OCing an ASUS P7P55 LX

I've put my new system together last week and have been tooling around with the overclocking features it possesses. Details are as follows.

Core i5 750 2.66 Quad (Currently at 2.8 from my tinkering)
--Cooled with a massive copper heatsink with fan (not stock)
--In an Antec 900 Black Steel (2 massive front fans, one back, one top exhaust)
ASUS P7P55 LX Motherboard
8GB OCZ Gold 1600 (still underclocked) 4x2GB sticks
700W Modular PSU
ATI Radeon 5770 HD
Windows 7x64 Home Premium

I currently have the FSB set at 140 as opposed to it's 133, and I have the multiplier at 21. Windows is telling me it's reading 2.8ghz, but CPU-Z is telling me 2.94ghz. I don't know which one to believe. That's just my first issue.

Prior to a BIOS update I had the machine at 3.4ghz on a 20 multiplier (not sure of the FSB clock, but I know that I hadn't messed with it yet). For some reason after the BIOS update and returning all the settings, it would underclock. I would change the multiplier back to 20 from the stock 9, and reboot. Immediately load up CPU-Z and it would drop back to 9x multiplier. The weird part about this is that in the BIOS it was still set to 20.

After another BIOS flash and actually restoring the old BIOS I finally got it back to the normal 2.66 at x20 (which should be x8/9).

I am still confused even at my current state of 2.8/2.94. Can anybody give me some advice? I want to try to push into the low 3ghz range, but I don't want to go crazy, and screw up more things!

PLZ halp.
-Conk-

Welcome!!!!!

1. Trust CPUz.
2. Thats just your power saving options at work. Disable them.
3. You can take a look at teh wonderful i7 overclocking guide in my signature to gain a better understanding and better overclocking methods for your system.

Thanks for the reply EarthDog! I'm definitely going to check out your FAQ.

Do you have any suggestions on what exactly to disable? There are quite a few options that I'm unfamiliar with seeing as my last mobo was a Foxconn from about 4 years ago. >.<

Not my article... MAIHALLEN's...

C1E, Speedstep and any other Cstate really. Not sure what options your bios has available.

Not the same board but close, you can adapt most setting, this is not my template its a friends and no it wont work 100% out of the box but its a nice place to start for 3.6GHz

The guide E.D. link'd you too is very very good and worth reading a few times

Asus P7P55D Deluxe
A1 Overclock Tuner
A1 Overclock Tuner Mode......:[Manual]
Cpu Ratio Setting............:19
Intel(R) SpeedStep(TM) Tech..: [Disabled]
Intel(R) TurboMode Tech......: [Disabled]
Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode.: [Enabled]
BCLK Frequency...............:190
PCIE Frequency...............:103
DRAM Frequency...............: 1,520 (x8 )
QPI Frequency................: [Auto]

DRAM Timing Control Sub Menu
1st Information
CAS# Latency (tCL )...............:7
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD ).........:7
RAS# PRE Tine (tRP)................:7
RAS# ACT Tine (tRAS)...............:19
RAS# to RAS# Delay (tRRD)..........: 4
REF Cycle Time (tRFC)..............:60
WRITE Recovery Tine (tWR)..........:7
READ to PRE Time (tRTP)............:4
FOUR ACT WIN Tine (tFAW)...........:26
2nd Information
Timing Mode (CMDR).................:[Auto] (1N)
Round Trip Latency on CHA (RTL)....: [Auto] (54)
Round Trip Latency on CHB (RTL)....:[Auto] (57)
3rd Information
WRITE To READ Delay(DD)(tddWrTrd)..:[Auto] 8
WRITE To READ Delay(DR)(tdrWrTrd)..:[Auto]8
WRITE To READ Delay(SR)(tsrWrTrd)..:[Auto]18
READ To WRITE Delay(DD)(tddRdTwr)..:[Auto]8
READ To WRITE Delay(DR)(tdrRdTwr)..:[Auto]8
READ To WRITE Delay(SR)(tsrRdTwr)..:[Auto]8
READ To READ Delay(DD)(tddRdtRd)...:[Auto]7
READ To READ Delay(DR)(tdrRdtRd)...:[Auto]6
READ To READ Delay(SR)(tsrRdtRd)...:[Auto]4
WRITE To WRITE Delay(DD)(tddWrTWr).:[Auto]7
WRiTE To WRITE Delay(DR)(tdrWrTWr).:[Auto]7
WRITE To WRITE Delay(SR)(tsrWrTWr).:[Auto]4
A1 Overclock Tuner Continued
CPU Differential Amplitude.........:[Auto]
CPU Clock Skew.....................: [Auto]
CPU Uoltage Mode...................: [Fixed]
Voltage............................: 1.29375v or less depending on your cpu
IMC Voltage........................:1.16875v
DRAM Voltage.......................: 1.6375
CPU PLL Voltage....................: 1.80v
PCH Voltaqe........................: [Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on A.........: [Auto]
DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on A.........: [Auto]
DRAM DATA REF Voltage on B.........: [Auto]
DRAM GIRL REF Voltage on B.........:[Auto]
Load Line Calibration..............:[Auto]
CPU Spread Spectrum................: [Disabled]
PCIE Spread Spectrum................: [Disabled]
CPU Settings
CPU Ratio Setting..................: 19
C1E Support........................:[Disabled]
Hardware Prefetcher................: [Enabled]
Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch.......: [Enabled]
Max CPUID Value Limit..............: [Disabled]
Intel (R) Virtualization Tech......: [Disabled]
CPU TM Function....................: [Enabled]
Execute-Disable Bit Capability.....: [Disabled]
Active Processor Cores.............: [All]
A2OM...............................: [Disabled]
Intel(R) SpeedStep(TI1) Tech.......: [Disabled]
InteI (R) TurboMode Tech..........: [Disabled]
Intel® C-Start Tech................: [Disabled]