50% Overclocked e6400 and USB mousing issue

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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So I bought an e6400 while waiting for my e6700... here's my setup:

Core2Duo e6400 @ 2.13 Ghz (native) and 3.19 Ghz (OC'd) (RETAIL B2 Stepping)
ASUS P5W DH motherboard
Zalman 9500AT heatsink/fan (used on both)
7900 GTX Superclocked vid card
36GB Sata Raptor (new version) w/ 16MB cache for WinXP
320GB Perp.SataII/3GB drive for games/etc
24" Dell 2405 LCD -- running at 1920x1200 native for CoH/V
2 GB of DDR2 ram (old ram, DDR2-3200) (to be upgraded next)

I OC'd it using ONLY the FSB settings so far. Setting FSB to 399 gets me a 50% OC. Unfortunately, it also results in a wonky USB mouse. Is there a setting in the ASUS BIOS that is used to lock down the USB speed so that I don't have this issue at high FSBs? Games and benchmarks run fine so far and my temps rarely exceed 32C even OC'd this high.

Suggestions?

Also, I tried a 425 FSB and WinXP would freeze on the welcome screen. Is now the time to start manually bumping the voltage?
 

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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The ONLY thing I did was up the FSB speed in the ASUS bios (ver 1101 or 1011 or whatever it's up to) from 266 to 399 and left everything else on AUTO. I played some online games, ran a/v encoding tests, SuperPi1.5, etc, and the only issue I had was a wonky mouse cursor and mouse click... it just seemed to 'not keep up' so to speak, with my actions.

[Running my temp gauge, I barely saw much of a budge in CPU temps. It went from 25C at stock idle to 32C with 50% OC and loaded.... that's nothin'.]

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I started out using the "Performance Profiles" that the ASUS bios offers, and tried the 20% OC first, then the 30%. Both worked so easily that I then put it in manual mode and adjusted ONLY the FSB speed, leaving everything else on AUTO (though I'm fairly sure the AUTO mode didn't move the voltage at all... I'll recheck CPU-z tonight). At 399 (exactly 150% of 266) everything worked well (except the mouse here and there) and I kept it like this for about an hour playing around with it.

When I cranked the FSB to 425, it gets to the windows startup screen and freezes... I then tried 405, but it seemed to be sloppily slow on booting, so I just quit that and went back to 399 and toyed with it some more. The mouse thing kind of makes we worried, but if I can fix it with a simple BIOS tweak, I'll do it and continue at 399... otherwise, I'll move down a bit and retest.
 

bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
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Are you using prime to test for stability along the way? Did you just jump right up to 399? You need to do it in reasonable increments, not humongous leaps...
 

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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Bah! The whole point of this line of CPUs is the humongous leaps. I was too excited to bother inching my way up the OC ladder. Given multiple reports of EASY 40-50% Overclocks, I had no interest in starting at 10% and crawling... (I know it's not the accepted way...)

I'm first trying to find "about" where I can OC it to get it working in general for 20-30 minutes THEN will run the full gamut of benchmarks and tests once 'there'.
 

bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
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What you did was foolish. Yes these CPUs can overclock a LOT, but that doesn't mean they'll do it on stock voltage or all at once. REASONABLE increments...not retarded ones that leave you completely in the dark as to what's wrong. Is it the FSB? Is it the voltage? Is it the CPU? Is it some weird CPU shock from being pushed up too much and too fast? Is it a combination of some or all of the above?

You go through the process not just because it is "standard procedure", but because it is necessary to learn about the limits of your system and CPU so you know how far you can push each one for maximum (and stable) overclock.

And you didn?t even answer my question. Are you stable? My guess is you're not.
 

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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The PCI bus was the item I figured... now does that have any impact on the USB controllers?
 

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
What you did was foolish. Yes these CPUs can overclock a LOT, but that doesn't mean they'll do it on stock voltage or all at once. REASONABLE increments...not retarded ones that leave you completely in the dark as to what's wrong. Is it the FSB? Is it the voltage? Is it the CPU? Is it some weird CPU shock from being pushed up too much and too fast? Is it a combination of some or all of the above?

You go through the process not just because it is "standard procedure", but because it is necessary to learn about the limits of your system and CPU so you know how far you can push each one for maximum (and stable) overclock.

And you didn?t even answer my question. Are you stable? My guess is you're not.

I appreciate your strong sentiment, really I do. But, let's look at it this way. I got home at 12midnight... I've been waiting for my e6700 to show (which has yet to ship) and there's my e6400 just waiting for me. I pop it into my pre-set machine (setup using an HT'd P4 550) and run a few tests including the crazy 50% OC with no real incremental testing. I needed to ENJOY all the crap I've heard about these chips for the last few weeks and starting a 10 hour overclocking benchmark series wasn't what I had in mind at the time.

These things are toys to me and what most of you do to overclock to the nth degree is more like 'work' in my book (though I appreciate your input, really). I don't need an absolutely maximum OC, just a pretty damn nice one that works well. [Esp since I'll have my e6700 soon enough and the e6400 will go into a 2nd PC]
 

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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And you didn?t even answer my question. Are you stable? My guess is you're not.

Again, I didn't have all the time in the world to toy with it. It did run a few games just fine and everything BUT the mouse seemed a-okay. Yes, I know a lot more testing is needed, but I don't intend to run 24-hour, round the clock tests on this thing until I at least get closer to what the limits are.

If my mouse problems are just a smaller VISIBLE subset of a larger problem, then I'll deal with it.... if something easier like the PCI lock works to correct that issue, then onward and upward I go.
 

Skeeedunt

Platinum Member
Oct 7, 2005
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Originally posted by: jg0001
The PCI bus was the item I figured... now does that have any impact on the USB controllers?

Not sure, but you should always lock the PCI bus to prevent hard drive data corruption (IIRC) USB controller could be affected by this as well (?)
 

Cheng

Junior Member
Aug 1, 2006
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Originally posted by: jose
Reasonable increments then test w/ prime25..

I don't mean to hijack your thread, but this has been really bothering me. Can you define "resonable increments"? And don't say "increments that will keep you on the safeside while you overclock" because that doesn't mean anything to anyone. Do you mean 1 mhz increase at a time? 10 mhz increase? .01 volt increase?
 

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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Originally posted by: Cheng
Originally posted by: jose
Reasonable increments then test w/ prime25..

I don't mean to hijack your thread, but this has been really bothering me. Can you define "resonable increments"? And don't say "increments that will keep you on the safeside while you overclock" because that doesn't mean anything to anyone. Do you mean 1 mhz increase at a time? 10 mhz increase? or what?


I don't see the point of slow increments AT FIRST, UNLESS you are worried about frying your chip. The temps I've seen so far, even under load AND OC'd 50%, are far lower than my old P4 even idled at and 1/2 that of what I hear some OC'ers reporting.

I ran my CPU at stock, then at "ridiculuous" and will hop around in-between those settings (or adjust other parameters) until I find something that 'feels' stable, and then test like hell once there.
 

jg0001

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Aug 8, 2006
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Set PCI-E to 100, locked PCI to 33.3 Mhz

ALSO -- wireless mouse recv'r was knocked on floor.... works fine again (seemingly) :)

Duh me. Back to dangerously fast overclocks.