• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Need some advice / Direction for my OC PLEASE!

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

cleaner450

Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Location
N. california
I have the ASROCK P45X3 and 4 GB of ddr3 1600 with a 2.4 quad Q6600. I am trying to get things to run stable but I want to hear what other with more experience with this board / OCing might say about voltages and clock speeds. It seems like the faster the processor speed the lower I have to go with the memory

I am at 3.6 right now at 1.6v with idle temps at low 30's. What is the best advice to clock things with the hardware I have. I am still new at this and your help is greatly apperciated! Can I keep my memory at 1600 speed?
 
well I had it at 8 8 8 then auto allt he way down from there.

The timing un the memory says 8 8 8. but I really am not sure where to put it.
 
Wow... 1.6v on that is a lot for 24/7 operation regardless of temps. Wow. I wouldnt go over 1.45 for 24/7 on that chip personally.

Check out the o/c guide in my signature. That should help 'knock the noob' off you as I like to say for overclocking.

But to directly answer your question. It depends on the speed of the memory/your FSB/mem multi you have it on. Post up CPUz screen and CPUz memory tab and SPD tab please!

Welcome!
 
Tell me your thoughts and or things that I can try to make this better.. I wanted my memory to run at 1600.? Can I get it there?

It is DDR3 1600 so I do not know what I am doing or not doing right. Attached a screenshot
 

Attachments

  • cpuz q6600.jpg
    cpuz q6600.jpg
    227.8 KB · Views: 149
To get the mem to 1600MHz, you'll want to start with some more normal timings...right now it's at 7-10-10-24-78 2T...try to change it to 9-9-9-27-88 2T and make sure you're giving the mem 1.8V.

At the current divider (3:5) you'll need to run the FSB at 480MHz to reach 800MHz mem clocks (DDR3-1600).
Change the divider to 1:2 and FSB to 400MHz, that will give you 800MHz mem clock (DDR3-1600).
Also, give the NB a small bump in voltage as well ;)

Then run memtest86+ to ensure stability. If it passes, try the timings tightened up a bit at 8-8-8-24-88 1T and run memtest86+ again.

Let us know how it goes :)
 
Can you take a look at my mb voltages options and give me some direction... this is not my setup but I wanted to show you the options that I have.
 

Attachments

  • volts.jpg
    volts.jpg
    82.9 KB · Views: 140
We need more information...you can't expect us to help you effectively if we don't know whats going on at your end.
 
Well I just dont know what I should set the GTLref, SB, VTT and PLL voltage at... I am just not sure if I should set those to auto or is there a good standard for those voltages.. Right now I am trying to find a base setting and voltages before I start to test things completly. I have those on auto and just wondering if there should be a good stating point on them as far as voltages. Thanks again for your help. Once I have them in I will run some tests then let you know what is going on with the system. I am sure at that point you will be able to help me pinpoint issues.
 
There is no "good standard"...that's the problem, we need to know what your rig is doing right, what it's doing wrong, etc...

Have you done any stability testing? Did you do what I told you with the memory settings and tested as I described? How is the memory running now?
 
Well yes I made the changes with the memory but could not get it to boot to windows. I am getting some new memory next week so I have put the memory on auto at this point and started to focus on the overclock. So far in windows things are running smooth. I did an occt test and it lasted about 5 mins. One downside to my system right now is that my operating system is on a 250 IDE hard drive. Will that really screw up my performance and maybe the overclock? If so I will look to get a new sata HD.

Take a look at what I have currently... I attached CPUz screenshots
 

Attachments

  • cpu z.jpg
    cpu z.jpg
    173.5 KB · Views: 125
lower the CPU multi to x8 and the CPU vcore to 1.4V and focus on the FSB OC for a bit.

If you can get the FSB stable at 400MHz...then go back to the CPU.

Your HDD should not affect your OC AT ALL!
 
Cool... i made those changes and am playing with things more. I still am unsure about all those voltages that I listed so I am leaving them on auto. If you have some suggestions please let me know. Thanks for your help . I will continue to tweek it but right now I have it stable with occt for 1 hr. Have not tried anything over that. Should I stay at an 8 multi? I moved things to around a 3.4 right now with the volts just under 1.5.
 
I'd agree with the others here that CPU voltage really sounds a bit high, I've never seen a Q6600s that needed that much :shrug:

I'd leave all the voltages on auto, except CPU DRAM and NB for now. Once you're satisfied that the righ is stable at 400MHz with the desired settings, you can raise the multi back up to x9...and at that point all you have to worry about it the CPU voltage and heat. What are your temps at 1.5V?
 
On Friday I got an ASRock P45XE motherboard and been doing a bit of research to find out what voltages I needed to adjust to get my e8400 to 3.8 Ghz.

voltage settings that are safe to use and what you shouldn't go over...

1.36v__for CPU
X.XXv__for DRAM. Set to whatever the maximum is for your specific brand. Then try lowering it once you get the system stable. ( I found I can run my RAM @ 1.8v now. )
1.3v___for NB Voltage
1.7v___for PLL
1.35v__for VTT <--- this and the PLL voltage will make or break an overclock! Without them being increased I couldn't get past 3.4 GHz. They also can KILL your CPU if you go above the voltages that I posted. So be careful!

.63 x VTT for GTLRef Voltage. <.63 is % not volts!> ( this setting is on the P45XE and maybe different on yours. )

Set RAM timings manually! ( I found that I needed to adjust tRFC ( Refesh Cycle Time ) to 54 when using a 2 x 2GB Kit.


Hopefully these will give you a starting point. This infomation was gathered from mulitiple sources around the internet.

I've been able to get 4 ghz but I may need some PC8500 RAM to get it stable. Ordered that tonight.
 
Last edited:
listen to what people have been saying about your cpu voltages. i don't know what cooling you are running but it seems like your load temps in realtemp is getting up to 75c. heat can make an otherwise stable overclock unstable(or burn out the chip, damage it, or wear it out unnecessarily, shortening the life or losing the ability to obtain the same clock speed later on) so you want as less voltage as possible for stable overclocks.

i remember for that chip, it has way too low operating temps. cpu world says 60.3c and they say max voltages 1.5v (this might be a stock voltage [correction this is the intel spec sheet value, stock value is 1.35v or what's on your box as most people have been reporting], intel has their own specifications on what the chip should not be overvolted to, look up spec/data sheets for your processor) keep in mind data sheets are the design specifications and usually higher values than stock for cpu voltage.

anyways i can see that heat was ignored in considerations to the overclock and overvoltage of the cpu. you have to keep in mind that the reason you can overclock is because the stock chip is designed to still be 100% stable at 60.3 degrees c max with a low voltage of 1.35v. if you overclock as well as get high temps you are straying from this 100% stable margin(that you can overclock with) and thus to achieve stability again, you need to overvolt unnecessarily but this could push temps higher and make it even more difficult to stay stable.

an Example is if you ran your cpu stock and got temps of 59c, it would probably be stable based on the specs. you overclock with that margin to 3.2 ghz @ 1.35v stock (8x 400) what you might find is you become unstable at a lower temperature than your previous 59c, for example lets just say at 54c. (because of the faster speeds at which the processor must operate in, the same amount of heat and voltage to operate stably is not the same. usually needs more cooling(to reduce electrical resistance) and higher volts to work faster.)

simple solution, get better cooling then run lower volts into your cpu(than what you are using now). you can stretch your voltage margin by getting better cooling to an extent. (you can find this out by running everything(cpu voltage and northbridge assuming your motherboard runs 400 fsb or more at stock and ram) stock with the best cooling possible and only push your multi preferably but realistically fsb since it's a locked chip) (9 x fsb stock+)

as for your ram, since you brought ddr3 1600. those chips might not be true 1600 but just factory tested to work at 1600 speeds provided you SET THE SETTINGS MANUALLY according to what the manufacturer has provided in their documentation for your ram. it sounds similar to 9 9 9 27 etc(honestly it could be 10 10 10 24 78 and i don't know (what dram voltage)since each 100 mhz jump in your SPD has the latencies scaling up by 1) and higher volts. As you can see, ocz has overclocked your old chips and found them stable at probably some settings similar to those.

i don't know if this is outdated but it's a core2 data sheet http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/31559205.pdf

we can better help you out if you told us what your ram is branded as. OCZ could have made the chips but maybe g.skill is selling it and overclocked it, who knows. if it's something like this then g.skill should have a model number and associated settings to make it run at ddr3 1600.

irc, people have been getting q6600 3.6 stable with around 1.4-1.44v. I remember some lady made her own computer and gave me the screen shots.
 
Last edited:
Back