Q9400/P5N-D Overclocking Help

[BoneyardBrew]

Hello,

 

I am in need of help overclocking my system, I am a total noob and can't figure out why this isn't working as it should.

 

First off, here are my specs.

 

ASUS P5N-D Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz

ATi Radeon HD 5850 1GB

Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR-800

 

I also want to mention that I know my setup isn't the best for overclocking, but I have seen people with this board and also with this processor reaching around 3.6GHz, and I can't seem to get even close to it.

 

I have an aftermarket cooler on this thing, so there should be no problems regarding the temperature.

 

Now, here is the problem I am having. I can't seem to get the thing to accept a clock higher than 2.94GHz, which was achieved with the boards auto-overclocking function set to 10%. If I set it to 15% or higher, the motherboard recognizes it just fine and it does boot into Windows, but CPU-Z and any other method of monitoring the clock speeds and voltages just show the defaults. If it is 2.9GHz and below it registers it just fine.

 

I have also tried overclocking manually, playing with the vcore, HT, and NB voltages higher with no luck. Basically I run into the same situation. I can get it to the clock speed I want in the BIOS and it boots, but it doesn't work in Windows. So, I have the FSB, HT and NB voltages, and RAM linking options to play with. There are also a few more settings to tweak, which I'm sure you can find by doing a search for the P5N-D's specs.

 

I tried setting the clock speed to 1500, which apparently is multiplied by 2 (I thought I was supposed to use a value that was multiplied by 8, which is what the multiplier is set to, but I can't seem to find an area that uses that value), vcore to about 1.36, HT and NB voltages to 1.44, and the RAM linked and synced 1:1 with no luck as well. When I unlinked the RAM that seemed to cause the system to not boot. I tried to lower these values too and also saw no changes. My processor is rated to only go up to a vcore of 1.36, so that is why I haven't gone any higher than that.

 

I tried looking at this guide and using those settings, with the exception of the vcore being set higher than 1.36, which is where I got the 1.44 values for the HT and NB voltages.

 

Asus P5N-D 750i Guide

 

Hopefully someone has some clue as to what I'm doing wrong.

 

Thanks!