My first build, am I on the right track?

Yeah, 7zip has a benchmark in it. I found it yesterday on accident Go to "tools=>benchmark".

There are more free benchmark utilities like 3DMark06/vantage, but that's a 600MB download and probably a huge install. The others I mentioned are under 15MB to download except for Cinebench which is 53MB.

Odds are your fan is in its minimum setting. How loud is the Tuniq fan? At max, it is as loud as a vacuum!

With the AV, there is a chance that something is corrupted in your PC. A virus, malware, etc... Also a chance that some rootkit from a music CD or Game is screwing with it. The corporate editions of antivirus are going to be better than anything you can buy. They use far less resources and I am not sure if non-corporate offers it, but there is Tamper Protecion, so nothing can mess with the AV program. The most current version is 10.5. 10.x came out about the time you got yours. There is a version 11, but that comes in an all in one solution. I forget the name, but that one looked like a resource hog.

As for the temps, Core Temp has a log feature so that it can log temperatures. You can access it in the Options menu:

options=>settings

::enable logging

To see the temps, there will be numbers in your system tray that represent each core. You can setup Core Temp to load at startup, but I would recommend that if you start pushing the OC where temps may rise over 50 degrees.

 

Quick question as Ive been experimenting on overclocking. If I get it to post and log on, but as soon as I log on I get pop ups saying this or that app crashed, is that what is meant by unstable? Assuming so I think the cpu I got was sub par [of course I'm new to this, so I could be mistaken]

Let me know if this should be posted in that other forum instead.

 

I'm not sure what happens when an overclock is unstable. For me, when it was too unstable, the PC would not get past POST. After I got a boot, I did testing with Prime95. I guess some type of CPU error could crash a program, so there is a chance you are unstable.

What are your settings? What is your clock speed? What is your goal for your OC?

 

Instability is any state where your PC does not function as it normally would, i.e. programs crashing, windows randomly rebooting, BSODs... failing POST is just the more severe end of it.

 

My goal was 4.0 gigahertz. No way on earth its going to be able to get there, I'm even struggling to get to 400 fsb stable. (from 2.8 to 3.4)

I guess it was a high goal, but I'm still upset as the results I'm getting. Ive mostly given up on a good overclock. The temps are as high as 50 at idle anyway, high to start with! With a overclock around 373 fsb, temps can get up to lower 60's under load. (temps read from Core Temp)

Vista itself is also not working too well (might take a while to figure out how half life 2 games can be played on vista, if at all possible). Bleh, you live and learn

Still when it works right, its blazing and all around awesome! The 22" monitor is a massive improvement too. I'm considering ordering xp, and giving it a go with that, hahahaha.

When I said other forum I meant: http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/111

Oh and about AV, I went with kaspersky.

Thanks everyone for the incredible help btw, Merry Christmas too!

 

50 at idle with a Tuniq?? I thought the 45nm ran cooler than the 65nm... Did you apply the thermal compound on the CPU? Also, did you tighten the Tuniq all the way? You are barely breaking 3100MHz, which is very low for your CPU.

In the BIOS, make sure you manually set the RAM multiplier. Try these settings for 3400MHz:

Robust VGA: Leave it alone (don't know what this does)
Multiplier: 8.5
CPU Frequency: 3400 MHz (changes automatically
----------------------
CPU Host Frequency: 400
PCI express: 100 MHz
CIA2: Disabled
----------------------
DRAM Performance: Standard
XMP: Disabled
MCH: 400 MHz
System Multiplier: 2.00B
Frequency: 800MHz
Timing: set to Manual, then Read you RAM specs to set timing
-----------------------
vCore: Set it to the stock value (no auto)
Terminate Voltage: (stock)
CPU PLL: (stock)
CPU Ref: (stock)
-------------------------
MCH Core: (stock)
MCH Ref: Stock
MCH DRAM: Stock
ICH I/O: Stock
ICH Core: Stock
----------------------
DRAM Voltage: Read your RAM specs and set voltage

Also, access your Advanced BIOS features and do the following:

C1E: Disabled
C2/C2E: Disabled
C4: Disabled
CPU Thermal: Enabled
CPU EIST: Disabled
Virtual something: Disabled

Note that I am using a UD3P motherboard and a different CPU, so I do not know what default settings (voltage really) are for you or which settings you can tweak. However, this should get you to boot at 3.4GHz if you have a good CPU. If you can boot up, then you can work on 4GHz which should be very possible.

 

Thanks for the settings, I'll give that a try. I still have a few cards up my sleeve, but I don't for see floodgates opening.

As far as temps, Ive read that these smaller chips (45nm) actually run warmer, and are more sensitive(should be kept cooler), maybe thats why 6600 chips over clock so much better. I don't know, I thought they ran cooler and could handle more when I placed my order and I had done a fair bit of research, I guess I should have done a full due diligence. Anyway, my reasons could be a higher then normal ambient tempt, not sure what it is, but its rather warm to me. Or maybe damage, either from installation, or just faulty from the get go. Ive also read that temps aren't accurate until the 50's on these chips, that could have something to do with it.

Vista had a few hiccups for a while, repeatedly rebooting and not even getting to post, then just going back to normal. Updating somehow?

Somewhere between updating drivers and re updating, some things are starting to work, like css and portal. HL2 starts but never finishes loading, the menu never comes up the comp just freezes.

About the only thing Vista has impressed me with is after all the crashes something poped up with suggestions to fix the problems, they actually got around to doing something with all that data, WOW! A few updates later and some things actually was fixed. Unfortunely one thing it suggested was backing stuff up saying memory could be bad, Ill have to test all 8 gigs of my ram, that could be causing the instability About the only thing that could open floodgates, and I truly hope thats not the problem.

 

8 gigs? You won't overclock very far at all with that much RAM installed.