Help overclocking watercooled Q6600

Hello everyone, my name is Brian and i'm new to the forums here. So lets start off by describing my setup a bit:

Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4 motherboard bios rev. F7
Q6600 G0 stepping quad core cpu
700 Watt psu
2 GB DDR2
2 Geforce 8600GT's in SLI
H20-220 water cooling setup

I think that's the relevant info you guys will need to help me out here.

So, I just got the water cooling setup installed and going today and figured it was time for some overclocking. Coretemp is showing 39c - 41c at full load running prime95 so i've got plenty of head room temperature wise. So far i've overclocked the system to 2.7ghz via an fsb of 300mhz, linked and sync'd. The problem come in when I try to go anything over that. I had it post once at 3.15ghz, but it froze right after it posted. Is this a voltage issue? I haven't tweaked the voltages yet since I have little experience in that arena. I have disabled most of the suggested items in the bios which change the processor speed due to temp and idle conditions. I would REALLY like to hit at least 3ghz with this setup and just need some guidance. I've read several overclocking guides here and elsewhere, but looking for that little extra info from someone with the same motherboard perhaps.

Thanks in advance.

Ok, I got it to post at 3.0ghz and make it all the way to the windows loading screen, then it restarts. Does it sound like it still needs more voltage? I tried it at 1.4 volts for the cpu. Memory timings have been changed to 5-5-5-15

Well, it was running stable all night at 2.7ghz, but I can't seem to make the jump past 3 which seems pretty pathetic given my setup. What should I be looking at tweaking?

What brand PSU?

JamesXP said:

What brand PSU?

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Rocketfish. It's a very stable psu from what I have seen.

1EightT said:

Does it sound like it still needs more voltage? I tried it at 1.4 volts for the cpu.

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A Vcore of 1.4v should be more than enough for 3.0GHz, as 1.3-1.35v should be more in line with what the Q6600 requires at that clock. Post all of your current voltages and RAM timings (including sub-timings) as set in the BIOS. Also include the VID (as can be read by CoreTemp), and the batch of your chip.

Rocketfish is junk, Not stable one bit,


Bestbuys home brand right?

Rocketfish..just the name would keep me away from that psu.Maddog maybe rocketfish sorry

I spent most of the afternoon trying different voltages and such, and I think it's my memory. I just pulled a stick out and it's pc6400 ram when i'm almost positive I ordered pc8000. SO I think this memory just doesn't have the overhead needed to overclock. Does that sound like the likely problem?

I'd say it's your motherboard. You should be able to post at 3.6GHz with pc2-6400 without a problem, if your board can do it. As 400Mhz(800Mhz DDR) on the memory is the specified speed on the pc2-6400 and the multiplier on your quad is at 9x, so 9x400 = 3600Mhz.

But it's a known problem that 650 and 680 sli-boards doesn't OC quads well (about 3.25Ghz max, if you're lucky).

Why won't you post your voltages and RAM timings like I asked you to?

redduc900 said:

Why won't you post your voltages and RAM timings like I asked you to?

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I will here today. I've tried so many different combinations, but i'll start from scratch and post.

so, if it's the motherboard, which sli board would everyone suggest I look at that is a known good overclocker? I went with this one because it had great reviews and was said to overclock well.

THought I would come back and post an update. I ended up never having any luck with anything over stock clock on this board. This week I replaced the 650 with an evga 750i FTW. First shot I got it to post and run stable at 3.6ghz. All of my hardware is identical to the first post I made here with the exception of the motherboard. The gigabyte just sucks at overclocking evidently. I've done 48 hours of prime 95 small fft, no issues. So i'm happy now.