Overclocking tips please?

[therealzebraman]

I know you get this alot, but your nice guys so your gonna help me. I need some tips on OCing my E6600 My specs are in the sig. I understand the basic idea of stepping the bus speed and multiplier, but I don't understand the voltages, and the memory speed, timing and memory voltages and what I need to do to them. I'm not looking to put my system on the edge, just want to get the best from my E6600 as it can get a much higher clock speed. Also what is the best (for a cheap price) CPU heatsink/fan available, the Zalman flower ones are out of the question as they would never clear my northbridge's heatsink. And, what is this about applying thermal compound as (I can't remember exactly lol) but doesn't the C2D already have 3 patches of thermal compound applied, or is it the stock heatsink. Finally, what temps are considered safe, I'm currently getting 35 deg on core 0 and 37-39 on core 1 just doing a few things, and I get about 39 deg core 0 and 44 on core 1 under load in games after running a long time (that's the highest I've seen them at).

Edit: I got 45 Core 0 and 48 Core 1 (highest reached) under SuperPi doing 32m.

[GunnerMan]

Your CPU gets its speed from a multiplier of the FSB. If your Multi is at 11 and your FSB is at 200 your CPU will hit 2.2 Ghz. The most common type of overclocking is increasing the FSB and thus forcing the cpu to operate faster. So if you set your FSB to 210 and your multi is at 11 your cpu clock will now be 2310 Mhz. Now after increasing your speed you may fnd your system becomes unstable, this can be because of the ram or the CPU. If it is the cpu giving the cpu more voltage will help stabilize the cpu.

Your ram runs at the same speed as the FSB so if my FSB is set to 200 my ram will run at 200 Mhz or DDR400. So when you OC your CPU you also OC your ram, ram works much like a cpu in OC, it requires more voltage when it reaches higher clocks. Also many ram companies have ther timings as tight as they can get them for stock speeds. A timing is just the time it takes for your ram to do one thing and move on to the next. So to do overclocking you need to loosen your timings and increase voltage. If you dont want to OC your ram for some reason or your ram hits its limit before the cpu you can make it run at a ratio to the cpu so it runs slower.

The best thing to start with is leave all of your settings at stock and raise your FSB say 2-5 Mhz and test stability. If it is stable increase a little more. Now when you reach the point of instability you need to start figuring out what is causing it, is it the cpu or is it the ram. Your best bet at first is to raise the voltage on the cpu and try again to see if it is stable, once you find increasing voltage isint working go to your ram and loosen the timings and increase the voltage on that. Hardcore overclocking and tweaking requires a LOT of trtial and error and many learn to clear their cmos with their eyes closed.  So like I said go slow and be patient, if not you WILL damage something. So try something if it dosent work try something else if that dosent work try them together. I hope I helped a tad but I was never the best at explaining. Also depending on your cooling etc its good not to pass much more than a .1 increase in voltage on the cpu unless you have great cooling and are ready to face the fact you might be replacing something. Ram can usually take about .3 voltage increase safely. Don't let your CPU go over 60C full load, last I checked 70C was the damage point for cpus

[therealzebraman]

Thanks alot. I've dipped my toes as I have just OCed my graphics card, Ive gone from 500/1400 to 550/1600 and seems stable. I got to 550 no prob, then doing the memory I got to 850 and it froze first run through 3dMark06, so I dropped back to a nice round 800. My score from 3dmark06 (demo version) went up from 4081 to 4350 and it runs through nicely and no problems with games. Another Q, is there something in the bios that can be enabled that steps voltages and RAM details automatically (thought there was something like that)? As I said I'm not looking to put my system on edge, just to get the best from it while giving it a long life and rock solid stability. And finally what is a good idol temp for my CPU, and what clocks can I achieve on the Intel cooler?

[volunteer]

I got the same set up as you. If you go into BIOS - advance settings you will see a 20% auto overclocking setting. Go for it! Thats all i do! I did try higher - but the system became unstable and it didn't help with FSX anyway.

If you really want to explore - go to NVidia and down load the latest NTune

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/ntune_5.05.25.00_uk.html

- then you can use it to play up th settings - either automatically
or DIY.

I did not thnk it made much difference to the FSX  - so left mine on 10% auto over clock.

FSX is greedy with its water  -so I set my water settings to fairly low and i get 20 frames with full scenery density and most settings high.

Very happy with the computer.

Good luck!
volunteer

[volunteer]

Oh, my computer averages between 38 degrees to 45 degrees on the chip.
And 30 on the mother board chippies, average.

I use the Intel chippy cooling fan and have 120 mm fan bolted on the side of the case which blows on to it.

Its the quietest computer in the house! But I plan to add another case fan to the side  -just a cheapy and whack another hole to the side of the case for it. I think what makes case fans noisy is when they struggle against a restrictive case grill. So opening up the fan holes made a massive difference to the noise. The case is also covered in foam on the inside to deaden any sound. Opening up the air flow also dropped the tempretures down quite alot. I was planning to get a better chip cooler - not bothered now!

Intel recommend 39 degrees as a safe tempreture for its chippies - but anything under 50 is okay, i am lead to believe.

Its a good motherboard this one  -cheap and fast and reliable. I did update the bIOS - but it is no better than the stock one 0202.

[therealzebraman]

Thanks guys. I looked at the BIOS a bit more today and found that Auto overclock thing. I'm going to use it now. I'm D/Ling NTune now for a little look see. What do you reckon I can get from stock intel fan, case with relatively good cooling (idles at 35/37, gets to 43/45 max in games).

[therealzebraman]

Ok, I tried the 5% percent overclock, but it links the memory and I didn't want to OC my memory for the moment. So I went into the BIOS and did manual settings to get 2.61ghz, and used a FSB of 289, multiplier 9 still, memory unlinked and unchanged at 800mhz. Whenever I load my PC up with those settings it freezes shortly after loading Windows, and that only appears to happen after I have set NTune up to load my profile which only includes a GPU overclock that was running smoothly, and it freezes about the time NTune would say it has loaded my profile. Whats going on, is Ntune conflicting with the BIOS settings of my CPU, as I have a profile saved that it loads on start up with only a GPU OC, is it loading the CPU settings from my NTune profile (which are at stock in NTune but OCed in BIOS) and conflicting with what the BIOS has set the CPU to on start up. Is it best to just use NTune and leave the BIOS alone, so I just save a profile in NTune with all my overclocks, like GPU and CPU, whilst leaving everything else the same? Finally, what is the danger of overclocking my memory, and what are the benefits, and how can I tell if it is stable (perhaps a good all round system test, I tried the NTune stability test but don't know what to make of the results, should all the cycle amounts match to show if one component lagged behind and dropped some cycles or something) and what speeds I can reach? Thanks.

Edit:I did also OC my graphics card to 600/800, NTune suggested 603 and 841 but using any higher than 800mhz on the memory my GFX card became unstable and froze. It did load a 573 and I think it was 800mhz profile settings, but I think I may have selected the baseline profile or whatever it is, and not one that I had saved (said that because I thought after the freeze it was something to do with the GFX card and NTune had reverted to safe settings that worked).

[therealzebraman]

Ok, I've played around with NTune but my system is getting too hot. It reached 50 on one core for a few seconds finishing off a run of superpi clocked at just 2.5ghz. The system had been on all day and the radiator near it was boiling but it shoulfn;t have reached 50 and so quickly. Thanks for your tips, but I'm now sure I need better CPU cooling (and money to buy it).

[therealzebraman]

Ok, I've had it at 2.6ghz with the memory at 867mhz, but it crashes under load. What is the best way to root out the problem, it shouldn't be temps as it runs at about 42 one core and 46 the other under stress, which is not much above what it runs at stock speeds. Is it something simple like increasing the voltages (or is the clock too low to need to do that?) or is it something like my memory failing.  What is a good way to find out? Anyway thanks so far for the help, you got me into overclocking, I'm just finding it very confusing to understand memory timings and voltages at the moment.

[GunnerMan]

Ok my first question, how can you figure the temps of both cores? They are linked in one cpu and therefore so close to eachother there is no way you can have that much heat difference unless Intel has some weird stuff going on...

Anyway this is where an overclock starts to become a challenege. Now I am assuming you hit all of these clocks on stock voltages and timings... what is the crash is it a blue screen or does it just reboot.
Now lets make a list of things that can hold back an overclock: Your CPU(of course), your ram, your FSB, your chipset, your heat. Since it sounds like you can throttle the cpu without OC the ram then leave the ram at stock, ram can be VERY complicated to overclock and should be done last. Trying to OC two things at once tripples your problems... now set your ram back to stock and run superpi 32M, if it passes then you know it is probably your ram. So you can continue to overclock your cpu... now when you have OC your cpu and you start to crash you know it is your cpu(or fsb/chipset) because your ram is running at stock being happy..so now it is time to raise your CPU voltage. Raise it in very small increments like .025 and try and go further and repeat. Now when you find you have reached the limit of voltage you are willing to go should be around 1.5 volts on air id think for Intel? or things just get too hot then you have reached your "operational" limit. (If you think your cpu can go farther and something else is stoping it raising voltage to the chipset or fsb may stabilise them and help your clocks.)


A few must read tips:
!. Increasing voltage is the fastest way to make things really hot, be very careful of your temps when increasing ANY voltages, especially on stock cooling.
2. Don't mess with anything you don't know what it does, easyest way to make things smoke.
3. Finding the right BIOS is key to a max oc.
4. Last but not least ask first act later, if you act first you might not be able to ask later