E8400 overclock

[overhigh]

Hey its my first time Overclocking my rig and could use some advice. I was easily able to overclock it to 3.6ghz not changing many settings except the FSB to 400x9. Problem is after that point even a minor FSB bump like 405x9 will not boot windows.Any advice about which settings i should mess with next would be great.

Goal is to hit 3.8-4ghz running stable.

Windows 7 home premium 64-bit
GA-EP45-UD3P
Core 2 Duo E8400 E0
OCZ Vendetta 92mm (Going to swap for hyper 212+ soon)
8GB(4x2GB) G.SKILL DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) 5-5-5-15 2.0V - 2.1V
Corsair 650w psu (CMPSU-650TX)
HD 4890

 

[redduc900]

Right off the bat... the NB / MCH strap is too tight at the current FSB of 405MHz. A System Memory Multiplier of 2.50 on the "A" strap is the equivalent of a 266=1066FSB. Change the latch from Auto to either 333B or 400D w/ the DRAM multiplier set to 2.40 on the "B" strap = DDR2-972, or 2.00 on the " D" strap = DDR2-810. And don't worry about the lower than rated effective DRAM frequencies for the time being, since you're still in the process of trying to find your max. overclock. Change Performance Enhance to Standard and PCI-E Freq. to 102MHz.

 

[overhigh]

Thanks I will try your advice right now.

Windows seems to bootup with no problems now. I'm going to keep bumping up the FSB slowly untill i hit 3.8. ill keep updated.

For some reason when i went up from 3.8 to 4.0 my CPU fanspeed started spinning at max(and it was really annoying). Even when i went back down to 3.8 the fan speed stayed the same.I eventually went into the bios and set CPU Smart fan control to enabled which fixed the fan speed. Is that setting supposed to be on? Any idea what happened?

 

[overhigh]

Failed prime95 after 50 minutes @ 3.8ghz 423x9 Vcore 1.25, MCH Core 1.1

Going to increase MCH Core to 1.2v and see if it does any better.

EDIT

Failed prime 95 after 50 minutes @ 3.8ghz 423x9 Vcore 1.25, MCH core 1.2v

Going to down the mch core back to 1.1v and up the vcore and see if it works, will keep posted.

 

[overhigh]

So far so good. Ran prime95 for 4 hours 3.8ghz 423x9, bumped vcore up to 1.2625 will be trying to get more out of it tonight.
Also does anyone know if its better to leave these settings on normal or should i put them all back to auto?

 

[wingman99]

Normal is fine. Auto might increase some of the settings on there own when you are overclocking.

 

[overhigh]

Normal is fine. Auto might increase some of the settings on there own when you are overclocking.

Noted.

Im going to be busy with work for next few days so ill continue updating next week.
So far i stopped at 3.6ghz stable. 1.2625vcore 1.22 mch core 5:6 ram

EDIT

Mistyped 3.8ghz not 3.6ghz....

 

[wagex]

if your wondering why your cpu fan was going max speed... have you been watching cpu temps?

hwmonitor

coretemp

 

[overhigh]

if your wondering why your cpu fan was going max speed... have you been watching cpu temps?

hwmonitor

coretemp

Been using core temp and real temp. My cpu temps were at 38degrees idle 54 max under load.I found out what happened after messing around with the bios. Turns out when you hit F7 in bios the CPU Smart fan control gets switched from enabled to disabled which is what caused my fan to behave that way. Ill remember to keep this option enabled from now on.

 

[ylim004]

hey overhigh, i'm pretty new to overclocking. I had my e8400 since 2008 and decided that i need to overclock for the time being (eventually will get intel i5 or i7) in order to lessen the bottleneck of the gpu. At the moment, all i want to do is increase to 3.6ghz and read that's relatively safe and easy overclock. Is just changing the fsb all you needed to do? i've been reading bunch of guides and forums but so many new terms and information is overwhelming. good luck with your overclocking

 

[overhigh]

hey overhigh, i'm pretty new to overclocking. I had my e8400 since 2008 and decided that i need to overclock for the time being (eventually will get intel i5 or i7) in order to lessen the bottleneck of the gpu. At the moment, all i want to do is increase to 3.6ghz and read that's relatively safe and easy overclock. Is just changing the fsb all you needed to do? i've been reading bunch of guides and forums but so many new terms and information is overwhelming. good luck with your overclocking

In my case I was able to overclock to 3.6 ghz only changing the fsb and memory multiplier.

 

[wagex]

+1 to that my first e8400 did the same at stock voltages 3.6

 

[overhigh]

Trying to get a stable 3.9ghz ATM.
444x9 vcore 1.2825 mhh core 1.2 failed small fft after 15 min
Bumped up to 1.3 vcore faile prime around same time.
At 1.31 ATM running small fft, will update.
Ran small fft fine for about 3 hours. Failed OCCT in 20 mins.
I'll bump up the vcore and run some more tests after I get off work.

 

[wagex]

looks like you got yourself a good chip there 4ghz should be no problem long as your temps are fine these chips are good upto ~1.45v

 

[ylim004]

In my case I was able to overclock to 3.6 ghz only changing the fsb and memory multiplier.

i see. Thanks for the reply. I wanted to ask because I read in many guides and forums that i will have to enable, disable, or change more settings than just changing the fsb and multiplier. I guess it only applies to people who are overclocking much higher(?)

anyways sucks though because my geforce 660 came yesterday and after i installed it, i noticed my cpu fan was dead. surprisingly, my cpu is still arounder 25-30 at idle from heatsink, 2 case fans, as well as my freezing room. i'm assuming it was dead for some time and i noticed yesterday. my friend told me he's gonna give me his cooler so i'll post my OC here too when i get friend's cooler.

 

[wagex]

for 4ghz i had to bump my nb voltage up a notch but i think thats because my board is a turd i toasted a memory channel in it but i do have a pretty nice chip been running for a couple weeks 4ghz 1.25v havent tried any lower yet.

p.s. if your still having problems at any higher voltage try giving the NB a bump that seems to help these alot.

 

[overhigh]

I got it running pretty stable at 3.99ghz bumped vcore up to 1.337 left mhh core at 1.2 but it still seems stable.
Occt(largedataset) 1hour no errors
Occt(linpack)30min no errors
Prime95(small fft) 2 hours no error

i will probably run prime on blend overnight, time for some ps2 emulation in the meanwhile.

Heres a look at my current bios settings:
http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i420/overhigh/IMG_0118_zps53ba6ff0.jpg
http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i420/overhigh/IMG_0117_zps134d2c3c.jpg
http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i420/overhigh/IMG_0119_zpsb2df8ff3.jpg

 

[wingman99]

You should not have to mess with ICH voltage (Intel southbridge) since your not overclocking your PCI-E

 

[overhigh]

You should not have to mess with ICH voltage (Intel southbridge) since your not overclocking your PCI-E

Good to know thanks.

 

[False Christian]

You should be happy at 3.8GHz. When I had my E8400 I was lucky to get it to 3.5Ghz. This is why I upgraded to an i5 2500K. I'm at a stable 4.5Ghz from 3.3GHz using 1.275 volts.