Overclocking an E6700

[C Dub]

Hi guys,

Now that my system is up and running stably, I want to try overclocking it. I've been building my own systems for about 10 years now, but have never oc'd before.

It seems that when I change even the slightest setting, the system becomes instable or won't boot at all. I can't even seem to hit 3 ghz reliably. I'm using the Vortex TX as a cooler (I chose this because it's virtually silent and this PC is for studio use), which isn't exactly the coolest thing out there, but I want to see just how much performance I can eek out of the 6700 without getting too hot.

Curious to see what settings you'd recommend to try based on my specs (in sig).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kyanzes]

Well, a Core 2 tuning guide would be nice here on the board for sure. Hmm. With a setup like that you could easily afford an X6800 Well, ofc you are not here to hear my best collection of wiseassing. Have you tried to rise the FSB/MCH voltages? What about CPU core voltage? Some info would surely come handy here. What did you do? What have you tried? Also pay attention to the RAM freq. So?

 

[C Dub]

I can't even hit 2.8 ghz on the fsb without massively increasing vcore. Here's my screenshot... Something's wacky though. CPU-Z doesn't display any useful info at all.

My ambient room temp hits up to 38C during the day (no air conditioning in southern California) so my temps are definitely a bit high. There are huge discrepancies amongst the different software though. Vcore is currently at 1.55v.

Anyway: OC Screenie

 

[Baked]

Ummm, how come CPUZ and Core Temp are only showing 1 CPU for your E6700?

 

[jg0001]

Are you running WinXP HOME edition perhaps? I don't think that supports multiple cores.... or did you install winXP while using a single core, non-hyperthreaded chip and then switch in your e6700? If so, you'd need to do a 'repair' install of WinXP for multiple processors...

 

[mcmikemc]

XP home does support multiple cores. It does not support multiple CPUs.



Try taking out 2 sticks of your RAM so that you only have 2 DIMs filled and then try that. Shoot even try just one DIM filled.

Try a different graphics card if you have one.

Try lowering the multi for the CPU and then bumping up the FSB.

Try updating to the latest BIOS.


My first goal would to be to find out what my max FSB is. Then I would work on getting the highest CPU clock I can get.


Let us know what the results are from trying these suggestions.

 

[Kango2020]

Did you, by accident or on purpose, turn off dual core usage in your BIOS? I believe you are only using one core. Open Task Manager and use the Performance Tab, do you see two graphs in the CPU Usage History section? If not, you have the second core turned off, or it's fubar.

Good luck.

 

[C Dub]

Originally posted by: Kango2020
Did you, by accident or on purpose, turn off dual core usage in your BIOS? I believe you are only using one core. Open Task Manager and use the Performance Tab, do you see two graphs in the CPU Usage History section? If not, you have the second core turned off, or it's fubar.

Good luck.

Actually I've been meaning to ask about that. It's been like that since I got the system up. I've looked all through the bios and I don't see an option to enable/disable the second core. But I'm pretty sure that it's only using one. Anyone with a P5B have any ideas?

I also have given up two sticks of ram to another system that needed new memory. I'm not sure I'll replace it, don't think I really NEED 4gb in there.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: C Dub

Originally posted by: Kango2020
Did you, by accident or on purpose, turn off dual core usage in your BIOS? I believe you are only using one core. Open Task Manager and use the Performance Tab, do you see two graphs in the CPU Usage History section? If not, you have the second core turned off, or it's fubar.

Good luck.

Actually I've been meaning to ask about that. It's been like that since I got the system up. I've looked all through the bios and I don't see an option to enable/disable the second core. But I'm pretty sure that it's only using one. Anyone with a P5B have any ideas?

I also have given up two sticks of ram to another system that needed new memory. I'm not sure I'll replace it, don't think I really NEED 4gb in there.

Open up task manager with ctl-alt-del and go to the processes tab and right click something and select set affinity you should see CPU0 and CPU 1 both checked. If CPU 1 is greyed out you have to reinstall windows.

The BIOS cannot turn off one core on the P5B Deluxe

 

[myocardia]

You just have to change a setting in Task Manager. It's under View, select CPU History, then change it from "One graph per cpu" to "One graph, all cpu's".

edit: BTW, in your screenshot, you're running 3.5 Ghz. That's not at all a bad overclock.

 

[C Dub]

Windows does not see the second core. If I right click a process, there is no "Select Affinity" (i'm familiar with the process, my old machine is a dual p4). Windows was installed with all the current hardware, I have made no changes to the configuration (other than OCing) since installing. CPU-Z and other utilities also only detect one core.

So I guess my question is... WTF?

 

[myocardia]

Assuming you used compound between your cpu & your cpu block, the only other choices would be a bigger radiator, higher cfm fan(s), or a lower overclock.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: C Dub
Windows does not see the second core. If I right click a process, there is no "Select Affinity" (i'm familiar with the process, my old machine is a dual p4). Windows was installed with all the current hardware, I have made no changes to the configuration (other than OCing) since installing. CPU-Z and other utilities also only detect one core.

So I guess my question is... WTF?

Windows messed up that's really all there is to it.

 

[KampferAs]

i have almost the same setup, reinstall XP...

 

[C Dub]

Finally resolved this problem. Somehow even my BIOS only saw one core, so I had to hard-reset the mobo (take out battery, and use the reset jumper) and reinstall everything from scratch.

Works like a dream now. Getting 9950 3dmarks.