what's killing my overclock?

[Fayd]

Intel E4400, 2.0 ghz (currently at 2.67)
MSI P35 Neo2-FR
2x1gb PC800 Corsair XMS2

core temps are 47 idle, 65 load. (that's with another computer at moderate load sitting right next to it...)

I dont understand what's stopping me from overclocking further.

i've tried thus far:

bumping the FSB to 400, mem ratio 1:1. (800 mhz) doesnt boot, reboots over and over 5 times till it defaults to normal bios settings.

bumping FSB to 333, mem to 1:1.2. doesnt boot, memory is still close to stock..

bumping fsb to 300, mem to 1:1.25 (750 mhz memory) boots, apparently, but doesnt give a video output. (i dont get it...)

bumping fsb to 266, mem to 1:1.5 (798 mhz memory) boots, works just fine.

the double boot thing regarding p35's is pissing me off. much of the time, after the motherboard has been powered off, it will fail on it's second boot and i'll have to retry. that's at stock settings.

i accidentally left the memory at 1:2 last time i booted, so it would run the memory at 1066 mhz. ( i think).... it booted. i dont think i have a memory problem. but i did drop it back down to 798 mhz.

the processor core voltage is still set to 1.275... the northbridge has been set to 1.350.

is it the processor voltage that is holding me back? does anybody know?

i just want to get this sucker to 3ghz and be done.

one thing i am suprised at, i didnt notice any change in temperature going from stock to 2.67 ghz.

 

[Trevante]

You can't do 10x300 at 1:1? I doubt you'd get 10x400 to work, but 7x400 or 8x400 should work. And try upping the voltage first.

Also, what cooler are you using? I hope you're not using the stock cooler. 47°C idle is too high anyways, it shouldn't be idling much more than 40°C. Make sure whatever cooler you have is seated properly. What thermal paste are you using?

 

[Fayd]

the cooler is mounted properly, thermal paste is AS5. it's the scythe ninja, with a thermalright backplate/retention bolts.

like i said, those temps are maxed out with another computer sitting right next to it. it gets kinda warm here, as in hot enough for me to sweat just sitting in my chair.

the T-junction on this proc is 100 C. so i'm not too worried. i'm just looking to keep it under 75C load.

i just tried again to make it do 333x8... and again failed. i tried upping the voltage while i was at it, and had no effect.

 

[Yanagi]

Have you made sure you've locked the PCIe bus? Everything regarding bus speeds, turn off auto and set the speeds manually. for example Set PCIe speed to 101 Mhz instead of 100 or Auto. Do the same for PCI of its not done auto"magicly"

Also, what VCOre are you running at, what timings on the mem, what VDIMM have you set?

 

[kmmatney]

With some motherboards, a pin mod helps with the overclock on the E4400. On my cheapo ASRock Dual VSTA ($20 refurb) I could only get to 2.6 Ghz, but after the pin mod I can get to 2.9 Ghz. On my Foxconn motherboard, then pin mod made no difference. The pin mod simply sets the default bus speed to 1033 Mhz, so it defaults to 2.66 Ghz, and you can often get some overclocking room above that.

Onb the whole, the E4400 is pretty much hit or miss, but stopping at 2.66 Ghz seems really low. Make sure to turn off all power saving features of the motherboard, such as Intel SpeedStep and CE1. Also, try starting the memory out at below rated speed, so that it is not running much faster than its nominal speed after overclocking (or even running underclocked slightly). With my E4400, I cannot run my memory more than a few MHz over its rated speed - even 5 Mhz over and it crashes.

Mine will get to 3 Ghz, but I need to up the voltage to 1.4 V, but it can run at 2.9 Ghz with no voltage change.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Lock in 1:1 memory divider and manually set Vdimm to 2.0 with 5-5-5-15-2T timing. Bump Vcore to 1.46. Set FSB to 300. Reboot PC.