Q9450 oc

g4m3rof1337

g4m3rof1337

Active Member
I would like to attempt to overclock my Q9450 again. I was just re-reading over my previous thread I made like a year ago, and figured it'd be easier to start fresh. Anyways, I'm currently running it at stock 2.66GHz, on a V8 cooler. I'd like to get to atleast/around 3.66GHz if possible, since a friend of mine has the same processor, but a higher model of my motherboard. I also tried researching the CPU and mobo and overclocking, but got more confused. Do you need to know my exact RAM model, to help me with this? And to get to my overclock goal, I take it I'll need to go in increments, so how much roughly should I bump it up?




Thanks.
 
Does your board have an unlinked option for the ram? When your overclock the FSB, the ram typically gets overclocked as well. But having an unlinked option you don't have to worry about it, just set it and let it alone and work on your overclock.

OK well to overclock, you first want to manually set the voltage to the stock spec instead of auto. Leaving it on auto, it may increase itself and we don't want that. Next, (as long as you have the unlinked option) your stock FSB will be 333 with a multiplier of 8, I suggest leaving the multi alone and going right to 400 to start. This should be no problem on stock voltage, and will give you 3.2ghz. Boot to the OS, and make sure this is stable using prime95 smallFFT for atleast an hour. If it is, go 10 more FSB at a time until it's unstable (410, 420, etc). If you reach your goals on stock voltage great. If you get to say 3.4ghz and it's no longer stable, just give it .025 more in the bios and try again. like if your stock voltage is 1.275, give it 1.30, and try again. For that overclock, you should not have to run more than 1.35 Vcore.
 
Alright, so my first time going in, I change the RAM to unlinked, set the voltage offf auto, then just up the FSB, and leave the multi alone?

And I should be able to hit 3.2 on stock no problem?


Thanks.
 
Yup, perfect!

I'm 99% sure you will be able to get 3.2 ghz on stock voltage. I actually think you may hit 3.6ghz on stock voltage, but that may be pushing it. Depends on how good your chip is.
 
Alright, i sent you a PM, but I'll post briefly here for research purposes. When I was in my BIOS, I got confused with the CPU Core and CPU FSB speeds, which were both set to Auto, then greyed out next to CPU Core was 1.25000V and next to CPU FSB - Auto was 1.10V.


I can post the links to those pics of my BIOS if it'll help.




Thanks!
 
You shouldn't need to change the FSB voltage, just the core voltage. Set it manually to 1.25v instead of auto, leave FSB on auto.
 
Ok, and what's the option called that changes the CPU speed? I know the box pops up and stuff, but I keep getting confused since everything looks the same, lol.




Thanks.
 
g4m3rof1337 said:
Ok, and what's the option called that changes the CPU speed? I know the box pops up and stuff, but I keep getting confused since everything looks the same, lol.




Thanks.
Click to expand...

Running a similar motherboard to yours, you may need to increase mcp or spp voltage up about a notch to keep it stable at 3.6, and depending on the VID and such of your chip you may need more or less voltage to get to 3.2 or higher(3.0-3.2 is around the average clock for stock voltage though). Its best to run memory linked, but on a ddr2 board that is pretty hard to do, so i would recommend using a memory multiplier vs running it unlinked(eg- 5:3 and whatnot). Increase clockspeed a bit at a time, do some light stress testing(10-20 passes of LinX should do for quick testing), and then when you get to desired clockspeeds run it for a few hours to ensure stability.
 
bomberboysk said:
Running a similar motherboard to yours, you may need to increase mcp or spp voltage up about a notch to keep it stable at 3.6, and depending on the VID and such of your chip you may need more or less voltage to get to 3.2 or higher(3.0-3.2 is around the average clock for stock voltage though). Its best to run memory linked, but on a ddr2 board that is pretty hard to do, so i would recommend using a memory multiplier vs running it unlinked(eg- 5:3 and whatnot). Increase clockspeed a bit at a time, do some light stress testing(10-20 passes of LinX should do for quick testing), and then when you get to desired clockspeeds run it for a few hours to ensure stability.
Click to expand...

Lol, when it comes to BIOS settings/terms, I get confused. Is there a way you could post your settings, if you have them typed out already? Just like what needs to be changed, ect.



Thanks.
 
You just have speedstap enabled probably thats all. When the CPU isn't under load, it undervolts and underclocks the CPU to conserve energy. What did the clock speed say?
 
I ended up changing the RAM to Unlinked, FSB (QDR) to 1600, which ended up being 3200GHz, and the CPU Core to 1.25000V, because I didn't know what it should be at, and that was greyed out next to Auto. But I feel that's underpowering it.. Since when I went to change it from auto to that value, it was in the grey section. Should I change it to the lowest green number? 1.37500v?

And is that pretty much all I do? I'd also like to know how to understand Prime95, do I just run one of the test modes, come back in an hour/few hours, and see how it's doing?



Thanks.
 
No don't take it to that much voltage, just manually set it to 1.25 instead of auto. The greyed out part is just telling you what it's currently set at. I *think* you will still be able to hit 3.2ghz on the stock voltage, but if you get a no POST just reset the bios and take it to 1.30 Vcore. You want to run the least voltage possible on a given overclock.

Prime95, well there's 4 options. It's typically set to blend, but to make sure it's stable select small FFT. Do you have Real Temp to make sure you cpu temps stay in check?
 
87dtna said:
No don't take it to that much voltage, just manually set it to 1.25 instead of auto. The greyed out part is just telling you what it's currently set at. I *think* you will still be able to hit 3.2ghz on the stock voltage, but if you get a no POST just reset the bios and take it to 1.30 Vcore. You want to run the least voltage possible on a given overclock.

Prime95, well there's 4 options. It's typically set to blend, but to make sure it's stable select small FFT. Do you have Real Temp to make sure you cpu temps stay in check?
Click to expand...

I installed Win7 on a drive last night, and before I installed it, I changed my BIOS settings to 1600, Unlinked, and 1.25, and booted just fine after installing everything. I even ran a few minutes of Prime, but didn't know if it froze or anything, since I've never used it. But I'll change the settings back and run it for awhile.



Thanks.
 
sounds good. i've got my cpu at 3.8ghz, on 1.4v, which is the max im going to go on a 45nm chip. otherwise i'd be running at 4.2ghz with something like 1.45-1.475v
 
linkin93 said:
sounds good. i've got my cpu at 3.8ghz, on 1.4v, which is the max im going to go on a 45nm chip. otherwise i'd be running at 4.2ghz with something like 1.45-1.475v
Click to expand...

I doubt it would get to 4.2 ghz at anything under 1.50v. After 4ghz, voltages really need to go up on an E6300 for more OC. Mine took 1.50 or 1.525 to get 4ghz stable actually, somewhere around 1.50. I tried up to 1.55 and 4.2ghz would not get stable.
 
I set the settings to 1600 and 1.25, and 15 minutes in Prime everything froze. My CPU temp was like around 50, so.. Should I up the voltage to 1.30 then?




Thanks.
 
So I upped the voltage to 1.30V, figured out why my cards clock speeds weren't saving, and played Bad Company 2 and noticed quite a bit of an FPS gain. I then ran Prime in that mode you suggested for an hour and got to 14k, if that means anything, and my temps were normal. When I first started my Bad Company game, when I respawned my parachute didn't automatically deploy, and when I was waiting, the camera kept going outside the map, but after that everything was fine, so it might have been the server.


Everything seems stable, hope it stays that way, thanks everyone!
 
87dtna said:
I doubt it would get to 4.2 ghz at anything under 1.50v. After 4ghz, voltages really need to go up on an E6300 for more OC. Mine took 1.50 or 1.525 to get 4ghz stable actually, somewhere around 1.50. I tried up to 1.55 and 4.2ghz would not get stable.
Click to expand...

Don't forget every chip is different :good: but i don't plan to run any higher than 3.8ghz anyway.
 
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