My Upgrade to Quad Core.....

KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
edited September 2009 in Hardware
Hi all

Been a while since I upgrade my box in any way shape or form so I thought I would share my upgrade details with people some of it may help!

I'll try and put some photos on a bit later - my phone currently has them stored need them off

Anyway specs before update:-

Core 2 Duo E6300 (lapped) - O/Ced to 2.9Ghz - 24/7 runner
Gemini 2 CPU cooler
4Gb OCZ Vista Gold 4GB DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)
Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard
ATI 4870 1Gb GFX
PC Power & Cooler 750W Silencer PSU
X-Fi Sound
Lots of HDD's
etc etc :)

So I decided to get the little warrior replaced after years of faithful service, I ordered a Q6700 and it arrived this morning. (L818A) Also on order was 4Gb more RAM
Straight after work the sandpaper came out and ....... was not needed! :bigggrin:

I looked over the surface and its very nice for an intel very flat, so I went unlapped, praying I was not sight impaired later on!

With stripping the box to bits I made notes of the HDD cabling (I have lots of HDDs so i numbered them with marker), power button, reset etc etc - so I would be able to rebuild quickly. I also took the chance of some rewiring to make it a bit cleaner. A few new 120mm zalman fans into the case replacing some akasa amber fans.

Dust was a factor with it being under the desk where I work in my study so I took some parts (CPU Cooler etc) to the garden and they met my cheapo air blower I bought for this very job :rockon: (160mph winds)

I rebuilt this machine fairly quickly and turned it on........ no go :(
The motherboard was giving me a C1 error - this I know is memory related normally the RAM is not getting enough voltage so it refuses to start.

Solution ...... its easier than to explain than my mini tantrums round the house due to the millions of scenarios I tried!

I removed everything apart from 1 stick of RAM - we boot fine - phew!
I configure the BIOS upping the northbridge voltage a few steps and the southbridge 1 step. Reboot and we are in windows no problem......

I remembered when I ordered the first lot of RAM a nice comment someone left ages ago about this RAM - follow this link below
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36347
(basically we re-flash the RAM so its SPD details are ok)
I had to do this for each memory stick individually and finally we booted with all 8Gb installed!

Overclocking this processor was kids play - 365 x 9 (3.29Ghz) with 1.36v to the CPU
The max temps from prime95 (set to max heat) are as follows
Core 0 - 52c
Core 1 - 53c
Core 2 - 50c
Core 3 - 50c

Nice grouping - am sooo pleased I did not have to mirror shine the CPU

There is plenty more in reserve but I'm quite happy at this speed for the moment, its been going Prime stable for over an hour now.

Next up is to work back from the current 2.1v to the RAM see if I can move back to 1.95v which I had for 2 sticks.

I'll see what I can do for pics in the next few days.
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Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2009
    Hey, nice! That is a very good temperature grouping of the cores, and low temperatures as well.

    How many RAM modules are you running on that motherboard?
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited March 2009
    Sounds like a nice system. Congrats.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited March 2009
    Hi Leonardo and Buddy J

    Yeah the temps are very nice at this current 3.29Ghz idle temps are 27,31,25,26

    I have a full complement of RAM for this board - 4 x 2Gb modules - as mentioned it was a royal pain for them to all work together!

    I'll hopefully get some photo's up tomorrow evening - off to sleep now!

    PS - I backed the RAM down to 2.0v so will have to test stability over the coming days but I suspect I can get that down too!

    PPS - I really like MX-2 TIM no cure wait or anything good to go!
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited March 2009
    Looks good! I take it you just swapped out the CPU and added 4 GB of RAM for a total of 8 GB. I have played with 4 GB, 6 GB and 8 Gb of RAM on Windows XP, Vista and 7 and came to the conclusion that 4 Gb was definitely the sweet spot unless doing a lot of memory intensive work. The overhead of running 4 sticks just didn't seem worth the trouble to me. I may try 2x 4 Gb sticks and se how it goes.

    I am extremely envious of your temps though! ;)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    I am extremely envious of your temps though!
    You notice that the guys with the really low temps usually don't say what the ambient room temperature is. :o :D
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Leonardo wrote:
    You notice that the guys with the really low temps usually don't say what the ambient room temperature is. :o :D

    Well I'm not sitting in the North pole! :D

    Its pleasantly warm in that room - around 21c I suspect - but I did not have a Thermometer backing that up.
    It gets a lot of sun in the afternoon and heats up a lot I'll report back on the temps then and see if I can get you a proper ambient reading too.

    This CPU cooler is rather large (and clean!) :)

    As I said I'll get some screenshots of CPUid and Core temp and photos up this evening for you to see, My Thermaltake Armor case has a large fan on the window side too.

    @MtGoat

    Yeah it was a straight swap with the CPU and RAM (unsuccessful at first that part stupid C1 error) and a bit of clean and tidy up.

    Vista was giving me DRM errors (with switching the CPU) but I fixed that with refreshing/rebuilding some of the DRM components, I had to re-activate Vista too.

    Working with 8Gb keeps me happy now - programs will for the forseeable not complain but as we know you can never have too much RAM!

    I'm going to work a bit backwards on the overclock (its fine at the moment) but I was to get the voltages all round (CPU, NBridge, SBridge, RAM) at their lowest level. Hopefully I have a golden CPU, its temps are very promising so far.
  • DonutDonut Maine New
    edited April 2009
    Nice temps! In Prime 95, try it with small fft's, for my rigs it seems to generate more heat than the large fft's that they say is max heat.

    I'm working on a backwards OC myself, trying to get v-core lowered to help with my temps.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Yeah thanks - I'll give that a go tonight when I finish work - see if I can boost my heat :)
  • VicarVicar Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    Well done & enjoy it.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    OK I just got in and here (hopefully) is a few screen grabs

    I'll have to hunt around for the phones USB cable for photos

    I just got in and this room is well warm - more so than when I quoted those temps I would state ambient is at minimum 21c in here (More like 24c - feels like it)


    The load this second jumped to 54c on three cores.

    Whats the ceiling for 24/7 temps with this processor?

    Also note this is just the CPU flat out not the GPU.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Some Photos off my phone...

    Have a laugh!
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Here are a few more...


    And yes the filters do need a wash just spotted it! :tongue:
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    Come play in the SuperPi thread!
  • DonutDonut Maine New
    edited April 2009
    Krazeyivan wrote:
    OK I just got in and here (hopefully) is a few screen grabs

    I'll have to hunt around for the phones USB cable for photos

    I just got in and this room is well warm - more so than when I quoted those temps I would state ambient is at minimum 21c in here (More like 24c - feels like it)


    The load this second jumped to 54c on three cores.

    Whats the ceiling for 24/7 temps with this processor?

    Also note this is just the CPU flat out not the GPU.
    If that's small FFT's, I think you'll be alright. What your getting for temps now is what I've been shooting for on my q9550's. Prime I've been getting up to 60c, various DC projects will only hit low 50's. This is on 3 different q9550's,1@3.7 and 2@3.8. My temps dictate my clocks more than anything. My q6600's used to run about the same temps, though lower clocks.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    60's C is no problem at all for that CPU.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    60c excellent - if a few games require it I may push it to 3.5Ghz or so.

    @Buddy J - there are some outstanding times in that thread - it would be funny to see what I get will download that software soon
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    I've boosted the overclock to 3.4Ghz - running 340 x 10 and 1.40v and the memory is now
    5,5,5,16 and set 5:6 at 816Mhz (running at an even 2.0v)

    Currently running prime 95 now (small FFT) - cores read 59,61,60,61

    Should be ok that temp wise.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    Why are you running such a high multiplier? Your RAM at default is 400/800MHz DDR. Why not run 9 X 378 for 3.4GHz. That would also give you a snappy front side bus speed of 1511. You get noticeably better real world performance with higher FSB.

    If you are successful with 9 X 378, then later you can try 9 X 389 for the pleasant figure of 3500MHz.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Thanks Leonardo I'll try that, the only issue (if you can call it that) with this overclock - is the PWM temps under full torture.
    hwmonitor has PWM at 68c-70c full load - its in the 40s idle.

    I will try running your suggestion now - on the good news side I dropped the vcore to 1.39v seems to hold 3.4Ghz no problem.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Right I made those changes you suggest - am running 9 x 378 - what vcore you running to get 3.5Ghz? Also whats your Abits PWM temps under full load?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    The Abit machines are in another room right now. I never even bother checking the PWM temperatures. My Abits are clocked at 3.2GHz, 8 X 400. Both of them sit right next to baseboard heating, so I don't clock them too high. Comparing my Abit setups to yours wouldn't be very useful. But with that said, both of them have the vCore set much higher than yours. You've got a very nice Q there, apparently.

    Unless your case isn't well ventilated, I wouldn't worry about PWM temperatures. If anything holds you back below 3.5GHz, it will be the northbridge sink. Run it at 378 for a day, multitasking and stressing it. If it's stable, then go for 9 X 389/3.5GHz. You may need to bump up ICH (FSB/NB) for that.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Thanks for the info

    Yeah this 6700 looks good so far. I'm running prime95 now on it still looks solid as a rock. I checked my PWM temps idle and they are 35c-40c idle. At load they go to 70c then slide down a bit to 66c-67c.

    Once I'm happy at this level and I'm convinced its stable I will lower the voltage on the CPU to see what I can get away with at 3.4 and then try my hand at the memory. I'll be very pleased to get 8Gb humming along on 1.9v.

    Once I have a minimum baseline I can try and get 3.5Ghz with a good understanding of what I need to increase.

    My ICH at stock on this board is 1.05v - but I did some reading beforehand from various people's experiences with this board - my current setting is 1.09v

    The rest of my settings are as follows

    CPU - BIOS (1.39v) idle (1.36v) load (1.30v)
    DDR2 - 2.0v
    CPU VTT - Stock is 1.2v, Currently (1.27v)
    MCH - Stock (1.25v) Currently (1.41v)
    ICHIO - Stock (1.5v) Currently (1.55v)
    ICH - Stock (1.05v) Currently (1.09v)

    Idle System temp - 29c
    Idle PWM temp - 36c
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    PS - For anyone else testing system stability - Intels Burn Test (linpack testing) put the CPU under more load and kicks the crap out of the CPU - with prime95 top temps never go over 60c - using max stress settings I hit 73c with the Intel burn test.

    I guess this would bring up problems sooner, very useful tool to check out if you have not used it before.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    The Burn Test isn't useful for exactly that reason. You'll never hit those temps no matter what you do without using that tool.
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Thats true but if you want to really try and make your system unstable thats the tool to use.
    If it survives that - it will survive anything
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Right just a quick update - my Rig is fully stable in Prime95 (all tests) and Intel BurnTest and LinX (based on the linpack test) they fully completed with max stress.

    Scary with Linpack - temps went to 79c when doing max stress test using full memory settings. PWM temps touched 80c - thats warm!

    Planned testing - Next up is follow Leonardo's 3.5Ghz suggestion - test that, then hopefully get a nice 3.6Ghz.
    Then assuming I can get 3.4Ghz-3.6Ghz stable I'll work on voltages to CPU,NBridge,RAM at each level to get it as lean as possible.

    To be honest at my current 3.4Ghz this CPU is very strong I suspect it will not need much beyond stock voltage.

    Here is the super stable 3.4Ghz test settings (mentioned above)

    CPU - BIOS (1.39v) idle (1.36v) load (1.30v) LinpackLoad (1.27v)
    DDR2 - 2.0v
    CPU VTT - Stock is 1.2v, Currently (1.27v)
    MCH - Stock (1.25v) Currently (1.41v)
    ICHIO - Stock (1.5v) Currently (1.55v)
    ICH - Stock (1.05v) Currently (1.09v)

    Idle System temp - 29c
    Idle PWM temp - 36c
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    I'm going for most replys to self...... :P
    Its hopefully a useful guide for others following my brain dump!

    Same settings straight to 389x9 (3.5Ghz - 3510 exact) no problem
    Booted Windows XP fine (dual boot config here)
    Straight to Prime95 - CPU stress first - FAIL after 7 mins on core 4

    So 1.39v in BIOS = Fail 7mins core 4
    Upped 1 step to 1.40v and currently retesting.......
    RESULT - 1.40v in BIOS = Fail 11mins core 4

    Love me a challenge! :)
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited April 2009
    1.45v? I hate Prime95 core failures. They're so disheartening. Especially the "rounding error" ones.

    Your load voltages seem low. Maybe a PSU upgrade is in order? Then again, your PSU is pretty awesome. :confused2
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    Hi Buddy J

    This board does not have the vdroop mod - its a top quality board but she suffers from the droop - still very happy with this processor mind

    I went for 1.43v and its priming away as I type :)

    load temps have gone to 70c with prime95 and PWM temps are high 70s which is not good but hey its stressful!
  • KrazeyivanKrazeyivan Newcastle, UK
    edited April 2009
    PS - SuperPI at 3.5ghz was 14.891 secs
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