Noob overclocker here. Need help with the q9550

Hi, im new in the forum and im also new at overclocking. I just bought things already overclocked. But i bought an acer predator gaming pc. I overclocked the 9800 gtx sli with evga precision. Now i want to overclock the cpu, a intel core 2 quad q9550 to aprox 3.5 ghz, and the 8 gig memory ddr2 to 1066. The cpu is liquid cooled. I get to the bios, frequencys, and i change the fsb clock from 333 to 375. I restart, and using cpuz i see that its running at stock speeds. I think that the voltages are auto on this pc. The psu is a delta electronics 750 w, and the mobo an nvidia nforce 780i Sli

to the forum!

Can you post up a screenie of that CPUz shot?

Sure it's not failing the OC and reverting to default FSB setting?

Here it is. One question, do i have to overclock the motherboard to overclock cpu? And finally, i tried overclocking cpu with ntune, and when i move the fsb bar, the 8.5x multiplier, turns back to 6.0 multiplier. And when i apply the overclock selected on ntune, the pc freezes and i hav to restart.

Yes you do have to overclock the board to overclock the CPU. The Q9550 is multi locked at 8.5 so the only way to get more juice is to boost the FSB. I suggest starting small and in the BIOS not nTune. Get yourself a memtest86+ CD burned up and switch to boot from CD first. Change FSB in the BIOS to 353 from the default 333 and boot from the memtest86+ CD. When it comes up it will tell you your clockspeed and the default timings of your ram at that speed.

Memtest86 isnt for x86 system?, 32 bits one. I hav vista 64, may i download memtest64?

Memtest86+ is a dos program. It does not matter which windows you are using. Memtest86+ can also be run without any OS installed .

Please use memtest86+ and not memtest86. The latter works but provides very little information about the platform it's running on and much of the info it does provide is inaccurate.

All was ok. It was just cos i dont know to overclock. evrything is at stock speeds except my 2x 9800 gtx. My bios is RC-02. So i get to freq/voltages.
Change fsb to manual. First of all i turn intel eist of from chipset options. there is a thing on the freq volts called D.O.T. control, that have many overclocking levels, from 1% to 15% commander. I dont know what is that for. So i change fsb clock from auto to manual, not linked. I change fsb from 1333mhz to 1335 mhz. The default multiplier of the q9550 is 8.5. When intel eist is enabled multiplier is at 8.5x and i cant change it. When i turn off intel eist the multiplier options are from 6x to 8x, not 8.5x. Well, i changed the fsb from 1333 to 1400. First, i reboot and windows doenst boot up, then, the bios scree doesnt appeared so i pressed i button in the back of mi pc called cl_CMOS and all was ok now and at defaults. PLease tell me all the steps that i have to do for a proper overclock of my cpu and memory. I want to overclock aprox to 3.2, 3.5. Btw, the 8 gig memory dual channel ddr2 that i hav are running at 800 mhz, may i increase memory freq to overclock cpu?
i think that the limit of the mem is 1066. Tell me the steps as same as to a kid, i dont have any idea of overclocking.
Thanks for reading

I was able to overclock my q9550 revision c1 air cooled to 3.8ghz stable and with a hefty voltage jump i was able to get to 4ghz stable... but i remained at 3.8ghz.

I set the voltages to manual btw.

when u raise the FSB the memory will also raise. If it goes above the reccomended frequency, there should be options to change the ratio of the memory to fsb (FSB boot strap maybe?)

I would play with the voltages.. one at a time of course. Start with the goal frequency in small steps.. up the cpu voltage and boot and test with prime95 or intel burn test for a while. if it remains stable, up the fsb, if not, up the cpu voltage by one. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The problem is that i cant change voltages, they are grey, i cant do nothing to increase or decrease them.