Overclocking help on the ASUS P5N32-E SLI

[Indybird]

My friend just got an ASUS P5N32-E SLI and I want to overclock his Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. Now, I may be a noob with these newer ASUS boards, but I cannot find the CPU clock/Bus Speed/Whatever its called option in the BIOS. Where can I find this? (and if thats not how ASUS does it anymore, how do I do it?)

Thanks,
Indybird

[Spawn-Inc]

here (http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5N32-E%20SLI/e2929_P5N32-E_SLI.pdf) is the download link for the manual, but after going through it myself it seems you need to look under "Extreme Tweaker Menu" (page 4-18 in the manual). from the looks of the manual you will need to set the AI Tuning to Manual in order to adjust/view all the stuff you want with ocing. you will then want to go into the FSB & Memory config menu. if you want the memory to run at the same speed as the cpu then set the Memory Clock Mode to linked, otherwise set it to unlinked and you can set each different. i have mine set to unlinked as my ram cannot keep up with my overclock, you may have to do the same.


Good luck and ask more questions should you have any :)

[Indybird]

here (http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5N32-E%20SLI/e2929_P5N32-E_SLI.pdf) is the download link for the manual, but after going through it myself it seems you need to look under "Extreme Tweaker Menu" (page 4-18 in the manual). from the looks of the manual you will need to set the AI Tuning to Manual in order to adjust/view all the stuff you want with ocing. you will then want to go into the FSB & Memory config menu. if you want the memory to run at the same speed as the cpu then set the Memory Clock Mode to linked, otherwise set it to unlinked and you can set each different. i have mine set to unlinked as my ram cannot keep up with my overclock, you may have to do the same.


Good luck and ask more questions should you have any :)
Ah, I see. On my P5W-DH, the values are always unlinked, thats why this confused me.

I got another question though:
We have ntune installed and (after I could not figure out the BIOS) I tried overclocking through there. It allows me to set the bus speed, but the Voltage menus were greyed out and i could not up the voltage. Does anyone know how to fix that?

Thanks for everything,
Indybird

[Spawn-Inc]

hmm, not sure why, maybe there are some options in bios that don't allow ntune to do it? its also better to adjust the voltages in bios rather than a program.

[J-Roc]

You might have to set the AI settings in the bios to use the AI tuning program. Set it to "Standard" and it should allow ntune to configure the system. Im not sure if ntune will adjust voltages. You might have to set thoes yourself. If ntune doesnt allow you to set all the options needed, use the manual settings.

AI Suite is only good for checking clock speeds and AI n.o.s is garbage

[Indybird]

Now that I know how to do it in the BIOS, I probably won't use ntune that much, but heres why I want the option:
My friend runs a decently big RO server (50+ users each day). When I built this new computer he had to put the server on it for now, and every time I have to restart the computer to update something overclock, he has to shut down the server.

Thats the only reason why I want to use ntune.

-Indybir

[J-Roc]

You still have to reset to take advanatage of the new settings regardless.

[Indybird]

You still have to reset to take advanatage of the new settings regardless.

Nvidia was talking about some "dynamic BIOS options" (or something like that) in ntune that allows it to change all of these values without restart.

-Indybird

[Spawn-Inc]

Nvidia was talking about some "dynamic BIOS options" (or something like that) in ntune that allows it to change all of these values without restart.

-Indybird
even with those you will still need to restart. you can try setfsb (http://www13.plala.or.jp/setfsb/), i have never used it but see ocers use it.

[Indybird]

even with those you will still need to restart. you can try setfsb (http://www13.plala.or.jp/setfsb/), i have never used it but see ocers use it.

Thats the thing though, that was one of the features that nvidia was showing off. Im very sure about this because they also said that this only works on nforce 650/680 and 700 chipsets.

-Indybird

[J-Roc]

Well i could see them incorperating thoes features into the chipset. However, now that i've looked at ntune. It states right at the top that using the function will result in system "hangs" and the tuning program will continue upon restart.

So no dice, you'll have restart the computer no matter what. Just shut down his server for a few hrs untill you get the settings you want.

[Airbozo]

nTune is mainly a waste of time and a source of great frustration. Use the bios settings, then run some stability tests. Do a google search and you will find a overclock guide for that mobo that will help.

[Scotty]

The BIOS is the easiest way. It offers you control over the motherboard and CPU, voltages etc.

Just try upping the FSB, you could use ntune to see how high it can go stable, then shutdown, put the settings into the BIOS, boot up, and stress test it for 30mins with OCCT.

[Indybird]

OK I got there and now I'm confused. I found out that this whole time his Q6600 was underclocked to 1.86GHz. So...I set the mulitplier to 8 and the FSB 1200, right to get back to 2.4GHz. Well at those setting it boots no problem but it only went to 2.13GHz. I checked back and it had exactly what I just put in. At this point I got really confused. So I got a few questions:
Where did 2.13GHz come from?
What mulitplier and FSB would you recommend I set it to if I want to get to, say 3.2GHz?

Thanks,
Indybird

[.Maleficus.]

Throttling. It's throttling down to save power, since whatever task you were doing didn't require it to run at 2.4GHz. There's a BIOS setting that allows you to say, "Don't throttle, stay at 2.4GHz" but I don't remember what it is.

I always use the highest multiplier I can (9) and push the FSB as high as I can. One thing to think about is how the RAM will interact with the FSB after you raise it. You can set it to Unlinked and have them both at different frequencies, but it will run worse than a lower-clocked CPU and linked RAM. For me, I have my CPU running at 3.375GHz, and my RAM "Synched" at 750MHz, for an FSB of 1500. While my RAM is underclocked, it runs better underclocked and synched with the FSB than it did at 800MHz and unlinked to the CPU frequency. Just something to think about when you do OC it.

[Indybird]

Throttling. It's throttling down to save power, since whatever task you were doing didn't require it to run at 2.4GHz. There's a BIOS setting that allows you to say, "Don't throttle, stay at 2.4GHz" but I don't remember what it is.

I always use the highest multiplier I can (9) and push the FSB as high as I can. One thing to think about is how the RAM will interact with the FSB after you raise it. You can set it to Unlinked and have them both at different frequencies, but it will run worse than a lower-clocked CPU and linked RAM. For me, I have my CPU running at 3.375GHz, and my RAM "Synched" at 750MHz, for an FSB of 1500. While my RAM is underclocked, it runs better underclocked and synched with the FSB than it did at 800MHz and unlinked to the CPU frequency. Just something to think about when you do OC it.

First, I have all overclock-related settings set to manual.

Second, for a C2Q 6600 and DDR2 800 RAM, what exact settings should I have?

Heres the thing: I've only ever overclocked on boards where you either just set the FSB or your simply set the bus speed, so this one is confusing me.

-Indybird

[Airbozo]

Go to the following link and do a quick once over. Then grab a snack and a drink and read through the whole thing (not the entire thread), _then_ follow the guide to get to the best settings for your proc/gpu/memory. I am in the process of doing the same thing for my mobo which uses the same bios for as yours.


http://www.overclock.net/intel-motherboards/167489-asus-p5n32-e-overclocking-guide.html