overclocking question too shy to ask elsewhere

[blortina]

Shipmates:

Not that SH4 needs to be overclocked, but I also fly a lot of FSX and have tried several times to manually or (using nvidia "tuning") get my PC to overclock without dying after a few minutes or hours.

I'm not a dumbass, but I can never seem to grok the whole overclocking thing.

I have a 6600 running stock on a evga 680i with a thermaltake v1 cooler (best looking cooler out there, cools well too...), 2gb of mushkin 95535, 2 raptors 74gb in raid0 on a 3ware controller, xfi and antec 900 with a pc power&cooling 750 sli...running xp pro sp2 with latest beta nvidia drivers.

is there a site you can point me to, for forty year old nerds that drink, that can help me understand how to overclock my 680i and 6600 to get speeds like that without it becoming more unstable than britney spears with 15 espressos in her?

seriously, who can help me: a smart but stupid american man, with a well focused, audience conscious essay on how to overclock my machine and understand the whole voltage to megahertz thing.

more voltage is more oomph through the wire, so you can run things faster: but what do I turn up and what does some of this crazy stuff mean? I have just one 8800gtx with good cooling so something better than stock should be possible, but like I say, I have some mental block or something to understanding it.

who wants to help a brother out with some sensible links? I'll send you some excellent beef jerky and excellent potato chips to you if you can help me teach myself wtf is going on and how to get what seems like an overclockable situation to actually work for more than a few hours.

thank you,

ensign blortina
vermont, usa
BAC .088%
Wind NNE at 5
Seas calm
Wife unconscious
Beer: 6 loaded 6 in reserve

[Zantham]

Well, overclocking involves a fair amount of know-how overall. You will not really find step-by-step guides on how to overclock your system.

First: overclocking any component of your system can UNRECOVERABLY physically damage your hardware, and will most likely VOID your warranty.

If that doesn't matter to you, I can give you several tips to get you started.
__________________________________________________ __________________

Currently, I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 that runs normally at 2.66GHz. It currently runs at 3.60GHz, at 1.6 volts. I also have an aftermarket CPU cooler, tho not quite as good as yours. My case is VERY optimised for airflow however.
I run on an Asus P5N32-E SLI motherboard, which is similar to yours, and runs on a 680i chipset.
My video card is a BFG 8800GTX that is factory overclocked (almost to 8800Ultra speeds) and I have chosen not to overclock my GPU.
My RAM is OCZ DDR2-800, and I also chose to run it at stock speeds, tho I have overclocked it to DDR2-950 speeds successfully. Its not the best RAM I've overclocked with.

You will need some utilities before you begin overclocking.

1) Memtest, possibly the best memory testing utility out there.
http://www.memtest.org/

2) Core Temp, widely regarded as the most accurate CPU temp program available.
http://www.overclock.net/attachments/downloads/46786d1178310917-core-temp-ver-0-95-coretemp.095.zip

3) Orthos, very intense CPU and RAM stress testing in Windows, multithreaded.
http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/orthos_exe_20060420.cab

4) 3DMark 2006, which will generally stress your entire system while also benchmarking it and allowing you to compare scores (mine got 12,500)
http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06

I prefer to overclock straight from the BIOS, rather than using nTune to overclock.
You can use nTune (an nVidia utility) to overclock your system as well. You will use this if you wish to overclock your video card.

I generally start with the CPU, then do RAM, then video card.

For the CPU, you need to understand a little about the Front Side Bus (FSB). My e6700 and your e6600 both run on the same FSB, that speed being 1066MHz. Now technically thats not your 'real' FSB tho. The Core 2 Duo's are 'quad-pumped' to 1066, but really run at 266MHz. 266 X 4 = 1066. Your CPU runs at a multiple of this setting. Some bios you will change the 266MHz, others you change the 1066. Mine works on the 1066MHz setting. The math, either way, is quite simple.

Lets take your CPU for example, the e6600. Now it runs at 2.4GHz, which is 2400MHz. That means it runs on a multiple of 9 (2400 / 266 = 9). Its actually 9.022556..... but thats dealing with fractions and we don't have to worry about this. You will not be able to change this number higher (only the Core 2 Extreme is unlocked). Hence, to speed up your CPU, you must raise the FSB. Now I mentioned before that my CPU is an e6700. This means mine runs at the same 266MHz, but because my CPU runs at a multiple of 10, it turns out its a 2.66GHz CPU.

Now i have mentioned my CPU is overclocked to 3.6GHz, and here is how the math works. To overclock it, i had to raise my FSB speeds up over 266. Now on my Asus board it doesnt allow you to change the 266 setting, but I can change the quad-pumped FSB (QDR). Whichever yours uses has the exact same result. To get mine to 3600MHz, I had to raise my FSB to 360MHz from 266. Actually I set my 1066 QDR to 1440.

To simplify:
266FSB X 10 (CPU Multiplier) = 2660MHz (actual speed of CPU)
266FSB X 4 (Quad pump to CPU) = 1066QDR.

Raise the FSB:

360FSB X 10 = 3600MHz
360 X 4 = 1440MHZ (QDR)

And that is the heart of the CPU overclock.

[THE_MASK]

Danger... Danger Will Robinson .

[Zantham]

cont'd

One thing to understand about the CPU overclock is that your results will vary. I've overclocked a few e6600's now, and I can generally get 3.2GHz out of them stable without a lot of work.

And here is where the work starts:

Start small. Don't jump from 2.4GHz to 3.2GHz just because someone said it would work. Overclocking takes time, and to get stable, takes lots of time.

Generally, you have to go into your BIOS, and set it somewhere to allow Manual Settings. This will open up a lot more menus. You are interested in the CPU speed adjustments for now. Find where it allows you to adjust your FSB (or QDR as the case may be). I will assume yours works off the actual 266FSB.

REMEMBER!!! Setting this too high can cause your system NOT TO BOOT. Generally you can simply clear the CMOS if this happens, and try again. but it CAN cause PERMANENT damage, to your motherboard and/or your CPU. It can also cause unrecoverable data loss on your hard drives. BACK UP YOUR DATA.

First, run Memtest. We need to establish that your system is stable at the stock settings before we can overclock. Ideally you will run it overnight, and come back in the morning to no errors.

Second, Boot to XP, and run Core Temp. You may want to make this autostart with windows for now. Note your CPU temperatures. They will generally be around 30 Celcius at idle, and not uncommon to be 25C. It can take up to 30 mins for your temps to be accurate, but a quick reading is all we need here.

Third, run Orthos. Start with the Blend test first. Make sure you can see your core Temp window. As you run Orthos watch your temperature climb rapidly. It should NOT go to 60C at this point, maybe high 40's low 50's. This test is also generally run overnight, with a close eye kept on temps for the first 30 mins.

After you run Orthos for a min 30 mins (longer is recommended), you can stop it and select the Small FFTs test. This test will max out your CPU temp. If your computer stays stable with this test running...you know you have a good CPU. Again as you run it watch your temps rise. under no circumstances should your CPU go past 70 Celcius!!!! At 70C you are still safe from overheating (most can take 80C), but you will become unstable from the heat. If it hits 70....71....STOP THE TEST. You should not get close to 70C on a stock clocked CPU.

Finally, install 3DMark 2006 and reboot. We want to reboot before running 3D Mark because we've been a bit hard on your system and rebooting will reset Windows. After your system has rebooted completely 9hard drive activity stopped) run 3DMark and enjoy the movie. You may want to write your score so you can see the improvements as you overclock. I generally run it 3 times, rebooting between each time, to get a better average.

IF your system had no errors during testing, lockups, or any other problems, you are ready to overclock!

First try a small overclock. Let's see if we can get the CPU to run at 2.66GHz. In the old days of P4's that would be a large overclock, but with the Core 2 Dou's...its a small jump.

The math: 2666MHz / 9 = 296MHz. This is what we need to change the FSB to.

You can do this, save your settings, and reboot. My normal procedure is:

Run memtest. It is normal practice to let it run overnight. You don't have to do this yet. Let it go for a couple loops, this can still take a while.

Boot XP, run Core Temp at idle CPU, note your temps. They may be slightly higher than before from your over clock.

Run Orthos Blend. Now you have to start watching your temps more. Remember, 70C you want to cut it off. 30 mins again is a good start. If your temps were good, and no errors, run Small FFTs test for 30 mins or more, and again, watch your temps. If no errors, you've done well, and successfully overclocked your CPU.

You will now probly want to reboot and try a higher overclock. Just keep repeating the steps, each time raising the FSB a little more. Do all the tests to check temps and stability. Eventually, you will have a problem....

[rls669]

What are the specs on the ram? If it's pc-5400 you won't have much headroom for overclocking.

I've got a Q6600 that's still running at stock speed on the stock cooler because it's taking a bit of Dremelling to fit my IFX-14 heatsink into my other case :D

[Zantham]

cont'd

So now you've raised your CPU up a ways, maybe your hitting over 3GHz now. Eventually you are going to hit the wall. Either your system will not POST (black screen, wont boot). In this case you will probly have to clear your CMOS and reset it all back to stock. Then reboot it at stock and run some tests to make sure its OK. Then you can go back into your BIOS and play with your FSB some more.

Another thing that might have happened is your system booted OK, but memtest failed. Again, you will have to consider your next steps carefully.

Or, your system booted OK, passes Memtest, but XP locked, or BSOD on you (Blue Screen of Death). The BSOD generally causes a spontaneous reboot. Again you have hit a wall with your overclocking and may need to set your FSB a little lower to get it to work properly.

Or finally, your system boots, goes into XP, temps are all ok, but when you start your stress tests you start getting errors. You have hit a wall.

Note the FSB setting where it crashed, and where it was last stable.

Because now we get to where the smart people STOP...overvolting the CPU.

WARNING: The following DEFINITELY can cause physical damage!!!

NEVER EVER go over 1.8 Volts on the CPU. Even if your temperatures and stability allow it, DON'T. At 1.8 Volts your CPU begins an accelerated slow death called electron migration. This occurs all the time with electronics, but normally happens so slowly that the product itself (such as your CPU) has been upgraded / replaced / whatever. At 1.8V, this electron migration in a Core 2 Duo has been shown to increase exponentially. So it may work a while...days...months...years....but the odds of it failing increase dramatically. I never go beyond 1.6V myself. The more you raise your voltage, the faster you drain the life from your CPU.

The other problem with overvolting is heat. Even a fraction of a volt can massively raise temperatures. Hence this next part is even slower and more painstaking.

Most Core 2 Duos run around 1.35V. Your BIOS will allow very small voltage increments, usually 1/8th of a volt or less.

Here is where the gamble comes in...how much are you going to raise your voltage? Depending on your temps in the previous tests, you may be able to raise it a full volt, or you may want to go 1/2 or 1/4 of a volt, until you get a feel of how much the voltages change the temps. Note at higher voltages the temps raise even faster! Before you change your voltage, you will want to learn where your BIOS shows the temps of your hardware. BIOS temps are generally higher than what Core Temp showed in Windows, partly because of no power savings (System Idle thread, power management, etc). Again, note your temps in here before continuing.

Now overvolt your CPU. Let's assume you threw caution to the wind and went to 1.4V. Adjust this in your BIOS, save your settings and reboot. Immediately go into your BIOS again, and into the temperatures page. Again, if your CPU is hitting high temps, you will immediately have to power off your computer, hopefully before it causes any damage....

So you watched your temps for a few minutes in the BIOS and its all good, you now will reboot into XP. Again, watch your temps as you run idle, and now, more than ever, as you perform your stress / stability testing.

You will notice as you increase voltage, the differential between your idle temps and your max CPU temps will increase greatly. For example, your idle temp stock may have been 30C, your FFTs test may have hit 55C. Now that you've overvolted it some, your idle may be 35C, but your max temps may increase to 65C! This effect gets more pronounced the higher you overvolt your CPU.

So now your over clocking becomes:

Raise FSB, check temps, stability, etc. When you hit errors in testing or instability, raise your voltage a notch, at your discretion. Then test your CPU at the same FSB settings as just crashed on you, check for stability, temps, etc. If you still have errors, either cut your losses and drop your FSB (and possibly voltage) and call it quits...or keep raising the voltages. Keep doing this until either you hit a voltage you are no longer comfortable with, your temps are getting too high under orthos testing, or you plain can't keep it stable anymore.

When you think you have finally gotten your system stable, its temps are all acceptable even under load, now you begin more stability testing, such as memtest overnight, orthos overnight, 3D Mark run again and again in a row, any combination of orthos and 3DMark....whatever it takes to check stability. You may want to try some of your games out too, play them at high settings so it makes your system crawl (if you can set it that high!)

Congratulations....if your computer is still working....you've now just overclocked your CPU successfully.

[Zantham]

cont'd

I've just touched on a small part of overclocking your system... you still have RAM and video card to do, if you choose. The basic principles still apply...watch your temps and check your stability.

On a system like yours with a 8800GTX and fast RAM, the CPU will generally be your limiting factor in games. I run a single 8800GTX powering my screen at 2560x1600....and I still play the latest games at max resolutions at max settings (Bioshock, Supreme Commander, SH4, Stalker, etc). I don't use any AA since its not really needed at that high of a resolution.

So I probly just wrote a small novel here, and hopefully it might help someone....I planned to write this anyways as a guide (for other places), so i guess I just wrote it a little sonner than I planned. Good luck with your overclocking and hopefully let us know how it goes!

[ReDRuM71]

Its not as overwhelming as it looks. Im not going to get into detail (Zanthem did a good job of that), but that motherboard you have makes it REALLY easy to OC. I have same mb and cpu. I have it clocked to 3.4ghz on air (Artic Freezer Pro). A big factor is air flow in the case. If you have a good case w/ lots of room and air flow, you can get some very nice overclock w/o going to H2O. I also have my 8800gts 640, and ram oc'd, it took me about 4hrs (not counting the time to stress test).
Check out www.extremeoverclocking.com (http://www.extremeoverclocking.com)

[-Pv-]

You can have the best cooler on the planet but if you can't get the heat out of the box fast enough, it won't matter. I ran overclocked with a water cooler for a couple years. That was before the larger, tube coolers made now days.
-Pv-

[maerean_m]

I use a
AMD Barton 3200+ (2.2 GHz) - bought early 2004
2 Gb DDR 400
7800 GS+ AGP - bought 2006
Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 (http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=iiyama+vision+master+pro+454&mkt=ro-ro&FORM=LIVSOP&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=Search) - bought 2004 (can handle 2048x1536x75Hz use ease, no LCD will ever beat this monitor) :sunny:and it handles everything beautifully: programming (latest tools and technologies), gaming (SH4 :arrgh!:, NFS, Oblivion etc with settings maxed out) etc.


From the benchmarks (http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=706&model2=716&chart=315), is clear that a configuration like yours will score 3 to 4 times better than mine.

You don't need to become addictive to overclocking (because you will, it's like a disease), your computer will be powerful enough for many years to come.

Remember you paid for it so you can have fun and be entertained. :up:

Once you've started overclocking, you'll never stop dragging those sliders to the right and the PC parts will start to fail (I've seen so many cases, first it will be the video card, then the RAM). It's neither fun nor entertainig to run around for weeks hoping that your computer gets fixed.

So, close the overclocking forums and start playing! :rock:

[Zantham]

(http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=iiyama+vision+master+pro+454&mkt=ro-ro&FORM=LIVSOP&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=Search)Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 (http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=iiyama+vision+master+pro+454&mkt=ro-ro&FORM=LIVSOP&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=Search) - bought 2004 (can handle 2048x1536x75Hz use ease, no LCD will ever beat this monitor)
(http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=iiyama+vision+master+pro+454&mkt=ro-ro&FORM=LIVSOP&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=Search)

OH-OH! Challenge detected! :)

Hey..for a guy that thinks overclocking is a disease...you've overclocked your monitor!!! That 19" CRT only supports up to 1920x1440 at 85Hz! That's a...what...15% overclock you've achieved? :o

However...resolution-wise I have you beat...I'm running 2560x1600... and I assure you it runs great, stable, and looks absolutely beautiful! You guys have done a great job with this game if I may say so.

(btw yes i'm aware you can run CRT's higher than spec just fine)

disclaimer: No part of this post was intended to be flammatory. No good intentions were harmed in the making of this post. The poster assumes no liability if this post causes a huge amount of stress in your life. Side-effects of this post may include red face, vomiting, gasping... If you experience any of these symptoms please see your local moderator.

[maerean_m]

you've overclocked your monitor!!! That 19" CRT only supports up to 1920x1440 at 85Hz! That's a...what...15% overclock you've achieved?
The original model was named HM903DT. Mine is a 2nd generation model, called HM903DTB, which supports the 2048 resolution.

The bad thing about the LCD is that it has only one resolution at which it looks best. Depending on your computing power (and no matter the computing power, now and in the future), the PC can run certain games at 1600x1200, other only at 1280 or even 1024. Running a LCD at 1024 resolution would result in a poor image on the monitor although the game displays a perfect image.

The CRT displays a perfect image every time :know:. And can display all sorts of aspect ratio resolutions: 4:3, 16:9, 16:10, 5:4 :rock:. I can run one game at 1600x1200 and another at 1680x1050 very easily.

disclaimer: No part of this post was intended to be flammatory. No good intentions were harmed in the making of this post. The poster assumes no liability if this post causes a huge amount of stress in your life. Side-effects of this post may include red face, vomiting, gasping... If you experience any of these symptoms please see your local moderator.

[Zantham]

I run pretty much all my games at 2560x1600, except one, because that particular game only goes up to 2048x1536. That same game also does not support wide screen. While running the 'wrong' resolution on an LCD doesn't look optimal, my screen has a very good dot pitch so it actually looks pretty good still. My video card (an 8800GTX) does screen and aspect scaling, so at least I get to still play the game fullscreen, or I can set it to keep the resolution aspect, in which case any other resolution looks exactly the same quality as the native on my screen, except the image is smaller.

Also, I build my computers to be fast enough that I anticipate being able to run any game at 2560x1600 for the next two years or more, at reasonably high graphic settings. Hence...why I overclock the CPU :lol: . I can always add a second video card for SLI when I need to, my board supports 8GB RAM, and it supports quad-core CPU's. Besides...I get all my parts for free...sorta!

I've found it interesting over the years, as I've sold thousands of screens to as many people. I run into a very small minority of people that HATE lcd screens. They claim, (and I believe them) that even at the proper resolution etc etc, that its very blurry, they can't read it properly, gives them headaches, eyestrain, etc. For myself, I left CRT's a long time ago and have stayed with LCD ever since. I find that CRT's will give me a headache after using one for a few hours, even at refresh rates over 100Hz. I can stare at an LCD for 12 hours or more straight and...other than looking (and feeling) like a zombie, feel fine.

In the end it comes down to available choice, individual preference, and, of course, the almighty dollar!

[rls669]

Speaking of overclocking . . . my Q6600 just ran Orthos overnight at 3708 mhz. :rock:

And I think my Thermalright IFX-14 heatsink with 3 x 120mm and 1 x 80mm LED fans looks cooler than a Thermaltake V1 :p