Overclocking an E6600 with a GA-965P-DQ6 Motherboard..

[DXBLouie]

Hi everyone..

i have an older system with the following specs:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 (Bios: F13A)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz)
RAM:

• Kingmax KLDD48F-A8KB5 PC2-6400 1GB
• Kingmax KLDE88F-B8KU5 PC2-6400 2GB
• Kingmax KLDD48F-A8KB5 PC2-6400 1GB
• Kingmax KLDE88F-B8KU5 PC2-6400 2GB

RAM JEDEC timings table (CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency):​

• JEDEC #1 3.0-3-3-9-12 @ 200 Mhz
• JEDEC #2 4.0-4-4-12-16 @ 266 Mhz
• JEDEC #3 5.0-5-5-18-23 @ 400 Mhz

Graphics Card: Gigabyte GV-3D1-7950-RH (NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2)
Storage: Adaptec RAID 4805SAS 8-lane PCIe controller

i read that overclocking this particular CPU to 3GHz is quite simple and reliable, so i tried raising the Host Frequency from 266 to 333Mhz and increasing the voltages in steps.. but all the settings from the lowest voltage to the highest voltage resulted in either of the following symptoms:

1- the system would boot up, and show the CPU speed of 3Ghz, but would reboot directly after showing the RAM capacity and drop the host frequency to 266 and multiplier to 6 (1.6Ghz)
2- the system wont boot up at all.. it reboots 2-3 times and reverts the settings back.

i'm attaching two screen shots of my bios related to the CPU and overclocking settings..
everything is pretty much set back to default now, but the screenshots would help show those unfamiliar with this particular motherboard and bios what options are available to get the job done.

i know the default cooling setup may not be adequate, but i just wanted to find out the settings the system would run at, and then maybe invest in a cooling mod.. otherwise give up on the whole thing.
from what i read, many people with this CPU and Motherboard combination have had good success with overclocking.. so what am i missing?

One more thing..
now that i started looking through overclocking settings, etc.. i noticed that at the normal operating conditions, and while the PC is basically idle.. the system temp is ~44*C (expected considering there are 6 HDDs inside the case) but the CPU core temp is ~74*C!

i think that's quite high for this type of CPU.. i checked the fan and it's clean and running at 2000+RPM, and the heat sink is properly seated..
so i enabled C1E and TM2 which dropped the core clock speed to ~1.6Ghz when idle, and that in turn reduced the temperature to around 55*C

is this normal? if not, could this be causing my system to run sluggish (which is why i started looking into overclocking in the first place)?
Could this CPU be busted?

any help would be REALLY appreciated!

 

[ShawnD1]

First make sure the motherboard is stable at that bus speed.
-lower the CPU multiplier as low as it goes (I think 5 is the lowest)
-starting at stock bus speed, increase the bus speed until the system is no longer stable

When all else fails, google search how to overclock with that specific motherboard. Some boards have really weird ways of doing things.

 

[coffeejunkee]

I would try an increase to fsb 300 first. 333 is probably too much for the stock cooler anyway.

Set your memory to run at 600MHz. Vcore around 1.35. And lock pci-e to 100MHz.

Set thermal monitoring to enabled. C1E preferably enabled, unless it causes instability.

Stresstest with Prime95, occt or linx. Check temps with Realtemp 3.40.

Oh, and read a guide.

 

[DXBLouie]

Thanks for the tips guys.

funny if it wasn't for my attempt to overclock, i wouldn't have noticed the busted CPU heatsink!
i did a bit more research and found out my CPU is running extremely hot for the standard clock..
i went out and got a Cooler Master V8.. installed that and the CPU core temp dropped from 75C to 35C!

now i've had my system running quite stable (with Prime95 running for over 12 hours nonstop) at 3.2Ghz with the following settings:

CPU Clock Ratio: [8X]
CPU Frequency: 3.2GHz
CPU Host Frequency(Mhz): [400]
PCI Express Frequency(Mhz): [100]
System Memory Multipler (SPD): [2.00]
Memory Frequency(Mhz): 800 800
DDR2 OverVoltage Control: [Normal]
PCI-E OverVoltage Control: [Normal]
(G)MCH OverVoltage Control: [Normal]
FSB OverVoltage Control: [Normal]
CPU Voltage Control: [1.39375V]

idle CPU temperature with the case closed is ~37C and under heavy load it goes up to 52C max.

the only thing i'm noticing is that VCore fluctuates under load.. CPU-Z shows Core Voltage to be 1.344V.. which is pretty steady till i fire up Prime95, then every now and then i notice this reading drop to 1.328V

i tried increasing the voltage in steps, all the way to 1.43750V but the behavior is the same.

now i'm back to 1.39375V which is a notch above the voltage that gets everything stable.. and the system is running beautifully despite the fluctuation described above..

is this something i should be concerned about?

 

[coffeejunkee]

Not really, it's the Intel vdroop mechanism at work. If your mobo has a load line calibration or vdroop compensation setting you can disable this behaviour.

If you should is another question, I'd say only if you can't get your oc stable otherwise.

 

[DXBLouie]

Well Prime95 ran for 26 hours straight in the background while i used the same system to do all kinds of things.
CPU temp was a steady ~50C.. core voltage was fluctuating from time to time, but it was always bouncing between the two values 1.344V and 1.328V

it's worth mentioning that i didn't increase any other voltages... the FSB, DDR, PCI-E, MCH, etc.. all are running at the standard voltages without any issues it seems

so far i'm happy

 

[coffeejunkee]

Sounds fairly stable, but which Prime95 test did you run? (there's 3)

Also try Linx 0.6.4 if you want to give your cpu a real good workout. 5 runs can make my cpu hotter than hours of prime.

 

[DXBLouie]

i ran "in-place large FFTs (maximum heat, power consumption) for about 12 hours on day one, then Blend for 24hrs

 

[Termie]

Wow, lucky you - you've really revitalized that old system. And 400Mhz on the FSB of that generation is pretty good. I seem to recall in OCing my old e6600 on a 975x motherboard that the FSB wouldn't touch 400, so I used the 9x multiplier and 333FSB to get to 3.0. That system is still running today four years later (almost to the day, I should add) in the not-so-capable hands of my brother. He hasn't destroyed it yet. And I had a Scythe Mine cooler on it, which was capable for the day, but the temps are significantly higher than your 3.2 OC with a V8 on it. In the mid to high 50s while gaming, low 40s at idle.