C2D Overclocking Guide For Beginners

[Kelainefes]

As Clunk's guide says, you should use the 1:1 divider while you try to get to the max CPU frequency, and also use 5-5-5-15 timings for the memory, you'll tweak those later. Also set the tRFC to about 54-60, that's something 4GB kits should like.

[Clunk]

It's night on impossible to know what the problems are, when your board doesn't support the CPU and hasn't had a BIOS update for months and months.

Does uGURU work from within windows? Will it allow you to change voltages there?

[affiliate13]

SteedaYo, you seem like a nice chap so ill recommend you save yourself a lot of hassle and invest in another board.
If money is tight a 2nd hand P35 would be a good start but new P45/X48s can be had for around £100.
Like this:
DFI Lanparty DK P45-T2RS, iP45 Express, S 775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 1066, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX - Scan.co.uk



That Abit board was always a mess even before they shut up shop, but now you are using it without any updates so i cant see this working out well for you in the long run.

It would be great if you were to pull some magic out of the hat, but its unlikely.

[SteedaYo]

Originally Posted by Kelainefes

As Clunk's guide says, you should use the 1:1 divider while you try to get to the max CPU frequency, and also use 5-5-5-15 timings for the memory, you'll tweak those later. Also set the tRFC to about 54-60, that's something 4GB kits should like.

I did use the 1:1 and 5-5-5-15 until I got to 435 and my PMW's need more active cooling to go farther, should have those fans in the mail today.
Then I tightened the timings to 4-4-3-9, but then back to 5-5-5-15 and raised the divider to 1:1.20 and now trying to bring the timings back down.

Clunk, Uguru has been iffy \but I haven't tried to change much from there since I lost all faith in their programs. I will try later when I get back home.
On abits CPU support list it says my cpu Q9550 started support in bios version 13, I have 14 right now and will try 13 just to see if anything changes, I bet their support changes was for the first run of Q9550 not the Q9550 with EO stepping. But we will see.

And let me guess Memset 4.0 is MCHLOCKED because of the mobo?

That diffinetly looks like a good mobo but atm I can only afford very little, I have alot going on plus trying to buy my first house.
Thanks for the advise I will keep my eyes open for any good deals with those boards.

Thanks thanks and thanks

Edit: Which is better P35, P45 or X48?

[Clunk]

I honestly have no idea about the Memset issue. It could quite literally be anything at this point, so I'd just be guessing.

I have to agree with what Affiliate13 said, it's pretty much a lost cause unfortunately.

[affiliate13]

Originally Posted by SteedaYo

Edit: Which is better P35, P45 or X48?

It depends, if you plan to run 2x 16x Crossfire cards then the X48 is the right choice, many overclock very well. I have a DFI X48 T2R that Clunk reviewed and it was excellent.
P35 is now superceded by the P45 and it comes with ICH10R which if you plan on using an SSD should allow it to perform at its best.
Some claim P45 are the better overclockers and certainly can be found for up to £50 less than the best of the X48s.
Theres not much in it up to 500Mhz FSB which should be enough for most tasks.

[sbeguy]

Thanks for an excellent guide, overclocking seems a whole lot simpler now I have just one problem with following your guide. In the step where you up the FSB from 266 to 300 and the RAM automatically sets itself to 600 mhz, that doesn't happen for me, it just stays at the default 533. There is also no option in the ram timing there to set it to 600 after changing the FSB to 300 (i checked just to be sure). Any idea what the problem might be? I'm running the P5B-V and not the deluxe btw, dunno if that might be a factor.

[supershanks]

Hi sbeguy, welcome to the forum and thenks for the feedback.
I can only think that foir your ram to be on 533 then your fsb is still on 266. Assuming your ram ratio or divider is set at 1:1 you will always hence the ram at 2x FSB.

maybe you can post a screen shot of you bios, just put a link in your post & we'll get the picture up for you. Then we can checkout your issue.

[Clunk]

Agreed^^

It's either not setting properly, or it's just not showing the memory speed correctly. You can check the memory speed by opening something like CPU-Z and clicking on the memory tab.

[sbeguy]

I just thought of something, I'm actually unable to boot my pc with the FSB set to 300, am I to assume that the memory speed adjusts itself only after a successful boot? In which case that would explain why it's not setting properly. But that brings up another question of why an FSB increase to 300 causes my pc not to boot in the first place. I've followed the steps in the guide to the letter up until that point so I have no idea what the problem is.