Anyone with experience in Overclocking?

Abdul Al-Amry

2011 RD Indy 500 Winner
Hi guys,

Of all places on the net I trust this place first when it comes to PC stuff.

I have a Q6600 with Asus P5N-T Deluxe MB and was hoping to OC it to its maximum.

I have searched and read info but still missing the n00b way if you know what I mean. :cool:

Thanks
 
There is information on tomshardware.com about overclocking, but be sure you understand first off that overclocking can destroy parts to your computer. Mainly the processor and ram. The process is long and arduous and consists of making tiny adjustments, running testing software for an hour to be sure the system is stable and then adjusting again.

It is always best to be sure you know what to do in case the system is unable to boot after you have changed a setting. Is there a jumper to reset the bios? Is there another way to reset the bios? You need to keep complete and accurate records of performance, temps and voltages to be sure that your system will continue to work while you are adjusting.

The process normally starts off with just adjusting the multiplier of the CPU until the system fails to remain stable. Once this position is achieved you start changing voltages a little bit for ram voltage, northbridge and southbridge chip voltages, buss voltages. Cooling is another huge factor in overclocking. If you can't keep it cool, you can't keep it stable and you could fry your CPU from heat. Remember, tiny steps and test for stability after each step. If you are not patient you will either not get the most out of your system, or you will kill it, one or the other. Each of the system components also needs to be able to handle non standard settings in the bios. Any one thing can cause an overclock to fail.

Your PSU needs to be pretty much rock solid when it comes to maintaining specific voltages. Changes here due to load etc will cause the system to lock up, shut down, reboot, overheat, the list goes on. You will also want to invest in water cooling to get the most out of the CPU as fans and heat sinks just won't cut it. Cooling for the GPU and possibly the chipset are also recommended. If your motherboard bios won't let you adjust all the different voltages individually, don't even attempt to go for max. Learning about what the initials are for each of the voltage areas are is also a necessity. If you don't know what you are adjusting, how can you know if it will help or hurt your overclock.

If all this didn't scare you off, then be careful and good luck on the overclock. Let us know how it works out.

P.S. Every system and every CPU etc are different. Don't think that just because mister X can get his q6600 to 5ghz that you will be able to also. First off, you don't even know if he really was able to do it, or if his system is stable. Secondly all mass production produces anomolies that will change the performance of each chip that is created. You system may only be able to be overclocked just slightly before it becomes unstable.
 
Q6600 is a locked multiplier chip (@ 9x) (though I believe you can underclock it), so all tweaks have to be done with FSB frequency (with voltage changes, as needed). As Jim pointed out - all of your components will have to play along ...
 
the Q6600 is a great CPU for overclocking, IF you have good enough cooling, power supply and motherboard...
but the good thing is that it have a default FSB at 266MHz, and most boards will work fine at 333 or more, so you could probably run it at 3ghz without much effort, from there on things will get a bit more complicated...
but for a start, it would be simply a question of raising the fsb on the bios, and keeping an eye on the memory clock, possibly lowering it's clock multiplier or divider to keep it closer to default speed, when you start doing it can get unstable, and possibly you can compensate by raising some voltage adjustments... but that depends on what you have (each q6600 will overclock slightly differently), also always be careful with the temperature and use some softwares to test stability (like Prime 95, Intel burn test and others), and increase the clock in small steps,
 
Nice board choice :D

If your considering OCing your PC, do it the right way, get some decent cooling first, get a decent surge protected PSU and go in small increments only, jumping up too far will short/melt something (done 3x so far... ooops).

Also, As above mention, the front side bus (FSB) is what controls data flow through the "bus", the higher it's set the faster data will flow, but excess power is consumed and excess heat is therefore created around the entire system.

Next best thing to clock is the memory, before you try this, get a memtest disk created, and test before clocking, and along the way for stability and fault dangers. You will see some decent returns for a clocked module, but again, more heat is created and more power is used, and your RAM sits right under your HDD and DVD in a normal ATX machine, so cool all of these.

Lastly, there is your CPU and graphics bus and GPU. These don't offer huge returns, but are at less risk as upgraded cooling is easy and not too expensive anymore, that being said, you still need to be just as carefull when clocking up the potential, heat and consumption also rises, and there are bound to be many vital components close by.

If you want to know how extreme you can go, I once spoke to a guy trying to purposely pop his CPU, he used a full size house radiator and chemical coolant to keep his machine cool, and had his CPU at 150% of it's original processing capacity (back in the P4 days).

So the end note, don't clock what you can't afford to replace, and just go steady, adjust by 1 click at a time, and reboot and check stability for at least an hour. You'll be fine :)
 
Oh... my... goodness... I think my head might explode after reading through this thread. And who in their right mind would try to do this after reading Jim's post? lol

Okay, that's my 2 cents. Good luck Abdul!
 
Hehe Danny, I need all the help I can get to get the extra FPS in Triple Screen setup. Getting Megahelams(sp) CPU Cooler tomorrow and also 2 extra case fans. Already have 6 case fans but with a pathetic Arctic Freezer 7 not cooling the CPU I am struggling. From tomorrow more details and pictures hopefully of the progress will start showing up. Thanks guys.

Overclock.net is a very good place to get info.
 
I had a q6600 w/ a megahalem push/pull yate loons. I ran 3.5 ghz w/1.44 vcore. That cpu needs to be the Go stepping to be the OCer. That is a great cooler. I now have it on an I5 2500k @4.8. It is a big cooler. I now have ultra kaze 120s on it and it is top exhaust. That Q6600 will eat up some wattage when oc'd. My G0 stepped q6600 was a 1.3 VID and did 3.0 at stock voltage. As mentioned above having a 1066 fsb chip makes it nice for ocing. At 3.0 your fsb is 1333, which most boards do stock. At 3.6 your fsb is 1600 like the qx9770 was at that time. You should steer more towards motherboard specific tutorials as the boards were different then with p35intel and 750nvidia. I am sure you have been here http://www.overclock.net/intel-motherboards/305177-asus-p5n-d-750i-guide.html
 

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