Q9400 + Biostar Tpower I45 overclock adventure

Okay I finally have all my parts in and my rig up and running. I have yet to try and overclock it as a suitable powersource just arrived. This is my first time ocing a 45nm chip and I plan to do a full write up of the process. I have seen a few of these but just wanted to get some suggestions before i get to work.
A. Suggestions on what to include in the post.
B. Suggestions as to what to do in bios and what not to get me started.
C. Suggestions on where to take the processor (ie volts, clock etc. .. )

This will all be done on my rig in my signature on air cooling. Keep your eyes here for updates.

I like my TPower I45. It is the first Biostar board I've owned. I'll look forward to reading about your experience with it.

I think you'll find your tips in the official core2 duo/quad oc thread (sticky) ....

read through that already thank you and have been referring to it. just hoping to see if anyone out there had any experience with this board and its bios. last night i did some playing and managed to do alright.
Stock:
fsb - 333mhz
nb - 1.104v
fsb - 1.112v
vcore - 1.192v
ddr2 - 1.85v

After:




Stability is almost there. I ran for about four hours no problems before i went to bed. Computer was off when I woke up, but im not sure if i had all power save options off either. will try and really play with it sat and sun and will post some more results. I will try and get some bios shots of my own but the ones in this thread are the same as mine.

woops didnt see i had the most important cpuz box covered here it is:

1.4v seems way too high for 3.4...My 9450 does 3.4 with 1.175 and my X3350 does it with 1.225....Im pretty sure you could get by with much less voltage...

like i said still need to do some tweaking of course im shooting for 500mhz fsb and im sure im gonna need the voltage then. i might do just a little playing tonight to see what i can do.

Despite what CPU-Z says he has a Q9400, not the Q9450.

Auto, have you touched GTL Refs yet?

no i havent as i have no clue what they even mean or where to even go with them. any suggestions?

UPDATE: it seems that anything past this and i get video errors according to the bios led. any idea what is going on i am really stuck. now i cant even seem to get my 426fsb. what should i have turned off in bios?

That board only has 4-phase power. I've heard these new Biostar boards are breaking records w/ duals, but I wonder if they have limitations w/ quads.

I would get on the edge of stability and just play w/ each GTL ref setting in turn and see which option works best w/ each GTL setting.

Not sure why you're getting video errors?

yeah i am really stuck here like i said i will play with it a lot more this weekend. i gotta see if i can get a vetran to go back and for with me on aim or something while i do it so i can see if its the board or me.

Automiketic said:

UPDATE: it seems that anything past this and i get video errors according to the bios led. any idea what is going on i am really stuck. now i cant even seem to get my 426fsb. what should i have turned off in bios?

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You have locked the PCI bus clock to 100, correct?

I beleive you got the twin to my chip, and you "borrowed" it from the same person as I did

I originally had mine on the DFI LT P35 T2R, but I couldn't get it completely stable at any decent clocks on that board, so I bought the Asus P5Q Deluxe, tho I almost bought your board.

In any event, if your chip runs like mine, your cpu voltage is way to high and you Need to adjust GTLs. I am still testing mine 5fsb at a time with Prime Torture test blend for 1/2 to 1 hour at each level, and am at 8 x 450 right now. Below are my general settings that are in use right now, they may help you, however maybe not as you are running a different board.

CPU Voltage; 1.30625v with LLC Disabled which gives me 1.28v cpu-z idle and 1.248v Load.

GTL 0/2; 0.65 I started with 0,63 and upped it by 1/2 each time I got an error in prime on Workers 1/2.

GTL 1/3; 0.675 I started at 0.67 and only needed to raise it to said. Workers 3/4 in prime relate to these on my board.

CPU PLL; 1.56v I set it there and never changed it, yet.

VFSB/VTT 1.30v I started at 1.26 and upped it as it needed. 1.35v is prob the max Safe volts for this for 24/7.

Northbridge voltage; I am at 1.28v with this with 2 x 2gb set of ram in my sig. Have not needed to change this, yet.

Northbridge GTL; I have this set to 0.63 and have not needed to change this yet.

LLC; As I stated I have this disabled, which gives the cpu some breathing room, Enabled gives less or No VDroop, use either way I guess.

My ram settings will more than likely be way different as you have a different board, but I have them fairly loose for now until I get my highest stable clock, then I'll go back and work on tightening them up. I will say tho that this board will set the PL,( performance level) higher with each clock step up, but I have it at 10 with all but 1 of the secondary pullins enabled.

FSB Ratio; Right now I have it on auto as the board likes it that way, tried my own settings but got errors, will mess with later.

I hope some of these settings help you, I found the 0/2 and 1/3 GTL settings to have the biggest bearing on my setup to date, as I have not touched my cpu voltage since 415 fsb.

Larry

thanks for all that. will give those settings a try when i get home. the biggest problem with biostar as i see it is that no one has it so there is little to no one who can give you experience based advice.

Automiketic said:

thanks for all that. i got my chip from colin. will give those settings a try when i get home. the biggest problem with biostar as i see it is that no one has it so there is little to no one who can give you experience based advice.

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I got my chip from the same person

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=196973&highlight=biostar

Plenty of reading there on your board.

Larry

ps. My chip and yours are twins from what I was told, I'm at 3680 now with a slight adjustment to a GTL.

see even 3680 seems bad to me. i was hopin to hit 4ghz. being that these are es chips and supposed to be the cream of the crop i figured we could get some better oc's out of these. am i dreaming? oh and i have been reading through that post. i have built up quite a bit of ammo for this weekend now thats just see if i have the time and paitence to do anything with it.

Automiketic said:

see even 3680 seems bad to me. i was hopin to hit 4ghz. being that these are es chips and supposed to be the cream of the crop i figured we could get some better oc's out of these. am i dreaming? oh and i have been reading through that post. i have built up quite a bit of ammo for this weekend now thats just see if i have the time and paitence to do anything with it.

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Well, first off, I am still testing with the slow/easy approach which is best to determine what settings need to be changed. See my sig as I have updated it and look at the voltage I am running it at. Plenty of room to grow I would think.

4 ghz OC with these, very optimistic I would think, possible, maybe, but the volts would be way up there. I'd be Very happy with 3800 to 3850, and am actually pretty satisfied with 3720, tho I am in no way shape or form done testing yet.

Larry

maybe its because of my other setting but it seems like i need a ton of vcore to even get into bios but i am really lost when it comes to ram timmings and the like. i understand the basic principles but other than that im pretty foggy. 1.23 seems amazing to me for what your getting out of that thing. im assuming your running on an 8x multi correct?

Automiketic said:

maybe its because of my other setting but it seems like i need a ton of vcore to even get into bios but i am really lost when it comes to ram timmings and the like. i understand the basic principles but other than that im pretty foggy. 1.23 seems amazing to me for what your getting out of that thing. im assuming your running on an 8x multi correct?

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Its 1.248v load, and yup I am running an 8x multi Maybe do a few searches in the thread I linked you to for ram settings and or "template" and see if anyone is running your ram on that board. May give you a starting point.

Larry