Help with overclocking Core2Quad Q9550 on Gigabyte G41MT-D3 Motherboard

[yazza2014]

Like the title says, I've been trying to overclock my CPU. The highest clock I can get is 2.91 Ghz, while I've heard of people getting it up to a max of 4 Ghz.

If I try to go higher than 2.91, the computer won't go past POST.

My motherboard does seem to support overclocking as I managed to overclock my last CPU from 2.93 Ghz to 3.77 Ghz with no problems.

I've tried messing with RAM timings (RAM specs by default are 11,11,11,28) lowest I've done is 5,5,6,17 and highest I've tried is 11,15,15,56. This had no affect on the CPU overclocking.

I've also tried upping the CPUvcore voltage one or two notches, that didn't do anything to help either

I've attached screenshots of my current BIOS settings, and screenshots of cpuz.






My current specs are

Hyper 412 CPU cooler
Q9550 CPU
2x4GB DDR3 Team Group RAM 1600 Mhz
Gigabyte G41MT-D3 Motherboard
Coolermaster 700 W PSU
Nvidia GTX 660 GPU

If I'm missing anything, let me know.

I'm still new to overclocking, so I don't know everything about it yet.

I'd like to know if it's possible to overclock this further with this board, and if so, what settings I should use.

Cheers

 

[yazza2014]

Apparently my board is limited to a FSB of 343.

So if anyone else is trying the same thing with this board, don't bother. Maybe a BSEL mod would work for overclocking

 

[PolRoger]

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3476&dl=

I'm not surprised from looking at a photo of that board... Not much there in the way of a VRM section just a few phase and no heatsink. The board is probably better suited for running at stock speed(s) or perhaps a dual core with just a mild overclock.

Something like Gigabyte's EP45 series motherboard would be much better suited for overclocking a Core2 Quad: Anything from EP45-UD3P / UD3R (DDR2) to a EP45T-UD3P / UD3R / USB3P (DDR3).