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Decided to OC my E8400

A

AMDisSWEET

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 6, 2002
Messages
375
I'm a n00b when it comes to OCing but I have read the well written guide on this forum about OCing a C2D/C2Q.

I'm currently Prime95 testing the setup and all is going well with the following:

E8400 (E0) @ 400FSB x 9.0 = 3.6 @ 1.2v (about 1.184 after droop according to CPU-Z)
1:1 Ratio 1600 FSB / RAM @ 2.1v per Corsair spec.
Stock Wolfdale 'mini' heatsink is keeping it under 57c under full load in P95. Room temp 75f.
Temps could be better if I put in the other 3 120mm fans the case was designed to house. But they seem to be within range.

On my first try I left CPU vCore on 'Auto' and it brought up the volts to about 1.36.:eek: I noticed it within about two minutes and went back and changed it to 1.2. Did I mention I was a n00b? It's not likely that I damaged anything right? It's risky when you go above 1.45 from what I've read. I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to this.

I know this isn't an extreme OC or anything but I just want to boost game performance while still having a rock solid PC that will last 3-4 years or so with a GPU upgrade here and there.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
MeRig.jpg
 
Ok. Auto for the vCore is never a good idea. Always set it at stock to begin with, then start to bump the FSB like +5 at a time keeping the volts @ stock and to see if its stable try LinX great little application, will tell you if the system is stable within 3-5 minutes. Now, once you get an error at with whatever FSB@stock volts, thats when you are going to start bumping the volts one notch at a time. Then once you get whatever FSB stable, you go back to bumping the the FSB with whatever voltage it was stable at and so on and so forth.
 
Thanks for the advice fromeo85. It makes me feel better seeing you running fine @ 1.36v. I intend to keep it as low as possible. I didn't think my bios would be so quick to increase the voltage. I left all the other settings on 'Auto' except for vCore and Mem. I hope that's alright.

Edit: I wasn't shooting for anything higher than 3.6 as I'm using the stock HSF and the FSB is already set to 400 and I have DDR2 800 RAM which I don't expect too much more of as I'm running tight timings and don't have a cooler on top of the sticks..
 
Generally you don't want anything set at auto. but the big one is the core volts for the cpu. the other ones don't matter as much, but its still better to set them at a specific voltage that where they aren't fluxing.
 
Should I just start low and work my way up slowly? I don't know what the NB and SB volts are stock as I have to just key in values in the bios, otherwise they show 'Auto'.
 
Your E0 should break 4Ghz easily...I'd be disappointed if you weren't in the 4.3-4.4 range with reasonable voltage by the time this is done.

*on second thought - you are on a stock HSF - what the heck man.
 
Your E0 should break 4Ghz easily...I'd be disappointed if you weren't in the 4.3-4.4 range with reasonable voltage by the time this is done.

*on second thought - you are on a stock HSF - what the heck man.
Click to expand...

I wasn't planning on OCing much anyway. Maybe in the future I'll pick up a Xig or TRUE and really try to hit the limit. I'm happy just to have the 1600FSB and higher clock for now. :D I don't even have the 2 front 120mm fans installed.

BIOS settings:
NB 1.10 - 1.90
SB 1.10 - 1.40

FSB Termination 1.10 - 1.90
CPU PLL 1.50 - 2.78
GTL Reference Auto/0.65x/0.63x/0.61x

The last three I plan on not touching. However, P95 was going well. Might not be a bad idea for me to stop tinkering.
 
Try this application out to make sure you OC is stable, best app out there IMO.

LINK

when you run it make sure nothing else is running at all (AV is ok to have running, but thats it)

and make sure to set the memory/ram to MAX
 
Wow, that was a bit scary. 10c over Prime95 full load. If it hit 69c I would have aborted. Anyways here are the results:

linx.jpg
 
yea LinX really crunches your system. But it will definitely tell you if it is stable, you may want to go into the BIOS to change the multiplier from x6 to x9.
 
Thanks for all the help so far. I have the multiplier set @ x9 but Intel SpeedStep clocks it down to x6 when idle. It was definitely at x9 when the test was running. I looked through the mobo manual and it shows that there is an option to disable SpeedStep but it just isn't there. I'm on the latest bios 1306. Oh well.
 
Thats odd. That would bother me :)

You might also want to look into lowering the temp in the room too.
 
You might also want to look into lowering the temp in the room too.
Click to expand...

Agreed. However, during gaming in STALKER, @ stock, temps would never go above 45c where in P95 they would hit 56c.

I must say though, with 75f ambient and stock hsf, 3.6 with 1.2v 34c idle is not bad considering 3.0 was 30c. I'm satisfied.
 
Yea thats not too bad. Plus the difference between gaming and P95 is that P95 is 100% load on the cpu and gaming it might be like 70-80%
 
I just checked the mobo manual again. It says that the SpeedStep option may only show if I set CPU Ratio (multiplier) control to 'Auto.' I wonder if I set it to 'Auto,' disable SpeedStep, and set Ratio back to x9 if it'll stick.
 
Nope, didn't work. This mobo is intent on having SpeedStep on. Oh well, whenever I open a program or run a game it clocks up to 3.6. I can live with that. And now I'm idling at 32c.

Also, 13309 in 3Dmark06. 11976 @ 3.0. I know it doesn't mean much but its nice to see the increase.

Thanks again!
 
This thread has been a big help to me, since I'm currently studying up to OC an E8400. One question AMDisSWEET: have you overvolted the RAM at all, or lowered the timings? I'm still in the dark as to when you should do that.
 
Hey, glad to have you on board.

Official specs on my RAM are 4 4 4 12 2T @ 2.1v according to Corsair. Since I'm running my RAM @ 400MHz (stock) I have left it @ 2.1v. I think anything beyond 2.2v is not recommended for DDR2. If I wanted to go higher I would buy a RAM cooler like the one Corsair sells or even better just buy DDR2 1066.

Luck:D
 
AMDisSWEET said:
Nope, didn't work. This mobo is intent on having SpeedStep on. Oh well, whenever I open a program or run a game it clocks up to 3.6. I can live with that. And now I'm idling at 32c.

Also, 13309 in 3Dmark06. 11976 @ 3.0. I know it doesn't mean much but its nice to see the increase.

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

You need to locate the part in BIOS where you can set EIST and C1E to disabled. Otherwise, Speedstep will remain active.
 
Why not have c1e and speedstep on @.@? I have mine on *shrugs*, and had it on too on a e6420 @ 3.4
 
Yea, I don't mind it. It was just puzzling not to be able to turn it off. 2.4GHz is plenty for downloading stuff in the background.
 
Is LinX the same as IntelBurn Test Linpack. It looks as though it's the same setup, different GUI.

If this is the case, yes by far the best overclocking utility (from what I have found).
 
I had to get a couple of files from Intel's site to make it run so I would guess they use the same method. It went fine for me but once is enough, hehe. I don't like my temps going over 60c.
 
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