I must be missing something simple with overclocking a 680i with a Q6600

[Trevize]

So my system is all built and stable.

I go into the CMOS however and all the OC'ing stuff is grayed out with a little "x" on the left and I am unable to tune much of anything. I can set voltages and memory timings but I cannot set anything else. I feel like somewhere in the CMOS there's like a "enable advanced features" check and I'm just blind or dumb and don't see it.

Also, the nTune software doesn't seem to function for me. It reports really long negative numbers or just about everything and it scared the hell out of me by reporting my CPU core temps of 75C. I installed Core Temp and it reports 23C-24C which is much more what I expected with water cooling.

H/W Setup is:
680i
Q6600 2.4Ghz
4x Corsair 1g 2.1volt dimms 4/4/4/12
2x xfx 8600 SLI video cards

[srpeters18]

In your BIOS where everything is grayed out there is one setting that is set to auto, I don't remember the exact term but its something along the lines of FSB/Memory speed. Anyway, whatever its called the only settings are linked, unlinked and auto. Set it to unlinked and you can set your speeds independent of each other.

[Victor]

first of all, make sure that you have the latest bios.
assuming that's the case. Then you need to unlink the FSB and Memory as that will allows you ot tweak the FSB and memory speed independent from each other. There's not much to tweak wiht the 680i board as you simply adjust the FSB to oc (maybe even emmory but most time you don't even have to mess with the ram). Other than that you may wish to tweak the multiplier.

[srpeters18]

Only way to go with the multiplier is down. Q6600 is locked at 6-9x. Currently, I'm at 1600fsb with a x8 multiplier for 3.2ghz. Water cooling stuff gets here this week, I'll see if I can get the x9 back for 3.6 (780i)

[Trevize]

Only way to go with the multiplier is down. Q6600 is locked at 6-9x. Currently, I'm at 1600fsb with a x8 multiplier for 3.2ghz. Water cooling stuff gets here this week, I'll see if I can get the x9 back for 3.6 (780i)

First thing I did after getting the system up was flash the bios to current.

The multiplier is currently set to 9x and the cpu is running at 2.4. The FSB setting is grayed out and won't let me change it. HMMMM....

[srpeters18]

The FSB and CPU Multiplier are changed on different pages. In "advanced chipset settings" select "FSB and Memory Config" On that page, select unlinked instead of Auto, its actually almost in the middle of the page, not on the top.

[Trevize]

Bingo! Thanks!


It was simple....

[Acidtears33]

Just be careful how m uch voltage you put through that beast.
Also don't forget since you are dealing with four corse here you are going to have to dissipate A LOT of heat.

And it gets really bad when you get up to 1.45+ volts.

I think Kougar was able to get up to 3.2 GHz with his Q6600 will very little voltage overall.

[Eternal Pledge]

It all depends on the q6600 you get, b3 or go stepping. I have set my cpu at 3.0ghz. 375x8. I wasent able to get it stable untill i set he memory to 1:1. I didnt have to have that much Vcore for 3 ghz.. Im at 1.3v for my cpu right now. Just has to do with your components. Id also sugest getting a better heatsink if you want to get into the higher overclocks.

[Trevize]

I'm at 3.2 GHZ without upping the voltage.

Personally I don't like upping the voltage. Seems stable so far. Ran stress test over night and working great so far.

It's keeping to 32C-36C as well. Using a Corsair Water cooler.