bobazappala

Hi Guys,

First off I’m still a bit of a newbie when it comes to overclocking. I have been playing around with basic Bios settings and reading guides for about a month and now believe I’m ready for some more advanced stuff.

So far I have overclocked my Intel Core 2 Quad Q9950 to 3.77GHz and got it stable but if I push it any further the computer refuses to POST. Now I know all CPUs aren’t equal and some can’t go as fast as others but everything I have done up until this point has been done on Auto voltages so I believe there is still some room to keep going.

It would be really nice to get to at least 4.0Ghz stable and with minimum heat production. I have also noticed that with my voltages left on auto there is probably a fair bit of wasted power as well.

So my question is what is a safe place to start modifying my voltages? And are all my current bios settings well tuned for what I’m trying to do?


My Current System Specs
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3.775GHz (444 x 8.5)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 (Rev 1.3)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5
CPU Cooler: Blue Orb II
Memory: 2 x 2GB G. Skill 1066mHz (F2-8500CL5-2GBPI) (5-5-5-15)
Graphics Cards: 2 x HIS Radeon HD 4890 Turbo’s (OC’ed version) in CrossfireX
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-2014L1T DVD Burner
Hard Drives: 2 x Samsung HD753LJ 750GB Hard Drives in RAID 0
Power Supply Unit: Antec Quattro 1000 Watt PSU
Case: Antec Skeleton

3DMark Vantage Score: 16956

Voltages Ranges
Well from what I've read on the Intel and G Skill sites my CPU can function between 0.85v - 1.3625v and my memory's range is 2.0v - 2.1v



















Temps at Idle



Temps after running Prime95 for 5mins

RyanRacer48

First off .. you need to run 6-24 hours to be considered stable.

Anybody and their mother can get a cpu to post at a overclocked speed.

Pretty much in terms of your voltages .. Dont go above 1.4- 1.5 to your CPU .. dont turn on any Extra voltage feature like Load line calibration or anything.

Keep your MCH/ICH at like 1.3- 1.5 depending on chipset cooling.

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Slider46

@ OP - I'd seriously drop those voltages to around 1.4 at the max - that E0 chip doesn't need that much voltage.

@ RyanRacer - I think "Stable" is defined differently for each person and their needs. For the person who encodes or renders with their PC - sure, a 24-hour stability test is pretty necessary.

For someone who just runs games and maybe a few other tasks I think a 2 hour test is fine. In most cases the stress test is much more stressful than the actual gaming.

My

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ericeod

I would set the G(MCH) to 1.54v since the X48 is designed to take 1.65v, and maxes out at 1.75v. Then set your FSB overvoltage to 1.28v. anything above 1.38v is uneccessary. Finally, drop the vcore way down. It will not last long at that voltage at all. The recommended safe voltage for the 45nm chips is 1.3625v. I never ran my Q9650 above that ever.

I have a thread linked below in my sig for the ASUS X48 boards (ASUS P5E/Maximus Thread). The difference in bios settings is as follows. In the ASUS bios, NB is G(MCH), FSB Termination Voltage is FSB Overvoltage.

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eVGA 680i Overclocking guide .......... ASUS P5E/Maximus Thread.......... 4.4GHz CPU-Z

RyanRacer48

Real quick point too, you shouldn't be overclocking anymore w/ those temps. You need to invest in some better cooling for that CPU. I'd NEVER push an overclock further w/ a temp of higher than 70.

You need to take into consideration if its a new PC there is NO dust build up in your heatsink. That overclock that you've gotten "stable" now, may not be stable once you've got some higher temps. Just a suggestion.








I agree 100%.

I dont do video encoding or rendering however I am a competitive league style gamer whether it be racing or FPS. I have this issue where if my computer were to randomly crash due to not being 100% stable, it wouldn't happen during one of my 3 am open server races that i dont care about. My computer would crash on the last lap of the race that determines whether or not I win the championship.

That being said, I'll gladly take a few hundred MHZ less of an overclock for the piece of mind that its as stable as stock. In my eyes its not a sucessful overclock until its just that. Again thats just my opinion.

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RyanRacer48

In response to what I bolded.

What in the heck are you talking about, that electron migration that takes place on a chip definitely is accelerated by overclocking but I highly doubt an overclocker will be still need this already dated cpu in 5-10 years.

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bobazappala

Actually I only just noticed the AUTO voltage settings set by my motherboard have pushed my Vcore in CPU-Z up to 1.552v :O Geeze im lucky i didnt burn my chip out. Hopefully I didn't do any low term damage to it.

Just switched all voltage settings to the lowest manual setting and dropped my CPU Frequency back to 333MHz. Back to square one i believe

ericeod

he is running his 45nm chip at 1.55v vcore. That is grossly overvolted, especially for only 3.7GHz. He also has LLC enabled. I have seen chips running 1.45v with LLC enabled, die in only a few weeks. Robilar can vouche for this since it happened to him, as well as others here on this site, extremeoverclocking and XS.

I am not talking about a few years off the chip, I am tralking about it only lasting a few months, and probably wouldnt be able to maintain an OC on that chip for very long.

If you look at his voltages, all are set to auto except vcore. That shows he is just increasing vcore to get the system stable, so he really needs to drop the vcore down and adjust other voltages. I gave him recomendations on voltage settings. I

With all due respect, instead of posting in reguards to my post, please offer the OP something helpful. Give him some settings to try, facts about OCing, or even some info about his chipset, CPU or ram.

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eVGA 680i Overclocking guide .......... ASUS P5E/Maximus Thread.......... 4.4GHz CPU-Z

Slider46

In this case I too would be wanting that 100% stability

*EDIT

In reference to extreme overclocking and overvolting - from my personal experience:

E7200 (45nm) ran for months at 3.75Ghz with 1.37-1.40Vcore.

Benched at 4.0Ghz with 1.46Vcore numerous times (bench stable - not stress stable)
Tried to boot at 4.0Ghz with 1.60vcore (to try and stress test) - killed the CPU.

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Tweex

I think I see an issue but not sure as you havent filled out your system info. What kind of RAM are you running?? Is it rated at 800mhz or 1066? If it is 800 you need to drop your system memory multiplier till you get it as close as you can to 800...preferably not going over 800. Also, as already stated for the love of god drop your vcore down lower than 1.4 unless you are on water than maybe 1.42-1.44v but that is up to the individual overclocker.

Also, if your temps go over 70c that is bad. Granted prime puts your system through hell and back but either get a better heatsink or look into a water setup.

If you can up your multiplier to 9x and change the CPU host Freq. You may just be hitting a FSB wall on that board. Change you PCI Express Freq from 100 to 101. It helps sometimes with stability.

And last I have a question for you....Why does you Core Temps differ so much? Your Core 0 is running at 38c and Core 3 is at 51c idle....check to make sure you have a good seat with your heatsink. Maybe clean it up and reapply the TIM and re seat the heatsink.

Keep me updated.

EDIT: Also get off the Auto settings it will throw a monkey wrench in your OC.

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Q9650 Club