C2D Overclocking Guide For Beginners

[Kelainefes]

You're right Pastie, the FSB is set to 448 in that picture, and multiplied by 6 you get 2.69 which is the CPU frequency displayed in that screenie.
That would mean the memory is running at 896 MHz which sends it off spec.

[Pastie]

Only looked at these today, otherwise I'd have noticed earlier due to having an 8.5x multiplier on my Q9550 that confused me at first.......

[blakobecwa]

Yea that picture is a bit of a mistake, i changed the option to x7.5 but never saved it, so it was still on x6 in the picture, i must have been fooling around with it before i took the pic. Its not making a difference once i start putting in different FSB values. The only time i see a difference is when i leave it on x6 and i keep the FSB at 333, the computer will start up at 2.00 Ghz, but right when i raise the FSB to 334 it totally ignores the x6 and i'm pretty sure jumps to x7.5 again cuz then it says i'm running at 2.52 Ghz....

AND i bought RAM today that mushkin PC2-8500...and yea...no difference whatso ever. still crashing at any setting i give it over 357 FSB. Anyone have anyother ideas/conclusions....cuz it looks like i cant go any higher than 2.69 Ghz....which is GAY. I wish i could find out why its doing this.

However...my new ram is running at 856 Mhz @ 4-4-4-9 timings stable. This is a good thing right?

[blakobecwa]

another question i have, is my CPU-Z program under Memory says that the sicks of RAM i'm using are PC2-6400 but they are actually PC2-8500, do anyone know why this might be?

My RAM is running at 856 Mhz, at 357 FSB, but when i try upping the memory speed to 1072(which is the next step up) i'm not able to run stable. Shouldn't the RAM be able to handle it?

[Kelainefes]

CPU-Z does not say PC2-8500 because that is not a JEDEC standard, the highest official one for DDR2 is 6400.

Is it possible that the memory is not running stable because you forgot to increase the vDIMM to 2.0 Volts?
Also put all memory timings back to auto until you figure out what's happening.

[blakobecwa]

I have already raised the voltage, but i will fiddle around with it later to see if i can get anything working. Another thing i wanted to point out now is that i signed up with the ASUS forum, and the there were numerous discussions regarding the Overclockability for this motherboard....and for the most part, people have concluded to this board is a poor overclocker, most likely because of the lack of options in the bios, so i just hope ASUS releases another bios update for unleashing the full potential of this board.

I got the board ten days ago, i coulda returned it, but just my luck they only offer a 7 day return policy well until then i'm just gonna have to make do with what i got......even though its still pretty damn fast, come on, i'm upgrading from a P4 w/HT @ 3 Ghz, DDR1, AGP GFX card.

I want to thank you all for your help, if you find anything you may stroll upon, regarding this P5QL-EM board..ANYTHING at all lol then please message me

I will keep you posted on the RAM issue, people from the asus forum have said they have reached 1066 speed for their PC2-8500 RAM.

[Clunk]

I think they are right, it does seem very limited with what's on offer in the BIOS. The thing is, some boards are made with hardcore overclocking in mind, some are made with moderate overclocking in mind, and some just aren't made for it at all, especially with a quad.

Sorry we couldn't be of more help

[sbeguy]

Hello again. I visited this thread some months ago when I was having issues with following the guide. I got a bit frustrated back then so I quit trying, but now I'm in the mood to give it another go

I followed the first part of the guide. I set the ram timings (as far as my motherboard allows*), made sure FSB and ram were at a 1:1 ratio at the default setting (confirmed by CPU-Z). I've set the RAM voltage at 2.1v by the suggestion made in this thread back then.

*My motherboard doesn't seem to have the last 5 options shown in the guide:
DRAM TRRD
Rank Write to Read Delay
Read to Precharge Delay
Write to Precharge Delay
Static Read Control


Here's my jumperfree configuration at default:
AI tuning [manual]
CPU Frequency [266]
DRAM Frequency [DDR2-533Mhz]
PCI Express Frequency [auto]
PCI clock synchronization mode [33,33mhz]
Memory Voltage [2.1v]
CPU Vcore Voltage [auto]
FSB Termination Voltage [auto]
NB Vcore [auto]
SB Vcore [auto]
ICH Chipset Voltage [auto]

Now the problem. I can set the FSB to 280 and get it up and running just fine, but anything above that, and my pc refuses to boot. More specifically, it starts up with fans and everything, but the screen stays blank. I've tried every 5 increment step up from 280 (285, 290, 295 etc) up to 333 but nothing works. I'm starting to wonder if one of the components is simply refusing to allow the overclock

[Clunk]

There's a few things it can be.

I seem to remember that the V model P5B boards didn't clock too well to begin with, so that's one thing, also, you have a "Mist 1k" PSU? I'm not familiar with that brand, was it a cheap/budget one? If so, that could be another cause.

Assuming that the PSU is OK and that the P5B-V is OK, then it's probably just down to voltages. On the E6600, you can try, say 1.4v Vcore and see if that helps, also, try taking the NB Voltage off auto and setting it to a couple of notches higher than its lowest setting.

[sbeguy]

the PSU is a 600W one, wasn't particularly cheap. I tried setting Vcore to 1.4v like you suggested, and NB voltage to 1.45v I believe it was. Neither worked when setting FSB to 300-333. Even tried increasing Vcore to 1.412 and 1.425 and it still didn't work.