Overclocking my system (Intel Q9450 & Asus Striker II Formula)

[Russian]

Hello, could anyone please help me with overclocking my system. The reason why I ask for help is because I already have done research and read many guides and tried to overclock it, but all in vain. So I decided to create a topic.

I just can't figure out the correct voltage settings for my system in order to achieve a stable o'clock. I have tried many different combinations and did stress testing using Prime95, but I always end up with a frozen system.

I started with the goal to reach 3,6GHZ of stable overclock, but due to instability I ended up in going all the way down to 3,2GHZ, unfortunately I am still unable to get a stable overclock at this speed.

If anyone with similar system specs (or anyone at all) could advise me on the correct voltages and settings, it would be greatly appreciated.

My system specs:
CPU: Intel Q9450
CPU Cooling: Prolimatech Megahalems Rev. B (Silver) with Cooler
Motherboard: Asus Striker II Formula
Bios: Award (03/19/10) 2402
Graphics Card: ASUS NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX
Memory: OCZ Reaper DDR2 PC2-8500 (OCZ2RPR10664GK) (4x 2GB)
Hard Drives: Seagate Barracuda ST350032, WDC WD5000AAKS-00TMA
Power Supply: Corsair TX750W
Display: ASUS VW266H
Case: Cooler Master HAF X
Sound Card: SuperFX II Audio Card (8 Channel HD Audio)
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

If you need a more details, please let me know.

Thanks in advance,
Russian

[latency]

Your CPU has a voltage range of 0.8500V-1.3625V (http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=33923)

I'd set it to 1.29375V to kick off, and under the Overclocking Menu, turn off SpeedStep so the power management doesn't interfere with the overclock.

Looking at the manual for your board, the next voltage notch up is a range [1.30000V]~[1.87500V], I'm not sure what the deal with that is, so for now will stay just below it.

Go into Spread Spectrum Control and disable that lot as well.

Set the AI Overclock Tuner to Manual.

Go to the FSB & Memory Config. Set FSB Memory Clock mode to Unlinked.

Set Mem (DDR), MHz to the stock speed of your RAM. This will auto-set the ratio and stop the RAM topping out your system while we go for CPU speed.

Then set the FSB (QDR), MHz to 1333. This should give you all the stock settings dialled in manually.

Stress test the system to make sure this is okay, then start building up the FSB (QDR) in small increments to build up the clock speed.
Aim for 1500 first to get 3.0GHz. I'd start with 1350, and then go up in 50MHz increments.

Remember 3.6 is 40% overclock on this chip- that's a tall order to aim for.

[Russian]

Thanks a lot for your reply Latency.
Concerning the Ram speed, I use the option 'Linked' and then 'Synced' for CPU/Memory ratio, and it doesn't top above 1066 (usually 800) MHZ. (1066 is the stock for my memory).

I am at the moment not at home, I will be at home tomorrow evening, then I shall make some photos of the settings and explain m problem more thoroughly.

Thanks

[Russian]

Okay, I have done a couple of tests to determine the stability of my system on stock speeds and settings. What I have noticed is that my system kept freezing on Prime95 blend mode after a while, so I decided to remove 2 Ram chipsets and ended up with 2x 2GB instead of 4x2GB of memory, after this I have ran multiple tests as follows:

Prime95 Blend ==> Ran for 12 hours straight with NO ERRORS
Prime95 Small FFT ==> Ran for 12 hours straight with NO ERRORS
OCCT ==> Linpack mode for 2 hours with NO ERRORS

As you can see I had absolutely no errors with only 2 Ram chipsets installed (total 4GB of memory), so I think that my motherboard didn't like 4 chipsets. For now I am happy with only 4GB of ram as long as I am able to overclock my system.

Here under you can see the photo of the Stock Voltages used that have stable stress-testing results.


And another photo of the FSB and memory settings (at stock speeds)


I hope I provided enough information.

[latency]

Yup, so with those settings, start upping the FSB (QDR) in small increments and see how it fares.

Based on your findings with the RAM, it may well go a lot higher than it did before- just remember to use SMALL increments. Overclocking is a patient man's game.

[Digital Doctor]

Originally Posted by latency

Overclocking is a patient man's game.

That's the truest comment ive heard, it really is all about being patient. Some people jump in at the deep end and expect a 4ghz overclock from a 3ghz chip straight away without doing any kind of stability test whatsoever then wonder why theyre having so much trouble with their machine.

Doesnt matter how expensive your board is, if you dont know the basics youl get nowhere and probably destroy your pc along the way.