How do you know when to stop???

[JohnnyMac]

I recently purchased the system below. Once I had everything installed I started my "Adventure in Overclocking". Since the multiplier is locked on my CPU I started with the bus speed, going slowly from 200 up to 212. That ran stable for a day so I decided to go higher. My CPU temp was around 36C at idle.

 

I bumped it up slowly to 219 and kept an eye on my temp but it never got higher than 39C. I decided to let it run like that for a while as I worked on another computer beside it. I was using ASUS Booster to monitor the CPU. All of a sudden I looked over and the temp reading was still 39C but the Megahertz showed 5400 and the slider scale in the middle showed red. I tried to dial things down but the computer was locked up hard. I finally had to hold in the power button.

 

Turns out my MoBo blew. I am waiting for the new one this week. But this got me thinking, how do you know when to stop screwing around with your box? I always thought it was temp driven, you get hot, you stop. Anyone have any thoughts about what I did wrong or can tell me what you use to gauge when to stop???

[Kingfisher]

Well, there are so many things that could have happened.

Without being there beside you we can only go on the information you provided.

 

Too much volts can fry a board, so can improperly seated hardware.

Contact with your case, a short could have done it.

It could have been a bad motherboard from the factory.

Overclocking is like cooking, alot of variations and recipes can work.

There are no clear cut "this is how you do it" types.

 

Assuming everything was stable to begin with, I would have to say the stopping point is where you cannot pass the stability testing and have to drop your clocks down until they do.

After finding your max overclocks, then you have to decide if the temps are "good enough" for your comfort level to run your PC 24/7.

You can then decide to use better cooling , add a fan or water-cool it, something like that.

[JohnnyMac]

Thanks King for your post.

 

Do you have a temp that you try and keep under?

[suedenim]

How do you know your mobo blew? Have you tried you other components as one of them could have failed and then the mobo followed suit.

 

As to when do you stop?

 

1) When your fave game can be run at max or close enough.

 

2) If you want to push the limits then when your stability runs out at your "max" temp

 

3) Your pile of money is low and your pile of black silicon is high.

 

As a final note I would assume that most super OC's you see are only run for the duration of the benchmarking, 24/7 OC's are probably quite a bit lower.

[Kingfisher]

Thanks King for your post.

 

Do you have a temp that you try and keep under?

 

For me, I don't like to see temps any higher than 50c on my cpu under stress.

If you feel you can push your clocks higher and temps are holding you back, be creative.

Maybe you need to repostion some case fanes, bad airflow inside the PC case can hinder a good overclock.

Are you using a decent thermal compund?

I agree with Suedenim on the mobo issue, you postive it is toast?

Any burn marks or bad smell?

[JohnnyMac]

Thanks for the replies,

 

I pulled the CPU and put in a known good one and the PC will only show the ASUS splash screen, show text for a moment about the Jmicron raid and then nothing but a blinking cursor. It will not boot from the CD, it never gets far enough to try. The board ran fine for a day and a half. I was running an Antec PSU that I picked up at BestBuy. That could have been an issue, it showed a slow fan at 900rpm's or lower. I have taken that back and am waiting on a new one from newegg, (the one listed below).

 

I brought my CPU into work and popped it into a system here and ran CPU-Burn-in for 4 hours (two instances, one for each core) and it ran fine so I am assuming the proc is fine. I popped my MoBo into the system and got the same results, splash screen then dead shortly after. It could have been the PSU but it was just very strange that it happened as I was overclocking.