Overclocking (Main Thread)

monitor turns on but the PC won't boot😂

Lawrence Roberts3 said:The AMD Athlon 64 X2, bumped from 2.71 up to 3.40, is running stable (for now), though I still need to tweak a few things to check the temperatures.
At 3.50 GHz, the monitor is acting up, so I’m going to try bumping the voltage.

Cheers and happy overclocking.

Firewall. That Athlon shouldn't even hit 3.2; you're dreaming if you think this will work.

Figure I might as well jump into the overclocking deep end too. 😁

So, I was going through this tutorial and hit a bit of a snag. I'm stuck on step 6 with the ClockGen software. Under the PLL setup, it just says "not specified"—and I think the link explaining how to actually fix that is broken (it's this link here). Any idea what I should pick?
Here’s what I'm seeing:


edit:
By the way, I'm running a Core 2 Duo E8200 on an MSI MS-7360 motherboard.

Hey guys! Sorry if I've asked something similar before, but could someone please help me out? How do I get a little more speed out of my processor? THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE HELP, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT...😉

my setup: AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.1 GHz...2 GB RAM (GEIL)...GPU Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT 512 MB...motherboard👋infast-K8M890-8237-6A7L6FKHC-00...BIOS type: Phoenix Award BIOS v6.00PG...

Bradley Cook2 said:Hey everyone... my apologies if I've already asked something similar, but could someone please explain how I can slightly overclock my processor? Thank you all so much for the help; I would truly appreciate it.😉

Here are my specs: AMD Athlon 64 X2 running at 2.1 GHz, 2 GB of GEIL RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT with 512 MB. My motherboard is...👋infast-K8M890-8237-6A7L6FKHC-00...BIOS tip: Phoenix Award BIOS v6.00PG...

I asked around, and the consensus from the group is that you should check out the top thread in this subforum. 🙂

Gary Cooper7 said:So, I managed to overclock my CPU to 2800MHz—just to repeat, this is a quad 6600 using the stock cooler... everything seems to be running fine, but things are getting a bit warmer than usual. I was wondering, are these temperatures actually normal???

Temperature
Motherboard 43 °C (109 °F)
CPU 37 °C (99 °F)
1. CPU / 1. core 51 °C (124 °F)
1. CPU / 2. core 49 °C (120 °F)
1. CPU / 3. core 48 °C (118 °F)
1. CPU / 4. core 48 °C (118 °F)
WDC WD3200AAKS-75VYA0 27 °C (81 °F)

My number one rule: don't even think about overclocking with a stock cooler. Those things just aren't built for that kind of stress. If you want to overclock—maybe set aside some cash and pick up a decent cooler.

So, I've got this Intel Core 2 Duo E8200, and I'm hitting a wall trying to overclock it to 3.6 GHz or even higher. I managed to squeeze out 3.2 GHz without touching the voltage, but that's about it. Even when I try bumping up the voltage, it just won't budge. If anyone knows what kind of voltage I should be looking at to hit 3.6 GHz, let me know. It's kinda urgent!!!!!!!!!!

There’s absolutely no rush here, really, none at all !!!!!!!! So just take it easy and be careful.

Since you have the guide right there, I'd suggest giving it a thorough read... maybe try starting with 1.3V for the CPU, though depending on which motherboard you're running, you might find yourself needing to bump up those other voltages a bit too...

What about the FSB? 🤷

Alright, after reading through a few posts here, I think I might give overclocking a shot myself...
Based on what I'm running, what would you suggest?
CPU AMD Athlon 3200+
MB Asus M2N4 SLI
RAM 2x 1GB 667

I'm not expecting anything life-changing, but I'd love to swap the CPU for something closer to 3GHz just to see how much headroom this thing actually has before I pull the trigger (honestly, I've thought about upgrading my guy's gear just as often)😁

First off, you really ought to take a good, long look at part three of our overclocking guide...

Now, you could certainly try playing around with some overclocking settings, but honestly, you probably won't notice much of a difference—at least not on this particular machine... For any real, noticeable gains, you’d ideally want to be working with something a bit more modern, perhaps an Intel chipset paired with a Core 2 Duo processor if you can swing it... 😉

To make sure we walk you through this properly, step by step, just dive into that guide, give it a shot, and please, don't hesitate to ask if anything seems confusing! Just one little thing though—before you start messing with any clock speeds, make sure you locate the CMOS jumper position in your manual, just in case things go sideways and you need to reset everything back to factory defaults...

Alright, I'll give it a read...👍

I’ve recently started dipping my toes into the world of overclocking...

Taking a page out of Taian's book, I decided to try pushing my E5200 on a Gigabyte EP35-DS3 board—equipped with 4GB of G.Skill Standard Series DDR2 800 (running at 1.8V)—alongside an AC Freezer 7 cooler.

My initial attempt was aiming for 3.8GHz with a 304MHz bus at a BIOS voltage of 1.375V. The memory was sitting somewhere around 900MHz, though I can't recall the exact number. With those specific settings, the system wouldn't even get past the BIOS; it just rebooted three times before reverting back to defaults.

Currently, I have it running at 3375MHz with a BIOS voltage of 1.375V—though once I'm inside Windows, it drops to 1.344V at idle. The memory is clocked at 900MHz, while the bus is at 270MHz. Temperatures look decent enough—around 54°C under load and 39°C at idle. On paper, everything seems to be functioning perfectly, yet the moment I fire up Prime, one of my two workers inevitably freezes after just a few seconds.

What should my next move be? Does anyone have any advice on how to achieve true stability? I’ve already gone through the introductory guide...

velvetfalcon48 said:I’ve been dipping my toes into the overclocking waters lately too...

Taking a page out of Taipan's book, I decided to try overclocking my E5200 on a Gigabyte EP35-DS3 board paired with 4GB of G.Skill Standard Series DDR2 800 (running at 1.8V), and I've got an AC Freezer 7 keeping things cool.

I attempted to push it to 3.8GHz by cranking the bus up to 304MHz with a BIOS voltage of 1.375V. My memory was sitting around 900MHz or so—I can't quite recall the exact number. Unfortunately, with those settings, I couldn't even get past the BIOS; the system just rebooted three times before resetting itself back to defaults.

Right now, I've settled on 3.375GHz with the BIOS voltage set to 1.375V, though once I'm inside Windows, it idles at 1.344V. The memory is running at 900MHz and the bus is at 270MHz. Temperatures look decent, hitting about 54°C under load and idling at 39°C. On paper, everything seems to be working perfectly fine, but whenever I fire up Prime, one of my two workers inevitably freezes up after just a few seconds.

What should I do? Does anyone have any advice on how to get this thing running stably? I've already combed through the introductory guide...

I'm running into the exact same issue, except I'm using Crucial 667 memory... I've got an M0 stepping, whereas Taipan has a C0 😕 but strangely enough, CPU-Z identifies his chip as a Core 2 Duo while most others see it as a Pentium Dual-Core 🙄🤷

Well, he’s using an outdated version of CPU-Z... honestly, I don't think that's really the issue here. I'm not entirely sure if that's why Prime isn't passing, but look—I've been playing GTA IV for about five or six hours now (which, by the way, runs much smoother than it did on my old processor), and while simultaneously downloading a torrent, everything has been running like a dream. No crashes, no glitches, nothing at all...

I had it running at 3.8GHz with a voltage of 1.5V, but then I came across a note from him suggesting you shouldn't really push past 1.35V once you're inside Windows. I'm not quite certain why that is, or even if a slightly higher voltage is actually doing any real damage over time...

Oh, come on now, let’s be realistic—that voltage level is perfectly fine for these processors! 🙂

velvetfalcon48 said:Well, he's using an older version of CPU-Z... honestly, I don't think that's really relevant here. I'm not entirely sure if that could somehow affect why Prime isn't passing, but for what it's worth, I've been playing GTA IV for about 5 or 6 hours now—and it actually runs much smoother than it did on my old processor—while simultaneously downloading some torrents in the background, and everything is running like a dream without a single hiccup...

I was actually running at 3.8GHz with a voltage of 1.5V, but then I saw him mention that you probably shouldn't go over 1.35V once you're inside Windows... I'm not quite sure why that is, or even if a slightly higher voltage is going to cause any real damage if it's just a little bit over.

What kind of temperatures are you seeing?

Jesse Kern4 said:What kind of temperatures are we looking at?

At 3.8GHz, I'm seeing about 58 degrees under load and 43 while idling—just a bit high, perhaps. So, I just dialed it back to 3.33GHz, setting the BIOS voltage to 1.385V... currently sitting at 53 degrees under load and 38 at idle... though, it just crashed in Prime after a few minutes... oh well, that's just how it goes.

Can anyone tell me how I can lower my memory multiplier? Does this setting even exist on the motherboard, and if so, where can I find it?

So, I managed to push my CPU up to 4GHz with some pretty reasonable voltage. It's passing short runs of Orthos and the GROMACS core just fine, but the moment I try longer iterations—basically putting a real load on the system—everything crashes after about 2 or 3 minutes.
I ran MemTest86 and it's definitely throwing errors on the memory. I tried bumping the RAM voltage up to 2.2V, which is the absolute limit for this motherboard, and gave the Front Side Bus a little more juice while loosening up the latencies, but I'm still getting errors, though they seem slightly less frequent now. 😠

What should my next move be? The CPU still has room to grow, but the memory is holding me back, and I'm worried the motherboard might give out soon too. For now, I really need to focus on stabilizing the memory first.

By the way, the memory is running at roughly 1040MHz.