I need an overclocking crash course...

[gamerfreak]

So, I decided to mess around with the BIOS settings on my system, specs are in my sig.


The CPU related settings where as follows:

CPU Clock Ratio [9X]
CPU Host Clock Control [Disabled]
C.I.A 2 [Disabled]
Performance Enhance [Turbo]
System Voltage Control [Manual]
CPU Voltage Control [Normal]
Nomal CPU Voltage 1.31250v


So I took a shot in the dark and raised the CPU Voltage Control to 2.4v

My temps shot up, but CPUZ reported the same speeds, 1.6GHz idle (6x), 2.46GHz with 4 instances of CPU burn in.

What do I need to do? My next best guess would be to raise the CPU clock ratio.

[Kent10]

For starters, see the link below. I just had some fun overclocking my new processor too. It was the first time, however, that I had to play with the northbridge and southbridge voltages to get it stable.

http://hardwarelogic.com/news/127/AR...008-02-01.html

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Kent10

http://hardwarelogic.com/news/127/AR...008-02-01.html

Exactly what I was about to link to, thanks Kent! Here's a quote from that article...

While tempting fate by overclocking, take a moment and disable the thermal management included in the BIOS. Sometimes these settings are found under the overclocking screen, sometimes they are found in a mundane submenu, and sometimes they are found in the system health menu. Usually they are named "C1E", "CPU TM Function", "SpeedStep". etc.....always refer to the user manual before enabling or disabling any setting.

Raising the CPU voltage should only be a last resort for getting a higher overclock, not to try and override or disable some throttling feature. I would put the voltage back to stock, disable all the necessary throttling settings (usually there are two of them) and then start over by setting the CPU:RAM divider accordingly and start increasing the FSB.

[One4yu2c]

Exactly what Blake said - get that voltage back to 'Normal.' I'm finding that on most modern motherboards, you can have good success letting the board automatically handle the voltage, save for those shooting for ultra-high overclocks.

Today's boards also do well at automatically handling the divider. If it were me, I'd start off with changing the CPU Host Control and start raising that FSB. As you get more into overclocking, you can begin playing with more aggressive dividers, tighter RAM latencies, and, if necessary, manual voltage adjustments.

EDIT: Gamer, if you take nothing else from our overclocking guide, keep in mind this very basic forumula:

CPU multiplier x frontside bus frequency = CPU clockspeed