I would caution you against raising your vcore until you find out why your temps are so high at stock speeds. With liquid cooling, they should be much lower. Are you certain the heatsink is making good contact with your CPU?

Memory timings are set to Auto and vcore reading is 1.264. I have made not changes in the Bios except the FSB everything else is default.I have not been too impressed with the liquid cooling. I've run far cooler with air. Thanks for the suggestion of checking the mounting of the heat sink. I hadn't thought about that. Maybe it just needs to be remounted. I've never worked with liquid cooling, so I'll have to read up and find out how complicated it is to remove the heat sink. I don't want to do more damage than good.I really can't complain about my systems performance, as I get frame rates in the 20's & 30's most of the time with most of the sliders to the right except traffic.Thanks for the help.

I haven't changed anything in my bios except the FSB. What puzzles me is that if I set my FSB to 289, The computer won't even boot. I wouldn't think heat would be an issue at that point and I wouldn't think it would be necessary to increase the vcore to get to that clock speed.I'm a complete novice at overclocking and find myself going into panic mode when the computer won't boot. So far I have been able to recover by restarting and going directly to the bios and resetting the FSB, but I don't want to get to the point where that won't work.I don't think there is any way I can get in the 3.6 range with my cooling issues, but I would think 2.6 to 2.8 would not be unrealistic.Any suggestions are appreciated.

Use Coretemp or Everest to monitor your CPU's 4 Tjs (Temperature,junction). The Q6600 will auto-declock at 95C Tj and auto-ahutdown at 100C Tj. Under a normal O/C'd load, they run 80-ish. My guess is the highish 60 you're seeing is Tc (Temp, core). This is (essentially) Tj (average) minus 15C. Intel's spec for Tc is 71C. That puts the Tj's at about 85C. You still have lots of temp room. 1.2 Vcore is not going to get much of an OC. That's what's happening. If you want more clock, vcore's gotta come up. I agree that liquid is more trouble than it's worth anymore. That thermalright will get the same results for a lot less trouble.

Bob,I'm not familiar with the BIOS in your motherboard, but aside from the memory timings, there should be a setting to divide the clock speed of your memory. For instance, at stock clock of 266, if you are running DDR2-800 RAM and you want it to be at 800 (or actually 400x2 in dual channel), you would need to use a divider of 3. If you simply raise the clock without changing the divider, you will start to raise the RAM clock also. At 275 you're overclocking your RAM to 825, which might be too much without additional DIMM voltage. Try raising the clock to 333, but change the RAM divider to 2.4 to bring the RAM speed to 800. If you leave it on auto it will probably raise it to 1000, which is too much of an overclock without cranking up the DIMM voltage way too high, in my opinion.

You should be able to get to 3.0 (9x333) without raising your vcore. Just make sure you use the correct RAM divider so your RAM is running at 800, or to be really safe, use a divider of 2 and run it at 667 to see if it is the RAM or the CPU holding you back.

I only had a few minutes on my computer last night, but I did take a quick look at my bios and everything relating to memory is set to auto. I checked the memory using CPU-Z and it shows under the memory tab, timings of Dram Freq of 419.6 and FSB Dram of 2.3. If I am understanding you post, that would put the memory timings at 965.08 which is much higher than the ram is rated. That may be the reason the computer won't post with anything higher than a 5% overclock. I'll have to spend some time looking at how to change the memory timings. I thought I had read somewhere that if you left your memory timings set to auto it would maintain you timings at optimum for your RAM rating. Apparently this is not the case.As I mentioned I'm new to this overclocking business and I view changing the bios with about as much trepidation as disarming a bomb. I am always afraid I will do something I can't undo. If the computer doesn't post I go into panic mode. I guess the newer boards make it easier to recover from a bios mistake. At least I hope so! Thanks for all your help. I'll let you know if I can figure out how to change the timings.

SamI have Core Temp loaded on my machine. My TJ shows 100 and the core temps below that number show in high 50's under moderate load. I'll try bumping my Vcore up and see if I can do it without sending the temps thru the roof. My computer is located under my desk in a fairly confined space. I may try putting a small fan under my desk to see if that will help with keeping the temps down.In my reply to Aspenleaf above,I told him what my memory timings show in CPU-Z and it appears by leaving my memory timing set to auto results in overclocking my memory to 965mhz even with a 5% CPU FSB overclock. Could that be the reason my computer won't post with anything higher than a 270.9 X 4 FSB?Thanks for your help.

Yes, Bob, that is exactly what I suspected. Your RAM is being overclocked too high and it won't boot. I'm fairly certain if you find the correct RAM divider to keep the RAM clock at 800, you will be able to set the clock to 333 and the CPU multiplier to 9 and get to 3.0 without any trouble.Search Google for how to set the RAM divider on your motherboard to keep the RAM clock where you want it.

The 100C is Tj limit for the Q6600. The 50s are the actual temps Inside each core. 50C is a Very cool runner. Mine runs in the low 70s/80s under load. You will see up to a 10C split between core sets. This is normal.The timings do not set the ram's MHZ speed. They are only internal timings. Those need to stay in auto for now. 965/270= ~ 3. What Mobo do you have? You want the ram to run at only DDR (Double the data rate of the FSB). Some mobo mfgs call this the 1:1 divider. Some call it 2:1. Go figure. Actually, there are no "Dividers" anymore. They still call them that, but they all multiply.The bios will have a setting for auto, or to manually set this speed. Mine actually has ram speed choices (based on available "dividers") others make you get our a calculator and do the math. It's all based on the FSB. So manually set the divider (or ram speed) as low as it will go and tweek out your CPU to a stable OC. Then revist the divider and set your ram to run as close to 800mz as possible. OCing ram is high effort, low (to no) return effort.

Thanks for clearing up the memory timings for me. I couldn't understand why I couldn't get the darn thing to boot with only a 10% overclock when everyone was saying 3.0 to 3.2 was easy. I'm anxious to get my memory timings adjusted and see if that will solve my problem. I doubt I'll get to it until the weekend.Thanks very much for your help and I'll let you know how it turns out.With a name like aspenleaf, do you happen to be from Colorado.

Yes, I am. I'm in Allenspark, at the SE corner of Rocky Mountain National Park about 16 miles south of Estes Park. Are you in Colorado?

I lived in Colorado for about 35 years prior to moving to Phoenix. My wife's family lived in Estes Park for a number of years. It's sure pretty country up there.I still have a cabin in the southern part of the state near Creede. It's just below the Continental divide about 15 miles North of the summit of Wolf Creek pass. It's nice to get back to the mountains during the Phoenix summers.If you like to fly in the mountains check out this website. (http://www.blueskyscenery.com/) Creede, Durango and Teluride are in the Avsim library and he is working on Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Very realistic to fly over.Again, thanks for your help.

Your cabin is in one of the most beautiful parts of the state. I'll check out the website, it sounds like something I'd be interested in.And I'm glad to help. Let me know how it works out.Dan

Hi Bob,Thanks for the link on the mountain scenery- I live in Boulder.Bruce.