Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Well for starters the 4 sticks might limit your OC, otherwise just listen to what LOUISSSSS said and follow the guide.
Most likely, this isn't going to happen with a Q6600 simply because on air cooling, 3.6ghz (400x9) will be close to borderline.
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When overclocking, I find that isolating the components works best for me. This way I know what the limiting component is. In your case, this is easily achieved.
Step 1: Finding motherboard FSB speed
1. FSB: Memory Mode => Set to lowest ratio (i.e 1:1) so that FSB can be overclocked to 400 (i.e. DDR2 800 effective) without overclocking your ram in any way.
2. Make sure you relax all the timings on the ram (5-5-5) and set any performance options in the BIOS to defaults (such as any Turbo/Enhance levels set to their lowest to not strain the motherboard).
3. Lower the Multiplier Factor from 9x to 6x.
4. Fix PCIe frequency at 100.
5. Raise the CPU operating speed from 266 to 300 then to 333, then to 375 and then to 400 and each time at boot run SuperPi 8M and see if the system is stable (at this point you could try running Prime 95 small Ftts to stress the cpu/mobo) If the system passes all the way to 400, then you know your motherboard can easily do 400FSB without any adjustments.
Note: Even at 400FSB x 6 multiplier, your cpu is still running at 2400mhz; its nominal frequency. It is important to always remember this since at some point FSB speed can become so large that you'll have to increase your cpu voltage even at multiplier of 6x. Keep this in mind since you don't want to blame the motherboard on not attaining high enough FSB when you forgot to increase cpu voltages if you intend to test beyond 400FSB.
However, you might have to adjust CPU VTT Voltage by +0.1/+0.2 and NB voltage by +0.1/+0.2 and FSB voltage by +0.1 as you start exceeding 400FSB+ since that is beyond stock speeds of the chipset (yours should do 400FSB as X38 is rated for that to start). So do this until you reach your desired FSB speed (In this case I would check if your mobo can do 425FSB because if you were to move the multiplier back to 9, you'd have a top speed of 3.825ghz which is probably more than enough for your processor, given the cooling you have).
Step 2: Finding your CPU speed
Keep everything the same (ie. whatever you needed in terms of motherboard voltages to reach 400-425FSB), except:
1. Lower the CPU operating speed back to 266FSB.
2. Increase the multiplier to 9x
3. Now you are going to increase the cpu operating speed from 266 to 333 to 375 to 400 and run SuperPi again on each boot. Keep increasing the FSB until the system either crashes at boot or freezes or doesn't boot. That means to go beyond this speed you need to increase your CPU voltage. ==> so slowly increase it from stock to 1.350 to 1.375 to 1.400 (checking your temperatures always along the way at load). Then try booting at that speed again and so on. At some point you might be at 400FSB and voltage of say 1.400 and the system just doesn't boot anymore (check temperatures with CoreTemp 0.96 and run Prime 95/Orthos to stress the 2 cores) or the temperature is so high that running 3.4ghz lowers temperatures full 5-7*C and you only need 1.375V vs. a 3.6ghz scenario.
So this would be your trade-off spot.
What usually happens is that at some point a lot of additional voltage is required to increase cpu speed just extra 100-200 mhz. Then you'll have to decide if the temperatures are acceptable or how much you want those 200mhz. For instance if you need to increase voltage from 1.375-1.45 to just to get to 3.6ghz, then I wouldn't consider that worthwhile.
Step 3: Finding acceptable motherboard/cpu voltages
Now you know that your mobo works at (say 425) and your cpu goes to say 400. But remember how you set voltages on the mobo to go to 425 but at 400 you needed much less voltage (for example). In this case you lower the NB and CPU VTT voltages to levels enough to sustain 400 FSB (or whatever FSB you end up with).
You can also play around with cpu voltages as well in a similar fashion to find lowest acceptable voltage.
At this point you run Prime 95 for say 12-24 Hours (small ftts) and see that the system is stable. If it isn't, then you might have to increase cpu voltage a bit more, or lower the FSB speed.
Note: make sure to run CPU-Z to check your cpu voltage since what you set in the BIOS and actual CPU voltages won't necessarily match (a lot of times it's lower in reality due to vdroop)
Step 4: Finding memory voltages/timings
Now that cpu and mobo have been finalized, you can figure out how you want to run your ram.
So for example if your FSB is 400 you'd be running DDR2 800. If the system boots at just 1.85V, then you'll start lowering the timings on the ram until you are required to increase the voltage (if it becomes unstable). You might find that even at DDR2 800 you need to increase memory voltage already to run 4 1GB sticks at 4-4-4-15 timings = so do that. It's safe to increase cpu voltage to 2.1V-2.2V (but 2.0V should be more than enough for DDR800 even at low timings I presume).
Note: make sure you have the latest bios installed
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