Overclocking Q9300 on Asus P5Q-Pro

[shizzzon]

ok, i have successfully overclocked the quad 2.5 to quad 3.11GHz but have some problems tweaking it for further performance so let me list everything i know-

Goals-
The thermal limit of this processor is 71.3C so i would like to try to stay below 60C as best as possible. I use Air cooling and do not wish to use water cooling. PC is used for video editing mainly.

Current specs-
SilverStone 400w(i know, very low but is about to be replaced with a 1KW Zalman soon)
Asus P5Q Pro
Intel Q9300 Yorkfield-3M
Corsair 2x2 = 4GB Dominator DDR2-1066
1 Lite-ON DVD Burner
1 Seagate SATA 7200.11 HDD
2 Case Fans
Processor Fan
Ram Fans(Corsair) 3 mini fans
Asus EAH3650 Silent Magic

Thats everything running off of this PSU. I dont think it's stressing it but onto the settings-

CPU Multiplier - 7.5x
FSB - 416MHz
PCIE 100MHz Locked
FSB Strap to North Bridge AUTO
Dram Frequency - DDR2-1109MHz
DRAM Timing Control- 5-5-5-15 (everything else auto)
Dram Static Read Control AUTO
Dram Read Training DISABLED
MEM OC Charger - AUTO
AI Clock Twister - STRONGER
AI Transcation Booster AUTO
CPU Voltage(vCore) - 1.19375
CPU GTL reference AUTO
CPU PLL Voltage 1.76
FSB Termination Voltage 1.36
Dram Voltage - 2.1
North Bridge Voltage - 1.4
South Bridge Voltage - 1.2
PCIE SATA Voltage - 1.5
Load-Line Calibration ENABLED
CPU Spread Spectrum - DISABLED
PCIE Spread Spectrum DISABLED
CPU Clock Skew AUTO
North Bridge Clock Skew AUTO
CPU Margin Enhancement - Optimized
C1E Support ENABLED
Intel Virtualization Tech ENABLED
CPU TM Function ENABLED
Memory Hole - DISABLED

CPU Core Temps at IDLE-
C0 - 46C
C1 - 39C
C2 - 42C
C3 - 42C
CPU Core Temps on Prime95
C0 - 59C
C1 - 51C
C2 - 53C
C3 - 53C

REMEMBER - I am not done tweaking so i might be able to lower voltages but i have a big problem that i cant understand so i'm gonna see if you guys can help me-

I tried increasing my FSB from 416(where it is now) to 430. Once in windows, it BSOD'd. So, i increasing the vcore to 1.22v from 1.19v. When i tbooted back into windows, it BSOD'd again with a different error message. So, i then increased the vcore from 1.22 to 1.25v. Before it even got to the OS loading screen, it came up with an error stating it could not find or a corrupted ntoskrnl.exe and couldnt boot or something like that. So, for a minute i thought my HDD done died on me so when i reverted back to 416FSB, everything worked fine again.

Now... i have never read this anywhere and i have not done it yet and was wondering.... do i need to increase my SATA voltage?
IT's at 1.5v right now. I can increase it in 0.1v increments from 1.5 to 1.8v but do not know the specifications of the hard drive to know if i enter "danger zone" with possibly destroying the drive.

Anything you guys can think of?

Oh by the way, do you think this is good so far, my overclock speed? Again, i "might" be able to get cooler runs since i am not trying to finalize my tuning here but Everest Ultimate 4.6 says this about my system right now-

3,120.2 MHz (original: 2500 MHz, overclock: 25%)
CPU Multiplier: 7.5x
CPU FSB: 416.0 MHz (original: 333 MHz, overclock: 25%)
Memory Bus: 554.7 MHz
DRAM:FSB Ratio 16:12
Benchmark speed - 3,133 MHz
Using Thermaltake V1 Air cooler

[KarmaKiller]

HI.

First thing that sticks out to me is your RAM is pretty OC'd already. Why don't you try turning the RAM down to something closer to stock. More then likely, that's what's holding you up right now.
DO NOT INCREASE THE VOLTAGE TO YOUR HDD. Very very important.
That has nothing to do with why it's not going into windows now. You CPU can be running at 7Ghz, and you still won't need to up the voltage to the HDD. I have no idea why that's even an option on there. I've never even heard of upping the voltage to your HDD, and I've OC'd lots of PC's before.

Are you using your BIOS to OC, or are you using AI booster? I can tell you you'll always get better results from the BIOS, as opposed to software.
If your using the software, I would suggest to stop, and use the BIOS.

Other things that may be holding you up:

Intel Virtualization Tech ENABLED

Disable that. On my board, I can't get over 3.7Ghz with that turned on. With it off, I can hit 4Ghz all day long.

C1E Support ENABLED

Disable that

North Bridge Voltage - 1.4
South Bridge Voltage - 1.2

Have you tried upping those at all? Generally, you'll only get so far till you up the NB at least. Some boards require SB also.

MEM OC Charger - AUTO
AI Clock Twister - STRONGER
AI Transcation Booster AUTO

Like I said before, I'd personally disable those.

Dram Frequency - DDR2-1109MHz

Try to keep that around stock till you get your CPU where you want it, then go back and start adjusting the RAM. If you do both at once, you have no idea if it's the RAM holding you back, or your CPU.

FSB Strap to North Bridge AUTO

What options does it give you for that? Again, some boards, after you get so high you'll have to start adjusting that. I'm just curious to know where it's at now in relation to the lowest/highest setting.

Good luck!

[shizzzon]

Thanks, great info, i'll get to your questions in just a sec but before i do, Why can i not fina a thermal shutdown option for this board anywhere?

Is there any software i can run that can do it for me in case somethign bad happens while i'm not here?

Ok, back to your questions-
NB and SB voltage-
When i first started, i went from 333 to 380FSB and while i never had any BSOD, i could run Prime95 for 1 sec without error, lol.

What i did was generally increase ALL voltage levels slightly(never the sata though) until the system was working again in Prime95.

The truth is, i do not know what the max safe limit is for the NB\SB\PLLFSB termination so i get leary about keep on increasing them...

FSB Strap to North Bridge AUTO
Other options are - 200\266\333\400 MHz

[shizzzon]

OK, disabled everything u said that i could.
AI Transcation Booster is either Auto or Manual so i left it at auto.
AI Clock Twister ranges fro mlighter to stronger so i left it at stronger.

Dram Frequency - DDR2-1109MHz

Try to keep that around stock till you get your CPU where you want it, then go back and start adjusting the RAM. If you do both at once, you have no idea if it's the RAM holding you back, or your CPU

This spec changes with FSB speed. The more i increase FSB, the higher this goes so it will always be going higher with a faster clock.

I am currently messing with the RAM voltage levels as i reverted back to 1.8v and it was a no go there.

When i disabled MEM OC Charger, the system started having abrupt TPC failures in windows and needed to shutdown immediately. I reverted to turning it back to Auto and the problem went away in windows.

I increased my DRAM voltage to 1.84 but an error generated in prime95 so i'm slowly upping it until it is stable at the 416 FSB i am at right now.

[KarmaKiller]

Ok..
Yes, the DRAM speed changes when you adjust the FSB. There is a divider that sets that. (examples being 2:3 - 1:1 - etc)
When you adjust these, it sets what the dram is set to. I've personally haven't gotten my hands on a P45 board yet, so it's hard for me to say. But I know if you can find the divider, you can maybe lower your RAM speeds.

As far as the NB strap speed, it's probably best that's left of auto for now. As far as the safe limit for P45's,might take a look at this. It explains some things very well..

Let me look around and see what I can find.

[shizzzon]

Thanks for that article!

My PLL voltage was at 1.76 when anything over 1.7 would kill my cpu! Good lookin out just at the right timing!

MY vcore is set somewhere around 1.19xxxx but cpu-z is detecting it as 1.176 so i have some drop there. Under full load it comes back up to 1.184v

This test is being ran with the CPU PLL voltage set back to 1.5v, the lowest possible.

I have no immediate errors with Prime95 since the last 2 minutes since it ran so no immediate failure.

The fSB strap i was reading somewhere else has to do with locking the RAM to a specific speed so i'll be adjusting that later.

[KarmaKiller]

Yeah. From what I'm reading over at OCN, that board just had incredibly high dividers. One post I read said the lowest he could get his ram to go was 1054Mhz, and he had DDR2-1000. So with 1066, I guess you RAM probably can't go lower.
I'm guessing this is your RAM?
Newegg.com - CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
If so, default voltages are 2.1v. So if your OCing your RAM already, I'd say you need to up that to 2.2 more then likely, if not more. I'm not sure how those 2gig sticks are OCing now days.

EDIT:
I think this is probably the key..

The kicker that this is a completely blind art – you’ve quite literally got to sit there for hours and tweak the nuts off the board trying combinations of GTL and Skew settings until you find something that works.

[shizzzon]

i'm afraid to run it out past 2.1v it's suppose to kill it, right?

right now, i've got it set at 1.94v with FSB at 416 with 7.5 CPUM
I had it at 2.1v but still not stable in prime95

Right now, i'm messin around with other voltages as i'm getting an error in Prime after 5-10 minutes now.

I WISH it would at least let me know if it were memory or cpu related, hehe.

I'm going to start lowering ALL the voltages until i get weird things happening then i'll start upping them again so i know my lowest base point at 3.12 GHz

Speedfan glitched last time i tested in prime because it was reading a constant CPU temp of 111C but the cores were half that so physically impossible.

[KarmaKiller]

If that's your default voltage for your RAM, then it won't kill it. And a mere .1 volt I highly doubt it'll kill it. If your overclocking the RAM, your gonna have to overvolt it, or loosen up the timings to get it to go higher. Plain and simple.

For 45nm cores, the best temp application is Realtemp. It reads the T Junction correctly, which is the best thing you can go by. Coretemp is best for 65nm cores. Sometimes they work for both, other times not. I'd be using realtemp.

[shizzzon]

ok, i'll get that prog soon.

I dont understand it, Core0 KEEPS failing right around 10 minutes in Prime95...

I keep lowering voltates and changing settings and it's always Core0, never any other core.