Need serious help...

[dogg.mutt]

...I'm about 3 days from completely destroying my computer out of sheer frustration. I've tried, for almost a full year (will be a year in march) to overclock this piece of crap Q6600 to 3.4 ghz, and it will not get stable. Quick specs:

Q6600 @ 3.4 ghz. CPU 31C idle, cores anywhere from 23-26C idle, Tuniq 120
Mushkin 996599 8 GB, so 4x2GB Sticks
EVGA 750i FTW
9800GTX+ Not overclocked
8800GT Physx
650 Corsair PSU 54+ 12V Rails

Hope that's sufficient. Here are my bios settings.

Vcore 1.55 (I can actually probably get it AS stable down to around 1.5 or 1.45 but its at 1.55 for testing)
FSB 1.5
SPP 1.5
RAM 2.1
NF200 auto - 1.2

Hey, guess what? On paper, this piece of sh*t should be more than stable at those voltages. But it's not. 9x378 BTW. I've tried 8x425 but I get blue screens galore. 9x378 is the most stable I can get, it DOES NOT BLUE SCREEN EVER. The only stability issues I have are HARD LOCKS which leads me to believe this mushkin is crap. Not defective, just crap all together. RAM is NOT overclocked, I'm running it unlinked at 1066, so with the overclock it's actually running at 1056.7 which is rated below what it can actually do, so I'm actually underclocking my ram by a meer 10 mhz under the manuf' specs, though I don't have control over it as some of you know who may run their ram unlinked, it must give or take a few mhz. I can run prime for around 5-7 hours til it hard locks...I can probably play games ALL freakin day though and it won't lock, but on SOME DAYS I'll boot up a game and wham, 5 minutes into playing it'll hard lock. it's so frustrating I want to just...man...anyways...

I've tried everything. EVERYTHING. I've ran memtest for 24 hours, passed 10 times, 0 errors on all 4 sticks. I know what you're gonna say...TEST EACH STICK INDIVIDUALLY, but it's my understanding that if you test all 4 together and get 0 errors, chances are you won't need to test them individually to single out which chip is defective, right? i've done it all...lowered voltages, upped voltages, i've even put my SB and NB to 1.55 both which is the max this board can do, and it doesnt work. I've put the FSB to the max at 1.55 and that doesnt work...my vcore can go all the way up to 2 volts almost...and theres no way in bat sh*t hell i'm trying anything higher than 1.6 as I'm reluctant to even go that high right now.


One more thing to add, I say i've been trying to get this crap stable for a year because when I first overclocked it to 3.4, it was stable for awhile, it actually went through 18 hours of prime with no locks...somewhere down the line it started freezing while i was playing games and I just got super frustrated and have been trying for mmm....lets say 4-6 months to get it stable, as in between i've just given up and rolled the dice every time i booted up my computer...now its just insanely frustrating...how frustrating?

If any of you play L4D2, consider this, playing realism - expert with you and your 3 friends, and you're hosting because all the official dedicated servers are junk, and you've made it to the final level and you're all stoked cuz you're gonna get your achievements, wham, HARD LOCK. Pretty frustrating, and if you've played L4D2 on expert realism, you'll understand you need to dedicated a quarter of your entire day to finishing one campaign...it is no joke.

A few things i've tried, i've upped the ram voltage to 2.2, doesnt work, i've messed with the GTLVREF voltages, doesnt work, i've messed with the LDT frequency...doesnt work, my LDT frequency is at 5x btw, i put it to 4x and i get blue screens and random reboots. WHAT do I do!?! PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

btw...i've heard trying to overclock with 8GB of ram doesnt work well, some people say 8gb causes instability with the fsb and SB and all that, i havent tried it with 4gb yet but i was wondering, is there any truth to this statement?

EDIT: I have no idea what GTLVREF is, there are numerous statements on the internet, but there isnt one solid document on what it is and what it encompasses, so i havent really messed with it, i HAVE but to no avail....and for reference, i have 4 gtlvref lanes and they're all auto'd, only lane 1 autos to +110 mV.

EDIT: RAM timings are 5-5-5-15, trc 26, twtr 9, trrd 3, twr 3, tref 7.8. attempting to stress test w/ 4gb ram tonite.

EDIT: Upon running prime Blend w/ 4GB of ram, my comp insta-rebooted, i'm like...alright, thats not weird at all...so i tried it again and it didnt reboot instantly, so now i rebooted and i'm gonna try one more time...my god...this is so random...

 

[Xtreme Barton]

ok ..at least we have three days about

usually the larger amount of ram you have can cause issues overclocking ... but since your underclocking anyways i wouldn't think it would be a prob .. id def pop out some and see if that changes things .. update everything if you haven already .. post your memory timings that you have in your bios.. and chill out about things .. frustration/anger will only make this little journey worse .. just try different things like the ram, maybe take one them video cards out .. just start eliminating things .. its obviously something thats being uncooperative .. hope its not your cpu though

 

[bda1967]

I agree. Take out 4 GB of RAM. Nvidia chipsets are not the greatest overclocking motherboards either.

 

[EarthDog]

Regardless of what speed the ram is at, the number of banks its using will provide more stress on the NB. All 4 slots filled up = more stress on NB.

With that said. 750i board is NOT a great overclocking board. You should still be able to see 400FSB with a quad, but its not a good o/c board.

Also note, idle temps are completely irrelevent. What are your LOAD temps under P95 small fft?

 

[dogg.mutt]

load temps with prime can reach a high of possibly 55-60C, load during games never reaches 50C on an average weather day...right now i'm almost on my 7th hour of prime with 4gb of ram, 1.55 vcore, i tried 1.5 vcore before i did this test and it failed within 2 hours which seems strange to me...mainly because i've been able to prime atleast for 5-6 hours before it hard locked with a vcore of 1.5, that was also with 8GB of ram though...

i also went on mushkin's forums and asked for support there, they say it causes tons of stress on the SPP like u guys say and that downclocking it to 800 Mhz might fix the problem, what do you guys think? I'd really like to overclock and keep my 8GB of ram...cuz thats 80 bucks down the drain if i cant...and also, is 8GB of 800 mhz better than 4GB of 1066? i know the 4gb is faster but i can probably sustain myself better with 8gb, what do u guys think?


EDIT: one more thing, my bios is up to date, and the latest bios says it increases stability with 8GB of ram...huge failure that was..

 

[bda1967]

Sell off 4GB of RAM in our classified forum and get some money back for something else you can buy.

EDIT: Ooops you're a new member and don't have 100 posts so you can't access the classies. Sell it on Ebay or craigs list.

 

[dogg.mutt]

i do believe my problem has been solved...im on my 9th hour of prime w/ 8GB...i had to downclock it to 800 mhz in order for it to be stable...man...what a ride...

 

[Xtreme Barton]

now try playing with your timings so you can keep it all in and maybe bump up the speed

 

[dogg.mutt]

Consider this a fail. Although there is no physical damage to my cpu aside from a slight scratch on the top from the heatsink which im sure wouldnt cause any actual damage seeing as how people lap them, i do believe i may have blown something. Either my cpu, or my mobo/northbridge. Default stock settings its fine, runs fine, but at 3.4 ghz at 1.5 fsb, 1.45 vcore and 1.5 spp, it WAS stable, infact it went 2 nights on different tests for 12 hours with no errors, problems, locks, anything, completely stable. Last night i was gaming, and it froze. I tried priming it with the same settings, wouldnt even get past an hour, i downclocked it a little bit with the same voltages, no dice.

Is this bad news, or is it bad news? I'm almost content with the fact that i'm on a slippery slope with this thing, but is there any definitive test out there that i can do to test my mobo/cpu to see if it actually is failing?

 

[TechJunky]

Run a memory test. I am betting your memory cannot handle the OC. Most 800mhz chips seem to fail between the 900mhz mark or so. Just spend $100 and get some 1066chips and be done with it.

 

[OCed_5150]

is there any definitive test out there that i can do to test my mobo/cpu to see if it actually is failing?

Other than beg, borrow, or steal another board to test your CPU in...

There is OCCT, but if your system is crashing in Prime, this may do the same thing. Newest version here


I never had luck with nVidia 750i boards either. I sold an Asus P5N-D in the classifieds here last year. I couldnt get my e8400 to overclock worth a damn it that. Ran good at stock clocks.
Im using the same Corsair XMS2 6400C5 RAM now as I did last year. The p45 chipset I think is MUCH better. It runs cooler, too. Only problem, cant run nVidia SLI setup.

 

[dogg.mutt]

my ram is fine, its advertised at 1066, i only downclocked it to 800 so i can use all 8 gb as i was under the impression that the 750i's northbridge is crap when trying to overclock with 8GB of ram...

im thinkin if it is my cpu, i might try to rma it to intel, seeing as how theres no physical damage or anything indicating it was burnt/overclocked..unless they can tell...

 

[Zuzzz]

Cant RMA a CPU that works fine at stock clocks. I think your motherboard jsut cant handle it.

Z

 

[SanDiegoPaul]

Run a memory test. I am betting your memory cannot handle the OC. Most 800mhz chips seem to fail between the 900mhz mark or so. Just spend $100 and get some 1066chips and be done with it.

That's my bet too.

 

[dogg.mutt]

hate to revive old threads, but this is getting quite awkward...


so, aside from everything i've already stated, i now have a new issue. I downclocked to stock speeds, 2.4 for awhile, and it was just gutwrenching, i can totally notice a performance impact from 2.4 to even 3.0-3.4 ghz, massive. so i just couldnt live like that, so i overclocked to 3.0 ghz at the very least, and i got it there stable and was happy, no crashes or anything, nothing...so i started thinking, well what the hell man, my cpu is overclocked at 3 ghz right now running stable, it cant be dying...so i tried it again.

Back to 3.4 ghz, I'm stable, I'm smooth, I ran two tests of prime95 Blend, 8 hours each on 2 different says, passed. FUNNY THING, I ran a test on day one for 8 hours, passed, i ran a test on day 2, froze at 5 hours, alright, whatever, I CHANGED NOTHING IN THE BIOS, ran a test on day 3 and it passed for 8 hours and 37 minutes...wtf?

Seriously guys, wtf is going on here? This is the story of the entire time i've had this computer. I overclocked it to 3.4 ghz and was stable for a looong time, then it starts freezing in game and then i upped the voltages and it stayed stable for a month or so, then started crashing again and i played with the voltages again, and thats when all this stuff happend recently in december.

Now it's february, i was running 3 ghz stable for a few weeks, i stepped it up to 3.4 ghz, downclocked my ram to 800 mhz w/ all 8 GB, and now its running great...somewhat, aside from me FAILING on the 2nd day of prime at the 5 hour mark...i'm just freaking flabbergasted right now, WHAT the hell is going on?

Quick rundown again, Q6600, EVGA 750i FTW, 8GB Mushkin, i had it overclocked successfully to 3.4 ghz when i first got it, it slowly decayed until i COULD NOT RUN IT OVERCLOCKED AT 3.4 OR EVEN 3.0 OR EVEN 2.8 GHZ, MEANING NO TYPE OF OVERCLOCK WOULD RUN AT ALL ON ANY TYPE OF VOLTAGES, so i ran it at stock voltages and stock speeds and everything stock, STOCK IS 2.4 GHZ CPU, 1066 MHZ RAM, ran that for a few weeks, then i wanted to try overclocking again, this time instead of going straight to 3.4 which i thought was stupid, i went to 3 ghz, which was a surprise because as i have stated before, IT WOULDNT POST ON ANY TYPE OF OVERCLOCK FOR THE FEW WEEKS I HAD IT AT 2.4 GHZ. it posted, ran a good test, and ran fine, then i went higher for 3.4, and this is where i'm at right now.

once again, on 3 days, first day it passed 8 hours of prime blend, second day it failed the same test at the 5 hour mark, 3rd day it passed 8 hours of prime blend. on all 3 days the voltages were the same. my voltages are at 1.45 VCORE, 1.5 FSB, 1.5 SPP, 2.1 RAM(stock), 1.4 NF200.

one thing i almost forgot to mention, before i had 3.0 ghz stable, i hadnt touched my nf200 voltage because as i understand it, nobody touches that or needs to touch the voltage unless you're overclocking VIDEO CARDS, which i AM NOT DOING. i ran 3.0 ghz for the first week and it froze, i upped my nf200 voltage to 1.4 and it has been smooth sailing ever since, once i upped my nf200 voltage and 3.0 ghz was stable, that was when i shot for 3.4 ghz, and thats where im at now, so now that i am done over complicating my situation, heres my query.

Why the hell did my computer freeze on the 2nd day of prime testing with the same voltages it had today, and a couple days ago, when it passed 8 hours? Further, why did my computer seemingly act like something had blown out when i DID have it overclocked to 3.4 ghz PRIOR to whats going on now? Why is it simply just allowing me to overclock NOW, when before it was givin me crap?

 

[dogg.mutt]

*bump


any ideas gentlemen?

 

[SanDiegoPaul]

I woulda tossed out that motherboard a looooOOOONNNNGGGGG time ago.

 

[kkpudge7]

Your answer has been provided several times dogg..The 750i is not a good clocker, thus you are having random stability issues. You might have to be content with 3ghz on that board, or ditch it for something better in hopes of getting to 3.4ghz.

 

[Axiel]

Just because it passes one day for 8 hours, doesn't mean it will do the same the next. That's why you see many people running prime for 24 hours straight to verify stability, and even then it may not always be stable. You should read up on how p95 actually stresses the cpu, it will should clarify why this can happen (it has to do with the cpu calculation errors occuring).

As for why it is acting weird, it most likely has to do with the actual hardware. Like has been said in the thread, the more ram, sometimes the more stability issues you have, and also the quality of that motherboard.