My First Overclocking Experience

[Thre3fan`]

My system specs are in my signature below. I began the overclocking process this morning. This has taken me several hours. I've gone as far as my knowledge can take me so far. I'm going to do some more reading and researching this evening. I may have gone as far as I can go with overclocking due to temperature as well. Running OCCT on the settings I will list down below, my temps under load were 55-57 degrees Celcius. I got my E8500 up to 3.7 GHz. I upped my FSB to 390. Multiplier is 9.5. I increased the Vcore to 1.24 in the BIOS although CPU-Z reads it at 1.26. Increasing my FSB to 390 has increased my DRAM frequency to DDR2 936. I have not changed anything where RAM is concerned. All has been left on Auto. Temps under load 55-57 Celcius. When I try to go up to 400 MHz FSB for a clock spped of 3.8 GHz, OCCT fails. So far I'm quite pleased by my results. I'm hoping to do a little better but maybe it's just not possible. Hopefully 3.7 GHz, FSB 390 and Vcore of 1.24 will not harm my setup. This is where my settings are now although I have re-enabled PPM(EIST) Mode and the C1E function now to throttle things down when idle.

 

 

 

[Celcius]

Great clocks for a first overclock! B:)

I'd recommend leaving EIST and C1E off though.

Keep going

Edited August 13, 2008 by Celcius

[Thre3fan`]

Thanks Celcius. Well, I did in fact keep going. I figured out why OCCT crashed when I upped the FSB to 400 to get to 3.8GHz. I set the FSB:DRAM to a 1:1. This allowed me to up the FSB to 400 to achieve 3.8 GHz Here are a list of the settings I used:

 

FSB to 400

Multiplier 9.5

DRAM Speed 333/667

3.8 GHz

VCore to 1.24 in BIOS CPU-Z reads it as 1.264

 

Can someone please tell me if I'm am killing this processor? I'm getting really nervous. I used SpeedFan, Core Temp, and Real Temp to monitor during OCCT.

Readings were all over.

 

Speed Fan --> 56-58 degrees Celcius

CoreTemp --> 60-61 degrees Celcius

RealTemp --> 50-51 degrees Celcius.

 

These are all under load in OCCT. From what I read by Googling the concensus seems to be RealTemp is the most accurate because it use a TJ Max of 95. Am I alright here or should I back off? Thanks for looking!

 

 

 

[r3d c0m3t]

That's an awesome first overclock, and you're still in the clear. You should only begin to worry when you near 1.5v as this is the "point of no return" more or less.

 

And you're only using 1.24 volts?!

[Thre3fan`]

Hello everyone,

 

My specs are in my signature. I need some serious advice from you overclocking gurus.

 

After running stable with no problems whatsoever for the past few weeks at 3.8 GHz. I decided this weekend to continue my quest for 4.0 GHz. Yesterday, I reached an OCCT stable 3.9 Ghz using the following settings:

 

Increased FSB to 411 with a multiplier of 9.5.

Vcore had to be increased to 1.29v

Northbridge voltage had to be increased as well to 1.278v

I also had to increase the CPU VTT to 1.114v

 

Decreasing any of these voltages by even one notch crashes OCCT. This took me most of the day yesterday thru trial and error and googling and researching to get to this.

 

Now this morning, after saving the above settings in my CMOS Reloaded, I continued on to 4.0 GHz. These are my current settings.

 

Increased FSB to 422 with a multiplier of 9.5 to achieve 4 GHz.

Vcore had to be increased to 1.32v

NB core had to be increased to 1.304v

CPU VTT had to be increased 1.119v

 

Decreasing any of these even by one notch again will immediately crash OCCT. Now I have not fully run OCCT yet for 2 hours because I am afraid that perhaps these voltages will be damaging. I have run it for 10 mins or so but manually end the test due to fear. I know I'm okay on the Vcore because I found a spec sheet by Intel that says my Vcore can go as high as 1.365v. My temps are also good with all these settings and it is a very hot day here today.

 

My questions for you guys are:

1. Are these voltages damaging? Particularly the VTT and Northbridge voltages?

2. If not, are they safe for 24/7 365 days a year usage?

3. Overall, how is my overclock? Am I doing okay?

 

Thanks so much for any advice you can give me.