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True NB voltage Impact

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Strofcon

Registered
Joined
Apr 6, 2007
I'm running an E6400 on an Asus P5N-E SLI board, and having a few issues. I think I have an idea or two, but I wanted to ask a question first: How much impact does the NB voltage have on overclocking the CPU alone?

The reason I ask is that my CPU can barely make it to 2.9GHz at 1.42v, and the NB at 1.39v, to make it through even 20 minutes of small FFTs.
I'm aware that "results may vary" is definitely an understatement when talking about overclocking, but I'm seeing a lot of people post E6300 and E6400 overclocks of 3.2+ GHz with voltages that hover between 1.3v - 1.4v.

I bumped my NB voltage to 1.56v (next step up on my board) and expected the temperature to rise, but it actually dropped 2*C! Unfortunately, however, Orthos failed even earlier than before. I'm still using the stock heatsink on my NB right now, which I intend to replace soon if it is going to be worthwhile.

Thanks for the help!
 
it will only help if the NB is the unstable part, I would check the stability on your ram first, if its not stable your overclock wont be. also you are not running any kind of crazy FSB or anything you shouldnt need to really touch the NB

also are you sure you have a conroe chip and not allendale, allendale dont overclock like conroe
 
that board has some pretty heft vdroop under load, you might need slightly more voltage than others to maintain stability.

i had a zalman cooler on the SB since i got the board and i just upgraded my NB cooler to a TT cl-c0034 and it made no difference in OC potential or idle temps but it does seem to help for load temps. one thing you have to know on that board is that the "MB" sensor in PC probe is the mean between the SB and NB temps. if you think its your NB try putting a fan directly over the HS and see if that helps.

as far as other settings you can try lowering the LDT multiplier, increase and decrease NB, cpu, and memory voltages, try upping your pcie freq, id say between 107-112

its also a good idea to try and lower the multy and see if you can get the FSB higher. you might also just need to try and up the FSB farther, you might be in a dead spot, ive found a few of those on that board.

ive also noticed more stability running at 1:1 (synced) ram speeds.

anyway take notes and try all those different settings and LMK
 
Strofcon, are you positive you have a Conroe e6400 and not an Allendale? allendales generally need considerably more voltage to hit the same speeds as a conroe.

open up cpuz and if you see B2, that's a conroe, if you see L2, that's an allendale.
 
Sorry for the delay in response! I clicked subscribe for this thread but I guess it didn't go through (or I closed Firefox too soon -- much more likely!) and I assumed I hadn't gotten any responses since I didn't get any emails about it.

Anyways!!

To jmorgan: I haven't touched my RAM speeds yet, and at stock speed/timings they proved to be stable in Orthos. I did double check that though, just off the off-chance that there might be a discrepancy somewhere, but it tested fine again. I know my OC is pretty weak right now, but mostly because it is unstable at any frequency above 2.8Ghz.

To jmorgan and humanbeatbox: CPU-Z reads B2, so from I what I've read, it's a Conroe. Plus the invoice from Newegg says Conroe as well, but I figure CPU-Z is the better indicator. I made sure to check that before I posted, because I saw threads saying what you mentioned: Allendale's OC very differently in most cases. Thanks though!

To ChinStrap: I actually got most of my OC'ing info from that thread, and posted there about another problem I had (BIOS update messed me up!) but I was more curious about the overall effect of NB voltage. :)

To JCushing: I didn't even think about the possibility of a "dead-zone," even though I noticed it mentioned on a couple other boards I was researching. I will play with some higher FSBs and see if it works out. I'm planning on getting an HR-05 for my NB as it does run pretty hot (under medium load, it is hotter than my CPU by ~5C consistently. Heavy load lets the CPU win out, but the midrange temps are a bit odd in my opinion.) I'll link my memory at 1:1 too and see if anything changes.

Thanks for the info, I'll update later when I have time to play with everything!
 
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