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Author Topic: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought  (Read 74484 times)

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #100 on: November 27, 2007, 09:20:02 AM »
You might be able to clock it up to 2.8-3ghz without having to change the core voltage. When you start changing the core voltage, that's when you need to look at better cooling.

Tomorrow I'll see if I can take some pics of the bios and settings for you and guide you through overclocking your chip. :D

Much appreciated  O0

Offline NAzu

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #101 on: November 27, 2007, 01:07:46 PM »
It should do 3GHz on stock volts and with the boxed cooler. With better cooler and more volts 3.6-3.7GHz if your chip isn't total crap. My E6600 did 3.7GHz.

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #102 on: November 27, 2007, 03:28:20 PM »
When I was reading up on overclocking, it seemed like I could only go as fast as the type of the memory I have, or something like that.  What's that all aboot?

Offline NAzu

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #103 on: November 27, 2007, 06:45:21 PM »
When I was reading up on overclocking, it seemed like I could only go as fast as the type of the memory I have, or something like that.  What's that all aboot?

Dunno what you've been reading but you can use dividers which control the fsb/mem clock ratio and with them you can set the memory speed so that it wont prevent you from overclocking your cpu (in case if your mem speed would be too high). Probably on stock setting the mem divider will be upwards as the fsb on the E6600 is 266MHz and your mems stock speed is 400MHz (800MHz DDR). When you start overclocking I recommend setting the divider to 1:1 to keep the mem speed from raising too much. You will probably see the dividers in "DRAM frequancy" setting. When you find the maximum overclock and if you see that the mem speed is too low for you can again use the dividers to set the mem speed as close as the stock speeds or as high as the mem will overclock. You can test the memory overclocking by lowering the cpu divider to a point where the cpu clockspeed will not be too high.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2007, 06:47:59 PM by NAzu »

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #104 on: November 27, 2007, 07:09:27 PM »
When I was reading up on overclocking, it seemed like I could only go as fast as the type of the memory I have, or something like that.  What's that all aboot?

Dunno what you've been reading but you can use dividers which control the fsb/mem clock ratio and with them you can set the memory speed so that it wont prevent you from overclocking your cpu (in case if your mem speed would be too high). Probably on stock setting the mem divider will be upwards as the fsb on the E6600 is 266MHz and your mems stock speed is 400MHz (800MHz DDR). When you start overclocking I recommend setting the divider to 1:1 to keep the mem speed from raising too much. You will probably see the dividers in "DRAM frequancy" setting. When you find the maximum overclock and if you see that the mem speed is too low for you can again use the dividers to set the mem speed as close as the stock speeds or as high as the mem will overclock. You can test the memory overclocking by lowering the cpu divider to a point where the cpu clockspeed will not be too high.

Appreciate the info, but for the most part I have no idea what you just said   :(

Offline NAzu

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #105 on: November 27, 2007, 07:15:35 PM »
In a nutshell: It's not likely that your memory will stop you from overclocking (expecting you will stay under 500MHz fsb range).

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #106 on: November 27, 2007, 07:49:33 PM »
In a nutshell: It's not likely that your memory will stop you from overclocking (expecting you will stay under 500MHz fsb range).

Never thought it would.  I was just getting confused about some overclocking things I've read, but I understand what it means now.  To use a ratio of 1:1, I could go as high as 400mhz for my CPU's FSB, which would give me speed 3.6ghz.  I'd like to get up to that point, but I'm hearing things about changing core voltage, so how does that come into play with all of this? (Sorry about being a bother with this, but I wanna know exactly what I'm doing before I screw up and ruin a processor)


Offline NAzu

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #107 on: November 27, 2007, 08:13:22 PM »
You can change the cpu volts (=vcore) in bios. When the comp gets unstable after you have raised enough fsb you can start upping the vcore and see if that helps. Though if you use the boxed cooler I recommend not to give it a lot of volts cos the cpu temp will probably get too high. With a good cooler you can raise the vcore to about 1.6v if the cpu temp is not too high.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2007, 08:14:53 PM by NAzu »

Offline ebc

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #108 on: November 28, 2007, 01:35:24 AM »
Ok, here's my awesome overclocking guide with pictures and stuff. You may want to print this out hehe

To start off with, you need to download some tools for monitoring and stress testing.
There's a lot out there but I like to use Orthos http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm Because it will let you know if your cpu isn't stable without your whole computer shutting down. Usually people will run this overnight but you will usually see it fail in the first 5-10minutes if your cpu is actually not stable.

The other program is coretemp http://www.majorgeeks.com/Core_Temp_d5665.html Which is used to monitor the temperature of each core of the cpu. It's usually a lot more accurate than software that comes with the motherboard because it monitors the temps directly from the cpu heat sensors not the motherboard ones.

You can also get cpuz to show things different informations about your system etc http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Once you have all that, you can reboot and head into the bios.


With the new Gigabyte boards you have to unlock the area to set your memory timings manually and you do that by pressing ctrl+F1 in that main menu of the bios screen.

You can then go into the M.I.T menu at the bottom and you'll see a tonne of crap, this is where you overlock :D

The first option, I've just left it on auto cause to be honest I don't know if it really does anything lol.
To start overclocking though you need to enable the CPU host clock control

By default it should be 266 for the e6600 because 266.66 x 4 (DDR quadpumping) that is where you get your 1066mhz FSB from and overclocking is done by changing the FSB (or clock multiplyer if it is unlocked but in your case it isn't, although you can change it downwards but not up)

You can see that I've already changed mine up to 333, this will overclock my humble e6420 from 2.1something to 2.66Ghz. If you want start by setting yours to 333 that will overclock your cpu to 3ghz (of course you can go higher later on :D)

So the way that work is 9 x 333 = 3Ghz where 9 is the clock multiplier and 333 is the FSB (or value that controls the FSB the real FSB will now actually be 1333 instead of 1066)

Changing the value of the CPU host frequency is the basic step to overclocking, when you increase it you will notice another value also change, that being the memory speed. The memory speed is controlled by the Memory Multiplier and that is usually controlled by the SPD which is the information on the RAM itself that tells the motherboard what it's default speeds are. You can change these values though and you will mostly likely need to in order to get a stable memory speed.

The memory should be default as 800 however I'm using 667 but it actually runs at 800mhz fine with timings of 5-5-5-15 (worry about this soon)

You might notice that I've changed the ratio already from 4 (default ratio) to 2.4 
If you leave it at 4, when you start increasing the FSB the memory speed will become too high for it to run (1333mhz). DDR800 can't run that fast though so you need to change the ratio down in order to keep the memory speed in a stable range. This is something you will need to kinda experiment with but try just making it a value close to your default memory speed for starters like 2.4 this should give you exactly 800mhz (333x2.4)
DDR800 can clock higher than 800mhz though depending on how good your ram is. It might be able to reach 900mhz higher.

One thing you will now need to do is tweak your memory timings.

Depending on what the timings are for your ram, usually they're written on the sticks somewhere but you will want to find out what they are and set them properly in the following 4 options.
Some ram will run at 4-4-4-12 at 800mhz (usually this is expensive stuff) But I think your ram will be something like 5-5-5-12
If you get too confused about this though you can just leave this option as auto hehe

Finally at the bottom is where you can change the voltages.

The default vcore is right at the bottom and is 1.35 to start with you can leave your vcore as normal as you might find your computer boots fine and is completely stable. However if it is not, the worst thing that will happen is that your computer won't post (turn on but nothing come up on screen)
Don't panic though, if this happens (which it probably will) just switch the power off to the computer completely and let it sit there a few seconds then turn it back on. The Gigabyte bios will reset itself and everything will be back to default values. IF it still doesn't post after pulling the power from it then you can clear the bios with the jumper on the motherboard, just check the manual to see where is it but from my experience you won't have to do this with your motherboard. They recover from failed overclocking attempts really well.

So if your computer isn't stable on normal vcore, you can try to bump it up a bit. You can see I've set mine to 1.45. I just picked this number out of the blue hehe but to be honest it's actually not going to increase the vcore much at all. That's because of a thing called vcore drooping. This is a problem where even if you give your vcore a new value there is sometimes up to .1 volts of "droop" that means the vcore will actually only be 1.35 anyway.
So in order to actually get your vcore up enough to make your cpu stable again, you need to set it to something usually above 1.45 but then again some boards don't suffer from as much vdroop as others so again it's something you'll have to experiment through trial and error with. I will warn you though, definitely don't put this value above 1.6 with your stock cooler hehe your cpu will get very hot XD

Ok then so once you've set everything to how you want it. You can save your bios settings and reboot and see if Windows works! Some things that can happen if it's not stable are basically, it will freeze on bootup, it might bluescreen, it might give some error message you've never seen before. In this case try going back into the bios and changing values accordingly. I would try upping the vcore a little more at first. For instance I had to put my vcore at 1.475 in order to get into Windows with my e6420 at 2.95Ghz

Once you are in Windows, start up coretemp and check your temps and start running Orthos


If your cpu starts getting up to 70c then it's probably not a good idea to run it for long and I think you should get a better CPU cooler. But under 70 I think is alright for a Core 2 Duo at full load.

If Orthos fails it is cause your cpu isn't stable at the speed it's at and you might need to de-clock it or up your vcore depending on what it's currently at.


And that's about it. I hope I covered everything. If you want to. Run 3Dmark06 before overclocking and write down your score then do it again after overclocking and see how much better it is :P
« Last Edit: November 28, 2007, 01:46:46 AM by ebc »

Offline ebc

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #109 on: November 28, 2007, 01:49:42 AM »
Oh, the latest geek/nerd thing I bought, they arrived today!


Offline NAzu

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #110 on: November 28, 2007, 08:24:32 AM »
If you use Orthos to check the stability of the OC use small fft's settings as it stresses the cpu more than blend (this stresses ram and cpu). You can also use OCCT for testing. Remember that even if the cpu is Orthos/Prime stable for 10h it may fail in games. So it's important to do a wide benching to be sure that the cpu is stable.

OT. ebc, maybe you should hang out at Xtremesystems  ^-^
« Last Edit: November 28, 2007, 08:26:03 AM by NAzu »

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #111 on: November 28, 2007, 10:00:57 AM »
Thanks for the guide ebc.  Should be getting in the parts tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes e_e

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #112 on: November 29, 2007, 06:53:59 PM »
Well, at full load (Encoding a video, playing music in winamp, and bobbing a full resolution HDTV video at the same time), the temp was between 53-58C.  Gonna try my hand at some overlocking in a second, but do you guys have any recommendations for a CPU cooler?

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #113 on: November 29, 2007, 08:01:27 PM »
Went up to 333mhz, so I'm running the CPU @ 2.99GHZ and that produces 63C as highest temp with the Orthos stress test.  I'd like to go up to the point where I can be using 400mhz since that seems to be the best with the current memory I have, but I don't wanna push it much further than this without getting a nice heatsink/fan.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2007, 08:02:32 PM by LaJon »

Offline NAzu

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #114 on: November 29, 2007, 08:24:04 PM »
Xigmatek HDT-S1283, Tuniq Tower, Coolermaster Hyper 212, Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme... First three of those are pretty cheap compared to the TRUE which is about +60€ with a fan. I have the Xigmatek and I can recommend it  :)

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #115 on: November 29, 2007, 08:57:03 PM »
Well, if I get one, Tuniq is looking like the best.  I've definately got the room in my case since it's a big server tower.  Just not sure if the speed I'd gain by overclocking it more would be useful for me to pay out $45.  We'll see e_e

Offline ebc

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #116 on: November 30, 2007, 12:42:26 AM »
You could try getting some Arctic Silver or something and reseating your stock cooler using that. (clean off all the stuff that came on the stock cooler, it's pretty crap)
That might keep your temps down and you could probably hit 3.4 with a bit more vcore.

But yeah good heatsinks cost a lot more than they're worth sometimes. Sometimes you don't even find yourself leaving your machine overclocked anyway cause it's fast enough just at stock speed XD

Offline LaJon

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #117 on: November 30, 2007, 01:18:30 AM »
You could try getting some Arctic Silver or something and reseating your stock cooler using that. (clean off all the stuff that came on the stock cooler, it's pretty crap)
That might keep your temps down and you could probably hit 3.4 with a bit more vcore.

But yeah good heatsinks cost a lot more than they're worth sometimes. Sometimes you don't even find yourself leaving your machine overclocked anyway cause it's fast enough just at stock speed XD

Yeah, I bought some arctic silver as a combo with the CPU and have been using that.

Offline delerium

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #118 on: November 30, 2007, 02:41:03 AM »
My new Asus Eee PC:

The other laptop in the pics is a standard 15.4" screen'd one. xD

Offline frblckstr1

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Re: Post the latest Geek/Nerd stuff that you bought
« Reply #119 on: November 30, 2007, 05:18:03 AM »
^ Half screen -> half size :)

I like the R2H more (touch screen and full Tablet XP), waiting for the R50A to show up...

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