Overclocking E6400

So this is my first time on here, but I'm looking for some insight on overclocking my Alienware E6400, since I'm purchasing a DIAMOND ATI RADEON HD 4890 Friday, to replace my old GeForce 7900 GS (Starcraft II, if you all are wondering why).

Anyway, down to business, so below I've listed what I have going on, I just need some advice as I'm fairly new to overclocking and haven't cracked open a case since the Athlon 64 days. What do you all recommend as far as overclocking, and how much I can push this thing where it is safe? Also any suggestions of what to buy fan wise etc. would be very welcome. Here is the breakdown from cpuz and more:


Processors Information
Name Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Codename Conroe
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
Package Socket 775 LGA (platform ID = 0h)

Chipset
Northbridge NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP rev. A2
Southbridge NVIDIA 680i SLI MCP rev. A2
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 3072 MBytes
Memory Frequency 400.0 MHz (2:3)

Additional info

Memory
3 DDR2 corsair sticks
Memory type DDR2
Manufacturer (ID) PDP Systems (7F7F7F7F7F020000)
Size 1024 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC2-6400 (400 MHz)
Part number PDC22G6400LLK

OS
Vista 64 bit

Bios
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 12/22/2006

Drive
Old school western digital raptor 150g 10,000 RPM spin speed; 16 MB cache

Power Supply
700 watt OEM ATX PSU Rev2

Case
Area-51 7500 R5

That pretty much covers it, not sure if you guys need anymore info, if you do I'll be back to see if there is any replies tomorrow. And once again, I do want to thank everyone up front for any feedback.

I've seen my friend take his to 3.5GHz. Not sure about his ram settings but I think you can get it with 1.35Vcore and perhaps 1.2V MCH? Don't go so high for now, try to shoot for 3GHz on stock voltages first.

I would start @ 3.2ghz
400fsb (1600 in bios ) X 8 = 3200
I would try 1.35-1.4v

Do you have a HSF or just the junk they ship with ?

Why do you have 3 sticks of ram ? or is that a mistake ? if you do you should take out one and just run 2 gigs in dual channel .

Can you post a screen shot of the SPD Tab in CPUZ

I saw a real good break down guide on how to overclock my system to 3.0, but if you think I should go to 3.2 I'll definitely push it to that.

As far as HSF, I have the one they shipped it with, what is a good one to go with to replace the one they shipped it with?

And here is the screen you requested of the SPD tab.


I'll be busting open the case tomorrow when putting in this new video card, so I can take a few pictures and post the links, so you can see what it is in this 3 year old relic.

But yea, you are correct I'm running 3 separate 1 gig sticks, I was thinking of upgrading the ram too, which ram would your recommend? I'm running vista 64 bit as I mentioned. So I could run 2 two gig sticks in duel channel, and it would register it at four?

Vintage_Valium said:

I saw a real good break down guide on how to overclock my system to 3.0, but if you think I should go to 3.2 I'll definitely push it to that.

As far as HSF, I have the one they shipped it with, what is a good one to go with to replace the one they shipped it with?

And here is the screen you requested of the SPD tab.


I'll be busting open the case tomorrow when putting in this new video card, so I can take a few pictures and post the links, so you can see what it is in this 3 year old relic.

But yea, you are correct I'm running 3 separate 1 gig sticks, I was thinking of upgrading the ram too, which ram would your recommend? I'm running vista 64 bit as I mentioned. So I could run 2 two gig sticks in duel channel, and it would register it at four?

Click to expand...

Either get one more 1gig stick that matches what you already have, or get two 2gig sticks. The goal is to have an even number of matching sticks.

I think I was able to get almost to 3Ghz on stock voltage. Right now I'm at 3.4Ghz at 1.26V.

Since you only have the stock cooler right now, try for 3Ghz at 1.25V and monitor your temperatures at full load. If they are acceptable then you should inch your way up to 3.2Ghz. I don't see you putting more than 1.3V through that thing with the stock cooler though.

If you overclock to 3.2Ghz You'll be able to run your ram at it's stock speed at a 1:1 ratio rather than a 2:3 ratio, which is awesome.

I heard maxing out your ram is bad though? I do have another 2-3 sticks laying around actually. So your saying max out the ram of 4 sticks of 1 gig is okay? (they are all the same obviously)

Populating all the slots will sometimes reduce the OC you can get.

Running and odd number of sticks forces single channel mode, which cuts memory bandwidth in half. Brutal on memory dependent tasks.

So I got it to 2.4, baby steps, I'm probably going to get water cooling before I push it to 3.2 or even 3.0, just curious what do you guys advise for this case as far as water cooling goes?

Also I was looking into 4 gigs of ram, two sticks of two gigs. Was going to buy this (Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF Dominator 4GB 2 X 2GB PC2-8500 1066MHz 240-Pin DDR2 CL5 Dual Channel Desktop Memory), would you guys say this is best bet?

$140 on amazon with free shipping, but if you guys have any other suggestions for RAM especially ones that work better for overclocking I'm open to suggestions.

Lastly, if anyone can please give me suggestions to try for 3.0GH would be greatly appreciated.

First off, you don't need watercooling to reliably cool your cpu at 3.0-3.2ghz (or 3.5ghz for that matter.)

I would just get a good heatsink/fan. Something by Thermalright would be good. There are a lot of other cheaper heatsinks that would get the job done, too.

As far as the ram, the stuff you linked is good, but it's really expensive. If you want to spend the money, that's fine, go for it. But if you want something cheaper, look at DDR2-800 from a good and fair priced brand like G.Skill or A-DATA.

To know if you can get to 3.0ghz you just have to try for it. Set it at 8 x 375 with a reasonable vcore (Like Roisen suggested) and keep your memory on a divider so it isn't clocked too high, as I would imagine your 3gb of ram won't oc much. Check your temps while testing for stability and go from there.

So I made some more tweaks (still looking for any recommendation settings for running 3.0GH on this system), but yea, what company do you all recommend for 2 good sticks of 2 gig ram a piece, I think I definitely want to have 4 gigs of ram out of two sticks. I was looking into that one I linked and OCZ, I do see they make some good stuff.

I did although do as Console up top suggested, running two gigs in duel channel for the time being, instead of three 1 gig sticks. And I have the system loaded up with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit now, running like a dream with this monstrous video card (ATI Radeon HD 4890).

And to reply to the question about what heatsink/fan I have on my processor (sorry for the .de site, couldn't find many pictures of this relic):
http://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/1218061_-z9h741k001-avc.html

System is running pretty cool, has like 4-5 fans and that beastly thing that Alienware call "AVC Pentium 4 dual core HSF z9h741k001 high performance liquid cooling". Keeps it at constant low temps, I've rarely seen it go to 60c.

I would not upgrade any parts on your system if I were you, and save the cash towards a new platform.

Try to get the maximum OC with what you have, the ram you have is good, and is rated for 400 FSB so it will not have any problem running that speed. You will be limited by your motherboard, as it may not handle high fsb.

Try increasing your northbridge voltage on your motherboard if you will populate 4 slots, that might help you achieve higher FSB.

Vintage_Valium said:

So I made some more tweaks (still looking for any recommendation settings for running 3.0GH on this system), but yea, what company do you all recommend for 2 good sticks of 2 gig ram a piece, I think I definitely want to have 4 gigs of ram out of two sticks. I was looking into that one I linked and OCZ, I do see they make some good stuff.

I did although do as Console up top suggested, running two gigs in duel channel for the time being, instead of three 1 gig sticks. And I have the system loaded up with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit now, running like a dream with this monstrous video card (ATI Radeon HD 4890).

And to reply to the question about what heatsink/fan I have on my processor (sorry for the .de site, couldn't find many pictures of this relic):
http://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/1218061_-z9h741k001-avc.html

System is running pretty cool, has like 4-5 fans and that beastly thing that Alienware call "AVC Pentium 4 dual core HSF z9h741k001 high performance liquid cooling". Keeps it at constant low temps, I've rarely seen it go to 60c.

Click to expand...

I'll paste a new CPUz when I get home tonight, and general information I have discovered from cracking this thing open to put in that 4890 card.

Thanks again all, for all feed back. Still not quite sure if I should even bother overclocking the ram, I'm more concern about settings to push it to like 2.8 maybe?

Forgot to post, was tinkering with that Everest Ultimate, and messing around making my own HUD display with my G15 keyboard.

Anyway here is the info:

Processors Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 1 (ID = 0)
Number of cores 2
Number of threads 2 (max 2)
Name Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Codename Conroe
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
Package Socket 775 LGA (platform ID = 0h)
CPUID 6.F.2
Extended CPUID 6.F
Core Stepping L2
Technology 65 nm
Core Speed 2133.4 MHz (8.0 x 266.7 MHz)
Rated Bus speed 1066.7 MHz
Stock frequency 2133 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T
L1 Data cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control yes
FID range 6.0x - 8.0x
max VID 1.213V

Chipset
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Northbridge NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP rev. A2
Southbridge NVIDIA 680i SLI MCP rev. A2
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 2048 MBytes
Memory Frequency 400.0 MHz (2:3)
CAS# 5.0
RAS# to CAS# 5
RAS# Precharge 5
Cycle Time (tRAS) 16
Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 21
Command Rate 2T


Changed everything back to normal, going to try to go for 2.8 or 3.0. And I wanted to see how my video card was running when I was playing Starcraft II & Crysis with everything on. Highest I seen the card get was 65c so its pretty good. Was thinking of manually adjusting the fan's for the GPU, etc. but I think I'm okay for now.

CarpeDiem said:

I would not upgrade any parts on your system if I were you, and save the cash towards a new platform.

Try to get the maximum OC with what you have, the ram you have is good, and is rated for 400 FSB so it will not have any problem running that speed. You will be limited by your motherboard, as it may not handle high fsb.

Try increasing your northbridge voltage on your motherboard if you will populate 4 slots, that might help you achieve higher FSB.

Click to expand...

Yea, I've been looking into buying new ram, and I think this board recommends to run the ram at 667. That is why Alienware overclocked it to run at that originally. I've been looking at a few different ram's to buy, I've got it down to two:

Rather A or B:
A. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3404049&Sku=O261-8038
B. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3617672&CatId=2264

I'd appreciate any feedback you guys could give me. I did find out that 2 or maybe even 3 of these memory sticks are actually bad, after I populated all my slots in my computer with the same ram. Also I've upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit so I definitely need to kick it to 4 gigs at a ram that can be overclocked. Why I kind of was going to go with the first one, option A. since that one has SLI memory support which my board supporting SLI memory. Not to mention I won't be blowing out all the slots on the board.

And for the record I'm probably going to build a new rig and give this one to my little brother.

Vintage_Valium... i realize you posted this some 5 months ago but I have almost the same exact setup as you (with water cooling) and want to overclock my unit as well...

can you tell me the steps you took (in bios) ...?

see below for my CPU-Z specs...pretty amazing how the rings are almost identical

CPU-Z 1.49 report file
Processor(s)
Number of processors 1
Number of cores 2 per processor
Number of threads 2 per processor
Name Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Code Name Conroe
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
Package Socket 775 LGA
Family/Model/Stepping 6.F.6
Extended Family/Model 6.F
Core Stepping B2
Technology 65 nm
Core Speed 1600.1 MHz
Multiplier x Bus speed 6.0 x 266.7 MHz
Rated Bus speed 1066.7 MHz
Stock frequency 2133 MHz
Instruction sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T
L1 Data cache (per processor) 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache (per processor) 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache (per processor) 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Chipset & Memory
Northbridge NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP rev. A2
Southbridge NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI MCP rev. A2
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 2048 MBytes
Memory Frequency 400.0 MHz (2:3)
CAS# Latency (tCL) 5.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# (tRCD) 5 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 5 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) 18 clocks
Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 22 clocks
Command Rate (CR) 2T
System
System Manufacturer EVGA
System Name 122-CK-NF68
System S/N 1
Mainboard Vendor EVGA
Mainboard Model 122-CK-NF68
BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Version 6.00 PG
BIOS Date 12/21/2006
Memory SPD
Module 1 DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Module 2 DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Software
Windows Version Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
DirectX Version 9.0c

||Console|| said:

I would start @ 3.2ghz
400fsb (1600 in bios ) X 8 = 3200
I would try 1.35-1.4v

Click to expand...

Give this a shot as a starting point .
my e6420 ran for 2 years @ 3.8 ( till i sold it , still running fine today )

Just realized this thread is old.....nevermind