Overclocking help

[tzetsin]

Hello fine folks, i just want to say first off, i know a fair bit about computers,so dont be scared to get technical. ive built more than 20 computers for myself, friends and family, BUT they've always been "cheep as you can please" so i never worried much about matching high end componants, and as such never bothered to learn anything to do with overclocking. Thats recently changed, i decided that since most parts nowdays are so cheep i'd buy what i thought was a pretty great rig. Ive read the OC guides and decided that instead of me learning what all that jargon actually means, i'd put the question out here, and learn it later ;D Here are the specs:

ASUS P5K Deluxe
Q6600 2.4
640mb en8800gts
4x 1024 Crucial Ballistix 1066
antec truepower 550w

With all settings on Auto and just the FSB on manual i've gotten 3524 mhz stable @ 42°C under load with both vista and xp

Ive booted to bios up to 3.88ghz so i'm hoping that with manual tuning i'll be able to go a wee bit higher than 3.5ghz.

now, if this was YOUR rig, what would you do to try and get it higher? what should the settings for everything else be set at before tweeking it a little for more? Looking forward to your input THX :D

[Prof. Dr. Silver]

If this were my rig...I would be really happy! LOL

I would set my CPU to 9x400MHz (3.6GHz result)with the voltages a low as possible....at this speed it probably needs what...1.45V? What cooling are you using?
I would see if the Ballistix can run at 1066MHz on timings as low as possible e.g. 4-4-4-12 on standard voltages...2.2V
I would overclock the GPU to a comfortable level...is this on 'old' or new GTS?? Maybe 675/1600/950??

With all of this in mind....We like to run our systems as fast but also as stable as possible....without any concerns of stuff blowing up.... Leave some space for the benchmarks....

And you know what? 3.8GHz is a SUPER respectable OC....you got lucky there bro! If you could get it stable at 3.6 you're talking a nice clean 50% OC! Good luck to you!

[tzetsin]

ok, tried the ram timings, its running at 4 4 4 12, the rest auto, boots and seems to run fine, not too sure about the 1066 though, i cant find that number anywhere, perhaps because the board gives me differant memory speeds depending on what my fsb speed is at, or meby i'm looking in the wrong spot. about the gcard, im going to assume its the new one because i just bought it lol an it was at a reputable store that goes through stock like crazy so its definatly not been sitting on the shelf long, perhaps you could tell me how i can find out for sure. using riva tuner though ive got it clocked to 692/1602/1041 stable ran 3dmark 2006 and played crysis for a couple hours with no problems (is there a way to find out your framerate in crysis?)
orthos crashes pretty fast with a fsb of 400 (just shy of 3.6) even with the timings where they are now, do you think the crashes are memory related? am i correct in assuming that if i can boot and post at 3.88 then the processor "should" be able to run at 3.88 provided its cooled and no other parts of the system prevent it?
the system is air cooled, 120 mm fan in front, 90mm on the side 120mm exhast and a zalman CNPS9500AT cpu cooler. also if your not familiar with the asus p5k mobo, its got heatsinks/spreaders and pipes all over the place so its staying pretty much room temperature with no oc at idle, 42 full out at 3.52 so theres room to grow in the temp dept for sure thx for the reply, keep it coming :D

[Spblue]

Unfortunately, BIOS post test doesn't mean much for OC stability, as I found out recently. As long as you don't put some stress on your cpu, you won't know if your overclocking is successful. I can enter the BIOS at 4.2Ghz, but windows won't even boot at that speed (was just curious to see how high it'd go before crapping out, that's the highest I've tested mine).

One thing I can suggest for OC though, at first, test your cpu only, not both it and the ram at the same time. Otherwise you won't be able to know what the bottleneck is. Leave the ram settings at 5-5-5-15, ratio 1:1 at first and pump your fsb up. This will make sure that the ram runs well within spec, any orthos error you get will be caused by the cpu. Once you found your max cpu overclock, then you can tighten your ram settings and test for stability again.

Good luck!

[3.0charlie]

I have 2 Quads, and both run 24/7 @ 3.6GHz. I've managed to boot one at 4.2, but that was a suicide run. Now for your OC, 3.6GHz with a Quad under 50C on air is VERY respectable. You should be plenty happy with that. I would not try going higher 24/7, leaving yourself some headroom.

As for stability, run Prime 95 25.3 (XtremeSystems Forums - View Single Post - New Prime95 v25.3 Full Support for Dual/Quad Core + HardwareMonitor v4.3.1.2) to have all 4 cores at 100% - Orthos is using only 2 cores. Now you may see some higher temps. Max. is 1.45V and 60C for 24/7 use, under load. Leave the Ram out of the equation by running 1:1 ratio and 2.0V; oc it later, once your CPU is stable.

Use Coretemp to keep an eye on temps.

[magictorch]

Theres a useful guide here to help with navigating the bios on that board.
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...s-p5k-add.html

Once you break about 430FSB setting the NB bridge to 1.4v can help with stability (rather than blasting the cpu with too many volts). Not sure about quads though!!

[tzetsin]

Thanks for the great tips guys, i've got primes now instead of orthos, nice not having to worry about affinitys, and magic torch, awsome link! even my very own mobo an processor used in the tutorial, spblue, thx for the clarification on being able to post at higher speeds than is stable, now i wont be chasing that possible impossibility that i'll be able to actually reach 3.88.

Well, i've gone through the cpu oc part of the tutorial and i'm very sad to say, that even with tweeking i've not gotten it any faster, stable, than i had it before, though i'm not sad about getting a 2400 mhz cpu to 3524, i suppose this is just a testiment to asus's "auto" settings. Even changing the vcore from 1.32 to 1.4 wouldnt make the next fsb speed stable... just alot hotter, so i'm guessing that without modifying the cooling system thats about as much as i can sqeeze out of her.

[3.0charlie]

Play with it, learn the BIOS settings. It just may be not over yet!

[Spblue]

You mean you got to 3.5Ghz on stock cooler? That's pretty awesome. I thought you were using an aftermarket heatsink.

[3.0charlie]

No, he's using a Zalman 9500.