Need help overclocking Q6600 above 3.3Ghz on P5K deluxe & water cooling

trazom

Junior Member
Jul 8, 2007
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I'm having problem getting my Q6600 above 3.2/3.3Ghz.

I got 3.2Ghz rock stable (24h with 4xprime95), and I think I finally got 3.3Ghz stable (tested 1 hour with 4xprime95)

Here is the hardware I use:

Case: Thermaltake Kandalf LCS (with watercooling, 120x360mm heatsink with 3x120mm fan)
PSU: Zalman 650W
MB: Asus P5K-Deluxe
Ram: 4x 1GB DDR2 (OCZ Titanium Rev 2 PC6400 specified at 4-4-4-15)
VGA: MSI Geforce 8800GTX
RAID: 3ware 9650SE 8ML with Battery backup Unit
HD: 2x Raptor 10k 150GB in mirror on Intel Matrix Controller (ICH9R)
HD: 4x WD 500GB Raid Edition in Raid5 on 3ware controller

I'm using a 80mm fan on the RAM to keep it and the memory controller circuits cool
I'm using another 80mm fan to cool the 3ware controller & BBU

Here is my settings @ 3.2Ghz :

8x400Mhz or 7x356Mhz (both rock stable)
all default settings, except RAM set at 2.1V
CPU-Z shows a voltage of 1.42V on the CPU, which I found a bit high, so I forced it to 1.375 and enabled Voldage Damper, I gained 4°C, and everything is rock stable
I left C1E and Speedstep enable.

Here are the temps I get :
47°C Core temp, 33°C Tcase when idle
69°C Core temp, 57°C Tcase with 4xprime95 after 12 hours

These temps seems fine with me (I tested the cpu @ 3.2Ghz on air cooling, and it was stable with temps of 84°C for core and 72°C for Tcase)



I just got 3.3Ghz "stable" (didn't test long enough yet) with the following params:
Clock: 9x367Mhz, Ram @ 734
CPU Voltage: 1.4375V
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.5V
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.3V
North Bridge voltage: 1.4V
Spread Spectrum Disabled
C1E & Speedstep disable (but seems to cause no harm to be enabled)

I have core temps of 70°C and Tcase of 59°C after 1 hour of 4xPrime95

It was very hard for me to get it working, seems the CPU PLL Voltage & NB Voltage increase helped.


I tried 3.4Ghz but it is a no go whatever I do, computer boots fine, but it will blue-screen & reboot within 30 seconds of starting 4 instances of prime95
Core temp don't have the time to go above 66°C
I tried 8x425Mhz (limit for the ram, but it should be ok) and 9x378
same settings as the 3.3Ghz overclocking
Power seems not to be an issue (my UPS shows 415W charge @ full load, including the 20" lcd monitor and the speakers)

So Temperature seems not to be the issue, neither is Power. I saw posts of people getting their CPU @ 3.6Ghz with those voltages.

Also, I noticed after a crash-reboot, the POST hangs at the Intel Matrix Storage screen (either just display the Intel Matrix Storage title and hangs, or get a corrupted text display), I need to power-off and power-on, then it's fine, but if the computer crashes and reboot, it's the same again. I need to power off and on otherwise it'll get stuck on that screen. I noticed the same at 3.3Ghz on soft-restart (even it's stable).

Any help would be appreciated to get me going higher than 3.3Ghz (I'd be happy to reach 3.6Ghz)
 

MarcVenice

Moderator Emeritus <br>
Apr 2, 2007
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Dude, you are fine with temps above 70c? Isn't that getting close or even above the Thermal Specification?

I think heat is your biggest enemy here, perhaps your q6600 simply don't do more then 3.3ghz, which wouldn't be the first one that doesn't.
 

trazom

Junior Member
Jul 8, 2007
15
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Thermal specs say I shouldn't go above 63°C Tcase, here I'm at 59°C. Tcore should be ok up to 80/85°C (I tested up to 84°C stable on air cooling), so 70°C is fine.

The computer crashes with core temps of around 66°C @ 3.4Ghz, so I don't think it's a temperature problem. It used to crash @ 3.3Ghz after few minutes, now that I increased NB & PLL voltage, it's not crashing anymore even temps are slightly higher.

So I doubt the temperature is the problem.
 

genec57

Member
Nov 7, 2006
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Those temps are way too high for water cooling at 3.3. The mount of your water block may be the problem. You don't say what you are cooling and what the components of your cooling system are - both quite important.
With good water cooling 3.6 or greater should be attainable.
 

trazom

Junior Member
Jul 8, 2007
15
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I'm cooling a Quad core, not a Dual Core. These are much hotter than Dual. I checked the water block, all seems fine. I'm not cooling anything else than the CPU. Like I said it's the Water cooling system provided with the case, it uses 3/8" tubes, a pump, a 120x360mm heatsink with 3 120mm fans.

I've tried to reduce the cpu voltage from 1.4375 to 1.4V @ 3.3Ghz, now my core temps don't go above 62°C (compare to 70°C before) and Tcase at 52°C, I'll see if the system stay stable with 4 prime95 instances.


Update: It is not stable @ 3.3Ghz and 1.4V Vcore. It crashed after half hour of 4xprime95 (Tcore was 62°C, TCase was 51°C at the time of crash)

Does that mean my problem is too low Vcore?
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,079
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The only different between your setup and mine, is you have water, and I have high end air, and you have the deluxe version, vs my vanilla. In my thread, somebody posted a lot of settings, and I have been trying them. The last set of changes I am not trying, but I can;t get it stable at 3.2 for more than about 12 hours. I think these B3 stepping chips just won't do more than about 3.2

BTW, my temps@3.2 don't go over 70, even using tat. I do have an Antec 900 case, and the cpu and upper fan are on high, the other 3 are on medium. I run about 65c under full load 4x100%
 

trazom

Junior Member
Jul 8, 2007
15
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Might be that... But G0 is not supposed to be available before this week, and people reported reaching 3.6Ghz+ on water cooling... But since some chips can overclock better than others, I might just have one that can't get higher than 3.2 / 3.3Ghz.

I don't want to push Vcore higher as it'll probably run too hot.

At 3.3Ghz, I get (with 4x prime95) 58°C Tcore @ 1.375V, 62°C @ 1.4V and 70°C @ 1.4375V. Temp is increasing quite fast with Vcore increase.
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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My vcore is set@1.4375 in bios, but under full load its about 1.328 a lot of vdroop, I have way less on my DS3 with the same chip that was easy to get to 3.2 stable. I am not impressed with this P5K.
 

genec57

Member
Nov 7, 2006
135
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To get much higher than you are presently you are going to need more vcore. To handle more vcore you need more effective cooling. There are two cpu blocks that give superior heat transfer for multi-core chips. They are the d-tek fuzion and the swiftech apogee gtx. With any waterblock the application of thermal paste is critical. These two items can make all the difference to a successful overclock particularly with a quad core.
 

genec57

Member
Nov 7, 2006
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There is no set number. It varies from one chip to the next. Set the fsb that you want and then increase the vcore one notch at a time until you achieve stability. Of course, the temps are going to increase along with the voltage.