[chowder]

i got a striker extreame mobo. q6600 cpu.. i got it oc to 2.89.. if i go any higher it wont boot. ... i got 2 gigs of pny 800 ram.. 850 watt antec power supply.. zalman 9700 heatsink....8800gt video card... if some one has some settings that are similar to mine i would apperciate it. to share your knowledge wit me... i heard this cpu can go to at least 3.3 or 3.6 on air cooling... thanks for your time

[Doctor Feelgood]

Hi - welcome! First questions would be on voltage. What are your CPU and memory set at? Might need a little more than stock.

Also, what speed is the memory running at while overclocked? Is it at a ratio to keep the speed down, or is the memory overclocked, too? Is it memory that can overclock?

[Doctor Feelgood]

Hi - welcome! First questions would be on voltage. What are your CPU and memory set at? Might need a little more than stock.

Also, what speed is the memory running at while overclocked? Is it at a ratio to keep the speed down, or is the memory overclocked, too? Is it memory that can overclock?

[chowder]

memory says it is running at 800 mgz in the bios.. but cpu-z says it only is 400? and my voltage on the core is 1.280

[Doctor Feelgood]

While it is quite a long thread now, hopefully you had a look in here for success stories from a bunch of other people:

http://www.bigbruin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12904

1.28V seems good on the processor... Others seem to get to 3GHz with that, or even less.

SO, is the memory locked at 800MHz? Or have you picked a ratio that has knocked it back down despite overclocking? What is the voltage on the memory?

The BIOS saying 400 is OK, that is just how they report it... Just double it to get the DDR2 speed.

[Doctor Feelgood]

While it is quite a long thread now, hopefully you had a look in here for success stories from a bunch of other people:

http://www.bigbruin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12904

1.28V seems good on the processor... Others seem to get to 3GHz with that, or even less.

SO, is the memory locked at 800MHz? Or have you picked a ratio that has knocked it back down despite overclocking? What is the voltage on the memory?

The BIOS saying 400 is OK, that is just how they report it... Just double it to get the DDR2 speed.

[qwwwizx]

I have a Striker Extreme too, and I used to have the same problem. It is easy to reach 3.6GHz and a 1600MHz FSB if you follow what I write.

1) Get the 1504 Beta bios. (search on google, asus keeps it secret)

2) Take the change and update the bios. Most likely it wont restart after reboot.

3) If it wont start, pull off the battery for 15 minutes and put it on again. Dont try to reset the bios with the mobo buttons, nothing will work. If it starts go to 5)

4) Insert the battery again and it will start up nicely with bios 1504.

5) In Bios load factory settings. Go to extreme tweaker menu and go to the memory part. Choose unlinked, adjust FSB til 1600 and make sure that memory is at 800.

6) Save, reboot, and see if it feels stable in Windows.

7) If it is stable you can go to bios again and disable C1E and Speedstep.


That should work perfectly with a Striker Extreme, Q6600G0 and a set of DDR2-6400. I works for me.

[SpeedZone]

Hello chowder and others

I have Q6600 on GigaByte X38-DS4 mobo. I was able to hit 3.4Ghz on air without any problems. I just set all voltage settings to auto and set FSB to 378. CPU multiplier is at 9x. The only "problem" i have is ddr2 ram speed, because i have ddr2 6400 (800MHz) ram, and at 378FSB i can only set it to work either at 754Mhz (or below)or 907Mhz (or higher), because of strange ratios this mobo uses for ram speeds. So i have currently have it at 754Mhz, although when i ran cpu @ 3Ghz (333x9), the ram runs at 800Mhz (333x2.4ratio), and also at 865Mhz (333x2.6ratio), both without any problems, so i guess 907Mhz should work as well.
And for voltages...ram runs at 2.1V...and cpu (automatically set by mobo) runs at 1.375V @ 3.4 (which is maybe a bit too high and could be lowered if set manually, but as long as temps are ok (38 degrees celsius when idle and 57 at full load), i dont really care).

If you need more info (like CPU-Z screenshot) or anything else, just say and i'll be glad to post it. Otherwise, just follow other posts here in this thread and i am sure you'll succeed. Basically as others have said, you need to make sure cpu gets enough voltage (around 1.3V for 3Ghz+), have decent cooler on cpu, make sure that your ram speed (fsb x ratio)doesnt exceed its max speed too much - otherwise computer wont boot or will lock up. The same as for ram also goes for PCI-e speed - dont overclock it too much (check PCI-e (or AGP) ratio and actuall speed when raising FSB).

Ohh...i almost forgot...do you have G0 or B3 stepping CPU? Cause G0 are way better overclockers, while B3 arent, but still...majority of B3 cpus can still hit 3Ghz without major problems.

Best wishes and dont fry anything.

[acruxksa]

chowder,
qwwwizx has the same mobo and cpu, so give his recommendations a shot. I would be very surprised if you couldn't get to 3.2Ghz stable on air with good temps. The thing is, it takes a bit of work and tweaking to get there sometimes.

SpeedZone,
Since you have your setup running stable, you should try to slowly ratchet down the cpu voltage and see if you can maintain stability. Lower it one step and test it for several days, if it's stable go one more step lower etc etc etc until you notice instability and then go back up one notch (i'm betting you will be able to get well below 1.35v, which will give lower temps). Also, if you have to run your memory slower than rated speed, one way to compensate is to tighten the timings. This isn't quite as beneficial to Intel cpu's as it is to AMD cpu's, but it will result in a performance boost.

[SpeedZone]

Exactly acruxksa,

I also believe chowder should be able to hit 3Ghz with ease (and up to 3.4-3.6Ghz with decent cpu cooling) on air, and even more if he decides to watercool his cpu.

And thank you for your suggestions. Actually I already tried lowering cpu voltage...and as far as i remember i was able to run it at some 1.32-1.33V...but after week or two...upon one boot...it (mobo) just reset settings to original!? I am not 100% sure it was because of cpu voltage, because like i said i had absolutely no problems with stability or anything similar. I dont remember how i ran ram at that time, but it could be that those were times when i had it close to 900Mhz (800Mhz original), so could be that ram caused that.

Anyway...at that time i figoured out that cpu ran just fine as long as it had at least 1.30V when at full load (which in my case meant those 1.32-1.33V at idle). So , yes, i know i could lower voltage a bit more (and maybe i will), its just that everything is ok atm, and i dont have too much time lately to experiment too much with this.

One question...do you believe its safe to run 800Mhz ram (with coolers attached - Corsair XMS2) at 900Mhz (maybe with slightly higher voltage), or would that be too much over longer time?

Thanks.


p.s.
And congratulate you acruxksa for your F@H efforts...I read about you....that you're able to get 1000 points every 2 hours....woowww....and in some other thread that you have 3 q6600 + one e6550....awesome....
So do you use them only for F@H or also for something else? And, is there a way to set F@H client to run at all 4 cores? Cause mine only goes to 25% over all 4 cores!? Maybe to run 4 clients at once? Possible?
Finally...i am sad to found out today that gpu client doesnt yet support 3870's....only x16xx, x18xx and x19xx series....any guesses when they might update it?

Best wishes and talk to you soon. Bye.

[acruxksa]

Speedzone,
I really don't see any problem with the temps you listed, but when it comes down to it I believe we all strive to get the best overclock possible with the coolest temperatures achievable given our choice of cooling solution. That's why I mentioned trying to lower vcore.

Your memory should be fine at 900Mhz provided you don't go over 2.1v or possibly 2.2v with good cooling. You may have to loosen timings some to get there though. If your xms2 is cas4 like I think it is, you shouldn't have too much trouble hitting 900Mhz. Just start out with something like 5-5-5-15 and slowly tighten it up a notch at a time. You could always jump right to 907Mhz with auto timings and see what happens, but chances are you will end up with timings similar to the 5-5-5-15 I listed above.

ps. I actually have 4 q6600's counting my main computer + the e6550. Currently the "farm" as I call it does nothing but fold, but once we break solidly into the top 500 teams I will start playing with clusters and parallel computing. I have always had a desire to play with parallel knoppix. (recently changed to PelicanHPC) and finally have something reasonable to run it on. What for...............no reason really other than a desire to keep learning.
OH ya, lastly if you have a multicore cpu you need to run the smp beta client. It's built to load all cores and has the added benefit of giving more points. see This Thread if you have any questions or problems.

[SpeedZone]

acruxksa,

I totally agree with what you said...we surely all strive to get best overclock at lowest temperatures possible. And I am also very thankfull to you for your advices. And to prove that, I am actually going to do what you said and let you know the results.

As for the ram, yes it's CL4, so i'll also stick to what you said...not over 2.1 or 2.2V max...and also will tighten timings slowly. Currently (I just checked in CPU-Z) i have them set at 5-5-5-18...so will try to set it at those 907Mhz (or whatever option mobo will give me - possibly lower than that) and then work on timings. Just wonder...if i let voltage at 2.1V, set speed to 907Mhz and slightly tighten timings...how would i know if i.e. it dont get enough voltage, whether timings are too tight ore whether speed is set too high? Would computer lock in all cases? Or what will the symptoms be, so that i'll be able to know whether timings, voltage or speed are causing problems?

Finally...good luck with your parallel computing and everything...just make sure your farm has enough airflow, cause i wouldnt like to read in newspapers that it burned out for some "unknown" reason. Just kidding... And Thank You for "smp beta client". I knew there must be a way to load all 4 cores at once to the max. So I'll download it right away...wait for my current WU to finish...then move to the new client. Thanks!

Talk to you soon about my overclocking results and everything else....bye.


EDIT: Quick update:

Managed to set timings to 4-4-4-12 at 756Mhz...and also at 907Mhz I was able to have them the same (which i found odd, but there were no problems)!? But since i still kinda dont believe that running ram at 907 is great idea....at least not until i have more time to test, i set it back to 756Mhz. So thats ok....
I also tried running cpu @ 3.6Ghz....400x9....and it was actually working...with all other settings and cpu voltage on auto (cpu voltage was auto set to 1.4V - didnt bother with manual voltage settings too much, because when i lowered it to 1.35 and 1.37 it was rebooting)...and it would work if only i had slightly better cpu cooler, because cpu temps were going over 70's at full load...and as far as i remember right...Q6600 G0 goes up to 71 or 72 degrees before it starts throtling or shuts down. So my opinion is that it wouldnt be too smart to run it at 3.6 at the moment, because i.e. in gaming gpu temperatures would cause cpu temperatures to raise even more...not to mention that summer will soon come....and temps will rise for few degrees more. But at least i was able to complete wPrime's and EVEREST's benchmarks. so there is still potential...but like i said...with better cooler or even better water cooling...because cpu fan was already very noisy and at 100% all the time i run cpu at max...even 4Ghz+ would be possible with ease.

Oh, and smp beta client works great...Thanks!