Overclocking e8400 on a p5Q pro

[serenity]

So I recently tried to overclock my cpu without much success. In both attempts, OC failed and I had to revert back to default settings

I have a p5q pro mobo, e8400 wolfy, and corsair xms2 6400 4x1gb

Please bare with me, it's been a while since I OCed something and the Voltage options on the P5Q threw me off as I am sure they are different from some other boards...

Instead of explaining what I did, I'll just list it:
In the AI tweaker menu

CPU Ratio Setting: 9x (max for my CPU)

AI Overclock Tuner: Manual

FSB frequency: 400

FSB strap to northbridge: auto -- I wasn't sure what this did so I left it at auto

PCI frequency: 100

there was another PCI option but I left it at auto

DRAM frequency: -- I wasn't sure what to put here but I knew it was important to change. I ended up choosing the closest frequency to what my RAM is rated for which is 1333. I ended up choosing 1335

DRAM timing control: -- I tried both manual and auto. In manual I set it to 5-5-5-18-22 which is what my RAM is rated for. Both options resulted in a failed OC.

Voltage
Ok, this is where I got totally lost and didn't know what settings were what. I left everything on auto just to be safe. I knew that it was not necessary to increase the voltage for a successful OC. What threw me off was the fact that there was no clear option that had anything to do with vcore... I'll list what was there:

CPU voltage

FSB termination Voltage

DRAM Voltage

NB

SB

PCIE Sata Voltage

In both instances, the BIOS returned a OC failed message...

Did I do something clearly wrong? What setting(s) should I have changed/not changed?
Can anyone provide me with an explanation of the voltage options?
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

[SugarJ]

Make sure your DRam voltage is set to 2.0 or 2.1, bump your NB a couple of notches because you're running 4 sticks, and your CPU voltage is vCore. Try setting it to 1.3V.

And your dram frequency should be at 800 mhz.

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by SugarJ

Make sure your DRam voltage is set to 2.0 or 2.1, bump your NB a couple of notches because you're running 4 sticks, and your CPU voltage is vCore. Try setting it to 1.3V.

And your dram frequency should be at 800 mhz.

Yep, yep.......

1333 dram speed is wayyyyy too much for even the highest end DDR2 memory. Try to keep it as close to 800 as possible until you get the cpu OC sorted out. Then you can try to find your max mem OC.

[serenity]

alright thanks for the tips guys!
How about the voltages for SB and PCIE? Leave them at auto?

Also, would it be a good idea to increase the FSB frequency past 400? With the multiplier at 9x, that's already 3.6 ghz
Would it hurt to try 500 or 600?

oh and when you say

raise the NB a couple notches

How do I know what my NB voltage default is, it's at auto right now...

[SugarJ]

I'd leave SB and PCI-E voltages alone, and only bump them if you can't get the system going at 400 FSB. If it doesn't immediately run at 400, try 380.

And while 400 FSB is usually easily achievable, 500 certainly isn't. If you get it up and going at 400, then bump up 5-10 mhz and try again. Repeat until unstable. Then you have 2 options. 1. Be happy with what you got, or 2. raise vCore and try again.

Edit: To determine your stock NB voltage, check what it reads at stock FSB.

[serenity]

alright cool...

I'll make another post over in the benchmarking section once I get everything up and running the way I want.

Thanks for the great tips sugarj!

Maybe I'll even post a how-to or something. It's time I gave something back to these forums...

[geokilla]

Set the PCI-E speed to 101 and the PCI speed to like 33Mhz or something like that. Change the FSB:NB strap to whatever you can in order to obtain the FSB:RAM ratio as 1:1. For voltages, listen to the others and change just the vcore. Everything else should be left at stock, not auto. Manually set the ram timings at 5-5-5-15.

ASUS P5Q PRO P45 Motherboard Review Hope the review helps.

[sswilson]

Set the PCI-E speed to 101

I don't know if this is still required (I do however still do it myself... :) ). It's a throwback from some older motherboards which didn't lock the bus speed unless you manually selected something other than default.

[serenity]

ok so I've got it at a stable 4 ghz... tested and everything, but I want to see how far I can push it.
I'm a little concerned with the voltage levels though. Currently I have vcore set to 1.4 with 50C and 1.4 under load. I know there's some more head room, I'm just a little cautious.
As far I know, increasing voltage only increases heat. If heat gets to about 60s stop right?
Does increasing voltage affect anything else?

Also, RAM. It's running at 1:1 right now but I wanna see how far I can push that too.... What option would I use to do that? FSB strap to NB, dram voltage, or dram frequency? All of the above?

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by serenity

ok so I've got it at a stable 4 ghz... tested and everything, but I want to see how far I can push it.
I'm a little concerned with the voltage levels though. Currently I have vcore set to 1.4 with 50C and 1.4 under load. I know there's some more head room, I'm just a little cautious.
As far I know, increasing voltage only increases heat. If heat gets to about 60s stop right?
Does increasing voltage affect anything else?

Heat isn't the only concern.

The new(er) C2Ds aren't quite the same Tanks (WRT Vcore) as older models. Conventional wisdom is that 1.45 is the safe max for 24/7 operation. There were many early reports of people with higher Vcore losing their upper OC within a few months when the E8400s were first released.

The most likely culprit for this would be that as the process gets smaller, it's easier for electrons to jump (do the electrons jump, or the holes??? :) ) from one trace to another as you raise current.

Also, RAM. It's running at 1:1 right now but I wanna see how far I can push that too.... What option would I use to do that? FSB strap to NB, dram voltage, or dram frequency? All of the above

Yes, Yes, and Yes.... :)

Keep in mind though that FSB strap is also going to affect your CPU speed, and memory bandwidth so that's generally not the way to go unless you're benching to find the absolute highest memory clockspeed.

Work with dram freq, and as you raise that, you may have to also do incremental bumps to dram voltage and/or northbridge V.

Good to hear that you've finally got it up to 4G!!!!