Q6600 on 680i won't go past 1.41 volts and stuck at 3.21 - help!

[evomac]

As the title states I am completely stuck. I cannot get my OC to past 3.2 no matter I do. I have a odd feeling that it's my mobo. For starters no matter how high I put the voltage (tried 1.43, 1.44, 1.48) it will never go past 1.42 idle then vdroop puts it around 1.38.

I'll be the first to say that I am not a experienced OC'er by any means and most of what I'm doing is total guess work. Having said that I was definitly expecting ~3.4 with G0 & a TRUE heatsink w. a Panaflo M1BX.

Since the voltage seems to be capped for some reason, I just playing around with random FSB's. I tried a wing and a prayer 3.6, 3.5, and 3.4. Those BSOD'ed when loading. 3.3 loads into Windows, but as soon as Prime starts it crashes within ~10 seconds.

I tried all other incraments back down to 3.2 and finally 3217.8 ran a whopping 7 minutes Prime stable! .

3.2 even is Prime 8 hours stable.

Highest Temp I've yet to see at all is ~61° load so I am not worried about the temp. I'm pretty sure it seems to be the mobo or the chip.

Bios settings.
Disabled everything as per THIS GUIDE
I slowed my 800mhz ram down to 400.
Full Auto works at 3.2 (I'm sure I could lower the volts but the temps weren't that bad, I'm ok with leaving tha stable for now).

680i mobo won't show higher than 1.42 volts at all in CPU-Z.

I've tried changing all the settings manually to the following:
core to 1.46 (never goes above1.42ish idle)
fsb to 1.4
spp 1.45
memory @ 1.8 (recomended)
1.525 as the nForce MCP (Southbridge)
1.34 as the HT nForce SPP <-> MCP.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you think its a bad chip or mobo please don't feel bad telling me. After all 3.2 isn't bad... I was just expecting better. Especially since temps aren't a problem.

 

[freeagent]

when i had a 680i, i was able to run 356x9. and bench at 366x9. with a quad, the board just sucks, flat out. sorry! but, its a sexy board, and they seem to do ok with dualcores..

lots of storys like mine kicking around

but then some guys can run 400fsb with theirs. am i jealous?

not any more!

 

[evomac]

That's what I figured. To be honest, its the answer I was looking for . I got this board for free, due to a RMA of my nForce4 Socket939 board getting returned back to me from the manufacturer as a 680i . Accidental mistake, but the rep was real cool about it and pretty much said keep it... heck they even mailed me a I/O shield when I told them I was going to get a Socket 775 chip and was going to keep the board. So I'm much happier that its the board that sucks & not the chip.

I'm assuming the speeds in your sig are on the same Q6600 that you were stuck at 3.2 with on the 680i correct?

Was anyone able to break 3.2 Prime stable on the 680i?

 

[satandole666]

Can you do 400x8 for 3.2ghz as well? We need to figure out if the is the chip or the mobo to help you get a better clock.

Also, don't be afraid to set a high voltage in the BIOS (say 1.5 or 1.55) to see if you can get your vcore to budge. Just be smart and monitor it along with your temps.

 

[freeagent]

I'm assuming the speeds in your sig are on the same Q6600 that you were stuck at 3.2 with on the 680i correct?

Was anyone able to break 3.2 Prime stable on the 680i?

yep same quad, these are my day to day feel good comfyness speeds. but its stable at 475x8 with 1.58v

 

[evomac]

I tried to set the clock to 400x8 and it just consistently reboots. It posts the BIOS information. Does not post the cpu info, then reboots. It does this two times or so then sets the clocks back to 2.4. I set it back to a 9 multi because I didn't feel comfortable with it doing that.

When I get home tonight maybe I'll try 1.5 or so to see if it will move. I don't really want to go 1.55 because with my luck it will suddenly kick in, have no vdroop,and fry the chip.

I was reading about a vdroop mod where you take a #2 pencil and essentially draw a line. Saw some reports of it being successful. Do you guys think this might help at all?

 

[Sarsbaby]

I tried to set the clock to 400x8 and it just consistently reboots. It posts the BIOS information. Does not post the cpu info, then reboots. It does this two times or so then sets the clocks back to 2.4. I set it back to a 9 multi because I didn't feel comfortable with it doing that.

When I get home tonight maybe I'll try 1.5 or so to see if it will move. I don't really want to go 1.55 because with my luck it will suddenly kick in, have no vdroop,and fry the chip.

I was reading about a vdroop mod where you take a #2 pencil and essentially draw a line. Saw some reports of it being successful. Do you guys think this might help at all?

The pencil mod on my Commando helped me go to stable 3.6 (400x9), now instead of a droop it stays steady or goes up .01v. I added more mosfet cooling for this mod though and re-did all the TIM's. If you can find a clear picture of your board and where to do it, go for it. It's reversable, just clean it off if it doesn't work right for you. I am not responsible for any damage you do, if such should happen.

I think this is for your board......http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=p8100013u64.jpg

if it is, draw in a line between the 2 red x's with a #2 pencil. Do it until you can just see it, not too much. Go into your bios, check vCore, check it in windows, and then check it at full load. If you are succesful your voltages should be ( n=bios, n=idle, n+0.01v=full load, n being your vCore ) or it might just stay steady all the way across the board.

 

[evomac]

That's the exact picture I was looking at last night. I was going to do it last night, except naturally I couldn't find a #2 pencil. So I am going to borrow a supply or two from the office and give it a shot tonight.

This is the exact board that I have, sorry I'm not at home to snap a picture of it.


I figure with this, worst case scenario is it doesn't work or gets too hot. In which case I'll rub some 90% denatured alcohol on it.

 

[aaronjb]

The board doesn't suck; rather, the later revisions - with updated BIOS - are quite good with a Q6600. The pencil mod is very effective at reducing VDroop under load.

However, the one issue is an FSB hole - around 360 - 380Mhz, IIRC.

I've been plugging along at 3.6GHz (450*8, 1.5v VCore) 24/7 for many months now. Getting the chipset voltages correct was a trial-and-error process, but in the end all is well.

 

[freeagent]

The board doesn't suck; rather, the later revisions - with updated BIOS - are quite good with a Q6600. The pencil mod is very effective at reducing VDroop under load.

However, the one issue is an FSB hole - around 360 - 380Mhz, IIRC.

I've been plugging along at 3.6GHz (450*8, 1.5v VCore) 24/7 for many months now. Getting the chipset voltages correct was a trial-and-error process, but in the end all is well.

this was my my 1 month of torture with the board.. i couldnt get it to run stable at stock speeds untill a fresh bios release. maybe its better now.. but i only used it for a month while my first p5k was out for rma

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=530509

Edit: it was an A1, not the TL or whatever..

 

[evomac]

The problem is certainly partially vdroop, but I think another is some sort of voltage wall. No matter what I set it to, its not going above 1.42 volts. Im going to try to shoot the volts way up tonight when I go home to see if it will force it past 1.42, but I highly doubt it.

Can you by any chance take a pic or tell me your bios power settings for all of the other voltages? Perhaps I can try to mimick your settings assuming I can get it past the volt wall.

 

[evomac]

Just to note I updated the bios to the P32 found here

That's the latest driver that BFG lists. I am almost tempted to try the P31 since it seems the 32 was just a "wolfdale" support addition. Perhaps adding that screwed up some of the updates from the 31 which seemed to be a G0 OC update?

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

As the title states I am completely stuck. I cannot get my OC to past 3.2 no matter I do. I have a odd feeling that it's my mobo. For starters no matter how high I put the voltage (tried 1.43, 1.44, 1.48) it will never go past 1.42 idle then vdroop puts it around 1.38.

I'll be the first to say that I am not a experienced OC'er by any means and most of what I'm doing is total guess work. Having said that I was definitly expecting ~3.4 with G0 & a TRUE heatsink w. a Panaflo M1BX.

Since the voltage seems to be capped for some reason, I just playing around with random FSB's. I tried a wing and a prayer 3.6, 3.5, and 3.4. Those BSOD'ed when loading. 3.3 loads into Windows, but as soon as Prime starts it crashes within ~10 seconds.

I tried all other incraments back down to 3.2 and finally 3217.8 ran a whopping 7 minutes Prime stable! .

3.2 even is Prime 8 hours stable.

Highest Temp I've yet to see at all is ~61° load so I am not worried about the temp. I'm pretty sure it seems to be the mobo or the chip.

Bios settings.
Disabled everything as per THIS GUIDE
I slowed my 800mhz ram down to 400.
Full Auto works at 3.2 (I'm sure I could lower the volts but the temps weren't that bad, I'm ok with leaving tha stable for now).

680i mobo won't show higher than 1.42 volts at all in CPU-Z.

I've tried changing all the settings manually to the following:
core to 1.46 (never goes above1.42ish idle)
fsb to 1.4
spp 1.45
memory @ 1.8 (recomended)
1.525 as the nForce MCP (Southbridge)
1.34 as the HT nForce SPP <-> MCP.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you think its a bad chip or mobo please don't feel bad telling me. After all 3.2 isn't bad... I was just expecting better. Especially since temps aren't a problem.

That looks like a classic core wall. It's a common phenomenon for around +20 mhz to have a major stability difference.
A common one I saw is, for example:

3200 Mhz is 100 percent stable, but Prime95 fails immediately, at 0 seconds or 1 second! at 3220 Mhz.
Even with the Vcore through the roof.

But, that may be more of an AMD trait.
My socket As are like that, where 5 mhz on the core makes a major difference.

 

[evomac]

Sorry for sounding like a "noob", but when you are referring to a core wall are you saying that the chip actually hit a wall and will not go any higher at all, regardless of what elements are introduced. Or are you referring to the motherboard where it just won't volt anymore even though the power options go up to something like 1.8 volts.

 

[evomac]

Small but major update imo. I did the pencil mod and I'm about .05 off from Bios to IDLE to Load.

Was able to blow past my voltage mod.

Just some minor tinkering around I am able to run 3.3 @ 8x412.5. It failed on me with a different voltage at 9x? for 3.3 so I was playing around with 8x.

For the bios I have it set to 1.5000 exactly so you can see that the vdroop is very very little . I think I might even be able to push this a bit further on this voltage. Not bad so far. Huge hurdle leaped past 1.42 if you ask me ... best part about it, it took maybe 5 minutes

Comments on where I should go from here would be appreciated.

 

[hank123]

wow dude if u get ur q6600 running fast on your 680I i will be pumped for you. I could not get mine to clock past 3.0. on my p35 this chip rocks!

go for 3.6 mane and let us know what happens!

 

[evomac]

wow dude if u get ur q6600 running fast on your 680I i will be pumped for you. I could not get mine to clock past 3.0. on my p35 this chip rocks!

go for 3.6 mane and let us know what happens!

so far pretty good news I kept my clock speed the same but started to lower the voltage a lot. 1.412 failed on core 3 after 7 minutes. as of right now 1.418 is running a little over 10 minutes stable. if it stays there im pretty happy with that. the temps are still creaping up a little high on core 1 and 2. topping out around 67-68 but core 3 and 4 are looking great at 55. the room its in is pretty hot atm. roughly 75F so that doesn't help. 2 times I reseated my true and the 2nd time it dropped the temps a lot but I thing it really needs to be lapped. if I can lap it and get 1 and 2 close to 3 and 4 temps I think I might have a good shot at 3.5 or so. we shall see.

for now I will gladly settle for 3.3. as im happy as heck I was able get past that volt wall. I have a ton of stuff to di around my house so I don't know when ill get to lapping the cpu. probably not for a week or so.

ill definitly post an update if its prime stable at current layout.

ps: sorry for the lack of caps. im outside smoking typing this on my moto q and it doesn't auto cap and its a pain to hit shift. =)

 

[ChinStrap]

YMMV with 680i

i primmed for about 2 hours error free last night @ 4050MHz at 1.625vcore (prepin for my warz runs)

and this winter i was able to bench 06' @ 4166MHz on AIR.

i love my 680i.

great places to start.
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=123659
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=222688&mpage=1&key=&#222688

 

[evomac]

It crapped out at 1.418 after 5 hours. Assuming the setting I have it at now will go the distance. So stable is 1.42 @ 412x8.

Just to note I tried 3.3 @ 9x multi... it will not even boot into windows with same voltage... any ideas?

 

[evomac]

Updated. As of right now I'm stable @ 3.4! Running a second prime test at the moment. With that in mind, I think I might try for 3.5 tonight if it is stable for a hour or so! First test ran for a little over 8 hours with no errors.

680i might not be so terrible after all