Hitting a FSB wall too early?

Stats:
Vista x64 Ultimate
Antec 900 Mid Tower Gamer Case
Corsair TX750W 750W
ASUS P5Q Pro LGA775 P45
Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer 4 Heatpipe Heatsink
Intel Core2 Quad 66000 [G0] 2.4GHZ @ 3.19GHZ [355 x 9 @ 1.4v]
OCZ Platinum XTC PC2-6400 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-800 CL5-4-4-15 V2.1
EVGA E-GEFORCE 9800GX2 600MHZ 1GB 2.0GHZ GDDR3
Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB

So I picked up my new Heatsink fan and started trying to overclock, I put everything on AUTO and tried the following...

400 fsb x 9 = BSOD
385 fsb x 9 = BSOD after seconds of loading Vista
365 fsb x 9 = BSOD after 2hrs in Prime 95. Crysis BSOD after 15mins, VCORE autos at 1.44v
355 fsb x 9 = STABLE after 10hrs of Prime 95 (blend), VCORE autos at 1.4v

Idle: CPU@23C MB@33C
Load: CPU@45C MB@38C

I wasn’t really expecting the 400x9 to work but I’m really surprised I couldn’t even hit 385 FSB for 3.4Ghz, almost ever overclock I’ve read about with this chip has attained 3.4GHZ. So I suspect perhaps I was doing something wrong, can anyone provide any advice?

Also, although I have the Q6600 Go revision it looks like i’ve got the ones with the high VID, its at 1.315v. I’m alos pretty sure this is why I can’t go higher because it puts the Voltage at over 1.4 and it gets unstable?

Can anyone provide some insight, I’m not overclocking my RAM at all while doing this, as far as I know.

Also, when sighting my CPU temp should i use the “CPU TEMP” or the highest core temp from one of the 4 cores?


Thanks,

Try increasing the MCH (AKA Northbridge) voltage. Don't overdo it though.

Ok, so for the Vcore, I tried to manually set it to like 1.45 which is the highest I want to go and couldn’t load into windows without a BSOD on anything below 365FSB. Personally I don’t feel I should need 1.4 for anything more than 3.4Ghz based on what other people are reading so thats whats confusing me.

Ya I was always curious as to what to take as the real CPU temp, the core of the “CPU temp”. If we’re using the warmest core then its.
Idle 37C – Load 61C.

I’m pretty sure my memory wasn’t linked to the CPU fsb because I had the divider on AUTO, which I believe defaults to the lowest. My motherboard doesn’t have a link/unlinked setting, you just select one of the mhz it offers you from a list based on the FSB, so I was never sure which one was linked or unlinked or what divider it translated into.

I also tried to set it to 800Mhz which is what the RAM is rated at I believe, im still a little hazy on the what speeds of FSB i should see in CPU-Z and the BIOS.

If you have DDR2-800 then setting it to "AUTO" will cause it to run at a 3:2 ratio with the FSB. When you set the FSB to 365MHz you are running your RAM at 1095MHz . This explains why you have to use a CAS latency of 5 and run your badass OCZ RAM at 2.1V. Use a 1:1 ratio (which should be labeled as 533MHz) with a FSB of 400MHz to get your RAM to run at 800MHz.

Perhaps you should google around for an overclocking guide or something.

Me and you have the same motherboard and proc. Im using the umm....1.2 BIOS I believe.

I currently have mine at 3.2ghz, dont feel the need to go any higher although I did run it at 3.6 for about 4 days with no BSOD's, but the heat was just too high, I was actually passing 71c.

To get 3.6 I had to push the voltage to about 1.48 which was absurd, and right now im running at 3.2ghz with the voltage set to 1.28, on a 1.3VID proc. I have it set as 400x8, memory at 1:1 obviously. This has by far given me the best results, best stability, and lowest temperatures.

Point of all that is, since you have the same exact board as me it might be a "guide" for you so to say. Your temps are a helluva lot lower than mine, but my PC is basically touching the ceiling in a preety damn hot room all year around.

did you try taking the multiplier to 8 when you upped the fsb? you should be able to hit 400 stable with 400x8

Is the processor or the northbridge (or both) running too hot? My E6750 was getting toasty at 3.2GHz until I undervolted it to 1.26V down from the stock 1.35V. Now it never gets above 40C and my system -never- crashes.

The northbridge is a different story; if I move the voltage up at all I can't even boot into Windows. Even on stock voltage that thing runs HOT at 400MHz. The P45 should be better about this though.

One more thing, I don't understand why you have to run your RAM at 5-4-4-15 with 2.1V. My G.Skill kit is a step down from what you have and I get 4-4-4-12 at 1.9V easy.

Oh well, a Q6600 at 3GHz is nothing to scoff at.

Hmm, I just saw "Platinum" and assumed it was some fancy stuff. Now that I've looked it up I'd say my G.Skill kit edges it out

So the bottom line is that this is the best I could come up with.

355 x 9.0 = 3.195Ghz.
All Voltages are on AUTO - VCore is reading at 1.4 – 1.41
RAM is running at 852Mhz @ 2.1 VCore

The funny thing is I tried to run Prime95 overnight with the VCore set to 1.4 instead of Auto and I woke up to a BSOD. I guess I can’t lower my Voltage from Auto.

All in all, I’m happy with 3.2Ghz, I’d just like to have my voltages on manual, the AUTO scares me.