Overclocking Q8300

[flynryan692]

Hello! I've had my Q8300 for about a year now, and I've been trying to get it overclocked for about a year as well. It's been pretty frustrating, and when it doesn't work I go back to the fail safe defaults and come back a month later.

Last night I tried again. I got my Q8300 @ 2.5Ghz up to 3.00Ghz and I got it to load windows and everything. I ran OCCT and got an error on Core 2. When I looked it up somebody mentioned it was OCCT being glitchy, so I brushed it off. I tried to played a match on BF3 and I had no problems at all. Until I woke up in the morning and windows wouldn't load. Go figure.

I've always read tutorial for overclocking and forums posts about it here, and a friend told me this is the place to go to get help. So here I am.

Here is a little info on my system.











My CPU cooler is a Coolermaster Hyper N 520 and my OS is Windows 7 64bit.

I took pictures of the settings I set in bios, however my phone is being a pain in rear read and won't send them to my email. I'll just write out the settings below. These are the settings I set last night that got me to 3.00Ghz and would not boot in the morning. They are all in order as they are in my bios.

Robust Graphics Booster [Auto]
CPU Clock Ration [ 6x]
Fine CPU Clock Ration +0.0
CPU Frequency 2.40 Ghz ( 400x6)

******* Clock Chip Control *******
>>> Standard Clock Control <<<
CPU Host Clock Control [Enabled]
CPU Host Frequency(Mhz) [400]
PCI Express Frequency(Mhz) [100]

******* DRAM Performance Control *******
Performance Enhance [Standard]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.) [Auto]
(G)MCH Frequency Latch [Auto]
System Memory Multiplier (SPD) [3.33D]
Memory Frequency(Mhz) 1600 1333
DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) [Manual]
CAS Latency Time 9
tRCD 9
tRP 9
tRAS 24

******* Motherboard Voltage *******
>>>> CPU
CPU Vcore 1.28750V [1.29375v]
CPU Termination 1.200v [1.200v]
CPU Reference 0.805V [0.805V]
>>>> MCH/ICH
MCH Core 1.100v [1.200v]
>>>>DRAM
DRAM Voltage 1.500v [1.500v]

It's a bit ghetto to list it like that, but hopefully it will help.

Thank you!

 

[Twiggz]

I would turn off ce1 and eist stuff that will downclock your cpu atleast until you are done trying to oc (if you haven't already). Next I would put your cpu multiplier to 7 with fine tune at .5 so your cpu multiplier = 7.5 then Put your bus speed to 333, this will get you to 2.5 stock with the highest multiplier instead of using x6. Now I would start increasing the bus speed and trying to get a stable oc. I would use prime95 instead of that other program to stress test and monitor temps with hwmonitor.

 

[flynryan692]

Ok I'll try that. I have the power saving stuff off already.

I'll try Prime95 as well. Thank you!

 

[flynryan692]

Alright I did what you said, I just want to make sure my temps are alright.

The highest my temps got, in order, are 59, 52, 52, 52

At idle just on chrome posting here, my temps are 41, 34, 35, 32

Distance to TJ max while testing 42, 48-50, 48-50, 49-50

If the temps are good, I would assume everything is stable and good to go. I'm yet to physically hit the shutdown button and then try to boot.

I'll try that now. Hopefully it works and I'm overclocked.

 

[Twiggz]

Temps are fine, looks good.

 

[flynryan692]

It booted!

Thank you for all the help, I appreciate it!

 

[Twiggz]

Np glad you got what you wanted.