Strange overclocking Peoblems with a C2D6600

[rjnejad]

I am having a really strange problem with over clocking my C2d 6600:

First stats:

700 W generic modular PS
Giga DS3 rev 3.3 bios v 12
2 GB Corsair XMS
Boxed C2D 6600
Vista 64 + XP duel boot.
ATI X1650XT 256 meg (waiting for next gen cards for the killer gxf card upgrade)
Raptor 150 as boot drive, Seagate .10 500 meger as data

Now:

I had stock cooling, I clocked the proc to 3200, 8x400 with a mem divider of 2 so mem runs at 800. It booted and ran just fine, however Tat reported an Idle temp in the 50?s and a load temp in the 70?s. Stopped OCing and ordered an Thermaltake Extreme 120 and ordered some of that fantastic shin-etsu compound.

HS comes in, using a machinist metal rule I checked for flatness, it is not flat, so I happen to have some equipment used for the faceting and polishing of gemstones, in 15 minutes I have the heat sink flat to probably around .0005?, good enough for me, using 100,000 mesh diamond for the final polish. Next I look at the CPU, hot damn, looks really flat. I apply a spiral coat of shin-etsu using ½ the 1 gram syringe. Then I mount the HS/F. Tat now tells me idle at 24-27, load at 44-45, WOW what a difference. I have to ?step? my way up to 8x400, staring at 8x266, then 8x300, 8x350, then 8x400.

All seems good, temps are holding, I ran prime on each CPU for 72 hours, max temp reached according to TAT is 47/48. I play BF2, I run all sorts of Demos and games, no tearing and the temps are holding fine. the comp is up for 1 week, no problems at all. Shut down the comp because I am going away for the weekend. Come back on Sunday and start her up?.reboot, reboot, as Ds3 looks for stable configuration, puts me back at 9x266 and I have to step my way up again. Ok, it is running fine, shut it down to test?.Damn same thing, but now I have to take out bios battery??ummm why will it not hold the OC?


I only changed 3 bios settings: Multiplier, Clock and Mem divider.

Any ideas?

_RJ

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I would start looking at the first line in your specs "700 watt generic power supply.
I personally wouldn't overclock anything on a generic PS, regardless of the watts. Using a monitoring utility and/or a cheap PS tester, I would check the stability of the seperate rails on the PS.

Another problem I see comes in your last statement that you only changed three bios settings, this indicates to me that you left the CPU vcore on AUTO. This is usually a no no, as most boards will overvolt like crazy when left on Auto. Always set the vcore manually in bios

 

[rjnejad]

Thanks! I will try the Manuel Vcore setting, the PS is an Ultra X series modular special from microcenter, I remember looking up the reviews and it got decent marks. I thought that might be the problem from the beginning, so I O-Scoped it, it actually looked pretty good.

-RJ

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I would also run memtest test 5 overnight, in my experience when CMOS gets corrupted more often than not it's a ram related problem

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I doubt that you could fry the Ultra X 700 with your rig. It could happen, but I've seen and read posts about DS3 not maintaining the overclock settings. I'd disconnect the battery for 1/2 hour, reset CMOS, and reflash with the latest BIOS.

 

[covert24]

Well first of all its not generic if its made by Ultra...... Second of all look at the overclocking guide on various forums in order to get some more knowledge regarding this.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It sounds like a mobo problem. Some DS3s were known to do that.