So I've decided to do this Q6600 overclock

ok, still stuck at 3.0ghz... but stable at 3.0 so that's something anyway. I gave up on getting past this OC wall for the time being as I was concerned about my southbridge temp which was 90c idle and higher under load. Not good. To fix this, I did a little handyman work.

I just built myself a home made cooler for my southbridge consisting of a copper heatsink and a small 30mm fan. I hacksawed the heatsink to size (it was a bit big) and screwed the fan to it with two old woodscrews. Yes, woodscrews. I then proceeded to apply AS5 thermal paste to the underside and two tiny dabs of high heat epoxy on two corners, then pushed that down into my southbridge.

While waiting for the wee amount of epoxy to cure I decided to stick an extra 120mm fan in that I had laying around, maybe as an intake. (I just had two 120mm's blowing out prior to this). So I popped off three covers in front under my DVD-Burner and thanks to the extra casing on the fan found it slid in the hole pretty well... so I stuck it in. Just to make sure it would stay put while testing I wrapped a rubber band around it and tied it off to the case inside. Yes, a rubber band.

I then plugged the little southbridge cooler into the mobo (for speed control purposes), and the 120mm into the powersupply. Since it has a little low/med/high switch dangling off it on a wire, I left that sticking out the side of the case so I can leave it at low... but crank it up to high if my house ever catches on fire. Given the work I'm putting into this, no I will not be evacuating if my house catches fire so the switch may come in handy.

I just fired the system up and here are the results.

Southbridge at idle
Before homemade cooler... 90c
After... 68c (that's 23 degrees!)

CPU temps at idle
Before 120mm fan in front... average of mid 40's
After... average of mid 30's

I am crazily happy with these new temps and my amazing Woodscrew Southbridge Cooler™, and Rubber Band Intake Fan™.

VERY impressed. Now, if only I could get this damn things clocked over 3.0. :p
 
Some motherboards don't want to OC nicely either. Computer components are like women, all of them are different and many are quite fickle.



Stansdds runs and hides from any women that might read this post.
 
I think I'm suffering from vdroop which to my understanding is a lowering of the vcore voltage while under load. Here are my current accurate voltages as set in the BIOS. Please ignore any of the above volt info just for clarity.

Voltages:
vcore : 1.425
memory :2.1 (factory spec)
1.2v HT : 1.3
NB core : 1.4
SB core : 1.5
CPU VTT : 1.55

This gets me a stable 3.0ghz. At idle in Windows (using CPUZ and HWMonitor) I see my Vcore voltage goes down to 1.408, from 1.425 set in the BIOS. Under load (test with Prime95, FSX at max settings, and Burnout Paradise at max settings) it drops to 1.38 or so, and I saw one dip down to 1.376... again, that's from a setting of 1.425v in the BIOS.

Think this might have something to do with my 3.0 wall? I can try setting it to 1.5v as mentioned above, which means it would drop down to something in the 1.455 range under load? Think that's worth a shot? I'm not sure I understand this vdroop business properly, or how to correct for voltage loss under load.
 
I think the vdroop is the result of the motherboard voltage regulator and capacitors. Voltage regulators don't always provide a perfectly stable voltage, so it varies up and down. If you had enough high grade capacitors and a really high end regulator, you might totally eliminate vdroop, but you would have a far more expensive and likely larger motherboard. Gigabyte seems have the best reputation for minimal vdroop, at least on their mid range and high end boards.
 
Well, I managed to get to 3.3ghz stable last night. Raised my vcore up to 1.5, which drops to .46 or so in Windows and slightly farther down underload (vrop and vdroop). Set my multiplier to 8x instead of 9x which allowed me to reaise my FSB higher. I think this pushed me past an FSB hole I have happening. I tried 3.4ghz at an 8x multi and wasn't stable at all, so I think I might be at my limit. I can't push my volts up anymore so here I sit. Happy about it too. If I could get higher I would mind you, but 3.3 is good. CPU temps are in the mid 30's at idle, and near 50 under heavy load so I'm happy with that. NB/SB temps are below 70c which is good enough for me from what I've read.

I may look into how to push it farther, but accepting 3.3 as my limit I may move into getting my RAm running at something close to the 1150mhz it's rated at instead of 857mhz which it's at now. Then on to some pushing of my video cards and I'll call it done.

So far FSX is marvelous at 3.3gz :)
 
I bet its better from 2.4 to 3.3

FSX needs and likes 3.2 - 3.6
 
Yes, it's a hell of a lot nicer at 3.3 than 2.4. The improvement is very noticeable and very much welcome. :) I see little point in trying for 3.4ghz considering I'm at 3.3 now.... I might like 3.6 but as said I think I'm at my limits given that I don't want to raise my voltage any further. I think I'll focus on getting my volts down as low as I can while remaining stable, then get into the RAM and vid card stuff as above.

If FSX is cocaine, then overclocking is heroin. :)
 
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