Overclocking

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi,

I'm interested in overclocking my processor but i'm a complete newbie at this. I sort of did it last night but got a bit scared i'd screw my processor up. I turned the fsb up and that was about it but i'm unsure whether i need to change the voltage and/or ram settings in the bios. Can anyone help me.

What im running

Core 2 duo e6300 Manufacturers heatsink & fan. (got it to just above 2ghz last night)
Asus P5VD2-MX ACPI BIOS Revision 1003
2g ram: 1 x kingston PC2-5300 333mhz
1 x unknown PC2-5300 333mhz

Is the ram i'm using unsuitable??? Is my motherboard any good for overclocking. (The ram details i have posted are from cpu-z).

thanks

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

the ram you are using is sloooooooooooooooooooooooooow and I am not sure if that will overclock, but the way it usually works is you go into the bios and add to the voltage being supplied to the cpu and ram so you can increase the fsb and other settings

I have never done as it I can't afford a new PC if I end up blowing the cpu and mobo. If your PC is under a warranty of any kind then overclocking will void that warranty so if something goes wrong the system builders will not fix it.

and to be honest if you want a faster board and cpu than the one you have buying wont be that expensive.

 

IMHO - you want a faster machine then buy it. Overclocking is an invitation for instability and shorter component life.

Harry.

 

My problem is i like playing. If i see something or a technique, i ant to be able to do it. It's no real issue overclocking my system, just want to be able to do it without screwing my system up.

cheers

 

If you can get a cheap pc and experiment with that, then you can do your real one. If you are brave though just try messing with your currnt system and 1.5volts and see what happens but don't blame me if it goes bang.

I don't know if your mobo is any good for overclocking, mine is supposed to be I have an Asus P5NE-Sli mobo but like I said before I have never tried it.

 

Well... those are the risks, are they not?

 

You will find that overclocking causes the processor to generate more heat than normal and this is usually how most overclocked processors meet their doom. They basically cook themselves!

If you are going to overclock then you need to make sure you have a suitable heat sink and fan that will dissipate the extra heat. You'll need case fans as well to get the extra heat out of the chasis.

If you don't have these then I wouldn't bother trying because you're more than likely melt the processor within 10 minutes.

 

Nah don't be stilly Stoney, he'll do no such thing even if he did hugely overlock it without adequate cooling. Virtually every chip for the last 10 years has had thermal protection built into it, especially most intel processors. Most of which will simply throttle down or shut down if they are running too hot.

I have even watched a demo of a heat sink being removed from a P4 based system while a game was being played and all that happened was that the system slowed down and the game got choppy. If it was an AMD chip from the same time we would be talking smoke and fire, but it's not.

As for over-volting your processor / RAM Sam ... You won't need to intially. You can quite safely start to up the FSB on the processor in small chunks (maybe 100Mhz at a time - I mean overall chip speed, not 100Mhz FSB speed ). Then you can start to run tests on your system for stability after each minor overclock.

As for your RAM ... well as already mentioned it's not exactly overclocking material but that doesn't mean you can't overlock. It just means that you won't be able to be agressive with your timings and also you will have less scope for pushing the FSB up. Most decent mobo's have the ability to divide the memory by different amounts depending on what FSB you are using. So even if you increased the FSB by quite a bit, you could still in theory run the memory at the same speed before you changed the FSB, thus taking it out of the overclocking loop. This will depend very much on your motherboard though.

Once you have established the boundaries of how far you can push your system without changing the voltage, it's then up to you if you want to start changing that as well. The more significant overclocks usually require extra power from the chip and thus the core voltage needs to be increaded. This as previously mentioned can produce significant extra heat and it would be an idea to fit a more dedicated heat sink and possibly implement other cooling measures as well.

Most recent C2D chips can overlock very well with the bog standard Intel heat sink and fan though. They have a great deal of headroom and tolerance for overlocking.

I would advise that you do a search for your motherboard in regard to overlocking and see how other people have fared. It may be that your board is a good one for this, but it could also be a bad one. The actual chip you have will vary compared to others with the same chip as well. Some can be overclocked better than others simply by being from a different batch.

Good luck, and ignore the nay sayers, it' fun to tinker and if you do end up breaking something, well lets face it processors are cheap, so are motherboards. I haven't killed one yet (thought I had recently, but it was fine after being left off overnight). There is always a first time though I guess.

 

Cheap enough to buy for a new build... NOT cheap enough to replace - most of us don't have extra money to throw away due to our own preventable actions. Go ahead and keep assuming that you won't get burned someday by overclocking... you may very well be the lucky one.

 

I guess you missed this bit BM ...

 

I didn't miss it at all... you've been lucky so far, and you realize that. You also said,

Ignoring those who say that you might damage your system isn't a smart thing to do. Throughout your post, except for the very last part, you give the impression that there's little chance that he'll damage his system. But on the contrary, it's very easy to fry a component through overclocking - not just the CPU, but also add-in cards, RAM, motherboard, etc. And you may not fry a CPU within seconds... but overclocking CAN take its toll on components.

There are actually people who underclock their system in an attempt to increase the lifespan of their components. Does underclocking REALLY help? Who knows? But as Harry correctly mentioned, overclocking DOES reduce the lifespan of components.

Unless you've got a reeeeeally old build that you want to squeeze a few more months or years out of, and you don't mind damaging it because you've already gotten a lot of good use out of it for what you paid, I wouldn't recommend overclocking.

 

Through many years of doing this kind of thing and also speaking to others who do the same I have never damaged any equipment through overclocking. Yes I realise there is a small risk ascociated with the activity, but that is minimised if you are careful. Also I can attest to the lifespan and logevity of equipment I have done this with as I recycle almost all components into other systems via friends and family.

The 'ignore the nay sayers' comment is aimed at those who are quick to critisise but seem to me have little or no experience in this area, (not you incedentally BM), and no, I'm not looking to get into argy bargy with anyone over this, it's my opinion at the end of the day.

Underclocking is actually another way of speed optimising a system by the way, quite often (more so in the past than now) faster results could be obtained by running buses at lower than their stated speeds and increasing mulitpliers to compensate. At least the days of painting condutive paint across las locked bridges on AMD chips are gone. Man, that needed a steady hand!

p.s. BM, I disagree that I have been 'lucky' thus far and my comment that I highlighted was essentially tounge in cheek and poking fun at myself, not being contradictory in my advice.

p.p.s If it was as risky as some make out, why on earth are there a whole raft of PC manufacturers shipping pre-overclocked systems now. The same goes for graphics cards. Almost without exception every GFX card maufacturer now sell overclocked cards to the market, and XFX who do this still offer lifetime warranties ...

 

Well, I agree with most of what has been said so far. Overclocking does reduce component life and is not generally recommended. But, I am also the kind of person that likes to tinker, and have just purchased a new motherboard to put in my desktop because I want to get into a bit of overclocking.

There are an awful lot of computer owners out there that overclock their systems successfully. Core 2s are very resilient to overclocking, they respond very well. Using a motherboard and RAM that are designed for this kind of use, and marketed as such, should not really cause you any problems. You can of course push it too far, but maybe that’s part of the fun…

Don’t fear overclocking. It seems to be a subject that brings the same ‘love or hate’ response as Marmite and downloading torrents...

 

I think the OP could now see that there are different points of view when it comes to this subject and if he choses not to OC his system then that's fine, it's his equipment and his money at the end of the day.

 

...IF you are careful. Do you want to be the one responsible for encouraging someone to overclock, and they fry their system because they are less careful or less knowledgeable than you? Or because they didn't do their research and chose different components than you did? That's all I'm saying. Encourage them to overclock... but by all means, DON'T minimize the risk. One can certainly minimize the risk by doing research and being careful... but there's still a risk, and there's still reduced lifespans to consider.

I'm not critical of overclocking. It's an individual opinion, and at the end of the day, we're all adults, and can make an informed decision. If someone is aware of the risks, and they still choose to overclock, I say, "Go for it!"

I simply want to make people aware of the possible dangers. YOU may not have experienced them, and you may not have heard of any people who have experienced them... but the simple fact that I and others have known people who HAVE experienced them completely negates the "safety" argument. If it's possible to fry a component, someone will do it.

Care to see a few?
OCForums.com
HardForum.com
Overclock.net
ExtremeOverclocking.com
ExtremeOverclocking.com - 2
TomsHardware.com

I'm not talking about underclocking to get faster results... I'm talking about underclocking to extend the lifespan of components.

I remember the days of pencil tracing an AMD...

I understand. I hope you understand why I'm intent on pointing out the possible dangers. I'm not against overclocking... at all. I specifically bought overclockable components in the event I want to overclock. But minimizing the dangers causes people to be careless, and not do their research simply because they think they have nothing to fear.

Because those manufacturers are willing to guarantee their components at the settings the manufacturer (not the end-user) chooses. Still, just because a manufacturer pre-overclocks a system doesn't mean that the components will magically last longer because the manufacturer did it... overclocking can STILL take a toll on a system.

 

Thanks guys, some really interesting responses. After looking on the asus website, not sure if my mobo is best suited for this, it is possible, but on the specification of my mobo it says nothing about overclocking features, whereas the P5K Premium/WiFi-AP for example has overclocking features on it stated in the specification. Obviously aswell, my RAM sucks lol!!!!!!


I think I may do some more research, and any more input would be greatly appreciated. Once again, thanks for all your responses.

 

Is this system not fast enough as it is? I would expect it to be.

Why do you think that Intel release these CPUs onto the market with clock speeds less than they are capable of?


Answer.. because that is the speed that produces the best stability, reliablility and longevity.

 

Hi sambangert,
I've overclocked my cpu's ever since my first pc and so far never managed to fry one. But it isn't without its risks, and a lot of what has been said already is sound advice.
The only thing I'd add is if you go ahead and oc the cpu then you will need decent ram, decent motherboard a decent case and most definately excellent cooling.
I'm currently using the Asus P5K Deluxe Wifi AP edition board with a Quad core 2.4 Ghz cpu, and 4GB ram. The case is a Coolermaster Cosmos and I managed to overclock it to 3.2/3.4 but ran into major heat issues which resulted in me returning the cpu back to stock speed for stability reasons. The excess heat came not from the cpu ,but from the 4 hd's I have in the case. I'm planning on sorting the cooling out so I can try again, but haven't had the time to do it.

Cheers
NB

Disclaimer:
Notes_Bloke in no shape or form endorses the use of overclocking procedures. Use them at your own risk.

 

but then the next question would be...how come these CPUs are able to be overclocked and some people have found those faster speeds to work better than the market speeds?

Cos I for one have done this before. i bought an AMD Athlon XP 2500 (Barton core using the old 754 socket)...its core speed was 1.83GHz...but I was able to overclock it to 2.2GHz which was the exact same speed as the AMD Athlon XP 3000 I believe...which was about £50 extra back in 2003/2004....and to this day it is still running at that same speed without any hiccups...

 

Well, because when they produce a batch of CPUs, they are not all identical. there will be some in the batch that can be pushed harder and others that will fail. You dont know whether yours is in the former or the latter. Hence the risk factor.