E6750 stuck at 3.6, voltage question:

The chip runs Orthos fine at 3.60ghz with 1.475v (450fsb). But trying to run it at 3.66ghz (my target 24/7 oc), it won't run stable even with up to 1.5125v. Orthos goes red, it BSODs or the system hangs. Temps hit 59 at 1.5125v

Should I be upping my NB or RAM volts instead here?
Have I hit a strap and need to hop a few more FSB incrememnts?
I appreciate the feedback.

Try upping the FSB from 450 up with the multi at 6 or 7. If your OC still fails then you probably need to try messing with the FSB, NB, PLL, & GTL reference voltages. List your BIOS options and settings.

What speed/timings/voltage are you running the RAM?

You may have reached the limit, but I have a feeling you can get up a little higher w/ your rig.

@ 450fsb x 8: RAM is at DDR2-900, 5-5-5-15, 2.20v.
PLL: Auto
Voltage Reference: Auto
FSB Termination Voltage: Auto
NB Voltage: Auto
NB Voltage Reference: Auto
SB Voltage Reference: Auto

System stable @ 458 x 7multi (3.2ghz), should I keep cranking the fsb higher?

nightelph said:

System stable @ 458 x 7multi (3.2ghz), should I keep cranking the fsb higher?

Click to expand...

The answer to that question is YES from here on out

Your an overclocker

These are the settings I'm using for 450, and what I needed to get to 480FSB, but keep in mind I have a quad, so they may not work the same for you. If you shoot for the high side, and get it stable I suggest you try reducing the voltages and see how low you can go and maintain stability.

CPU Voltage: 1.5125v (anything lower gave me core failures after 1.5-2hrs. 1.6v allowed 3.8GHz, but I think a little more is needed for P95.4 stability)
CPU Voltage Reference: 0.63x (I wasn't getting much over 3.2GHz until I changed this from Auto. 0.57x, and 0.59x wasn't stable. 0.61x worked, but I have a feeling 0.63x is best.)
CPU Voltage Damper: Enabled
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.70 (I may be able to reduce this to 1.5 for 450FSB. At 480FSB 1.5-1.6 [or 1.7?] wasn't stable, 1.8-2.2 worked.)
DRAM Voltage: 2.3 (2.2 may be fine. I just wanted to ensure stability through testing. I'd like to know how high I can safely put this to possibly get tighter timings, or 1125 @ 5-5-5-15 to work)
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.40 (1.5 for 480FSB, I may be able to go lower at 450)
North Bridge Voltage: 1.55 (1.95 for 480, anything higher is actually worse)
North Bridge Voltage Reference: AUTO (0.67x for 480FSB, auto seems to work best for 450)
South Bridge Voltage: 1.20 (may be able to turn this down)

Once you get the FSB stable go back and increase your multi to 8, and keep giving it more Vcore until you are stable.

Great input, thanks a bunch. I'll find a high stable fsb, then switch to 8x multi and play with those settings. Thanks again.

I have things Orthos stable at 3.6ghz with the following settings:
vCore: 1.5125
vPLL: 1.6
FSB Termination: 1.3
NB: 1.55

Temps hit 60 in TAT during orthos.

However, two games; bioshock and dirt run pretty darn choppy now. Any ideas?

Check your "link width" in CPU-Z to make sure it hasn't set itself to 1x instead of 16x. The info is displayed on the "Mainboard" tab in the lower left.

Nope, thats listed at 16x. When I reverted to an older safe oc of 3.33ghz, all above voltages set to auto except vcore, which I set to 1.3625, games run fine..
I suppose I'll creep back to my 3.6ghz settings and test stability with bioshock instead of orthos this time around.

Try running 3dMark06 at both settings and see what scores you get.

Are those the only 2 games you've tested?

I tested another game, Test Drive Unlimited, it worked fine. I have to pack it in tonight, but I'll test 3D06 tomorrow. Thanks for the help.

Alright, I ran 3D06 at my 'safe' OC of 3.3ghz:
Overall: 11,463
CPU: 2972
SM2.0: 4985
SM3.0: 4928

Found an orthos stable OC of 3.5ghz, score drops:
Overall: 4166
CPU: 3110 - went up as it should
SM2.0: 1598
SM3.0: 1482

Settings changed in between then:
vCore raised from 1.3625 to 1.425
NB raised from 1.40 to 1.55
PLL raised from 1.50 to 1.70
FSB Term. Raised from 1.30 to 1.40
Set CPU vRef to .63x

Any idea as to which of these settings is killing my graphics performance? Do I need to change some memory timings?

For some reason your graphics card is not able to work like it should. The only time I've seen this is when the link width drops. Double-check that. There are 2 boxes, 1 says link width, and one says max supported. Post a ss of CPU-Z mainboard tab.

jason4207 said:

For some reason your graphics card is not able to work like it should. The only time I've seen this is when the link width drops. Double-check that. There are 2 boxes, 1 says link width, and one says max supported. Post a ss of CPU-Z mainboard tab.

Click to expand...

Hi Jason, just curious. What would cause the link width to change and what do you do to correct it? Thanks

It some weird glitch in the BIOS. It was a lot more prevalent in the P965 boards, but a few have had an issue w/ some P35 boards.

To correct it sometimes changing certain voltages or changing the FSB a bit can fix it. I don't remember exactly, but it's a weird work-around.

You should manually set your PCI-E bus at 100 and lock your PCI bus at 33 if you havent done so already.