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question for a new overclocker

A

anime4u

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 12, 2007
Messages
1,137
I just took the plunge and overclocked my Q9400 to 2.8GHz (about a 5% overclock). My question is, just how long should a cpu stay overclocked? Is there a ballpark estimate like 5%- how much time, 10%- how much time, etc? I am very new to this so any advise for the newbee is appreciated! My system stats and overclock is in my sig. I am using a Thermalright ultra-90 heatsink with a panaflow 92 mm fan. I use 2 120mm case fans in my mid tower case.
 
There should be no reason to ever take off the OC unless it becomes unstable, your volts are to high or your temps are to high. I know many guys running some old rigs that have been OCed for over 4 years, and some of them run 24/7. So long as your chip stays at a safe temp and you keep the volts under 1.4v you should be good.
 
What voltage are you at? If your under 1.4V, You can leave it there 24/7 365 days a year and it will be safe.

Nice starting clock! Keep pushing it, 3.0ghz+ is where Quads start to shine :cool:
 
What voltage are you at? If your under 1.4V, You can leave it there 24/7 365 days a year and it will be safe.

Nice starting clock! Keep pushing it, 3.0ghz+ is where Quads start to shine
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I left the cpu voltage at "auto". I did not feel I had to move the cpu voltage at the overclock. Should I move the voltage a bit higher 1.3v ?
 
anime4u said:
I left the cpu voltage at "auto". I did not feel I had to move the cpu voltage at the overclock. Should I move the voltage a bit higher 1.3v ?
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What voltage setting is auto? Should be on realtemp/core temp as vid. Or Cpuz itself, but its gonna have vdroop voltage.
 
What voltage setting is auto? Should be on realtemp/core temp as vid. Or Cpuz itself, but its gonna have vdroop voltage.
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CPU-Z says 1.168v.

Coretemp states 37-42c amoung the 4 cores with prime95 running.
 
Holy voltage batman.

You got a good chip there. Thats with vdroop, Set the voltage to 1.225V or 1.250V and head to 3.0ghz.

When doing this, remember what the normal voltage is in the bios, which is the real voltage. Since what cpuz says is with vdroop. Once all thats done, Download Intelburntest and start stress testing, If you never used ibt, its a very good stress program, If it says your stable, your stable :cool:

If your wondering how to use it, If you are on 64 bit, Open it, Choose N for no, 1 for max stress, and then do 5 runs. Make sure the Residual <norm> numbers are all the same in the 5 runs, which should mean its stable. If even 1 number is off, Its not stable, Go to the bios and bump the voltage up 1 notch and retest.

I had problems with ibt on 32 bit vista, where running full stress will result in linpack not running, So just choose 2 instead of 1 for stress level. If your wondering, this stresses more than prime95/orthos. 5-10 ibt runs=10-24 hours of prime stable. You will also see alot higher temps then reg prime95/orthos.

Shit i just saw your sig, Dont mind the last paragraph :)
 
Leaving the voltage on "auto" does not mean it stays "stock" the mobo will set the voltage for you then, and often way to high, set it manual. CoreTemp will display VID for the chip. You also don't need to make HUGE moves in volts like going to 1.3v, go slow, it often takes very little added to make the system stable.
 
Holy voltage batman.

You got a good chip there. Thats with vdroop, Set the voltage to 1.225V or 1.250V and head to 3.0ghz.

When doing this, remember what the normal voltage is in the bios, which is the real voltage. Since what cpuz says is with vdroop. Once all thats done, Download Intelburntest and start stress testing, If you never used ibt, its a very good stress program, If it says your stable, your stable

If your wondering how to use it, If you are on 64 bit, Open it, Choose N for no, 1 for max stress, and then do 5 runs. Make sure the Residual <norm> numbers are all the same in the 5 runs, which should mean its stable. If even 1 number is off, Its not stable, Go to the bios and bump the voltage up 1 notch and retest.

I had problems with ibt on 32 bit vista, where running full stress will result in linpack not running, So just choose 2 instead of 1 for stress level. If your wondering, this stresses more than prime95/orthos. 5-10 ibt runs=10-24 hours of prime stable. You will also see alot higher temps then reg prime95/orthos.
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Thanks for the encouragement. My CPU stepping is R0 (SLB6B).

I did a little reading on intelburntest and found some biiig warnings not to run it without some risk to my CPU. Any thoughts?

link- http://downloads.guru3d.com/IntelBurnTest-v1.6-download-2047.html

Set my voltage to 1.225v to 1.250v for the win (3.0GHz)- Gotcha!
 
IBT is fine, i would not use anything else, if you don't stress test you will never know if your system is stable. Just keep an eye on your temps and you should be fine.
 
Agreed, if you have your chip under intels max voltage, You should be fine, Higher than that, there might be a risk, but then you gotta factor in how well you cool your chip.

Also remember to turn off the crap that downclocks the cpu when idle, It made my overclocking unstable at times. I do not recall the name, but it should be very easy to find in the bios if you read the descriptions.

Keep me posted on your clocks :cool:
 
Agreed, if you have your chip under intels max voltage, You should be fine, Higher than that, there might be a risk, but then you gotta factor in how well you cool your chip.

Also remember to turn off the crap that downclocks the cpu when idle, It made my overclocking unstable at times. I do not recall the name, but it should be very easy to find in the bios if you read the descriptions.

Keep me posted on your clocks
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I'll look into intelburntest some more. The first thing in bios I did was to turn off the Speedstep downclock utility which downclocks the CPU when idle. I have read someware Speedstep and Cool n' Quiet could cause some issues with overclocks.

I am kinda curious on how far I can "safely" overclock my Q9400 on air.
 
Turning off Speedstep when trying to find the max OC of your chip is ok, but you should leave it on for an everyday OC, it keep the chip cooler when not under load and helps save power.
 
If it does not interfere with your overclocks, go for it. For me like i said, it caused stability issues
 
How does that even make sense? It caused stability issues for me, I took it off and it passed ibt, The thing thats weird about it is that it downclocks when its idle, Yes ibt does take a quick 1-2 sec break after each run, so that might be it.

So your saying its my voltage, but then when i turn it off, its 50 ibt runs stable? Explain me why ;)
 
then it sounds more like its your board.. but heck if i know.. im not an intel person.. only intels i deal with are my 3 laptops.. which are undervolted from stock voltage so i cant use speedstep.. causes stability issues.. so i use a 3rd party program to control the downclocking instead.. but id rather have my cpu's running under 60C full load across both cores then have the built in speedstep work..
 
Casper312 said:
How does that even make sense? It caused stability issues for me, I took it off and it passed ibt, The thing thats weird about it is that it downclocks when its idle, Yes ibt does take a quick 1-2 sec break after each run, so that might be it.

So your saying its my voltage, but then when i turn it off, its 50 ibt runs stable? Explain me why ;)
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That's because you need more voltage to be stable with Speedstep, as Speedstep can cause some OC's to become unstable at a given voltage, which is why many people turn it off when trying to hit a max OC, it gives them just that little bit extra. Also many people disable it when OCing for the sake of ease and enable it later after being stable, but it might mean having to add more volts. Like any of the power saving options it can cause an OC to become unstable. However, if you are at a max OC for your chip you may not be able to get stable with it on. YMMV
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
then it sounds more like its your board.. but heck if i know.. im not an intel person.. only intels i deal with are my 3 laptops.. which are undervolted from stock voltage so i cant use speedstep.. causes stability issues.. so i use a 3rd party program to control the downclocking instead.. but id rather have my cpu's running under 60C full load across both cores then have the built in speedstep work..
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Doubt it, i understand what your trying to get across, but me it caused stability issues and i did not want to up the voltage just to have it idle under 15C then the reg 27C that its at normally.

That's because you need more voltage to be stable with Speedstep, as Speedstep can cause some OC's to become unstable at a given voltage, which is why many people turn it off when trying to hit a max OC, it gives them just that little bit extra. Also many people disable it when OCing for the sake of ease and enable it later after being stable, but it might mean having to add more volts. Like any of the power saving options it can cause an OC to become unstable. However, if you are at a max OC for your chip you may not be able to get stable with it on. YMMV
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Like i said, i disabled it due to it causing ibt to not pass 20 passes, i turned it off and it passed 50 (6 hours of ibt). It might be something that you might do if you see cooling a problem, but like i said as well, i do not see the advantage of increasing voltage just to have it idle at lower temps that are already more than acceptable.

My version of power saving is turning off the computer, sorry to sound ignorant but thats the deal with my computer lol
 
I have decided to keep speedstep off. Even with it on, I only save 10 watts at most. My next step is to increase my clock to 3.0 GHz (FSB 400) and to move my ram back to 800 DDR2 speed.
 
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