E6300 and P5NSLI 580, Overclocking issues

Hey guys, first post of many more to come! This community is awesome and Im soaking up the knowledge as fast as i can, however, there is something I need help with.

Here are my system specs...

ASUS P5NSLI 580i
E6300 (OC'd at 2.04ghz)
2gig PC4200 (533mhz DDR2 @ 583mhz 4-4-4-12)
7600 GT KO (OC'd at 630/1600)
Sound Blaster Audigy
650watt PS
Alienware Water Cooling (MB:28*c / CPU:30*c idle - MB:32*c / CPU:36*c load)
160gig SATA2 HD


Thats all the important stuff I think... Well, before I slapped in the E6300, I was using an 805 Pentium D (2.66ghz) overclocked to 3.6ghz without even touching the voltage. When I put in the E6300, the system would not boot, so i cleared CMOS and boom, she booted. but now, when I go to overclock, it hangs often. The most I could get out of the system was 2.04 @ 1166fsb. Ive updated bios to 0903.bin from ASUS's site and if I put so much as 1167mhz fsb, the system will not boot. I get no video, and have to clear CMOS to restart.

This board does not have much in the way of overclocking utilities, but I can mess with memory timings, PCIE frequiencies, VCore voltage, etc... one thing I noticed is that even if I put the VCORE to 1.4v, it stays at 1.34v. For instance, before writing this post, I went to BIOS to verify settings, and the value for voltage is set to 1.4v, but monitoring says 1.34v.

Ideas?

I find it hard to believe that no one here has any knowledge on this matter... I refuse to believe it.

Hi JLangevin, it's great to have you posting here at the OCforums.

As far as info on your setup, I don't know of too many folks here using the mobo you are. This is due to the poor fsb overclocking performance of the Nvidia's earlier Intel compatible chipsets such as yours and the earlier versions. The first truly decent fsb overclocking Intel chipsets that Nvidia has put out are the 680i and 650i as far as I know. From what you've posted, it sounds like some kind of chipset related problem. BTW, it helps me out if you post the actual fsb speed and not the quad pumped number, which I have to divide by 4 to see your actual fsb speed. It is also possible that you are running into a ram speed problem if your board has the ram speed tied to the fsb speed. I know that the boards based on the 650i and 680i have the ability to run the ram speeds totally independent of the fsb speed but I don't know about the older Nvidia chipsets such as yours.

So far I have no experience with Nvidia's Intel chipset stuff but that is about to change. I just ordered a P5N-E SLI (650i chipset) board this evening, so I should be doing some experimenting next week when it comes in.

Well it probably is the boards chipset itself. It shows up as an Nforce 4, but Asus calls it a 580i... ive noticed many people are reporting this... Also, It does not let me mess with the multiplier, therefor does not let me change the actual FSB, just the effective FSB... It will allow me to put in a target, but not the actual FSB... Also, this board DOES allow me to manipulate the mem speed independant from the cpu, however does not post when the cpu speed is anything above 1166.

Ive decided to just give up on this board until I get either a newer 680i or DS3. This is a great board, and allowed me to overlock the hell out of my PD805, however, just wont do anything for the C2D series. Ill build a stock clock system out of this board, and move on...

Thanks for the reply tho!