HELP: 1st time overclocker Q6600

Hello everyone,

I have a Q6600 and I need to squeeze a bit more out of it. The thing is I am a total NooB when it comes to overclocking.

I'd like to get a bit more out of it without voltage or memory increase. I believe that is around 2.8?

I'd really appreciate any guide for dummies to the bios step by step to over clocking to the max WITHOUT playing with voltage/RAM speed.

I have attahced CPU -z images

Help is highly appreciated.

You might be able to bring your CPU higher than 2.4Ghz without increasing your FSB but... why would you not want to increase voltage?

The beauty of the Q6600 is that even an unexperienced user can easily OC a Q6600 to 3Ghz. As for a guide to OCing, i'd recommend Google (search your motherboard's name and add "overclocking", you'll get tones of results (perhaps even videos that'll take your through it).

Good luck.

After looking at BIO I realized asus MB had aLEVEL UP feature that allows automatic overclock. Options it has when selected: QX6700, 6800, 6850 and crazy.

QX6700 = 2.66 Gigahertz, QX6800 =2.93 Gigahertz QX6850 = 3.0 (there is also a crazy option but not sure of its speed)

So does that mean everything else (RAM,Voltage) is adjusted automatically? Anyone familiar with that feature?

So does that mean selecting one of these, it will OC and automatically adjust all other settings?.

Hey...make sure you monitor your CPU temp when overclocking. Are you cooling with water or air? If your cooling with air, then your cooling might be your "Bottleneck" sort'of speak.

I have oc using level up feature in asus to Q6800 with FSB of 312 = 2.8
Eveything else was on auto.

Prime95 stress test shows temps of core at 86, 84, 78 , 77

Is that too hot? ANy recommendation for what to do next! I really need some expert advice please!

But 90 degrees on 2 cours and mid 80s on the other is high?!

The voltage was set auto at 1.35. So I tried setting lower from 1.15 all the way to 1.31 but it will not boot. SO had to undo the oc and go back to 2.4.

What did I do wrong???

I have after market coolmatser and before OC it is idle at 40. But with Prime95 stress test it jumps to 90 on 2 core and mid 80s on other 2. Is this a normal temp for stresst test.

Keep in mind I am only OC to 2.8.

Im not saying to replace your fan and heatsink, im saying to take it off and clean off the thermal wax garbage they put on the back that they try and pass off as thermal grease. Clean it til it shines, apply a small BB sized amount of Arctic Silver to the middle of your CPU and put the heatsink back on. Use Ceramique if you are new at using thermal grease as it doesnt conduct electricity.

Yes 90 degrees is way too hot

after looking closer at your cpuz i noticed that you underclocked your cpu! im sorry but its all wrong, you have your multiplier at 6 with a bus speed of 267 which gives you a cpu speed of 1603mhz. your going to burn out your cpu if you keep giving it the normal 1.35v at that low of a speed, thats why its running so hot. try a multiplier of 9 and a bus speed of 333 which will give you a speed of 3ghz. good luck!

1.58 volts is too high.

That is SpeedStep automatically reducing your internal multiplier during low CPU loads. It also reduces your CPU voltage.

I see a lot of wrong answers in this thread.

The stock cooler is good for 3.0 GHz. Anything higher will require better cooling. The Hyper 212+ EVO is a great choice for around $40.
Suggests for appling thermal compound:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index. [...] mitstart=0

Run your internal multiplier at max (X 9). That will minimize the load on your memory. After the CPU, memory and bad memory settings in the BIOS will be the second limiting factor in your overclock. Third will be your motherboard. Fourth will be your case and cooler.

This should be your first stop.
Core2 Overclocking Guide (generic guide based on an Asus motherboard)
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] king-guide

Next stop should be a guide for your particular motherboard. Google is your friend.

Go through the guides. Then take your core voltage off Auto and set your memory voltage to 2.2 volts. Change the System Memory Multiplier (or whatever your BIOS calls it) from AUTO to 2.00 - whatever you need to do to set the Memory Frequency to twice the FSB. Then when you increase the FSB, the memory clock will rise in in proportion with it. At an FSB of 266 MHz, your memory clock should be at 533 MHz. A 2:3 ratio means that your FSB freq is 266 MHz and your memory clock is at 800 MHz.

This is important because if you leave your memory settings on Auto, DDR2-800 RAM will be running at DDR2-1000 speeds (or trying to) when you increase your FSB frequency to 333 MHz. You also want to keep the FSB:RAM ratio at 1:1. There are no practical gains to overclocking RAM in a Core2 systemand the improved stability is worth it.
Overclocking RAM:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/251715-29-ratio-myth

I am unfamiliar with the Asus X48 BIOS (I use G'byte boards) so I cannot give you any advice on what settings to use. Learning to use the BIOS will enable you to overclock both farther and better.

Intel's max recommented voltage for the Q6600 is 1.50 volts. Max recommennded load temps is about 70 C.

Turn off Speed Step while you are working out your BIOS settings. Once you have finished testing, reenable it. There is no point to running at full speed when you do not need to.

I have a Q6600 in a G'byte EP45-UD3L, TRUE cooler, Antec 900 case running at 3.6 GHz. Stock voltage 1.2625 volts increased to 1.425 volts. Load temps are 61 C - 66 C, Prime95 stable after 24 hours.

There's a lot of discussion about how long you need to run P95. Consensus is 4 - 8 hours is adequate. I am just a little fanatical about stability. Start with the small fft's test. 15 minutes will maximize the core temps. Run it for about an hour. Then change to the blend tests. This will do a better job testing the memory settings. When they both run for an hour, you can start the final testing for as long as you see fit.

Keep in mind that these are guides, not cookbooks. YMMV. Because of all the variables, you may not do as well as someone else with a similar system. Or you might do better.
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Overclocking since 1978 - Z80 (TRS-80) from 1.77 MHz to 2.01 MHz

Yes, me to. And that is why I finally gave up on the 680i and went to Intel based G'byte boards.

Vcore is the biggest culprit, but upping the FSB also increases the temperatures due to the transistors doing more work (moving faster) which in turn creates more heat (Simple physics).

If you want to keep the longevity of the Chip intact lower the Vcore as much as possible whilst keeping the OC stable.

The spike shouldnt have happened at all. Run Prime 95 and tell us your max temps. If they are in line with what we deem safe for a Q6600 then you'll be fine.

You may want to restart the entire process of installing your Cooler.

I suggest buying some TIMClean Isopropyl Alcohol and cleaning the old thermal paste off the CPU and the Heatsink, buying some good thermal paste (AS5, Artic Ceramique, MX-2 etc etc) - Re-applying using the Pea method and reinstalling the CPU Cooler. Test the temps after that.

speedstep should have been turned off before he started overclocking and 1.5875v is not to much. i have been running it that way for almost 4yrs no problem. when all 4 cores are under load the voltage dips a bit so its not as high as it sounds. i'm also running a 360 rad h20 set up which helps keep the temps in the mid to high 50s. i will say 1.5875v is about the limit of what i consider safe though. how can anyone say using to much voltage "or force" on a circuit is safe?

This is unsafe and irresponsible advice.

My limit is 1.4v for Q6600s and that would be with very high end cooling.

1.5v can be done but I would only reccommend that with Sub-Zero cooling to offset the voltage degridation.

1.58v will cause extreme degridation to anyones chip regardless of running temperature.

Oh and if Speedstep has to be disabled the overclock isn't 100% stable.

On the other hand, you cannot argue with Intel's recommendations. You can however ignore them.

And in my case, my Q6600 ran out of core speed at 1.425 volts.

Only 9 years, huh? Newbie.
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Overclocking since 1978 - Z80 (TRS-80) from 1.77 MHz to 2.01 MHz