FSB limit at 390 MHZ on GIGABYTE GA-P35-DSL motherboard

[Jokull]

My computer owns a GIGABYTE GA-P35-DSL motherboard with updated BIOS version i.e. 4. I don’t have much information with this motherboard but I am asking you, is this have FSB ceiling? I asked this because now I can’t set or overclock anything over 390 MHZ. The system specifications are as follows

• Core 2 E2160 @3.51 GHZ (9x390 MHZ) processor with vcore 1.5v (other voltages are amplified to +.2v)
• G.SKILL 2x1GB DDR2 800 RAM
• The ratio of Memory vs. FSB Frequency is set as 1:1.

For this reason I think I can only get390 MHZ. What do you think about it? Do you have any suggestion either over my motherboard or my issue? You are free to post it.

[Laramie]

Why do you need to overclock it than its limit? You will get frequent crashes otherwise BSOD in your computer if something doesn’t goes right. When you are overclocking your CPU must be almost by 100% use and set the vcore to very high (IMHO). I think that it is the issue of motherboard, it probably be the CPU. You need to set the proper voltage in case if you want to break that point that has stuck in 390MHz. did you set the DIMM voltage that is specific to the DIMMS voltage? Try with different voltage settings; I hope you will get what you are seeking for.

[Langward]

You can test the FSB ceiling on your motherboard by yourself. If you are not sure about the availability of FSB then choose 6x multiplier, then set it to 6x391MHZ and see what will get. If this doesn’t work then directly jump to either 6x415MHZ or 6x440MHZ. I told this technique because sometime overclocking by a single MHZ may fail but if you directly jump towards bigger MHZ then there could be a small possibility. Also make in mind that CPU performance is fundamentally absolutely dogged by the core velocity; FSB won't formulate a conspicuous divergence.

[CRiley]

I think that you are missing something with the knowledge of overclockig. By far the reason is CPU's drawback. The motherboard was awfully great; there is no doubt about that. The only bad thing i want to say about it is currently it doesn't contain FSB divider at @391 Mhz. I replaced the E2160(@3.51GHz) with Q6600 and works excellent at @391 Mhz. then I tried @400 Mhz and the good thing is that it also worked. I didn’t yet try anything beyond that because it presently overclocked to 3.6 Ghz and still I am happy with its performance. Surprising thing is it adds a big impact over gaming faster than the previous one.

[Lawford]

I recently realized to overclock with my core 2 duo E8400 to 9x333. But surprisingly by default I hit the same wall like you. I couldn’t able to push it up even with several voltage setup. But I didn’t try it by jumping to higher overclock. But I will make in mind that. As someone said that it is the issue of the CPU but as far as my concern this processor should be capable of overclock. But by far it seems to me that the limitation of motherboard as well its BIOS. Now my last try is 9x390 = 3.5 GHz and the target is 3.6. But for now I will adjust it until the future upgrade.