCH voltages. I run my (corsair dominator) RAM at 1066 using the corsair-specified voltage which my MB says is too high - just as yours does - but obviously the memory vendor knows best.
also make certain that you nailed the PCI speed at 100.
my particular G0 is perfectly stable at 3.0 (but immediately fails at anything above that).

 

[rubix_1011]

G0 should easily hit 3.0 just by changing the FSB from 266 to 333, voltages can even stay on AUTO. What is your VID that shows in CoreTemp or other?

You might need to up the RAM voltage; I typically don't volt over 2.0v on RAM...check your specific memory...most are fine up to 2.0 or some even up to 2.1. Leave the rest of your settings on AUTO and try.

Also try setting your multiplier to 8x and adjusting the FSB...might play nicer with your RAM.

Edit/Add: Your board is a P965 chipset(?)...I don't know how well they allow OC on the newer duals/quads...they are an older chipset. I know that P35/45 X38/48's OC really well.

 

[knotknut]

You might find some answers in this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dual-quad,1720.html

Looks like your MB is rated at FSB 1066/800. That could be what you are comming up against.

 

[roadrunner197069]

First of all your mothrboard is a piece of crap. That is why you cant overclock.

Second , you are a schmuck for giving a customer your used B3 and keeping his G0.

 

[rubix_1011]

First of all your mothrboard is a piece of crap. That is why you cant overclock.

Second , you are a schmuck for giving a customer your used B3 and keeping his G0.

Direct and to-the-point.

I guess I didn't read closely enough to see where he 'aquired' the chip from on the 2nd go-round. Hopefully you told him you gave him your used, lesser quality B3 stepping and you got his brand new (what he paid for) G0.

First of all, I have been reading threads and looking for answers all over the internet for days and I am overwhelmed with too much info bouncing around in my skull..

Also, had you read that much information, you might have picked up that people aren't trying to OC a P965 chipset these days, either.

 

[Guest]

^ agree

no one help him for what he did to that customer... that's ridiculous...

people like you why the world doesn't advance... selfish little bastards

 

[rubix_1011]

[strike]G0 should easily hit 3.0 just by changing the FSB from 266 to 333, voltages can even stay on AUTO. What is your VID that shows in CoreTemp or other?

You might need to up the RAM voltage; I typically don't volt over 2.0v on RAM...check your specific memory...most are fine up to 2.0 or some even up to 2.1. Leave the rest of your settings on AUTO and try.

Also try setting your multiplier to 8x and adjusting the FSB...might play nicer with your RAM.

Edit/Add: Your board is a P965 chipset(?)...I don't know how well they allow OC on the newer duals/quads...they are an older chipset. I know that P35/45 X38/48's OC really well. [/strike]

Move along, nothing to see here. Please disregard.

 

[icicle22]

Chill out guys! This was a friend of mine who didn't care at all. He knew what the deal was and was just happy to get a Quad-Core for the same price that he would have paid for a dual-core. I guess I wasn;t clear when I said "client" but still....try not to jump to conclusions so quick. I paid the difference between the dual core and the quad core. He got a great chip and I got a newer one.

Relax please.

Also, I do not build PCs for clients other than family and friends so I am not scamming anyone....I just saw an opportunity to get my hands on a G0 stepping and also get a friend into a quad when his budget only allowed for a dual.

Back to the point at hand. I did not go out and buy the motherboard for this processor....I originally intended to overclock a E6400 but I ended up with a quad instead.

So based on what I actually have on hand I need to get the best overclock I can.

So anyone have any ideas why I am seeing graphic corruption when the only thing that has changed is the voltage on the DDR ram.

Thanks to all that have been helpful.

 

[icicle22]

^ agree

no one help him for what he did to that customer... that's ridiculous...

people like you why the world doesn't advance... selfish little bastards

Wow. Just went back and read some of the replies. Kinda harsh isn't it? As I cleared up in my previous post this was understood by the
guy I was building this for....who also happens to be a friend. Been reading Tom's hardware since the late nineties.....finally decided to join and when I saw how many responses I had in a few hours I was thinking what a useful forum. But it seems that the lynch mob forms very fast at the first sign of trouble....which in my case can easily be explained.

Again, I want to apologize that the first thread wasn't clear....I was just keeping it simple.....didn't think I needed to explain all the details....but alas.....I should have.

So my "client" paid me $100 bucks for a good reliable q6600 B3 and I bought a new Q6600 G0 for $200 bucks. I was straight up with him and he knew the difference and had no interest in paying that much for a new processor but a used one for $100 was great for him. We both benefited.

Peace.

 

[roadrunner197069]

Well if that is the case, it aint so bad.


Like was stated earlier though, your mother board supports up to 1066FSB.
You quad is running 1066FSB stock. You are lucky to get the tiny overclock that you can get.

You need a board that is made to overclock, such as a P35/P45. Asus P5Q seems to be dominating right now. Note that the P5Q has a 1600FSB wich means you can overclock your Q6600 from 266 all the way to 400, which will give you a 3.6 quad if you can keep it cool.

Bottom line, your not gonna overclock on that piece of crap motherboard. If you had a 800FSB chip like a e21xx series you could overclock. But your chip and your board are both running 1066. You need a board with 1333 or 1600 native FSB.

 

[Guest]

sorry I assumed... but your first post warrants my first post... once explained though it makes more sense

 

[rubix_1011]

Another apology from me...but honestly, you might want to make something like that pretty clear, reason being; most of us primarily build our own machines because we don't like getting ass raped by Dell, HP, Gateway, etc...so we don't like seeing one of our own perform cannibalism. Thanks for the clarification, but I did want to justify our position.

You can find some pretty good information from the THG forums, but beware, it does have its fair share of trolls and noobs that don't have much quality info. Just do a little extra research on everything if you aren't sure about info here.

But yes, scrap that P965 chipset board and get a P35/45 board for cheap that will run great; trust me, its worth the $120 for a decent ASUS or Gigabyte board...or even some cheaper. The rest of your components should swap right in.

Good luck.

 

[Guest]

get a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136043&Tpk=dk%2bp35

its an amazing overclocker and is relatively cheap... and the worlds highest OC record on the board using a q6600 ( an liquid nitrogen ) was 5.122 ghz... thats a 569 fsb!!! thats awsome... and w/o nitrogen you could probably get it close to 500

 

[icicle22]

so it is the p965 chipset that you guys think makes the DFI-infinity-965 suck and not the DFI brand?

Also, that particular board (the link you gave to newegg) says the memory standard is DDR2 800. Does that make a difference? As I stated above, I just bought the OCZ DDR1066 (PC8500) so that I could push past 800 for overclocking. How is that going to affect this board? I still have my original 4GB DDR2800 that I can use. I don't mind setting the memory ratio so that I am underclocking my RAM, then when I boost the FSB the RAM comes back up to the rated speed. I know it sounds cheap, but if I can send back my OCZ Ram and get a P35 based board for only a few bucks more and push my q6600 up to 3GHZ or more that would be great.

For what it is worth I messed with my current system for 4-5 hours last night and had a hard time getting anything stable beyond 2.6GHz which is hardly anything. It would boot into windows easily but when I try to run 3dmark 2005 (the first short test before I use Orthos) it would reboot. When it passed 3dmark Orhos errored out within an hour. I have tried 5-6 different tweaks that I found on the web from users who have the same exact board and a q6600 running at 3.2GHZ and they all ended in instability.

Let me ask another question. Can I assume that my q6600 G0 should be able to clock much higher than 2.6GHZ? My OCZ 1066 should be good up to 533 so a frontside bus of 435mhz (970 double pumped) really shouldn't be pushing it, right? So the problem stems most likely from the Northbridge running beyond it's rated speed...most likely? How much would adding a fan or some type of cooler help with this issue? Or am I just wasting my time with the whole darn board?

Oh....one more. On the p35 series do youhave the option of running the northbridge independent of the FSB like on some of the NVIDIA chipsets?

Thanks.

 

[icicle22]

Any other recommendations other than this board? I run dual PCI-E cards and need to have 2 PCI-E 16 slots. Not running SLI but actually using 3 monitors.

Thanks.

 

[icicle22]

OK. What do you guys think of this board? Again, how concerned do I need to be about the specs saying it supports DDR2-800 and not DDR2-1066?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136039R

 

[rubix_1011]

DDR2-1066 is just a higher standard that DDR2-800 is in...yes it will work fine.

Yes you should be able to OC much further than +200mhz...266 to 333 FSB gets you to 3.0ghz at 9x multiplier which is almost always attainable barring horrible cooling (worse than stock Intel cooler) or cheap PSU/board, etc...

Northbridge directly controls the FSB, correct? It is only in the newer Nelahem chips that this is no longer the case, or if you have an unlocked multiplier on an EE chip...which the Q6600 is not.