MSI P965 Neo-F

I have just bought this board MS7235 ver 1.1using bios v1.6 and can
overclock my E6300 to a maximum of 320 x 7 and no more. I could not find
anywhere to increase the cpu vcore voltage in the bios. I am using the
Corsair Value Select 1Gx2 ddr2 memory modules and Sapphire ATI x-1950 pro
pcie graphic card. Any overclocking tips on this board will be much
appreciated.
Billy

 

Have you tried Core Center ?

First of all, when overclocking Core 2 Duo systems, you are interested
in more than just the clock rate. You should use an actual benchmark,
such as SuperPI, to keep track of how well you are doing. Due to
issues around the Northbridge, sometimes you can get higher performance
because of some change in Northbridge latency. Therefore, I'd suggest
using an actual benchmark after each overclocking setup, making careful
notes of whether SuperPI is getting faster or not.

What some people find, is they get better actual performance, if they
set the clocks nominal in the BIOS, and then use a utility in Windows
to tweak the clocks. If your motherboard was supported by Clockgen
from cpuid.com, that would be the ideal situation. I don't know
how Core Center works, as in whether it just fiddles the BIOS settings
for you, or modifies things in real time, but that might be another
alternative.

In any case, if I owned your board, I'd want to know more about
Core Center, and what it could do for me. If Clockgen actually
works for your motherboard, so much the better.

Paul

 

Thank you for your advice. I shall try Clockgen although I have no idea how
it works. I have just tried Core Center. I could go as far as 333 but
after I restarted the system, my computer refused to boot up.
In Core Center, I still could not find anywhere to adjust the cpu vcore
voltage though.
I got other queer syntoms today after my computer blue-screened and died.
Upon restarting, my usb optical mouse became insinsitive-namely it had no
response until I clicked the 2nd or 3rd time; my floppy disc driver could
not format any brandnew floppy and took long long time to read a floppy;
while web-browsing, I got a popup saying (something like) a memory address
could not be 'read' and the IE browser shut down by itself. It all seemed
like somewhere my motherboard's voltage went wrong, Can you help?
Thanks.
Billy

 

Start by trying to get back to "normal" conditions.

You could try clearing the CMOS. Usually the motherboard will have
a jumper for that. The user manual should have instructions for how
to do it properly. And that normally means, unplugging the computer
before you do it. You don't want any power present while clearing the
CMOS.

In Windows, I'd want to uninstall Core Center. Then make sure, using
a program like CPUZ from cpuid.com, that the speeds of things are back
to normal.

If the motherboard still exhibits symptoms that it has gone bad,
either you need to return the motherboard to your retailer, or
to MSI under the warranty.

Note that the Northbridge on an overclocked system, can get hot.
Maybe the heatsink is not making good contact.

You can test the memory in your system, with memtest86+ from
memtest.org . That will give you some idea if this is related
to RAM, or to an overheating Northbridge.

You may also want to try Googling on "Core Center", and see
if other users have noted any peculiar or bad behaviors from the
program. It could be that Core Center is just not a good program
to use. I've never used it, so I cannot advise on that. I've
always overclocked my systems via the BIOS, and my overclocked
systems have Vcore settings in the BIOS I can use, as well as
adjustable clocks. It is a good idea to download the user manual
for the motherboard, before you buy it, so you know what you're
getting in the way of adjustments.

Paul