Top Post Graysky, love the 1.6 update
Hello all, new to the site and new to overclocking (i make noobs look like Grand Masters of Overclocking), after reading the new 1.6 updated post i am more than intrested in giving this a go with my setup.
At the moment i my setup is :-
Q9300 2.5GHZ at stock speeds, stock core settings,
Abit IP35 Dark Raider, have a Abit IP35 Pro board coming tomorrow i hope,
Crucial Ballistix Tracer Cas 5 1066mhz memory 2 x 1GB sticks (set gone back to Crucial as faulty thanks to this site and Memtest 86
) at 800mhz on this board at stock volts,
Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro heatsink fan using Artic Silver 5 paste, (thinking of lapping my HS after i now know what it means and does,
)
Coolermaster Praetorian 732 Ally Case with 2 x 80mm rear exhaust and 1 x 120mm front intake,
Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT version 1 PSU
Seagate 250gb sata 2 16mb cache windows drive and 1 x samsung 500gb sata 2 16mb cache storgae drive and 2 x western digital 250gb sata 2 16mb cache storage drives, 1 is external in a icy box 360 housing,
8800GTS Gainward 512mb card at stock speeds with stock cooler, drivers 169.25
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit with SP1 and all possible updates.
Ok i also have a P5K-E WIFI AP edition motherboard and 2 x 2GB sticks of Corsair Cas 5 800mhz memory and a 8800GTS 640MB card bios flashed with XXX bios at my disposal, why well i have been trying to overclock this damn Q9300 without much success
and how i so wish i hadn't traded out my Q6600 chip
, god they are a overclockers dream at x9 multiplier it seems from what i have read , my Q9300 is only 7.5 x multiplier and seems a bad chip to have to overclock as no one seems to be buying them and sticking with there Q6600's at 3GHZ+ speeds.
Ok so now to my questions and queries, first, heatsink and fan, would you upgrade to a Thermaltake Ultra 120 extreme like most people hear are running or would you buy a better fan like a Scythe 120mm kits and use the same heatsink. What speeds do you run your fan at when overclocking, do you run it full speed disabling the auto fan speed setting in the bios?
Artic Silver 5 paste, whats the best way to apply it, on the chip or heat sink and how do you spread it or do you just put a small amount like shown by Graysky and put the heatsink ontop and let it spread itself?
Best mobo to keep out of what i have, Asus P5K-E Wifi Ap, IP35 Dark Raider or IP35 Pro motherboard for overclocking?
Q9300 chip or sell and go buy another Q6600 chip for overclocking?
Lap my heatsink or not to Lap as when i run core temp core 1 is 50, core 2 52-53, core 3 50, core 4 52-53, when i run speedfan i get core 1 45, core 2 47-48, core 3 45, core 4 47-48. which is right what do i go by?
When i overclocked my Q9300 on my Asus board at 2.7GHZ (7.5 x 360 FSB) on stock core voltages before it failed in Prime95 after 6 hours the temps were into the very low 70's altho it was a cool day that day (from the UK, summer may have just started here), i ran Prime95 on standard clock speeds for 6 hours to test chip is fine today (running it tonight for a further 12+ hours to make sure all is good before i try overclocking with the IP35 Pro board tomorrow) which has been around 70-72 degrees outside temp and my chip was up in the low 70's on all cores (not overclocked), maybe i got a crap Q9300 and should maybe just sell it.
I ran my chip at 7.5 x 400mhz @ 3.0ghz with vcore volts of around 1.2650 (got it wrote down here somewhere) with NBcore/SBcore/ICHcore etc set to auto and it ran in Prime95 for 8 hours with no problems so i stopped it, ran 3dmark06 (100mhz setting in bios for VGA) and wow, really bad FPS which i now think must have been the other core settings set to auto from reading this new 1.6 update.
Anyway, i think thats enough for my first post, hope someone reads it a can give me some advice on what i should or shouldn't keep/buy to enhance my setup to make the overclocking mission i have undertaken easier, hehe.