Want to overclock my CPU, where do I start?

[aph]

Hi guys, was just wondering if someone can point me in the right direction of some good C2D overclocking guides.

Been looking at the MIT settings on my Gigabyte motherboard, and there's lots I don't know about.

Help would be appreciated!

 

[aph]

Okay, that was probably pretty dumb posting in the CPU section and not the overclocking section, as it implies I haven't looked at the stickied guide. Which I actually have. The thing is it just talks in rather general terms about overclocking.

Is there a guide a little more tailored to Gigabyte boards, and Core2Duo processors? I've tried a few google searches, and I haven't turned up anything great :|

 

[aph]

Right.

CPU = C2D E4500
Motherboard = Gigabyte P31-S3L
RAM = Samsung 2x2GB PC2-6400

I'll write down the settings I'm conused about in the BIOS and post them up on here.

 

[aph]

Right, well there's one setting I think I understand:

CPU Host Clock Control

- Right now that's set to auto, but I presume that's where I change the CPU's FSB setting... simply upping that increases the speed right?

But then do I Need to change:

PCI Express Frequency

- This is currently at auto, would I need to set this to a set speed.

I don't know what:

CIA 2

Performance Enhance

Robust Graphics Booster

&

High Speed DRAM DLL Settings does

also

would I need to change:

System Memory Multiplier

So all in all, a few queries.

 

[aph]

just set the memory multplyer to 2, and up the CPU Host controll by 25 each time.

keep everything else on auto, and run a blend test for 20mins inbetween each step up.

having said this you can probly up the CPU host controll to 333mhz straight away.

Think I understand that. Is a blend test a setting in Prime95?

 

[aph]

Hi aph

I have just upped my FSB in 5 steps at a time from 3.16 GHZ I'am now at 3.8 GHZ, I did this in the bios... I also turned off speedstep to get a true reading at what the cpu numbers were..

Hi, just tried the setting as advised above. As yantorsen mentioned, I jumped straight to 333MHz. Unfortunately, the system didn't boot for a few secs, and then when it did - according to CPU-Z everything is as before. So I presume the BIOS didn't like the settings and reverted back to it's default. How annoying.

How do I turn off speedstep?

 

[aph]

Yeah, I thought you might say something like that. Currently the BIOS on my board doesn't present that option. Whether it's just not there, or there under another name I'm unsure.

 

[aph]

333 Mhz might be a bit much to start with.
11 multiplier on that CPU.

He would need quite a bump in the vcore to pull that off.



CPU Host Clock Control
toggle to manual
Set to 266mhz initially
That will give you a 33% overclock for starters


PCI Express Frequency
Could be left on auto
or manually set to 101
some folks advise manually setting 101

CIA 2
Leave disabled


Robust Graphics Booster
Leave on auto


High Speed DRAM DLL Setting
Leave on option1

Hi, I read this after having rebooted. I first tried 300Mhz. Again, no luck. Went back to BIOS, actually thought about it for a sec, and yeah realised that 300 x 11 = 3.3GHz = possibly a stretch too far to begin with. I've just booted at 250MHz (so... 2750MHz). I'll reboot at 266MHz, and then stress test it.

I've changed:

Performance Enhance

to 'Standard'

What exactly does 'Turbo' do? Sounds bizarre.

Also I'll set the PCI Express Frequency to:

101.

Thanks for the info guys, looks like I'm getting somewhere... slowly

 

[aph]

Turbo basically sets tighter timings in the chipset and memory.
Get the CPU stable before enabling this.

As you increase the CPU speed there will come a point where more vcore is going to be required.
Around 3Ghz i'll hazard a guess.



You will need to set System Voltage Control to manual.
Before you can adjust any of the voltages.

Yeah. It runs okay at 266 x 11 - 2926. well, it boots to windows. im stress testing it now to see how okay it really runs. i did try booting at 275 but i had no luck.

i think i'll stick to a speed that doesn't require any volt changes at first because this is my first punt at overclocking.

 

[aph]

Not that difficult was it.

Probably the quickest way to find out if you need to bump up any voltages is to run Orthos.
It will error very quickly.
If windows reboots whilst loading up that's a good indicator as well.

I guess not! Thanks for your help. It ran okay with Prime95 (for 25 mins), so I'll try running Orthos and see if it errors quickly.

 

[aph]

aph
Orthos is just prime95 with a wrapper.
Check out the temps with coretemp while your running the torture test.

Yeah as I went to download it I read the home page, and the author described how he had simply edited the Prime95 GUI...

But I'm running it anyway!

With um, Core Temp 0.96.1 (Presume that's the programme you were referring to?) I'm getting Tj. Max @ 85C and both cores @ 60C. That's under load (Orthos). Is that okay or too hot?

 

[aph]

Oh dear, that's a shame. I actually don't have the Intel HSF installed, I've got an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. Which aren't as good as that behemouth the Tuniq Tower... but they're meant to be okay right? I don't have AS5 on it, just the regular TIM that it came with. The case is a Lian-Li PC-65B...

Maybe I could try reseating the HSF... orrr I'm not sure what else.

 

[aph]

Nah, its not that bad a temperature, nothing worth messing with unless you want to go much further. Would have expected cooler, but that may be because of a whole host of things, what temperature does it idle at ?

The arctic silver cooler comes with artic cooler thermal paste lol

Make sure PCI-e frequency is on 100/101 (some like 109 for some reason) if you leave it on auto you may find your graphics cards getting beaten up.

Oh right, I thought it was a bad temperature. So you just mean, it'll be okay, but obviously if I wanna go further I need to keep my temps down.

Well that's cool, I've upped the CPU 700MHz, and that's nothing comapared to what I've read about on these boards. But I'll settle at that, it's just a bit of fun. My graphics card is an old X1850XT... and so anyway, that's my bottleneck not my CPU.

Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that with the Arctic HSF. So yeah guess it is AS of some sort on there!

 

[aph]

If i dropped the multiplier to say 9, and increased the FSB to 333MHz, giving me about the same speed as before, will i get any increase in speed because of the higher FSB?