Help with overclocking

steel_spine

Hi folks,
I'm relatively new to overclocking, I've been getting as much advice online as possible and trying small tweaks, and I'm hoping someone can help me.

I currently have a middling gaming rig with:

Gigabyte X38-DS5 motherboard (reported as DQ6 by CPU-Z)
Intel core 2 duo e6600 cpu
8gb (4x2gb) Corsair dominator DDR2 ram
Corsair 650w PSU
Geforce 9800GTX+ gpu

The stock speed for the core2duo is 2.4GHz, but I know it can be higher than that - at the very least I should be able to push 3.0GHz with it.
However, no matter what I tweak in BIOS, CPU-Z, Coretemp and other programs only report my core speed at 2.4GHz. I have noticed that this is because the FSB bus speed stays at 266MHz, no matter what it is set to in the BIOS. :mad:

Currently the BIOS (MB intelligent tweaker) shows setting of 333MHz for FSB with a 9.0 multiplier, giving me a CPU core of 3.0GHz
RAM is set to 800MHz on 5-5-5-15 timings.

I've tried pushing up the FSB overvoltage to +0.2 from +0.15, and the CPU vcore up to 1.475 from 1.35 (I'm aware this is high, but I wanted to see if it would make a difference then drop down in increments.)
Makes no difference - under stress testing I am stuck with 2.4GHz as the FSB speed won't show the BIOS changes.
I'm at a loss.
Temps are fine, and all the settings I could find in BIOS that automatically throttle are disabled for testing - still 266MHz or nothing.
Anyone know what I'm missing?

EDIT: Forgot to say, BIOS setting are definitely not resetting.

EDIT: Cleared CMOS and re-overclocked. Again, BIOS looks good, under stress testing CPU resolutely refuses to go above 2.4GHz due to Bus speed.

Greyfoot

All power saving option disabled in BIOS?? What memory multi you have??

AncientW

I'm a beginner in overclocking myself. Can you try a multiplier of 20x? or your motherboard doesn't support it? If you want to overclock from 2.4 to 3.0GHz then I doubt you have to increase any voltages except Vcore. So try 20(multiplier)x150(BCLK). And I know this is a dumb suggestion but do you save your BIOS settings before restarting your PC? And also, would it be possible that your processor is locked, as in you can't overclock it... cause some are locked.

steel_spine

All powersaving is off in BIOS.
Can't go higher than 9.0 multiplier with my mobo

Main multiplier is at 9.0, RAM multiplier has different preset categories to choose from depending on the FSB speed - usually 2.00, 2.40 or 2.6. Currently at 2.0 for a 1:1

I actually eventually got it working and I think it's down to RAM timings?
Had to clear CMOS for 3rd time,pull all my RAM, do a miniscule overclock and added all my sticks back one at a time watching to see if it held.
I then eventually got my 3.0GHz overclock back and my RAM running at 667MHz (rated for 1066) on a 5-5-5-15 timing. I'd like to tighten that but I'm a little afraid to touch.

It's still pretty janky and the overclock likes to stop working at the slightest tweak or provocation - what's annoying is that the BIOS doesn't reset like it should and POST doesn't clearly fail, it just decides it's going to ignore the BIOS settings and boot up anyway, meaning I have to clear the CMOS every time and start from scratch, it's also limiting my overclock - I've seen guys get stunning overclocks from this board and the 6600, only limited by temperature.

Greyfoot

steel_spine wrote: »

Main multiplier is at 9.0, RAM multiplier has different preset categories to choose from depending on the FSB speed - usually 2.00, 2.40 or 2.6. Currently at 2.0 for a 1:1

I actually eventually got it working and I think it's down to RAM timings?
Had to clear CMOS for 3rd time,pull all my RAM, do a miniscule overclock and added all my sticks back one at a time watching to see if it held.
I then eventually got my 3.0GHz overclock back and my RAM running at 667MHz (rated for 1066) on a 5-5-5-15 timing. I'd like to tighten that but I'm a little afraid to touch.

Leave timing as is at the minute. Its been a while since I clocked a s775 platform.
When you leave the multi at 2.0 it will lock your RAM and FSB @667, and 333mhz respectively. Try raising the multi, then FSB can be increased, since you are using DDR2 sticks, meaning @400FSB you will get 800mhz RAM speed.
It is not that simple though, you have to raise FSB core voltage, along RAM voltage, and whats more important NB voltage-that is what controls both on an s775 platform. It is not frequency settings you miss but voltage.
Check the following parameters and get back here:
Vcore
NB
RAM
CPU PLL

AncientW

I don't see a big point in overclocking your RAM, your RAM is not the bottleneck in your system.