veritas88

I'm planning on OC'ing my recently upgraded gaming PC. I plan on buying a new PSU and CPU cooler before I overclock (see below)

Here's all my information:

System Specs:
Intel DP35DP
Intel Core 2 Quad-Core 2.4GHz (Q6600)
NSpire PSH650V PSU
2x2GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 800
2x500GB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA 32MB Cache (RAID0)
EVGA 8800GT
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Windows XP Professional (64-bit)

Cooling:
Antec P182 (all the fans came stock with the case)
Stock CPU Heatsink/Fan

The parts I plan on installing prior to OC'ing
Corsair 750-TX PSU
Zalman CNPS9700 CPU Cooler

Idle:
Core 0 - 47C
Core 1 - 43C
Core 2 - 38C
Core 3 - 39C

Under Load:
(Streaming 2 TV shows from Hulu.com, playing music, defragging my disk, and running a full system virus scan)
Core 0 - 54C
Core 1 - 50C
Core 2 - 46C
Core 3 - 46C

(Keep in mind these readings are prior to my planned upgrades I mentioned earlier)

I noticed my frequency occasionally changed from 1600MHz to 2400MHz... don't know if thats normal or not?

I like a blindingly fast PC as much as the next person, but I also like it to run quietly. Will I have to increase the speed on any of my case fans to achieve the proper cooling overclocking will demand? Will I have to install any more fans? My Antec is whisper quiet right now, but if it will end up sounding like a jet taking off, I'd rather just leave it be.

I'll be posting updates later when I get the parts I need and can give you my new temperatures, but in the meantime any information/advice would be appreciated.

greenbrucelee

First of all can I suggest that you not buy the corsair PSU and buy something like the seasonic M12 750w (which is what I have) or Antec true power quattro (they come in 800w and 1000w variants). If you plan on overclocking a PC then you need quality compnents and ofcourse that means spending a bit extra.

You need to get your temperature down as they are quite high already in my opinion so I would also suggest buying a quality cpu cooler (something like a tuniq tower120 or better).

You probabably will have to puchase extra fans because when you overclock a system you a producing more power so you get more heat. Heat + computer = bad

I have the ANtec1200 gaming case 3 x 120mm fans at the front on high, the two 120mm fans at the back on high and the 200mm fan at the top on medium and the tuniqu tower on just over half speed and it really isn't that loud.

The only draw back to my case is that I have to take out the dust filters once a month to keep them clogging up with dust.

What do you mean when you say the frequency sometimes changes? what frequency?

grimx133

The frequency changing is probably Intel speed step. You can disable it in the bios, it'll be listed as either speed step or EIST. What it does is reduce the multiplier when higher speed isn't needed, less power and heat that way. For overclocking, you should disable it.

The Corsair is an excellent psu, as is SeaSonic. Antec has gone down in quality the last couple years, ever since they stopped using SeaSonic as the supplier of their internals and went with some no-name generic manufacturer.

linderman

I sell most all my systems with the Corsair 750-TX ........ they overclock like a champ......... knock on wood; havent had a bad one yet ..........

my personal computer has a Seasonic M12-700 ............ but not many guys like the price tag of those

veritas88

I did a bit of looking around, and found that the CPU cooler suggested by greenbrucelee is supposedly better at dissipating heat, but it is also MASSIVE in size, and weighs like 4 times as much... (around 5lbs!)
It's already a bit cramped in my case as it is, what with all the expansion cards, drives, and wires for power and data, so I don't even know if I have the clearance for a Tuniq Tower 120...

The frequency I spoke of was shown on Core Temp:


I believe grimx133 was right on the money about what was happening...

Are there any further questions? Information I should provide? (temperatures after disabling speed step?) Other steps I can take prior to actually having all of my hardware for the OC? If not, I will update with new temps when I buy my Corsair 750-TX PSU and Zalman CNPS9700 CPU Cooler...

linderman

let us know once you get new psu and cooler installed

greenbrucelee

Yep the Tuniq tower is very big you will need around 200mm from your cpu socket to the edge of your case for the heat to dissapate well.

and also yes it will be the cpu throuttling which causes the frequency to go down and up. You will need to disable Intel Speed step technology (some bios its called EIST) and C1E if you have it.

These option are there to save on heat and power as you dont need much speed to browse the tinternet and type up a word document. So they throttle the speed down.

You have a q6600 they are very easy to overclock, nearly as easy as my e8400. I know a lot of people with it and they have all managed beween 3-3.2GHz with the overclock.

try raising you FSB in small increments i.e raise it by 50MHz save your setting and see if it boots, check your temps with real temp (free to download) and if it is ok and not dangerously high (do not go above 60c as you max temp) then you can raise again. then when you have it as high as you can get then you need to rais the voltage because of the increase in power that is demanded.

you also need to stress test your cpu when you think you have it stable so you need to download prime95 and memtest 86. prime95 will stress test your CPU on full load and you need to run this for a few hours. You can stress test a cpu for an hour only for it to fail after a couple of hours gaming. When I did my overclock I ran prime95 for 7 hours.

memtest will check the stability of your ram, you download the iso and burn it onto disc and rund the disk from boot up, you need to run memtest for a few passes. I did it for 4 passes. So thats about 11 hours worth of stress testing to see if everything was ok.

Some people run prime95 for 24 hours and memtest for around 7 passes, it all depends on how totally sure your wanting to be. Remember your delaing with electrical components that are being pushed beyonf what they are supposed to run at.

good luck.

linderman

well written response Greenbrucelee!...........

veritas88

I agree with linderman... that was a very well written and informative response... wow lol.

As I've obviously stated in the title of this thread, this is the first time I've ever attempted to overclock any system... All I really know about overclocking is that it is done in BIOS and requires me to manually set the speed of my FSB and RAM... I looked through the recommended reading in the sticky... they were informative, but ultimately did not help me to see what I actually needed to change to overclock my system. I think the problem may lie in my motherboard... I have a standard Intel mobo as opposed to one from ASUS or Gigabyte, that most people who overclock would probably have...

I have access to another computer at work, (where I'm posting from) that is not my personal one I plan to overclock, but they have the same CPU and mobo, so I figured I'd poke around in the BIOS to see if I knew what I was doing.

I go to Advanced>Chipset Configuration>Memory Configuration and I can choose between Automatic and Manual, so I choose Manual, and it will only let me change 5 things...

Label <default value> (options to modify to)

Memory Frequency <667 MHz> (800, 1066, 1333, 1600)
tCL <4> (1-10)
tRCD <5> (1-11)
tRP <5> (1-11)
tRASmin <13> (9-28)

I don't know if my BIOS on my personal PC is exactly like this, but I can assume that it probably is at least very close. I'm not really sure what to do... very confused

linderman

Label <default value> (options to modify to)

Memory Frequency <667 MHz> (800, 1066, 1333, 1600)
tCL <4> (1-10)
tRCD <5> (1-11)
tRP <5> (1-11)
tRASmin <13> (9-28)



thats not too bad ...............


what would be best seeing as your motherboard is somewhat diff than most enthusiast motherboards is to give us a digital pic of each screen in your bios .............. close enough we can read the values

from there; I am sure we can get yours figured out ........... the principles of the settings are the same


you could post your pics with image shack and paste the linsk in here

veritas88

I assume there's no way to take a screenshot of your BIOS without physically taking a picture of my screen with a digital camera? It will be a pain, but I will try to get those pictures posted soon. I made an account at photobucket.com to upload that CoreTemp screenshot earlier in this thread... I assume that service would work fine for uploading all of my pictures?

Anyway, do you just want a picture of just that Advanced>Chipset Configuration>Memory Configuration screen? Or are there other screens that I should post as well? In all honesty I could probably type up everything on that BIOS screen in a couple of minutes into Word or Powerpoint and just take a screenshot of THAT and upload it...

EDIT: linderman, you told me that you have used/sold the Antec P182 before, so I assume you are familiar with the architecture... The 120mm fan that sits directly in front of the PSU... the manual claims it "creates a wind tunnel insuring that air moves from the front of the case to the rear of the case." (paraphrased from memory) Do you think it would be better to reposition it in the front of the case to use it as an intake, (and free up some space around my PSU) or is it doing a fine job where it is now?

greenbrucelee

if it were me I would purchase an extra fan an use that as an intake, the cooler your components the better you can push them.

veritas88

The documentation says it can accommodate 2 optional fans. One in front of the HDD bay, (to cool the HDD's) and one behind it. (to cool the video card) It also says that if I have any HDD's installed in that bay, then I can't install the fan that cools the video card.


Note: this is not a picture of my personal tower... I found it on google images and modified it in paint.

Red: Fans I currently have installed
Blue: Optional locations for fans
Green: Air filters

Should I move the fan directly in front of the PSU to the optional slot in front of the HDD bay? leave it where it is? or go out and buy another fan and install it in the optional slot? To me, it doesnt look like it's doing much good where it is now...

greenbrucelee

If the Antec manual says it is creating a wind tunnel for really good cooling then you can bet that what it does. Antec know what they are doing when it comes to building really good cases for optimum cooling.

I would buy the optional intake fan tha would blow air over your cpu and help with cooling it,

I have antec 1200 and had p182, I had all optional fans on the p182 and to me it wasn't really that loud as p182 has shielded sides to minimize noise.

That fan is there to cool the hard drive

veritas88

I think you are probably right about buying the additional fan... I would mount it in front of my HDD bay, behind the top air filter as an intake fan, which would really help cool the HDD's, but more importantly would help to bring more cool air into the case.

I played around with some different speed settings on my fans last night, and the case can get quite loud when the two exhaust fans are set to high, and they're not exactly silent on medium either... this may be a result of me wanting to show off my sexy new case by having it up on my desk right next to my monitor, but I can't imagine it'll be that much more quiet on the floor... it'll probably just clog the air filters faster.

Do you think the extra fan and new heatsink will be enough to sufficiently cool everything down to reasonable levels? Or more likely will I have to increase the speed on several (if not all) of the fans?

My old Thermaltake Tsunami Dream had a 80mm fan on the side panel right over the CPU to blow fresh air onto it, but that fan (and the whole case in general) was VERY noisy and it would vibrate my desk (and everything on it) until it drove you insane.

Is it generally accepted that if any core of the CPU goes above 60C at any time (including under load) that you need to find a better way to cool it off before you continue to use it?

greenbrucelee

you can go higher than 60c but your actually looking at just over 70c before your cpu goes uses the saftey feature and switches itself off (blue screen of death) but you don't really want to go anywhere near that temperature so this why most people say stay below 60c.

I run at 56c and full 100% load.

unfortunately if you want to overclock you are going to cause heat so you need to make a compromise either get better cooling (fans or water cooling which will be almost silent) or you don't overclock.

Never put a case on the carpet as you can damage because heat blows onto the carpet then back into the case causing bottlenecks in temps + you can burn the carpet.

Try putting some rubber grommits or case feet under the case when it is on you desk this will stop vibration

I have 7 fans in total going and it really doesn't bother me. The 3 at the front of the case are 120mm each and are on full speed, the tuniq tower is just over half speed, the two at the back 120mm are on full speed and the 200mm fan at the top is on medium.

The only time it bothers me is if I put the 200mm on full speed.

You should have your intakes and atleast one exhaust on full imo as it'll help with maximum cooling.

veritas88

I've looked into water cooling before... I remember it sounded so freaking cool when I first heard about it... but then reality hit when I started to read the horror stories about people discovering the tiniest little hole in their tube that let just a tiny drop of water touch their motherboard and fried their whole system...

I personally think it would be better to just put up with the noise generated by the fans than have to constantly worry about your pipes springing a leak and destroying all your hardware.

I agree that putting PC's on carpet is a terrible idea. At that point you've basically got an expensive vacuum that runs constantly and doesn't have a convienent bag to hold all the dust and debris... It just gets blasted all over the internal components.

Anyway... I've been doing some looking around, and I may be out of luck when it comes to doing some "real" overclocking... My motherboard appears to have few BIOS options, limiting what I can actually do with it. I may have to be patient and wait a couple of years (when I inevitably overhaul my system again) before I start doing some complicated, high-level overclocking... But for now, I will try to work with what I've got and get the most out of my hardware.

I will try to take those pictures of my BIOS when I get off of work, and we can discuss my options (if there even are any) from there.

linderman

excellent discussion fellas ............... nice find on the case pics GreenBruce


as for fans ........... you would not want to listen to mine ! I have 5 120mm fans that all spin 3780 rpms when heavy work is in progress ...................

thats why they make music and gaming explosions ! ROFL

linderman

BTW: watercooling set-ups now have non-conductive coolants ........... no more frying parts when leaks occur ............. but it still aint for everybody........ and good systems aint cheap ............... my pal has an all danger den set-up that cost him $400.00 and if I were to get one ............. that would be it


but those are not fanless ............. thats a misconception ........... the best radiators use three 120mm fans to cool the coolant ............:)

but some climates (like aussie land) in the summer .................. you gotta have a water cooler ........... and other areas too unless you run the AC rather wrecklessly

veritas88

Hey! I found/modified that picture!

Really? I didn't know they were using non-conductive coolant these days. It is a little on the expensive side for a nice water cooler, but I also didn't know they weren't fanless... That was my main attraction to water cooling years ago when I first heard about it.