D3PyroGS

Haha, thanks so much for the tips guys. Honestly, you've all been extremely helpful and I'm really happy with the way it's turned out so far.

I HOPE THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION TO RE-APPLY THE THERMAL COMPOUND FOR THE 4TH TIME. [/capslock]

Good info. I'll leave it on for the time being as I don't think it will really affect me in any noticeable way. So in keeping the previous settings, I idle in the mid 40's, full load takes me into the high 80's, and "normal high-intensity" usage at about 77% put me in the mid-70's. Does this sound pretty stable for a long-term overclock, having re-enabled SpeedStep and C1E? It may be worth mentioning that the ambient temperature in my room is typically about 78 F which would probably be lower at any other family's house and will definitely be once I'm back in school.

We're talking about a normal gaming load, not a full Prime95 load, correct? I currently have virtualization disabled but I don't know if I want to disable hyperthreading. I'm assuming that's what gives you the 8 logical cores as opposed to 4, but I'm not sure how disabling it affects speed. If I run faster at a stable 4GHz w/o hyper than at 3.8 w/hyper then I'm all for that. Basically, whichever performs more optimally. I'm doing a Prime95 blend test utilizing 100% on all cores. I understand that no normal usage could ever be so stressing but I'm honestly not sure how high the temps go while in an intense gaming session. In your opinion, at what temperature should I say, "I'm happy with this; I'm done"? 3.8GHz is pretty awesome and if I can't get to 4.0, it's OK with me.

Ok, I did that following the guide for 4.01GHz (and lowering the vcore and QPI a tad) and am getting temps up to 85C. My settings, for reference, are as follows Ai Overclock Tuner.....................[Manual] CPU Ratio Setting......................[21.0] Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled] Xtreme Phase Full Power Mode...........[Enabled] BCLK Frequency.........................[191] PCIE Frequency.........................[100] DRAM Frequency.........................[DDR3-1531MHz] UCLK Frequency.........................[3063MHz] QPI Link Data Rate.....................[Auto] CPU Voltage Control....................[Manual] CPU Voltage............................[1.23125] CPU PLL Voltage........................[1.80] QPI/DRAM Core Voltage..................[1.21875] IOH Voltage............................[1.14] IOH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50] ICH Voltage............................[1.20] ICH PCIE Voltage.......................[1.50] DRAM Bus Voltage.......................[1.64] DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto] DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHA...........[Auto] DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto] DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHB...........[Auto] DRAM DATA REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto] DRAM CTRL REF Voltage on CHC...........[Auto] Load-Line Calibration..................[Enabled] CPU Differential Amplitude.............[800mV] CPU Clock Skew.........................[Delay 300ps] CPU Spread Spectrum....................[Disabled] IOH Clock Skew.........................[Auto] PCIE Spread Spectrum...................[Disabled] C1E Support............................[Disabled] Hardware Prefetcher....................[Enabled] Adjacent Cache Line Prefetch...........[Enabled] Intel(r) Virtualization Tech...........[Disabled] CPU TM Function........................[Enabled] Execute Disable Bit....................[Enabled] Intel(r) HT Technology.................[Enabled] Active Processor Cores.................[All] A20M...................................[Disabled] Intel(r) SpeedStep(tm) Tech............[Disabled] Intel(r) C-STATE Tech..................[Disabled] I want to run it at this speed if possible, but I feel that my load temps are too high. Any suggestions for lowering them? Decreasing vcore isn't really much of an option here as this is about the lowest I could stably get it. To be honest, I don't know much of what the other non-auto values do or if any of them can be changed but I'm open to suggestions, if anyone has any.

Update: So I re-reapplied my TIM a few hours ago using the dot method and got good temps on stock settings. I overclocked to 3.8GHz based on this guy's settings (since he has my motherboard) and am currently running Prime95 with temperatures of 76,77,73,72 C. I'm pretty happy with this as these seem to be stable temps AFAIK. So two questions now: Do the higher temps in my first two cores suggest that my TIM is still applied funky or is this normal? Do higher voltages mean higher temps, or is temperature strictly clock speed-related? Thanks!

Thanks for the helpful replies. I'll try to re-apply the TIM (which I'm assuming is an acronym for thermal paste? ) using the dot method when I get off work and try to get my idle/load temps as low as others I've seen with my cooler/case combo. One thing I'm still not sure about is my "stock voltage." The 1.24V I said was, as I recall, what the ASUS Ai Tweaker program said while I was running Prime95 (though I believe it was as low as .95V during idle). Does anyone know how to determine a good baseline voltage? I was messing around with it last night and that's what I believe gave me the BSOD's. Can anyone clarify how voltage affects temperature? I'm assuming higher voltages mean higher temps but not everything I've seen confirms this. Also, will BSOD's occur if I happen to set the voltage too low and too high? Or just one of those cases?

Ok, so I have some idea of what went wrong. First, I removed the HSF and, sure enough, it wasn't spread evenly. One whole heatpipe had no paste touching it at all (ouch!). I thoroughly cleaned it off and reapplied it and screwed it in but still felt uneasy about it... so I took it off and it was a little light on one side so I added a little dab more and my cores are now idling @2.8GHz somewhere between 38 and 43 C. At full load I'm somewhere between 64 and 70. I suppose that's right but I'm not really sure. I may try redoing the process again tomorrow unless people are more than sure that they're acceptable temps. I've tried to go manual on vcore settings but just keep ending up with bluescreens. Part of the problem is I don't actually know what my stock voltage is and can't seem to find that information anywhere. I know the basic idea is up the BLCK until it starts failing and then amp up the voltage but beyond that I'm just a n00b. I can't find any solid guides to OCing i7s and am wondering if it's worth it for the trouble.

Am I to infer that if either is not flat then I should apply more? Hmmm... Ok, I suppose I could try that. Is it different for different pastes? I was following the instructions posted on the AS website that recommends the line method (though I think I put more than their image shows).

I'm pretty sure. I'll double-check, but hopefully I wouldn't be that stupid. At this point I may as well ask, how do you know if you've done it correctly? Everybody seems to use different amounts and application processes. I made a decent-sized line and pressed the HSF on it to spread it around before securing. Could I have possibly used too much?

What could be wrong with the fan setup? I have fans on both sides of my heatsink which both blow toward the rear exhaust. The side fan blows on top of the heatsink but I doubt that interferes with the flow. Does that sound right?

I built a computer for the first time last week and everything went off without a hitch. I decided not to be a chump and overclock my processor using the AI tweaker in my motherboard's BIOS. I set my BCLK to 153 to give me about 3200MHz and left everything else at auto (so it set my voltage to 1.2400 automatically). I ran Prime95 on it for about 10 minutes and realized that Real Temp measured my core temperatures to be in the high 90's C and one even broke 100 C. I'm not totally sure if that program is accurate, but nonetheless that seemed way too high. I shut off the torture test and came back down to idling at around 50 C. Can anyone tell me what's going on here? I'm using the HAF 922 case with the optional 200mm side fan installed and a Hyper 212+ in a push/pull configuration with Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound (which I'm fairly certain I applied correctly). Everything should be running at lower temps but obviously that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm wondering if even my idle temps are too high, seeing as how other people claim to have theirs more in the high 30's/low 40's C. My build specs are in my profile but I can answer any other relevant questions if need be. Thanks for the help!