2.4 to 3.6ghz how to optimize??

[baracubra]

Hey, I finally got myself a brand new case (CM HAF 932 full tower) so my airflow has drastically improved and along with a new cooler my idle temps on Q6600 dropped from 65'C to 34'C!

This is really great, so I hit up some OC settings for my rig to get it to 3.6Ghz from the stock 2.4, but now I'm in need of some advice on how to fine-tune and lower my voltages to get the best OC...

My sys specs:
Intel C2Q Q6600 @ 3.6
CM Hyper 212 + CM HAF 932
ASUS P5N-D mobo (Phoenix Award BIOS - flashed yesterday)
Gigabyte 800W Odin GT PSU
2x ASUS 9800GTX+ SLI
4x 1GB DDR2-800 Kingston ValueRam (5-5-5-18-2T @ 1.8v POS but cheap)

the OC settings I'm using right now are:
FSB - 1600
Ram Linked in sync mode - 800mhz
Vcore - 1.4375 (CPU-Z says 1.344)
DRAM - 1.85v
HT - 1.48
NB - 1.48
SB - 1.60

All of these settings apear under manual OC-ing in my BIOS, but there is another tab under "power" in my BIOS, which is HardWare Monitor, and there is a setting there for Vcore Voltage where I can toggle between 3.6V (pretty random?) and "ignore"....What am I changing here???

With the above settings I can boot into windows fine, but when I run Prime95, everything hangs after about 10mins
my load temps @ 3.6 are maxed at 57'C during the initial 10mins of stress testing
How do I monitor the NB and SB temps?? when I load up HWmonitor, I only get TMPIN1 - 41'C. Is this the "system temp"?
previously I got TMPIN0, TMPIN1, TMPIN2 values but not this time... which one of those would be the NB?? Also, does anyone know what the max NB and SB temps are for my ASUS P5N-D board?? I've been trying to search the net for hrs but couldn't find these values.

How do I go on from here to get it to run stable? should I try adding more Vcore? or lower some of the other Mobo Voltages?

thx, any advice appreciated!

 

[baracubra]

Update:

I've also recently found that when I set a Vcore of 1.425v in the BIOS, I end up with 1.33v as shown by CPU-Z and 1.31v under load! does this mean my VDrop is 0.095v and my VDroop is 0.115v? isn't that like CRAZY high? I'm gonna try the pencil mod now to see if I can lower these amounts...

Also, another info I have is that my VID is 1.215v...Is that good for a Q6600?

 

[jsc]

VID of 1.215 volts is excellent for a Q6600.

 

[baracubra]

Aight, so I've been tinkering with my settings for the last 3 days and it seems I have found my ideal OC. My board had terrible Vdroop (0.12V) but with the pencil mod (coloring 2 resistors with 6B led pencil), I was able to get my Vdroop down to 0.03V. I've been running @ 3.4Ghz stable for over 5hrs, hopefully it will finish the 24 hrs

current settings:
Vcore: 1.296V
FSB: 378 (9x)
VRAM: 1.85V (pretty cheap crappy ram 5-5-5-31)
HT/VTT: 1.32V
NB: 1.46V
SB: 1.58V

My temps max out at 52'C so I'm fine in that regard...I'm js wondering, are my NB and SB a bit too high? would these be acceptable in the long run?

 

[tuffluck]

what are you using to monitor temps? i don't believe 64c idle was ever happening.

 

[baracubra]

what are you using to monitor temps? i don't believe 64c idle was ever happening.

im using Coretemp of course...but in my old case i had virtually no airflow and the stock heatsink's thermal paste was messed up--> gritty and dry when i removed it. I was also alarmed at those temps thats y i got myself the new case and heatsink!

Anyway p95 is still running after 8hrs so im hoping my OC will run stable. If the small FFTs complete 24hrs im gonna go for a blend test for another 8 and then i mightcall it done. Should i also run a memtest86+?