Quote Originally Posted by rvltion909 View Post


So my box was built for strictly DAW purposes. I run some pretty CPU heavy audio plug-ins (VST) and recently picked up a Q6600 to help take some of the load off. I planned to overclock it to 3.0G and although I've been able to do so...sort of... my temps seem VERY high (as in dead CPU high)!

I set the CPU to run @ 333 MHz and the lowest VCORE option (around 1.2)

My RAM says its designed to run at 1.9V 5-5-5-12 ...so I set it at that with a corresponding 667 MHz.

It posted fine and CoreTemp showed idle temps at 48-50 degrees

Next, I ran the latest version of Prime 95. Then saw the cores shoot up to 60,70 then 80....I stopped it when it hit 82 (it had run under 1 min)

The "small fft" test shot all cores up to 82 within about 6 seconds and caused a reboot.

I see posts here for load temps at around high 60's-low 70's and idle temps in the 30's. I hear people running Prime 95 for about 30min-an hour. I wouldn’t dare running it for more than a couple mins at this point.

I must be doing something wrong. I've got six friggn fans running on this thing not including the cpu fan.

Im considering "lapping" the CPU but Im not sure I want to take a risk like that yet. My temps seem to be so extreme from most of the specs I see here that I must be missing something. I might go out and get some Artic Silver (Im using some random Radio Shack knock off ATM) but I dont think that will make a 10+ degree difference.

Im actually pretty disappointed with the board (for OC purposes). Looking at Tomshardware.com I could have spent half the price and gotten MUCH better OC specs (according to their Q6600 testing) if I would have gone with an MSI.

Any ideas guys?

Got it!

Yea...it was the heatsink setting. Im relatively new to this so...the way I set the thing was wrong (it wasnt even touching the CPU). The clips had not been locked in place. I still cant see the sense in this ancient technology sitting on a motherboard with a quadcore micro processor. Am I alone here? I actually wasnt able to lock one of them correctly. The amount of pressure I had to apply was ridiculous and I didnt want to chance breaking the damn board or CPU ( I saw the board begin to bend and collapse).

I literally spent about 5 hours disconnecting all the wires, removing all the screws, removing the old thermal compound, reapplying some new Artic Silver 5, placing the heatsink back in, putting the board back in the box, reconnecting all the wires, making a few more OC settings and stress testing for a bit.

My idle temp is now around 28-29. The Prime 95 stress testing reached about 50-51. I did a half ass "lapping" job on the heatsink (ran some sand paper in one direction for about 10min...the copper layer is still there but its very smooth...?)

I do have a couple questions though:

-I applied the Artic Silver 5 to the CPU and heatsink...is that ok/necessary?

-Is there any advantage or disadvantage to having the box laying on its side rather than right side up?

-After 3 minutes of Prime95 testing I received 1 error. After about 15min I moved the mouse around and got myself a reboot (any way to tell if this is due to a certain RAM setting or CPU specific?)

-I know LarryWild created the 2004 BIOS edit but I see he was not using is...? Was there any specific reason for that? Im running the most recent version on the ASUS site.

(My RAM is running at 1.9V The CPU is set to 333. VCore is set to the lowest option available)