Hello,

I have been trying unsuccessfully to overclock my system listed in my signature. Along the way I have discovered that Gigabyte claims that my processor requires the f3 BIOS to run. It is strange because I am running fine at stock speeds with the apparently unsupported F2 BIOS. Well before I bore you all with my overclocking problems I thought it was time to have the official and correct BIOS running.

Here is the problem my hack is my first and only PC so I have no idea what i am doing. I have XP installed via parallels but I think I should bypass windows altogether and use the Gigabyte quick flash. Apparently I will need a usb flash drive that is formated to FAT. Is this true? can I do that with my hack? If it is something that I need to do in parallels and XP any advice would be greatly appreciated as I barely know how to start it.

thanks

Trying to do proper overclocking without a native install of XP or Vista you'll just be spinning your wheels. None of the overclocking utilities will run properly under virtualization. None of the temp monitoring programs will be able to address the sensors, the stress testing programs won't be able to run on multiple cores, and programs like Memset and Setfsb won't work at all. If you plan on doing effective overclocking your best bet is to install a small stripped down XP install and do all you testing using that. Trying to overclock in OS X will be a guessing game since you won't be able to effectively stress test so you'll never know if you have a truly stable system.

You can use mprime for the testing under OS X it has the same tests as the windows version of it.

http://www.mersenne.org/gimps/

Thanks for the responses. I will reconsider the whole overclocking part of this project. What about the BIOS flash? Shouldn't I still do it since Gigabyte says I need the newer F3 for my Q9300 processor? I should be able to do this with a flash drive, Parallels to extract the files from the Gigabyte download, the use of quick flash from the BIOS.

the problem I have is the flash drive should be formated to FAT32... according to gigabyte. How do I do that? Any help would be terrific.

Unless you have formatted to some other file system the vast majority of flash drives available if not all of them are already fat32. As to the flashing for support of the chip yes you should do it to make sure the processor is properly recognized by the board could even help with your overclocking efforts.

Thanks so much, I will go and buy a flash drive and report back after the BIOS update. The fact is that my attempts a even mild overclocking have been thwarted by my board (it re boots at post with the overclock disabled and I am yet to boot with a successful overclock). It seems to be a peculiarity of gigabyte boards, others have had similar problems, and in this case perhaps aggravated by having the wrong BIOS installed. I am dreaming of overclocking to 2.8-3GHZ range but Vapor has me thinking that this mac user should leave well enough alone.

thanks for the help

Why? That chip is really easy to overclock. Especially a mild overclock like you're talking. The mobo you have overclocks quite well into the mild to mid range. You just need to read up on some overclocking basics and use the proper tools. 3GHz on a Q9300 on your setup is almost mindlessly easy.

Thanks for the encouragement. I will continue my research after the BIOS update.

I do agree totaly with vaporATX. I got 3,27GHz easyly with a Q6600. So with a Q9300 Red Oak, you should get 4GHz .

I will 3rd what Vapor says... I'm running 3.5GHz without much problem. Just got to make sure you have a good power source, and have good thermal management.

The Q6600 is the easiest chip I've ever overclocked.

Thanks, I am going to get the BIOS updated later today then I will know if the F2 was holding me back. If I can't get an overclock to stick, like before, I will ask for help with the BIOS settings. (I have researched it pretty well but nothing I did would allow me to boot with an overclock with the F2 BIOS).

One thing I do not mention in my signature is an Arctic Cooler 7 pro 92mm fan.

The Q9300 overclocks about the same as the Q6600. Problem is, it's not as forgiving of higher vCore voltages, so it's more difficult to get it stable in the 3.8 to 4.0 GHz range without giving it dangerous voltages. You have to have a quality mobo that allows very flexible PLL and VTT voltage adjustments and a GTL Ref adjustment that allows for tweaking individual cores. It's quite complicated. Clunk.org.uk has some good guides on this. Personally I don't think the Q9300 is worth all the trouble. I'm waiting for better 45nm quads to come out myself. I ended up selling mine and bought a E8400 and some killer ram to play with. I'm more than satisfied with the Q6600 for my everyday machine for the time being.

Keep in mind that I change chips and mobos more than I change underwear, so I'm not exaclty the norm among OSx86 folks. The machine in my sig is just an everyday machine that I don't really mess with. I literally have five or six other builds running at any one time. In other words my advice isn't always the best advice unless you're a crazy hardware junkie like myself.

I want to report that I have successfully updated to the latest BIOS - thanks to everyone for the help.

Unfortunately the new BIOS did not improve my situation and I am still trying to boot successfully with my first overclock . I have included some possibly relevant settings and would be grateful if anyone had any advice. I should say one more thing about my system according to the GIGABYTE website my memory is not on the supported memory list. This is my first system so I had no idea that such a list should be checked. I thought I was purchasing high quality RAM but that was based on reviews not compatibility.

M.I.T.

Robust Graphics Booster Auto overclock
PRU Clock Ratio 7x
Fine CPU Clock Ratio +.05
CPU Frequency 2.67
CPU Host Frequency 350
PCI Express Frequency 100
CIA 2 disabled
performance enhancer standard
System memory multiplier auto
(Grey) Memory Frequency 1066
DRAM timing selectable (SPD) auto
************Standard timing control************(all grayed out)
CAS Latency time 5 auto
DRAM ras to cas delay 7 auto
DRAM precharge 7 auto
prechare delay (ras) 20 auto
************advanced timing controls**************
System voltage control auto
ddr2 overvoltage control normal
PCI-e overvoltage control normal
FSB overvoltage control normal
(G)MCH overvoltage control normal
loadtime calibration auto
cpu voltage control normal
Normal CPU vcore 1.18750V

Other settings that could be relevant (suggest in other forums to other people with similar problems)

CPU Enhance Halt Disabled
CPU Eist Function Disabled
CPU Thermal Monitor Disabled
Non Execute Memory protect Disabled
Limit CPU Max to 3 Disabled

I finally figured out what was holding me back. My own ignorance manifested in overclocking the ram which was causing the overclock failures.

Now I have the memory multiplier set to 2.4, the voltage set to manual and I am upping it by .3v to get it to 2.1V (the ram range is 2.1-2.2v) which has the memory running just below its rated speed of 1066. I think it is at 1000 or so. The processor is at 3.2ghz and all is running very well.

There is still a concern. When i first changed BIOS settings before the successful overclock BIOS reported my ram as 1060mhz on the left and it reported the "adjusted" value that the overclock would generate on the right side. I adjusted my memory multiplier to get the number on the right as high as possible without going over the number on the left. After I boot and verify that everything is working I went back into BIOS and now it is recognizing the memory as 800mhz on the left side and my "adjusted" number of 1000 on the right. What is going on? Is this a problem? It still boots and works perfectly so should I just ignore it?

Thanks

Pretty much ignore you have changed the memory from Auto which will use the SPD chip on the ram to get its settings from then it looks like the BIOS is defaulting to 800mhz for the base reading then using the multiplier to get the final speed, at least I think this is what is going on...

Thanks for the reply. Your answer makes sense and since all is working well i will ignore it.