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[bill0527]

I built a PC a little over a year ago and never overclocked it. No idea what I'm doing when it comes to overclocking.

My PC specs:

C2D e6420 @ 2.13ghz
Geforce 8600gts
2GB Corsair RAM
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

I've been recently reading some beginner's guides to overclocking and here's what I've done so far: (note - just overclocking the CPU, not the video card or RAM)

I set the RAM in my BIOS to 1:1 with the FSB. My board would not boot up if I changed any of my FSB speeds without doing this.

I slowly upped my FSB speeds in increments of 15. I started at 266. My multiplier is 8x and I gradually worked my way up to 375mhz on the FSB speed which gave my C2D an overclock up to 3.0ghz. This is as far as I went with it because I started to become concerned with heat. I have stock cooling and not installed anything else. I used Intel's Thermal Analysis Tool and the temperature gauge in my BIOS to watch my temps. My overclocking guide said that if temps get above 65 Celsius to be concerned.

Before overclocking, my 2.13ghz C2D chip ran around 46-48 Celsius idle. As I upped the FSB speeds, it began to run hotter obviously. At 375mhz, my idle temps were around 52-54 Celsius. When I would run the load test in the thermal analysis tool, the temps would soar up between 65-70 Celsius and I started to get worried. My motherboard is set to auto shut-off at 80 Celcius. Is this a huge cause for concern? I've read in a couple of different places that my chip can be overclocked up to 3.4ghz on stock cooling, but your mileage may vary depending on your setup.

Also, I have not messed with any voltages. I'm really not sure what I'm doing here and I have not read up enough about it. I leave my motherboard set to AUTO so that it can figure out the voltages. If I have to start messing with the voltages, I may give up trying to overclock because I'm worried I may blow something up.

I've also got another problem that I've noticed. Since I did the overclock up to 3.0ghz about 24 hours ago, I'm getting anywhere from 10-20fps lower in most of my games. I'll use Bioshock as an example. Before the overclock, with the game set at a resolution of 1280x720, all effects high, DX10 enabled, V-Sync off, I would get 30-45fps consistently. Now I'm getting dips down to 15fps in the exact same parts of the game I used to get higher frame rates. I undid the overclock and went back and verified this. Any idea what could be causing this ?

 

[godhandiscen]

Bump. I dont have the answers, but I would like to see answers to his questions.

 

[prodystopian]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

Read that. You need to get a good program for monitoring temps and a stress test program.

 

[knitoe]

You are getting lower fps probably due to your cpu is throttling down due to heat. Use a lower overclock speed or get better cpu heat sink / fan.

Note: Using ratio 1:1 is usually use to test the limit of ram speed. Ratio 3:2 or 5:4 use to test limit of cpu speed. By testing with these ratios, you can find the optimal settings for your overclock cpu, memory and fsb speed.

 

[Agent Ironside]

The only advice I can give is stay at 2.8 or below on the oc with that processor on stock cooling. As for voltage, if the oc becomes unstable, sometimes a little voltage bump up is all thats needed.

 

[wotter]

I built a PC a little over a year ago and never overclocked it. No idea what I'm doing when it comes to overclocking.

My PC specs:

C2D e6420 @ 2.13ghz
Geforce 8600gts
2GB Corsair RAM
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

I've been recently reading some beginner's guides to overclocking and here's what I've done so far: (note - just overclocking the CPU, not the video card or RAM)

I set the RAM in my BIOS to 1:1 with the FSB. My board would not boot up if I changed any of my FSB speeds without doing this.

You should always set the clock speeds of your ram a bit lower when oc'ing cpu en visa versa. This way, you are sure when oc'ing that your ram/cpu isn't limiting the other component. So search for max memclock or something in your bios and turn it a bit lower. Keep the multi of your cpu unchanged for now. I always do it like this:

1. cpu: multi unchanged and divider on ram => fsb up => benchmarks => fsb up => benchmarks => max found (write it on a paper) => back to normal
2. ram: multi lower => fsb up => benchmarks => fsb up => benchmarks => max found (write it on paper as well) => back to normal
3. try both speeds at the same time => benchmarks => finding ideal combinations (maybe lower fsb a bit or lower multi a bit) => benchmarks => done

I slowly upped my FSB speeds in increments of 15. I started at 266. My multiplier is 8x and I gradually worked my way up to 375mhz on the FSB speed which gave my C2D an overclock up to 3.0ghz. This is as far as I went with it because I started to become concerned with heat. I have stock cooling and not installed anything else. I used Intel's Thermal Analysis Tool and the temperature gauge in my BIOS to watch my temps. My overclocking guide said that if temps get above 65 Celsius to be concerned.

Before overclocking, my 2.13ghz C2D chip ran around 46-48 Celsius idle. As I upped the FSB speeds, it began to run hotter obviously. At 375mhz, my idle temps were around 52-54 Celsius. When I would run the load test in the thermal analysis tool, the temps would soar up between 65-70 Celsius and I started to get worried. My motherboard is set to auto shut-off at 80 Celcius. Is this a huge cause for concern? I've read in a couple of different places that my chip can be overclocked up to 3.4ghz on stock cooling, but your mileage may vary depending on your setup.

Maybe you should stress your cpu a bit more before going any higher. Going from 266 to 375 in such a short time is quite remarkable. Do some test with superPI, games, sisoft or other benchmarks and be sure to run them a few times after another. Keep watching those temps, 65-70 is pushing it for a c2d.

By the way, upping in speeds of 15fsb is way too high. I don't know the multi of the c2d by heart (I think it's 11 or so) which means your oc'ing your pc with more than 150mhz each time. That's way too much: I suggest doing oc'ing in steps of 5fsb max (especially when your multi is above 10).

As for the temps, it all depends on your setup (case, fans, cpu cooler, dust,...). Personally, I have a 120mm intake at the front, 1 120mm blowing directly at the cpu and 1 120mm doing outtake at the back. It seems like your cpu is doing a great oc'ing job, so it could be wise to buy a new cooler and start increasing the vcore to get a higher fsb (be careful here as you can really damage your cpu, start with small steps like +0,005 and watch those temps.

And finally, how much you can oc ultimately depends on your chip. There should be marks on the chip that tell what week/year it was made (=stepping). With this number, you can search for other chips on the internet and see how far other people were able to go. Some stepping can go much further than other ones.

Also, I have not messed with any voltages. I'm really not sure what I'm doing here and I have not read up enough about it. I leave my motherboard set to AUTO so that it can figure out the voltages. If I have to start messing with the voltages, I may give up trying to overclock because I'm worried I may blow something up.

If you're not sure what you are doing, keep it standard and don't mess with it until you gained some knowledge (the same for oc'ing in general). But if you keep it at auto, it's quite impossible to break something. You might get system errors and lock ups but you can do a cmos clear or battery remove to clear things up (I hope you know how to do that).

I've also got another problem that I've noticed. Since I did the overclock up to 3.0ghz about 24 hours ago, I'm getting anywhere from 10-20fps lower in most of my games. I'll use Bioshock as an example. Before the overclock, with the game set at a resolution of 1280x720, all effects high, DX10 enabled, V-Sync off, I would get 30-45fps consistently. Now I'm getting dips down to 15fps in the exact same parts of the game I used to get higher frame rates. I undid the overclock and went back and verified this. Any idea what could be causing this ?

See above (knitoe)

If it can ease your pain, oc'ing a graphical card is much easier and fun .

btw: I have the same motherboard as yours

 

[bill0527]

Thanks for the responses. It sounds like I may be pushing it too much jumping from 2.13 --> 3.0ghz. I'll scale it back to 2.8 or 2.6 and see how it does.