Why the fawk won't my new computer overclock

[Nerf]

Ok..I'm at a total fucking loss here and starting to get frustrated, bumping the FSB even 5 points in the bios and it won't fully boot windows (vista home premium 64).  It will start to load programs, and somewhere in between steam and whatever the hell else it loads, full system lockup.

Specs:

2gb Corsair Domiantor 800mhz
XFX 680iLT mobo
Intel Core2Duo E6750 2.66ghz processor
630watt power supply
8600GT 512mb video card
1/2TB HD (2 256's) in a striped raid array

What the fuck am I doing wrong? Ntune won't touch the fsb for some reason, and if I try to bump up the FSB AT ALL in bios it won't finish booting.

HALP!

[Trippy]

What are your temps? Try it with only one stick of memory (try both individually assuming you have a pair of 1 GBs). What kind of cooler do you have on your CPU?

[Nerf]

CPU cooler is a zerotherm with a big ass fan and some big ol copper tubes, it's pretty money.

It's not a heat problem though, the temps never get above 57C even when doing a 100% cpu load test.

Havn't tried only one stick of ram yet, we had previously been trying to do it with 4gb of pny 667mhz ram, and thought the el-cheapo shitty ram could be an issue so tossed in the dominator.  Havn't tried with just 1 stick yet but I don't think vista would appreciate only 1gb of ram.

[Ookii]

CPU cooler is a zerotherm with a big ass fan and some big ol copper tubes, it's pretty money.

It's not a heat problem though, the temps never get above 57C even when doing a 100% cpu load test.

Havn't tried only one stick of ram yet, we had previously been trying to do it with 4gb of pny 667mhz ram, and thought the el-cheapo shitty ram could be an issue so tossed in the dominator.  Havn't tried with just 1 stick yet but I don't think vista would appreciate only 1gb of ram.

Well if the hardware isn't suspect try the software, what happens when you boot into safemode with it overclocked?  Is something starting up with Windows crapping out for some odd reason?

[Trippy]

CPU cooler is a zerotherm with a big ass fan and some big ol copper tubes, it's pretty money.

It's not a heat problem though, the temps never get above 57C even when doing a 100% cpu load test.

What about your other temps?

What are your voltages set to?

[Nerf]

crashes with voltage set from 1.13 all the way to 1.35.

The odd thing is that the box for the cpu says voltage stock should be 1.35, but if we set the cpu voltage to auto in bios it sets it to 1.4, so we're at a loss, thinking it may be mobo and sent off a help request to XFX.

Voltage currently set at 1.13 with stock 1333mhz FSB for a total 2.66ghz speed, try to bump the fsb to 1335 even and its a no-go, will try safemode shortly.
Video card temp sits around 57C under load.

[Nerf]

Ok, just double checked hardware monitor - current temps (not under load)
CPU - 34C
Core1-34C
Core2-34C
Voltage - 1.32 (Set in BIOS as 1.1, current value shows as 1.08)

[Trippy]

Okay I'm confused. The 1333 MHz FSB is derived from the 333 MHz base bus speed multiplied by 4. Bumping up the FSB by 5 MHz doesn't even make sense since it's not evenly divisible by 4 though looking at the manual I don't see anything that let's you adjust the real base bus speed so that's how they must do it these days (I haven't OC'd since the Athlon XP days).

Is your memory bus speed linked or unlinked when you try to OC? What's the temp on your MB chipset?

I'd actually leave your CPU voltage at 1.4V or even higher and try the OC at that. What's the memory voltage set to? What are the memory timings set to?

[Nerf]

You're right on not being able to adjust the real base speed Apparently you can adjust the fsb base as well, but we tried that too and it didn't work. We're thinking bad mobo and are going to swap CPUs this afternoon (have 2 computers with different chips, same mobo)

On the overclocking forums, someone with my board/chip got up to 3.8ghz at 1.39v, vram to 2.4v, fsb to 475, so I'm at a loss.

Memory is unlinked, and like I said, I highly doubt it's a temperate issue, temps are running low.

[Ookii]

Well it seems as if something is trying to tell you there is absolutely no reason you need to overlock your computer, it's already fast as it is.

Overclocking is the computing equivalent of sticking a gigantic spoiler on your car.

[Trippy]

Not when you can easily go from 2.6 GHz to 3.6 GHz with air cooling and moderate voltages.

[Nija]

Plunk around on this article. http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_680_lt/7.htm

You generally have to lower the multiplier, change the memory timings to 5/4, and crank the FSB way up.


When I built my system back in April, I was extremely lazy so I just looked for a good OC guide and bought the exact hardware listed. This is the thread I used, which has tons of info. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1169366

Also, you can probably get some further info from this forum itself. HardOCP's Intel Mobo Forum.

[WayAbvPar]

Can someone explain why people overclock? Isn't it harder on the hardware, and just easier to spend an extra $20-$50 to get the next highest card/proc to do the same thing?

[bhodi]

Can someone explain why people overclock? Isn't it harder on the hardware, and just easier to spend an extra $20-$50 to get the next highest card/proc to do the same thing?

Sometimes you can spend the extra and it doesn't make sense; sometimes you don't care about making it harder on the hardware if you upgrade once a year anyway, and sometimes you just like the thrill of tweaking to get every last ounce of power out of your system.

Generally, you're at your limit (or over) when you buy a computer anyway, or don't have the funds and are trying to run that new game. Overclocking is free and can be done with the next better chip/device to get even more, too.

[Slayerik]

When you overclock, your memory timing may probably will need tweaking. From my experience with overclocking the proc, my timings got worse. I'm not a big overclocking guy, and plus I use the very user friendly ASUS boards.

Possibly check for BIOS updates as well for that mobo.

EDIT: Like some others said though, that machine is plenty beastly. But, I used to overclock just for better 3dmark scores so I'm not one to judge.

[Nerf]

Well whats upsetting me is the old man is getting a 10k+ 3dmark score while I'm hovering just under 5, and my pc is actually faster save for his 340mb8800 card vs my 512mb8600, I should be able to get an extra ghz out while still at a lower voltage than was set using auto in bios, still havn't done the cpu swap to see if its mobo or cpu yet, doing some home improvement stuff around the house today.

[Nija]

Can someone explain why people overclock? Isn't it harder on the hardware, and just easier to spend an extra $20-$50 to get the next highest card/proc to do the same thing?

What? No.

What's hard on hardware is heat. With correct cooling, or with the core2duo processors, STOCK COOLING, you can push the chip 800-1000 mhz further.

My e6600 has been at 3.2 within 5 minutes of the first boot. People have got them to 3.6 on air cooling, but I just run a nice thermalright heatsink with no fan at all. That's right. I just run a duct to the rear fan and that's it.

Anyways, the stock clock on an e6600 is what? 2.4 ghz? What's the price difference between 2.4 and 3.2? Do they even offer a 3.2 yet?

[Sky]

I could only get 3 or 3.2 on my e6600, too. I was hoping for 3.6. I've got plenty of headroom on my RAM, I overspecced it because it was on sale that day. But I only run at stock speeds because it's pretty damned fast. I remember reading something about it being a toss-up between FSB and latencies for RAM, so I'm running at low latency (4-4-4-something) but 800 fsb.

I figure I always have that headroom if I need it at some point.

[Trippy]

Well whats upsetting me is the old man is getting a 10k+ 3dmark score while I'm hovering just under 5, and my pc is actually faster save for his 340mb8800 card vs my 512mb8600, I should be able to get an extra ghz out while still at a lower voltage than was set using auto in bios, still havn't done the cpu swap to see if its mobo or cpu yet, doing some home improvement stuff around the house today.

The 8600 is substantially less powerful than the 8800. It's not like the old 6600 GT vs 6800 GT.

[schild]

I got higher than 5k on my E6600 with the 8600GTS.

Not overclocked.

[Nerf]

Was at like 4800 with 2gb of corsair dominator & unclocked processor, not sure how you got 5k short of some threatening 3dmark with some jew-curse

[MahrinSkel]

Overclocking being worth it goes in and out depending on the particulars of hardware.  Sometimes you can't get enough of a boost to be worth mentioning without insanely intricate cooling metthods, sometimes you can get a big performance boost with nothing but BIOS tweaks.  Right now, it's definitely like the first wave of overclocking, when we cranked our 300MHz Celeron's to 450 just by adding oversized heat exchangers.

I'm not playing anything on my PC these days that needs it, and I've already got PCIe 6800's in an SLI rig, so I'm not bothering this time around.  Over the next few years as I need more oomph I'll upgrade the CPU and cards.  It's not worth either the expense or lost service life to break 10K on 3DMark right now (I'm getting 8700 on defaults, could take it over 10K with just new cards which is where I max out with overclocking).  The wife bought me a gaming rig for Christmas, so other than incremental upgrades I'm set for a while.

Most of it is just peen-waving, hot-rodding for geeks.

--Dave

[Engels]

I just Oc'd my rig this weekend, inspired in part by this post.

Using the factory default fan on the CPU, I got my E6750 from 2.6 to 3.0 with a marginal temp gain.

At idle at 2.6 the temp was 28
At load at 2.6 the temp was 38
at idle at 3.0 the temp was 34
At load at 3.0 the temp was 44

That's a 6 degree gain over all, which seems good for a .4 GHz gain, and well below the shut off of the intel's official shut off at 70 degrees. There was no need to change the voltages either. I ran Prime95 for about 30 minutes and then played the heck out of Hellgate without a hitch.

The cool thing about my Gigabyte board (P35-DS3R) is that it automatically knocks the multiplier down from 8 to 6 when the machine's not under load. The uncool thing about it is that it seems that Gigabyte doesn't let you change the multiplier other than from 6 to 8. You can jack up the FSB all you want, at your own peril, but not the multiplier. I hear that this is a poor way to OC, and that if possible, you should knock down the FSB and increase the multiplier, but I haven't done any benchmarking to see.

[Trippy]

Unless you get the Extreme versions the multiplier is always locked (and no penciling in trace lines on this CPU!). Going from 8 to 6 is part of the CPU's SpeedStep system, borrowed from their laptop CPUs.

[Ookii]

An oldie but a goodie for you overclockers.

[Engels]

Unless you get the Extreme versions the multiplier is always locked (and no penciling in trace lines on this CPU!). Going from 8 to 6 is part of the CPU's SpeedStep system, borrowed from their laptop CPUs.

Ok, so its not my MoBo, but my CPU itself locking the multiplier to 6-8? How lame is that!?

[Nerf]

Odd, my system is sitting at 34C idle @ 2.66ghz, what kind of cpu cooler and what voltages are you running engels?

CPUID Hardware monitor is the program I use to check values.

1.32V atm (auto)

[Engels]

I'm running the factory fan, nothing else. I'm not messing with the voltages either, leaving them at auto settings. One thing that may be helping me out a lot is that right next to the CPU fan, I have a 12 cm fan blowing the air off the top of the CPU fan, providing a steady stream of outside air. I also have a 12 cm fan on the front, blowing the hot air from the 4 hard drives out of the box instead of letting that head permeate the inside of the case.

Additionally, as Trippy mentioned, my CPU or Motherboard, not sure which, has the function of kicking the multiplier down from 8 to 6 when its not under load. That means that at idle, a CPU set at 2.66 is actually operating at around 2.0 (-(2x333))

Are you using an aftermarket fan? If so, it may be a simple matter of misapplied thermal paste. There are some threads from yesteryear with AMPLE data on how to apply thermal paste correctly. Its one of those ubernerd topics of discussion that gets us all hot and bothered.

[Nija]

You can change multiplier on gigabyte boards. You just have to enable the advanced menu in bios. I think it's CTRL F1 or something along those lines.

[Engels]

Its a bit confusing, since the all but the early bios versions you do have to do CRTL-F1 to get into advanced config. The latest bios, however, lets you do a bunch of stuff, including memory tweaking and FSB changes, so I thought they'd taken away the secret CRTL-F1. I'll try it when I get home.

[Nija]

Oh, you're probably right then. I've not stepped up to a P35 yet.

[Nija]

I think this thread jinxed me as my PC wouldn't boot at first today, and reset to factory bios settings so I had to go through it all again.

Anyways, my E6600 on a gigabyte 965P-DS3 v2 can do 6x up to 9x. I'm currently at 8x400, with the multipler being 2.0 for 800 mhz fsb even. Which comes out to 3200 mhz. I have my memory bumped up +.3V, and everything else +.1V with my CPU being at 1.344V.

[Engels]

What temps are you getting at 3.2? Mine were hovering around 36 idle, 46-49 load, so I decided just to quick fucking about and go back to factory, since to be honest, I haven't played a game yet where I could really tell it was improving things.

[Nija]

33 C idle, 48 C while playing TF2, and 55 C when doing Orthos.

[Engels]

About the same as mine then. Btw, what's Orthos?