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DPete27 wrote:

Vcore offset options are 50mV, 100mV, and 150mV only?  Nothing below 50mV?   Like I predicted, it wouldn't take much additional voltage to get things stable at 400MHz FSB.

Up to you on whether to stay at 400 or drop back to 390.  I really don't know if the differences matter much in terms of noticeable performance.  It's 80Hz on the CPU and 20Hz on the RAM.....2.5%  Like I said before, I'd leave it at 400MHz and +50mV because all the frequency numbers are more "even" 

Nice to see that under "typical" load (Witcher 3) your temps are at 62C.  That wouldn't concern me at all.  Keep in mind, IBT or Prime95 are "power virus" programs that stress your system like a Folding program would.  That kind of load/heat is not typical in everyday use.

I also just noticed that your CPU fan is at 1650rpm in all your screenshots.  Is that 100% fan speed or?

Well, VCORE OFFSET values options are: AUTO, 0, 50, 100, 150, so 50mV is the lowest increase value available.
As for the CPU fan, I checked both specs and BIOS...looks like 1650RPM is the highest rotation value available.

biffzinker wrote:

I say leave it alone at 400 MHz FSB, and your Q9400 at 3.2 GHz with the added 50mW if stability checks out. Otherwise the next step up (150 mW) only causes one cores temperature to jump 78c, as long as all 4 cores stay under 85c I wouldn't worry. Every so often check the temperatures make sure everything is a-ok (dust build-up/fan spinning.)

Temperatures look fine to me for your recent post.

All in all, things seems to run well and fast...it's good to know temperatures are acceptable for you both...so I guess I'll keep my PC like this, and I'll keep its temperatures under control, as you said.
Once again, I want to express my sincere gratitude to you both. I really don't know how I would have done without your help!

Twain28 wrote:

As for the CPU fan, I checked both specs and BIOS...looks like 1650RPM is the highest rotation value available.

DPete27 was trying to point out your fan should be spinning down from it's max 1650RPM (motherboard spinning the fan up and down depending on the load on CPU.)
Might want to check for the area in the BIOS labeled hardware monitoring, find the settings for the fan headers on your motherboard, and switch your fan settings with either one of the prefixed profiles or adjust.

Twain28 wrote:

Once again, I want to express my sincere gratitude to you both. I really don't know how I would have done without your help!

Don't be a stranger, come back anytime you need help, and happy I could help you out.

Exactly.  No reason to run the CPU fan at 100% if the system is more-or-less idle.
It looks like the Gammax 300's fan is geared toward quiet operation if the specs are anything to go by, 21dB @ 1600rpm and 55CFM.  Compare that to the stalwart CM Hyper 212 EVO's fan doing 36dB @ 2000rps and 83CFM.  So I wouldn't be surprised if the Gammax 300 is fairly tolerable even at 100% fans, but I'll bet it would all but disappear if you let it spin down to 900rpm at idle/low load.  I know LGA775 mobos had minimal fan controls (at best) compared to today, but perhaps there's a "target CPU temperature" or some kind of profile like "normal", "quiet", "performance", "full on" etc setting that can be adjusted to allow the CPU fan to spin down under such circumstances.

Does it look like this?

You'd want to enable the "CPU Q-Fan Control" option.

Found it in the manual for your board Twain28.

DPete27 wrote:

Exactly.  No reason to run the CPU fan at 100% if the system is more-or-less idle.
It looks like the Gammax 300's fan is geared toward quiet operation if the specs are anything to go by, 21dB @ 1600rpm and 55CFM.  Compare that to the stalwart CM Hyper 212 EVO's fan doing 36dB @ 2000rps and 83CFM.  So I wouldn't be surprised if the Gammax 300 is fairly tolerable even at 100% fans, but I'll bet it would all but disappear if you let it spin down to 900rpm at idle/low load.  I know LGA775 mobos had minimal fan controls (at best) compared to today, but perhaps there's a "target CPU temperature" or some kind of profile like "normal", "quiet", "performance", "full on" etc setting that can be adjusted to allow the CPU fan to spin down under such circumstances.

Does it look like this?

You'd want to enable the "CPU Q-Fan Control" option.

biffzinker wrote:

Found it in the manual for your board Twain28.

I took another walk around the BIOS. As far as I can see, Q-Fan seems to be enabled, yet the CPU fan is always spinning at around 1600rpm...maybe it's something to do with the pre-historic case I'm hosting the system into (Toshiba Scaleo T, not really monster-PC material, even there )...things are pretty tight in there, so I guess the fan has to do some extra work...maybe disabling q-fan and re-enabling it might do the trick.
I can however assure you the fan is quite silent...of course, even if it was noisy, it'd have to beat the mighty fan of my Optoma HD131XE projector (I project both PC, TV and movies on my faithful drop-down screen)

EDIT: Yes, as expected, something must have been stuck in the BIOS. I disabled Q-FAN, then re-enabled it, and it prompted me to choose from three-four prophiles. I chose the "Optimal" one. Now RPMs are down to 930 when idle, but should dynamically increase when needed.
I guess that's really all, isn't it?
Oh, yes, one tiny small thing left: if you remember from the start, I set my PCIE frequency is set to 101...should I try lowering it even one last notch to the base 100, or would you recommend leaving it as it is?

Twain28 wrote:

EDIT: Now RPMs are down to 930 when idle, but should dynamically increase when needed.
I guess that's really all, isn't it?

Yes, the motherboard will dynamically increase, and decrease the fan speed based off of the CPU temperature.

Twain28 wrote:

Oh, yes, one tiny small thing left: if you remember from the start, I set my PCIE frequency is set to 101...should I try lowering it even one last notch to the base 100, or would you recommend leaving it as it is?

You can change it back to 100 MHz or leave it set at 101 MHz. Nvidia cards tolerate it running over spec, AMD cards get finicky if it's way over I've found.

biffzinker wrote:

Twain28 wrote:

Oh, yes, one tiny small thing left: if you remember from the start, I set my PCIE frequency is set to 101...should I try lowering it even one last notch to the base 100, or would you recommend leaving it as it is?

You can change it back to 100 MHz or leave it set at 101 MHz. Nvidia cards tolerate it running over spec, AMD cards get finicky if it's way over I've found.

I left it to 101MHz, since nVidia card seems to work fine and fast
A few days later, I can confirm all is well...CPU temperatures are quite stable (between 50 and 60°C under stress), CPU fan is very quiet (between 934-980RPM)...and The Witcher III is quite a great game!
Thanks again for helping me!

OP, not sure about P5Q, but you might look into the Socket 771 xeons (54xx), modders discovered that they can be made to work on socket 775 depending on chipset.

I know they work on my old P5W after you modify the socket (nerve-wracking but actually easy, only removing tabs and putting a sticker on the LGA side of the cpu) and pre-flash to most recent bios. They are dirt cheap on fleabay with lots of listings for 3.2~3.4 versions (120W SLBBF and SLBBG $20~30) and the newer steppings (E0) tend to be binned better, run cooler etc. They also have double the L2 cache, 12MB. I snagged a 50W SLBBR (2.5 quad) for the price of a cheap lunch to replace an ancient core 2 duo, twice the cores, runs cooler and worked with some spare ECC DDR2 I had.

The only real question is motherboard/bios support and having good enough VRMs for higher TDP versions, but you're already overclocking so the latter should be ok.