e5200 overclock on 750i FTW

So I bought this CPU cheap 1.5 years ago, knowing is was one of the best overclock CPUs on the market. Basically just the higher core2duo's with lower volts/clock. I didn't overclock it then cause I couldn't afford to replace it if I messed something up. I'm new to OC if you couldn't tell.

So I wanted to run it at 400 (1600 QDR) at 8x (3.2 GHz) at least. I had it set to 1.325 vcore, 1.2 fsb just incase, ram is at 800 MHz and 1.9v (stock). I couldn't get it to run though, had to reset CMOS. A lot of my settings put me in BIOS safe mode. I don't even think 7x worked. I tried like 1333 QDR at 7x and it still didn't work.

Something weird about this 750i FTW. I said screw it and ran it at 1100 QDR at 12x (3.3 GHz). It ran fine until this:



I changed it to 1090 QDR at 11x for 2995 MHz. Running so far. I'm trying to figure out if it's RAM or CPU or my new GPU (working fine past week). I don't see why this would be happening.. Memtest works and Prime95 passed running at 3 GHz just now (runs at 45c idle, 60c load). I even read a 2008 review of someone changing it to 1600/9 (3.6 GHz) on auto volt and working just fine. WTH?

I'm not expecting much here, but it was an expensive board, and this seems odd, I'm not sure I'm going to run out and buy anymore XFX nvidia cards anymore.. seems to be others having less issues. Some even have auto-OC.

Edit (settings): I heard auto GTLVREF has issues. I didn't set mine though (review guy said it worked) cause I don't know what to do. Someone said change #0/#1 to 50.. okay... +50 mv? I don't know. I did turn off C1E (SpeedStep already disabled) - people keep calling this EINT.

Edit (heat): The way I figure it, it would probably be cheaper to get a Corsair Hydro H50 and overclock like a mad man (4GHz+) than to go get a quad core, at least right now - because my mobo doesn't support the new C2Q or DDR3.

The limitation you're seeing is the CPU. Since it's a low FSB chip, you can't expect a high FSB OC out of it, that's why the high multiplier is there. 320MHz FSB (1280 QDR) is probably the high end for 24/7 stability, I mean that would be a 60% OC!

On my P5N-E I had it stable at 3.8125GHz (12.5x305MHz), and on my UD3P I got it to 3.9GHz (12.5x312MHz). So, 300MHz FSB (1200 QDR) would be really good. That's a 50% OC, you really can't expect much more than that.

So, try using the multiplier instead of the FSB.

You could try doing a 200>266 or 200>333 padmod on the proc and see if that will give you extra fsb headroom. I know that worked on the earlier 65 nm 200 fsb Core 2 Procs.

BTW, I could run my E5200 at 320 fsb on a Foxconn Mars board, but not any higher with any stability. And I had to crank the volts to it to run there even, without doing a padmod. I never did try the padmod personally because I only used that setup as a backup/crunching system anyways.

Thanks guys, I changed it to like 295x12, so I'm sitting at 3.5GHz stable. I don't have much air circulation so I'm sitting kind of high, but not much higher than stock. Think I'll grab the H50, lower temps like 20 degrees, it's easy and only $60 - other heatsinks are effing huge.

The graphic glitch is a power saving bug with my GPU I think.