Overclock me! I can't get anywhere on this Gigabyte board and an 8500

[pdxgfx]

Help!

I'm having a heck of a time getting this system to overclock without getting the reboot 2 times and revert back to default BIOS Settings.

Here's the stats:

Gigabyte P45 Motherboard (GAEP45 D3LR) F5 Bios
4x2GB (8GB) Crucial DDR2 1066 SDRAM Latency 7 1.8 volts
Intel E8500 Processor (not sure which batch) with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU fan.
PNY Nvidia 9600GT Video card (512 MB) GDDR3
Rosewill 550watt Power Supply.

There are more settings in the Gigabyte bios than there are knobs in a 747 cockpit, if someone can help me pump this little processor to over 4GHz that would be killer.

-PDX

 

[pdxgfx]

Sorry, I omitted a letter in the motherboard designation. It is a GA EP45 UD3LR Gigabyte board.

Help!

I'm having a heck of a time getting this system to overclock without getting the reboot 2 times and revert back to default BIOS Settings.

Here's the stats:

Gigabyte P45 Motherboard (GAEP45 D3LR) F5 Bios
4x2GB (8GB) Crucial DDR2 1066 SDRAM Latency 7 1.8 volts
Intel E8500 Processor (not sure which batch) with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU fan.
PNY Nvidia 9600GT Video card (512 MB) GDDR3
Rosewill 550watt Power Supply.

There are more settings in the Gigabyte bios than there are knobs in a 747 cockpit, if someone can help me pump this little processor to over 4GHz that would be killer.

-PDX

 

[overshocked]

Where are you at now? Have you increased the FSB yet?

 

[andy5174]

There are more settings in the Gigabyte bios than there are knobs in a 747 cockpit, if someone can help me pump this little processor to over 4GHz that would be killer.

Bro, the one you have is an E8500 instead of a Core i3/i5/i7. This is hardly possible unless you got one of the best chips with liquid cooling.

 

[pdxgfx]

I can get it to commit in the BIOS just fine. I take the settings off auto and enter the default values listed next to them that the BIOS already assigns. This way there are no "auto" functions that could mess things up. I then attempted to raise the bus speed to 400 Mhz (reducing the RAM multiplier so that it was actually running at 800Mhz with the new bus speed).

After committing it to the Bios, the motherboard shuts the computer down completely, attempts to boot up but stops (no POST screen, video card identifier or anything) and shuts down again. It does this twice before reverting back to the last known good bios setting and boots normally. I believe this board has a dual-bios which it defaults to if a boot fails.

Looking at the current CPU temperature with the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 on it, it idles around 36c and peaks around 41c under normal operation. This is what I remember from a previous install of Sandra a while back.

 

[pdxgfx]

I suspect it might be the video card because it doesn't even show the pre-POST screen of "Nividia blah, blah, blah". I never thought it could be the RAM since filling the slots like I have is seldom done, most folks get 2 2GB sticks and game on.

Unfortunately the nature of what I do (Adobe After Effects, 3D animation) requires I use quite a bit of RAM so that would reduce functionality while trying to improve the other if I removed 4GB.

Perhaps I'm just delaying the inevitable upgrade to an i7 that I've been tossing around since the darn things were released. Although I do love that little Core 2 Duo, that thing has been a monster of a dual core for a year and a half now. I wonder what I could get for that rig?

-PDX

 

[jsc]

First, an ACF7P is by today's standards an average cooler. Here are three under $50 heatsinks that are pretty popular:
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
Sunbeam
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004
Xigmatec Dark Knight
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029

They all require a somewhat different approach to applying thermal compound.
Suggestions for applying thermal compound:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=170&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=5

And they are pretty large, so they might not fit inside your case.

Here's my OC settings for one of my systems:

MA-EP45-UD3L / Q6600 G0 stepping OC'd to 3.6 GHz.
2 X 2 GB Crucial Ballistix / Xigmatec Dark Knight HSF

M. I. T.

Robust Graphics Booster [Auto]
CPU Clock Ratio [9 X]
CPU Frequency 3.600 GHz (400 X 9)

*** Clock Chip Control
>>> Standard
CPU Host Clock Control [Enabled]
CPU Host Frequency (FSB) [ 400]
PCI Express Frequency [Auto]
C.I.A. 2 [Disabled]
>>> Advanced Clock
Advanced Clock [Press Enter]
These are set to default values

*** DRAM Performance Control
Perfomance Enhancement [standard]
Extreme Memory Profile [Auto]
(G)MCH Latch [Auto]
System Memory Mult. (SPD) [2.00B]
Memory Frequency 800 800 <-- FSB X Multiplier
DRAM Timing Select (SPD) [Manual]
>>> Standard Timing Control
CAS 4 [ 4]
tRCD 4 [ 4]
tRP 4 [ 4]
tRAS 12 [12]
>>> Advanced Timing Control [Press Enter]
These are set to default [Auto] values

*** Motherboard Voltage Control
Voltage Types Normal Current
>>> CPU
Loadline Calibration [Enabled]
CPU Vcore 1.2625v [1.4250v]
CPU Termination 1.200 v [Auto]
CPU PLL 1.55 v [Auto]
CPU Reference 0.805 [Auto]
>>> MCH/ICH
MCH Core 1.100v [Auto]
MCH Reference 0.805v [Auto]
ICH I/O 1.55v [Auto]
ICH Core 1.100v [Auto]

>>> DRAM
DRAM Voltage 1.800v [2.100v]
Set to factory recommended values

PC Health
CPU Warning Temperature [ 70 C]
CPU Fan Fail Warning [Enabled]


Nuts. The forum text editor does not handle spaces and tab characters very well.

 

[pdxgfx]

I'll give that a shot once all this freelance work lets up. Thanks for the settings!

 

[r_manic]

Best answer selected by r_manic.