My Upgrade to Quad Core.....
Krazeyivan
Newcastle, UK
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 (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.
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 (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.
0
Comments
How many RAM modules are you running on that motherboard?
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!
I am extremely envious of your temps though!
Well I'm not sitting in the North pole!
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.
I'm working on a backwards OC myself, trying to get v-core lowered to help with my temps.
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.
Have a laugh!
And yes the filters do need a wash just spotted it!
@Buddy J - there are some outstanding times in that thread - it would be funny to see what I get will download that software soon
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.
If you are successful with 9 X 378, then later you can try 9 X 389 for the pleasant figure of 3500MHz.
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.
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.
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
I guess this would bring up problems sooner, very useful tool to check out if you have not used it before.
If it survives that - it will survive anything
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
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!
Your load voltages seem low. Maybe a PSU upgrade is in order? Then again, your PSU is pretty awesome. :confused2
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!