Q6600 wont overclock

[Hatman]

Right, I just dont get why it wont so im going to post, this is btw my first time with Intel.

It just cannot get it to overclock, whether I put vcore to 1.4v, FSB vcore to 1.3v and only up the CPU speed to 2700 it just wont get into windows.

I'm seriously out of ideas, I thought I knew all the things that should be turned off but I guess I might not.

Can someone list them for me please or any other suggestions, I use award bios on a XFX 680i LT. It is by no means a low end board.

Thanks.

 

[FarFarAway]

Tried dividing the memory? What frequency does it run?

 

[koganinja]

hope they donrt have the fault like the evga ar boards had

 

[Hatman]

Memory is OCZ SLI Memory PC2-6400

I set timings to 5-5-5-15-2T after it wouldn't work the first time, they made no difference. SLI Memory is currently disabled in the BIOS, but Ill be trying it out tomorrow, still shouldn't make a difference.

Theres a few things I got, like BIOS, should that be set to cacheable or non-cacheable?

 

[PV5150]

That memory should be good for 3.6Ghz (4:5 divider) on any given day, and should do 2.7Ghz no problems at 1:1 (ddr2-533). Are the EPP profiles showing up in the bios? EPP's are designed to make overclocking easier for the new to intermediate user by providing overclock settings straight out of the box. Make sure too that your heatsink can handle the heat-load of a quad-core as they get quite toasty.

I'm not familiar with the 680i bios but there are a couple of owners on here that do so they should be able to assist you further. Lemme have a look about to familiarise myself and I'll post back here later.

 

[koganinja]

First make sure ur up on bios version 30 secound check ur board model on the manfacture site and make sure there is no updated board on there has with evga the had a fault on the voltage streams hence you coudent over clock the quads above 1300 fsb and on some bad ones woudent post at all hope this helps

 

[Hatman]

koganinja was the first thing I checked, as far as I can find anywhere im using the latest BIOS and latest chipset drivers. 15.08

Right, what i just did seems to have worked, I put the voltages all to levels I wanted and waiting 1min in the BIOS before and after doing it, then I saved it and reset and then went into BIOS again, waited 1min, put it to how it should be, then waited 1minute and then reset.

For some odd reason w/e I did seems to have worked, its running fine at 3ghz.

I've just reseated the HSF and put new thermal paste on it aswell, atm its running at 1.288VCORE which is quite high but for the moment I daren't mess with it since it actually works! For now..

3dmark06 score = 9738, up 500 or so points I believe.

Thanks guys, now, onto the GPU

edit: well so much for that, it went unstable after I posted that. Mad processor lol.

I wondered right, I'm using Vista 64bit, so the CPU is likely working different to using something like XP, could that be causing all these problems? Either way I'm going back to XP until SP1 comes out for vista, its limiting the performance of my 7950GX2 way too much for my liking.

 

[Hatman]

Im an idiot, went on XFX site and found a BIOS update in an obscure place, cant beilieve I didnt see it before.

So far running stable at 3.2ghz each core of the quad, 1600mhz FSB, 800mhz memory.

1.32v CPU, 1.3v FSB, 1.3v Chipset, 2v Memory.

SpeedFan Temps are 37degrees for the PCU on idle, Cores are 23/20/18/20. But are really 38/35/33/35. So all in all, pretty damn good!

 

[PV5150]

What does Core Temp 0.95.4 beta say about your temps? I'd be taking its temperature readings as closer to the mark than SF at the moment.

 

[Hatman]

Core Temp doesnt work on my vista 64, just get continuous pop up boxes.

 

[Pyr0]

unfortunately (for some of us) with the latest vista x64 updates, the option to permanently disable the driver signing has been removed

you can disable it each time you reboot still though

when you reboot, press f8 for the vista boot options and choose the last option to disable the signed driver requirement (can't remember the exact wording)

coretemp should now work in vista 64 (at least until you reboot again)

there is another method which does not require you to press F8 at each boot, where you enable test signing and sign your own drivers with a test certificate, but you do get a watermark on the desktop to say it is in test mode (although these can be removed by replacing a few edited files):

http://depositfiles.com/en/files/1512543

 

[Hatman]

Temp at 1.28vcore and 3200mhz comes out at about 55 under load for the CPU and 59 for the hottest core, and its still a bit unstable.

Intels thermal specification is 71degrees, does that mena its safe for anything up to 71degrees?

Anyone got any recommendations on how hot it should be at MAX?

Thanks.

 

[Uncle_Fluffy]

My Q6600 folds about 15 hours a day at 3.2GHz (1.4125 vcore) and the temps are pretty steady at 57°, 58°, 66° and 68°. This should lower a bit when my FuZion arrives.

 

[Hatman]

Well I backed it down to 9x 335 for 3ghz. Running at 1.26vcore stable. Memory is 335mhz at 4-4-4-12-23-1T. Idle temps are 34degrees for each core, load temps are just over 50. Thermal paste is still burning in though, it'll get better