Windows 7: overclocking Q9300

hi everyone. long time no see. you all have been helpful in the past so i thought id come back.

so i have a q9300@2.5GHz that im trying to get to 3.0GHz. ive never overclocked before...hehe...but i do understand the basics of it. that paired with my knowledge of computers, i thought id do some googling and give it a try.

i managed to get a stable overclock @2.7GHz (360MHz bus), but when i went to 2.775GHz (370MHz bus) i started getting freezes, bsod's, you name it. so i tried increasing the voltage of the cpu, loosing the memory timings, unlinking the memmory and slowing it down. this helped a little, but i just noticed something about 15mins ago that i couldn't find a fix for.

My last OC config looked like this,,, CPU 2.775GHz@1.23750v, RAM unlinked 800MHz@2.110v (7 7 7 15 2T).

i ran Prime95 and it stayed up but said one of my core had failed. this had me worried so i loaded my non-OC'ed profile from bois and tested again. (im doing that now). no problems. but this is the thing i cant figure out. non-OC'ed, my vcore reads at 1.8-1.9, in overclock it reads 1.18. ??????? it even reads this low when i override the vcore to 1.23750v fron bios.

i believe this is my prob. as i increase the cpu speed, the vcore reads less and i can't figure out how to supply the extra voltage.

any help would be appreciated. thanks.

The 2.7GHz overclock was NOT stable. I just tested it once more and it froze just as I go into windows.

The Q9300 processors are locked are they not? I can't exceed a multiplier of 7.5x in my BIOS, hence you could do far better with a Q9650 EE processor

True. 7.5x is the max. I head that they can get up to 3.5GHz though. I'm currently trying to speed the CPU up, while keeping the ram unlinked. Basically starting from scratch. I did notic that I can't see any change in speed or voltage in cpuid when I change the fsb from the bios. I only see changes in cpuid when I change things using ASUS AI Suite. A little weird.

Update...

I'm currently in new territory. I have a FSB of 1500. Just 100MHz away from my goal! It took A LOT to get it to boot at this speed. I tweeked the vcore countless times but to no availe. I ended up underclocking my ram from 800 to 750 and it booted right up. Currently 10mins into prime95 and no probs yet.

Current overclock specs:

CPU-1500MHz fsb (2.812GHz), 1.27500v
Ram- unlinked, 750MHz, 2.11v, 5-5-5-12 2T

I'm gonna lower the vcore later on when I make sure things are stable.

1550MHz fsb failed.

I also can't get 1600 to boot...ideas???

After intense google-ing and much trial and error.....i have a stable OC at 3GHz! the trick was to bump up the NB and HT voltage just a little. i have attached a screenshot for those of u who want to have a peek. i started prime95 last evening and let it go overnight and no problems came up. numerous other tests with P95 have yielded the same results. gaming test have also been stable. however, one time i did boot up and my comp locked up...so i may need to boost the vcore just one more increment. aside from that its good.

current BIOS settings:

FSB - 1600MHz
RAM - Unlinked, 2.21v, 800MHz
Vcore - 1.3250v
HT - 1.64v
NB - 1.64v
SB - auto

i wish the vcore didn't need to be so high for the oc to be stable. i had it at 1.3125v and the pc would lock up. i changed it to 1.31675 and there wouldn't be any locks, but 10mins into P95 and cores would start to fail. so i realized that i was right on the border of enough/too little volts. so i bumped the vcore to 1.325v and no more core failures.

now its time for you guys to grade my work . check out the pic and tell me what you think.

Never mind the last post. I just rebooted a few times and it locked up each time. I have no idea what to do now.

As I said earlier, the Q9300 isn't a brilliant overclocker, you really do want an unlocked one...

tell me about it. i know the cpu/motherboard/ram config will let the cpu go stably to 3ghz. ive read other people's overclock posts on the net with this config that have gotten it to 3.3. i just can't figure it out.

another thing,,, why would the oc be stable for a whole day through multiple restarts and gaming tests, plus almost 16hrs of P95??? this is where i get confused.