Did too much voltage damage my CPU?

[gcogger]

Hi,

I've recently got an Intel Core 2 Duo 8400 CPU, and I'm running it on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L motherboard. The cooler is an AC Freezer 7 Pro.

It doesn't seem to overclock too well, and I settled on 3.6 GHz (450 x 8) with a core voltage set to 1.34V (measures 1.3V idling in CPU-Z). Standard core voltage is 1.15V. This seemed nice and stable using Orthos small FFT over several hours, with CPU core temps staying below 50 and 54 in RealTemp.

About a week later I needed to run some tests again, and the Orthos tests started getting errors within 2-3 minutes! So I pulled things back to another setting that previously worked - 3.52 GHz with a core voltage set to 1.3V. This also failed almost immediately. It's now running with 1.3V at 3.44 GHz, which seems stable (for now). I'm pretty sure the limit is the CPU as I've tried the memory underclocked, and I'm seeing the same CPU speed limit whether I use an 8x multiplier and high bus speed, or 9x and low bus speed.

Do you think I've damaged the CPU by running it set to 1.34V? Am I safe to leave it at 1.3V?

Thanks.

Graeme

 

[Cob]

Voltage seems a little low to be damaging the CPU, even considering that it's a 45nm chip.

Which memory do you have?

 

[gcogger]

I'm using OCZ PC-8500 RAM, but I get the same issue even with it running at 1:1 (i.e running well below the 1066MHz spec).

 

[Wayne~]

Im pretty much certain that amount of power cannot damage that CPU, 1.5/1.6 may be another story..

 

[Jokester]

It could just be sudden infant death syndrome. Sometimes stuff just dies.

Certainly I don't think voltage killed it.

 

[gcogger]

Oh well - I'll stress test it every so often, and see if it gets any slower! Cheers guys