Bad Axe 2 & E6700 overclocking - newbie help

[imported_Salamander]

I have the Bad Axe 2 mobo and the Intel E6700 processor. I am interested in overclocking from the default 2.66 to 3.0 or so - maybe up to 3.2. I have never overclocked before - in fact I just did my first build last weekend (thanks to a lot of help from a couple of forums, including this one).

At the moment I have all the default settings. I am planning on going into the bios and changing the ram settings to match the Crucial ram I installed (4-4-4-12 timings and 2.2V). Is this okay to do?

Then I wanted to try the overclock. I would appreciate some step by step help on this. I don't want to mess anything up by doing something wrong. Can anyone give me some guidance on this?

 

[Shimmishim]

again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

 

[imported_Salamander]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Can you explain why to set reference frequency to 266 and memory frequency to 533? My memory is DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400).

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Because the ram frequency is tied to the FSB. When you increase the FSB to overclock the CPU you are also overclocking the ram. Lowering the mem frequency to 533 allows you to focus on the CPU and find your best O/C up to a 400mhz FSB without having to worry about ram.

Once you find your maximum CPU overclock you can then go back and adjust your memory frequency/CPU multi @ FSB to maximize your ram in conjuction with your CPU overclock.

And the #1 rule to overclocking is the CPU speed is more important than the ram speed.
Even if you end up having to run your ram at less than it's rated speed to acheive your best CPU overclock.


A simple overclock to 3.2ghz would be to just raise the FSB from 266 to 320 and set the memory frequency to 667, that will run your ram at stock DDR800. This will likely only require a slight increase to MCH volts and CPU volts.

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: Salamander

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Can you explain why to set reference frequency to 266 and memory frequency to 533? My memory is DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400).

As guitardaddy said, try to isolate your cpu first even though you're ram is capable of ddr2-800.

or you can do what he said.

leave reference frequency at 266 as that will leave you on the 1066 (quad 266) strap.

if you change your memory frequency to 667 instead of 533(as suggested by guitardaddy) your memory will be running at ddr2-800.

On 266 strap
533 1:1
667 4:5
800 2:3

 

[imported_Salamander]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
Because the ram frequency is tied to the FSB. When you increase the FSB to overclock the CPU you are also overclocking the ram. Lowering the mem frequency to 533 allows you to focus on the CPU and find your best O/C up to a 400mhz FSB without having to worry about ram.

Once you find your maximum CPU overclock you can then go back and adjust your memory frequency/CPU multi @ FSB to maximize your ram in conjuction with your CPU overclock.

And the #1 rule to overclocking is the CPU speed is more important than the ram speed.
Even if you end up having to run your ram at less than it's rated speed to acheive your best CPU overclock.


A simple overclock to 3.2ghz would be to just raise the FSB from 266 to 320 and set the memory frequency to 667, that will run your ram at stock DDR800. This will likely only require a slight increase to MCH volts and CPU volts.

If I do the simple overclock, how will I know if I need to increase MCH and CPU volts? And how do I do that?

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Actually, if he's planning to overclock an E6700 to ~3.20GHz, he'd be better off staying at 200 (800 quad-pumped) strap. I believe BadAxe 2, and 975X in general, is capable of up to 330FSB with 800 strap. The performance should be fantastic.

 

[imported_Salamander]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Actually, if he's planning to overclock an E6700 to ~3.20GHz, he'd be better off staying at 200 (800 quad-pumped) strap. I believe BadAxe 2, and 975X in general, is capable of up to 330FSB with 800 strap. The performance should be fantastic.

So if I want to overclock to 3.2GHz, and stay at 200, can you tell me specifically what settings I should change in the bios. I have never done this, so I want to do it right. I need some very specific directions. If you have the time and patience, it would also help to explain what the changes mean.

As an aside, I changed the memory settings to 4-4-4-12 and 2.2V from the default 5-5-5-18 and 1.8V. Can anyone explain what the affect of this will be?

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Actually, if he's planning to overclock an E6700 to ~3.20GHz, he'd be better off staying at 200 (800 quad-pumped) strap. I believe BadAxe 2, and 975X in general, is capable of up to 330FSB with 800 strap. The performance should be fantastic.

ah, very true! i didn't know what the switch point between 800 and 1066 strap was!

so he'd want to do reference frequency 200 and memory frequency 400.

you can also use this link to figure out your mem speed on the different straps

http://www.peakin.com/xbx2/calculator.html

very helpful

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: Salamander

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Actually, if he's planning to overclock an E6700 to ~3.20GHz, he'd be better off staying at 200 (800 quad-pumped) strap. I believe BadAxe 2, and 975X in general, is capable of up to 330FSB with 800 strap. The performance should be fantastic.

So if I want to overclock to 3.2GHz, and stay at 200, can you tell me specifically what settings I should change in the bios. I have never done this, so I want to do it right. I need some very specific directions. If you have the time and patience, it would also help to explain what the changes mean.

As an aside, I changed the memory settings to 4-4-4-12 and 2.2V from the default 5-5-5-18 and 1.8V. Can anyone explain what the affect of this will be?

what bios did your board come with?

if it came with 2333 or newer I think it should have a watchdog function built into the bios.

you need to go into maintenance mode (look in your manual as to see how to do this) and disable watchdog and C1E.

this is the first step.

after you're out of maintenance mode, go back into bios, go into the performance tab, select processor overrides, go down to host clock frequency, hit enter, then the + key to up it from 266 to 320. also enable power slope. i'm at 370 mhz and i've upped the FSB voltage to 1.3 and MCH voltage to 1.6. You might not need to since you're only at 320. after you're done, hit escape.

go into memory overrides, change memory profile to manual, change reference frequency to 200 (if 200 doesn't work, change to 266), change memory frequency to 400 (if 200 didn't work before then change this to 533). change your timings (which you've already done).

go to exit, exit and save, hit Y and you're done.

 

[imported_Salamander]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim

Originally posted by: Salamander

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Actually, if he's planning to overclock an E6700 to ~3.20GHz, he'd be better off staying at 200 (800 quad-pumped) strap. I believe BadAxe 2, and 975X in general, is capable of up to 330FSB with 800 strap. The performance should be fantastic.

So if I want to overclock to 3.2GHz, and stay at 200, can you tell me specifically what settings I should change in the bios. I have never done this, so I want to do it right. I need some very specific directions. If you have the time and patience, it would also help to explain what the changes mean.

As an aside, I changed the memory settings to 4-4-4-12 and 2.2V from the default 5-5-5-18 and 1.8V. Can anyone explain what the affect of this will be?

what bios did your board come with?

if it came with 2333 or newer I think it should have a watchdog function built into the bios.

you need to go into maintenance mode (look in your manual as to see how to do this) and disable watchdog and C1E.

this is the first step.

after you're out of maintenance mode, go back into bios, go into the performance tab, select processor overrides, go down to host clock frequency, hit enter, then the + key to up it from 266 to 320. also enable power slope. i'm at 370 mhz and i've upped the FSB voltage to 1.3 and MCH voltage to 1.6. You might not need to since you're only at 320. after you're done, hit escape.

go into memory overrides, change memory profile to manual, change reference frequency to 200 (if 200 doesn't work, change to 266), change memory frequency to 400 (if 200 didn't work before then change this to 533). change your timings (which you've already done).

go to exit, exit and save, hit Y and you're done.

Thanks!

 

[imported_Salamander]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
again i will point you here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124131

yes, you can go ahead and change the timings to 4-4-4-12

be sure to change reference frequency from auto to 266 and memory frequency to 533.

Actually, if he's planning to overclock an E6700 to ~3.20GHz, he'd be better off staying at 200 (800 quad-pumped) strap. I believe BadAxe 2, and 975X in general, is capable of up to 330FSB with 800 strap. The performance should be fantastic.

What does 800 strap mean? If go into maintenance mode and disable watchdog and C1E, and then go back into bios, go into the performance tab, select processor overrides, go down to host clock frequency, hit enter, then the + key to up it from 266 to 320. also enable power slope, etc. as suggested below - is this the same thing as 800 strap?

Also, on another forum someone suggested I also disable EIST and VT? What does this mean, and do you also recommend this?

 

[lopri]

It's too long a story to explain what straps are and how they work here.. Besides I don't have a 975X board any more. But I will try.

800 strap is really 200 strap. (Your BIOS should say something like 'reference clock') On Intel platform data is always quad-pumped to the CPU, so it matches to 800FSB CPUs. Core 2 Duo are 1066FSB CPUs, meaning the base system clock (strap) should be 266. (1066=266x4) CPU clocks are generated by this value and CPU multiplier which is hard-coded in the CPU. (So in your case, 10 x 266 = 2666MHz -> E6700)

Now, just like you have to loosen timings when you overclock memory, higher FSB requires a looser chipset (MCH, most importantly memory controller) timings. That's the sacrifice Intel makes when they introduce higher FSB CPUs. Of course they do this because the benefit of faster system bus outweighs slightly looser chipset timings.

But with your board, you can have best of the both worlds. :thumbsup:

Simply, set the reference clock @200 (or 800, whatever the BIOS says). That'll trick the board to think your CPU's base FSB is 800 (4x200) and apply a very tight chipset timings. Then, change the FSB (or system clock, which you can change the value by the incremental of 1) to 300. This has two effects. The system bus speed becomes effectively 1200FSB (300x4), and your CPU will run @3.0GHz (300x10). Congratulations! Now you have both faster motherboard and faster CPU!

If you post some pics of BIOS, I could help you better. But maybe shimmishism will be able to further help you since he has the same board as yours.

 

[Shimmishim]

disable EIST and VT. VT is unnecessary and EIST si for power saving functionality (swtiches the mult from default to 6x when there is no load on the cpu).

all you need to know about straps is that the lower the number, the tighter the "timings" are for the NB which gives better performance...

for a 266 mhz default chip, the default strap is 1066 (266 x 4), for a 200 mhz chip, the default strap is 800 (200 x 4).

the strap effects the memory frequency. on 266 strap, 533 means 1:1. on 200 strap, 400 means 1:1 (double the default fsb).

when the default 333 chips get released (i.e. 6X50 series), then the default strap will be 1333 and running 667 will be 1:1.

 

[lopri]

You may want to do this step-by-step. That is, set the strap (reference clock), then reboot before you manually change the FSB. If you attempt to change both at the same time, it'll probably confuse the BIOS and CMOS clearing will be in a short order.

 

[imported_Salamander]

Okay - how do you go into the maintenance mode with the Bad Axe 2 mobo?

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: Salamander
Okay - how do you go into the maintenance mode with the Bad Axe 2 mobo?

go back to the xs thread and look in your manual.

we can only hold your hand for so long before you just have to jump into this and learn yourself.

i learned this board through trial and error and by reading that huge thread over at XS.