Asus P5Q-E and E8400 OC help

[Alwaysrun]

Not another Newbie OC thread you say!...Yeppers

OK so I'm ready to bite the bullet and just go for it now after a week of trepidation, hesitation, and unease. I think I've got all the right tools at hand and last night I flashed my Bios to the brand spanking new 1406 which I believe is just a couple days old.

Software tools: CPU-Z, Real Temp, Super PI, Prime95, and Orthos. If I'm missing any good ones please feel free to recommend some more.

So far everything in the Bios is default except I disabled Express Gate and some CPU features like C1E Support, SpeedStep, and C-STATE because they were downclocking my CPU Multiplier to 6x (thanks enaberif).

I'd like opinions on the CPU voltage as with this Bios you don't get a pull-down list of preset voltages to choose from which I'm more accustomed to (you have to set the digits manually). Also My ram is set to auto and is only running at 533Mhz and I have tons of headroom as my Dominator pc2-8500 is rated at 1066mhz. I'm thinking it would be cool if I can just keep the ram on auto and when I raise the FSB it'll crank the ram up automatically.

I'm aiming for a stable 4ghz if possible and about the only limiting factor is cooling but I believe I've got that covered quite well with a Vendetta 2 and more fans blowing on the CPU HS than you could shake a stick at (RealTemp says low of 29 and high of 34C).

If I need some screenshots to help with assistance just ask as I've gotten a bit shutter happy with my new digital camera (be cool if you could take bios screenshots tho).

[matsta31]

Hey, welcome to the nice world of overclocking. But watch out, ther a possibility this hobby of yours to become really expensive.

First off, Intel has some baseline specification published for your CPU where they tell :
the Max voltage (without damage) is 1.36 V
and the max temp (again without damage) is 65 C.

Now, you'll find a lot of people going over and above thoses numbers and many swearing that they see no permanent damage on their CPU. This is a personnal choice that you'll have to make at one point.

I am telling you this, because my E8400 wont do 4.0 ghz under 1.36 Volt. There is a lot of lucky people who got a good chip and can do 4.0 at around 1.32Vcore.

Also, dont play with the ram yet, I would leave it at auto until you find a good cpu OC. This will greatly help to trouble shoot if you cant OC past a certain level, because you can simply exclude ram trouble.

As for the overclocking step, Want I like to do is try to boot with little increment of FSB.

An example of this would be,

I raise the FSB 10-15 ghz.
Try to boot, it boots ? Good, prim95 on all cores for about 10 minutes
It passes ? re-raise the FSB and try again.

you fail at any point, raise the v-core one shot or 0.01 volt.

Once you are at the oc level you want, you'll need to really stress test and do a 12 to 24 hours run. I personally prefer longer run, since my computer folds and there is no point for me to O/C if it is not 24/7 stable.


Be sure to fold for HWC !

Any question, ask away !

[Alwaysrun]

matsta31 thanks for the encouragement and tips.

My first jump was from the stock 333 FSB to 400 as I've heard that was easy as pie. Now I put the CPU voltage at 1.26500 and thought that was really a minor bump but would assure the CPU had plenty of juice just in case. I ran Prime95 for 31mins small FFT because I didn't really know what to put that at, maybe I should use one of the other options (I dunno). Everything went smooth as silk and I ran Super PI 1M test and scored 13.271s which was a nice speed increase from 15.537s at stock

The plethora of options in this Bios have me somewhat bewildered so if theres any options anyone can suggest that I should turn off to assist me getting lower temps or higher clocks please do tell as I've only got a the couple as listed above disabled. I'm going to keep the volts the same and go for 425FSB.


Ambient room temp. (Cigarettes hurt Babies)


Hows those temps looking? Is that within the expected range for that OC?

[Alwaysrun]

Well I passed prime95 2 hours at 425 bus @ 1.2625vcore but then when I tried to shoot straight for 450 there was a long road of failures in the volt range from 1.2625 to 1.31250 to get it to work..Nada heh. It just seemed like it wanted a disproportianate amount of juice for that small little bit to crest over 4Ghz.

I had a big crash with a BSOD and once I had gotten into the Bios I went straight to the CPU voltage option and cranked it up to 1.32...Didn't check my other options as I assumed they'd still be the same..So anyways I got back into windows and fired up Prime95 again and let it run for 2 hours and passed. I then checked CPU-Z and I was throttled to 1999Mhz LOL! I guess that hard crash reverted all my Bios options, yeah sure enough I was back at default.

Lesson learned as now I fire up CPU-Z first b4 I do anything to make sure what I'm stress testing what I want. HAHA D'OH!

One thing thats puzzling me is why CPU-Z always says I'm using PC2-6400 ram? I was hoping because I have my ram set to auto it would just scale up on it's own. Anywho..I'm 1 hr into Prime95 at the 450 bus but my temps have sky rocketed to 65C and thats right on the button for a safe limit. Damn now I really wish I had gotten a EO stepping

[enaberif]

Cigarettes hurt babies AND computers.

In P95 what test are you doing? Blend or Small FFT?

In regards to your ram make sure you've set the speed properly as well as the timings and voltage.

[Alwaysrun]

Yey enaberif to the rescue! I'm using Small FFT. Ohh set the ram you say.. ok I'll set it to 1066 5-5-5-15 2.1v. Just finishing up a 2hr Prime here at 450x9 and it's gone almost 2hrs but the temps are a wee bit toasty at 67C (I thought my Vendetta 2 was gonna take a bigger bite out of the temps) at 1.32vcore seems a lil hot.

[matsta31]

Voltage increase will need to be bigger the farther you are O/cing. This is really not a linear relation. Your first GHZ of OC will require less juice than the last GHZ.

67 degree is a bit high for me to run 24/7, but some are confortable with it. Currently I have an e8400 under a vendetta2 at temperature of cores 50 C under full folding load with 1.34 v-core after v-droop. So, 65 C seems a bit hot.

How did you applied TIM ?

[Alwaysrun]

I thought I applied it very well. I got some on the underside of the vendetta between the heat pipe gaps and used a credit card to screen away any excess then I applied the right amount to the cpu itself. Here take a look.



Thats what it looked like after I reseated it the 2nd time. I didn't want to take a chance on doing a sloppy job, notice the good coverage and no spillover.

Bummer my Prime run crapped out

[matsta31]

Oops, time for some v-core increase. That 1.30 is with full load v-droop or idle ?

TIM seems good to me, are you using the push pin on the vendetta ? If so, make sure they are really secured. I personnaly took out the whole mobo to install the vendetta.

[Alwaysrun]

Well in the bios it's set to 1.32500 and that cpu-z readings at idle about 5mins after the 2nd core crapped out.

As for the Vendetta yeah I have the push pins in use and it seemed very stable and tight. I tried like hell to skrew the Thermalright LGA 775 bolt through kit I bought but for the life of me I couldn't get it to reach. Those 2 pictures I took show the backplate skrew holes for it but I think I got one bumm skrew cuz it just wouldn't fit.

*Edit and as you did I also installed the Vendetta with the mobo outside the case and made sure the pin shoulders were completely through the mount holes in the mobo underside. (excuse my lack of terminology here haha)