Schnap! Very nice! :D
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Schnap! Very nice! :D
Yep. I am a noob. I thought 2.95Ghz was the top stable overclock for my CPU.
So, as it turns out, my motherboard BIOS has a setting called "SPP Voltage". It appears to tweak the voltage going to the northbridge / southbridge. Once I started tweaking that, it was like the floodgates opened. FSB overclock just kept going and going and going.
End result was, I got an extra 700Mhz out of the CPU. Final stable overclock speed is 3.65Ghz at 1.5875V.
DAMN. what is the default clock of your cpu anyway?Quote:
Originally Posted by kent1146
I'm a Noob too and got my e6600 to 3.2ghz (default of 2.4 ghz)
here's my bios screenshot. can you show me your bios shots? because other than just upping the FSB I don't know what else to set.
https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/...2008/03/73.jpg
Rimmerchant-
Default clock is 2.13Ghz at 266Mhz FSB.
Some things I had to do during the overclock:
1) Keep my FSB and Memory clocks unlinked. Memory was at 800Mhz for the entire overclocking process.
2) Cranked up FSB 10Mhz at a time until computer would not POST. Then start cranking up the voltages until computer would POST. Then start cranking FSB up again until computer wouldn't POST, etc. Repeat until you are at max voltage.
3) Then start cranking FSB back down until computer will POST, boot into Windows, and run 3DMark06 without crashing. If this works, burn it in for stability over SuperPi for several hours. Then start cranking down the voltages until it will run 3DMark06 and SuperPi without crashing.
4) Come to sharky's and brag about it.
Before I overclocked, I also used a nice aftermarket CPU cooler, lapped (polished) the cooler with sandpaper and metal polish, and applied a nice fresh coat of Arctic Silver 5. I'd like to think that the extra money and time I put into this process made a difference (but I have no idea if it did or not).
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4539/pict2412sb2.jpg
This is my FSB clock adjustment. The rating of 1825 is quad data rate, and represents FSB of 456Mhz.
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/6553/pict2414wr1.jpg
Voltages that I tweaked. Represents +0.2375V CPU increase, +0.2V FSB increase, +0.2V SPP increase (equivalent to your MCH setting). Also has a 0.3V increase on the DDR2 memory, but that is not related to CPU overclock.
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5985/pict2415gk9.jpg
System Monitor shot, showing final voltages and CPU temp. CPU temp represents temps under load after 3-hour SuperPi, then immediately rebooting and coming to this screen.
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/8722/pict2413jv0.jpg
Memory tweaking after I got the CPU stable. Left memory at 800Mhz, but changed timings to 4-4-4-12.
So if you want to try and tweak your settings, I'd recommend that you try the steps I used, of cranking up FSB/Voltages until your system won't post, then cranking them back down until your system is stable. Make sure that you have enough CPU cooling while you're doing this.
And I would bring the PCIe bus clock back down to 100Mhz. I read somewhere it doesn't speed up your graphics card (GPU core and memory clocks do, not PCIe bus clock), and risks damage to the card.
hmm... pcie bus 100mhz.. maybe that's why my oblivion crash..Quote:
Originally Posted by kent1146
can't rememeber where I read it but my specific card and mobo seems to run good on 102bus pcie..
hmm, your cpu core is at 1.587
I though I read in the c2d manual that it will hold max of 1.5 or it will go bad...
It's possible.
But it's moot... 3.65Ghz wasn't stable. Crashed after a few hours of SuperPi. Clocked it down to 3.6Ghz at 1.5V, and gonna see if I can bring the voltage down even further.
ahh screw it, I messed around with it for about 20-25 minutes
and can't get it to run stable at 3.4 or 3.6 ghz.
It's probably and my inexperience and impatience.
to tell ya the truth I really don't know what I was doing.
I got my 3.2ghz OC by following this guide.
A Guide to Gigabyte P965 Overclocking and BIOS Tweaks
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1169366
it's rock solid at 3.2 ghz so I'm just going to leave it alone and not be greedy. don't want to damage my equpment since I do some work with it.
I love the look of the case. Are you happy with it?
kent, i love your clean build - you clearly took some time with it and it looks fabulous!
Question: how did you decide on the Tuniq Tower 120?
I was having a tough time deciding between the TT120, the Thermaltake Ultra-120 Extreme and the Scythe Infinity. I liked how the TT has the fan knob controller, though. Really tough time deciding. The online reviews, of course, are quite conflicting.
I ended up just going with the Thermalright Ultra-12 Extreme because 1) it's not as wide as others (hopefully allowing better air flow), 2) i can choose the fan to go with it, so I went with this amazing-spec fan. Now let's just hope it performs to spec.
Now, I realize that my thought process was all wrong. Most of these coolers that have 120mm fans allow you to replace the fan and use whatever you want, so basically I just paid a lot more for the cooler + fan ($24 for the fan + tax and shipping and $65 for the cooler + tax and shipping, yikes).
I'm curious to know your thoughts on how you chose the cooler and your thoughts after the fact.
How is your CPU temp at stock and at overclock? How about noise?
Medwards-
Yes, I'd say overall, I'm very happy with the case. My last computer was a Shuttle SFF PC with an x1950Pro inside... it was a great computer... lots of power in an unbeatable form factor. Only problem was that the Shuttle SFF's get hot and noisy. So I was looking for a quiet case, above anything else.
The things I don't like about the Antec:
- Heavy (made of steel, not aluminum)
- Does not have a removable motherboard tray
- The included 430W PSU was not sufficient for my needs.
The things I liked about it are:
- Unique white coloring, real brushed steel front bezel, excellent enamel finish on the paint.
- Cable management system (keeps case very clean)
- Excellent drive rail / cage system... easy to mount drives.
- Filtered air intake on the front.
- Built for quiet systems... sound dampening panels on the side, quiet exhaust fan with adjustable speed.
- Excellent build quality. REALLY excellent.
Overall, I'm happy with this thing. It's exactly what I wanted... a sturdy, attractive case that is silent (I can barely hear it when it is on). If someone was building a new system, I'd highly recommend an Antec case to them.
Hey, thanks for the comments. After the time I put into it, it's encouraging to hear positive feedback.Quote:
Originally Posted by Knightslay
I was deciding between the Thermalright Ultra 120, and the Tuniq Tower 120. The Thermalright Ultra 120 performed slightly better than the Tuniq Tower 120, but they were pretty much neck-and-neck. I knew I wanted a silent cooler, and I knew the Tuniq was silent, especially with the adjustable fan speeds. The Thermalright Ultra 120 didn't come with a fan, and I didn't feel like doing the research to find a silent fan that cooled well.
I settled on an overclock of 3.5Ghz at 1.5V to be stable, and I have temps of around 41C idle, 53C under stress. And the noise level is below the floor level for the case... you can't hear it, because my PSU (Seasonic M12 600W modular) makes more noise than the Tuniq Tower's 120mm fan. It's running at 3/4 max RPM, or around 1700rpm.
I'm really happy with the CPU cooling... I felt that I picked a great overclocking CPU and cooler... and between the research, comp build, and the heat sink lapping, I think I got a great overclocking rig put together.
clocking a cpu by feeding as much voltage as possible not a good idea, go as far as you can on stock when it get's unstable raise the vcore by .025 (if you can) if that's stable raise another .025 and the raise the speed a little bit etc. edge upward till it won't stay stable with a .025 increase then go for a .05 and try again :D until that dun work then you pretty much probably at 1.45 vcore or maybe 1.5, dun exceed 1.5 on the c2d's unless you got some wicked cooling (very sweet water, or LN2)
The .025 is what I call the lowest increment example, with athlons (the old xp's ) that increment was usually .25 or .1 depending on the MB. with these new c2d's the voltage increment tends to be much smaller.
I got a crappy MB with no vcore adjustment and undervolting to boot droop is 1.236V (idle 1.280) of 1.325V stock for my cpu, but then again I'm limited by my FSB anyway. Max on my board is like 295 with volt mods maybe 320, right now I got 306 going, I need to increase my mod a bit.
Anyway careful inching up is better than partially damaging the hardware (electron migration), which you could do the other way around.
My .02
terramir
Quote:
Originally Posted by kent1146
Ok, i totally have to call you on this - i find it very difficult to believe that you managed to achieve a 1.4 ghz overclock on a relatively base model core2 with air cooling - especially when i consider that the highest overclocks i've seen in a REPUTABLE publication are at 3.4ghz with WATER COOLING and are STILL unstable under certain benchmarks. So please, backup your claims with actual WINDOWS screenshots of some form of utility like ntune or speedfan or something that shows you're not completely full of crap. digital pictures of your bios prove NOTHING.