6600 on Asus p5nsli Overclocking

[GMan6]

Hello, I am new to overclocking (well haven't in years at least) and have some questions:

I have:
Core 2 Duo 6600 (with coolmaster aquagate 80mm)
Asus p5nsli mobo
Corsair xms (not extreme) 6400 2gb (dual gigs)
74 gig raptor drive

1. I currently overclocked my 6600 to 310fsb so I am running at 2.8, and running the coretemp/Orthos Stress, idle I am 51C per core, full blast I am at ~59C on the cores after 10 mins straight, is that safe or too high?

2. Is there an advantage to downclock my memory from 400 to 310 to get 1:1 ratio? Why do people do this over just leaving it at 400?

3. What is the best way to overclock in general, are there standard fsb numbers to try like 266/300/333 etc or just go up and up till you want to stop/its inunsafe?

4. How do I set my memory timing settings, I see alot of people talk 4-4-4-12 at 400mhz at 2.1v, is that something to just try, do I drop each one by one if it fails, what is the best way to approach memory timings... in particular when changing your fsb

5. When people post their memory timings they say 4-4-4-12 but there is a 5th setting Bank Cycle Time (trc) people don't mention what does this normally get set to.

6. Are there other general settings to turn on/off (e.g. speedstep?), I am leaving voltage auto managed so far with no problems... is that a good/bad thing?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

According to this:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE1NywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

That board is a POS. Their conclusion is really @ odds with their own results...

100*C for the mobo is unacceptable.

Their fsb max was ~300 FSB...

 

[GMan6]

What do you mean 100C is unacceptable? I am running at 59C under full crank for 10-15 mins straight.

And I am running at 310 np whatsoever so far, granted I have the water cooled cpu block...

anyone have any responses to my other questions?

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: GMan6
What do you mean 100C is unacceptable? I am running at 59C under full crank for 10-15 mins straight.

And I am running at 310 np whatsoever so far, granted I have the water cooled cpu block...

anyone have any responses to my other questions?

1. 59c is right on the border of max safe temp for the CPU. The limit is 60c..I'm using a scythe ninja, and run at 54c load at 3.1ghz.

2. If you leave the memory set to 400 in the bios, when you overclock, the memory is going higher as well..unless your board is like my gigabyte 8N-SLI, it let me set the mem to whatever speed I wanted it to run at, rather than using dividers. The only advantage you might get running the mem at below rated speed and 1:1 is you might be able to use tighter timings. Some applications will do better with the tighter timings, while others will like the bandwidth more.

3. Increase a little at a time, until it's unstable, then tweak it until it's stable(voltages etc.), or lower the OC until it's stable.

4. The settings will be in the bios, don't know exactly where as it varies from on motherboard to the next..

5. The 5th number really isn't that important, you can just leave it on auto.

6. Best to turn speedstep off.

 

[GMan6]

Thanks for the info.

Regarding #4 I just mean how do I figure out what timings to try, just start at 4-4-4-12 and work up or something?

what about 1T verses 2T what setting does that imply?

Any opinions from anyone else on which is the better way to go, 1:1 vs 400mhz?