Unofficial guide to overclocking the C2D Line.

[JC316]

Follow up to my unofficial guide to overclocking the AMD 64 line, I bring you the C2D guide for simple overclocking. This is a very simple guide meant to ease the beginner into overclocking their Core 2 Duo.

Let me also forewarn you that overclocking can be dangerous if done improperly and I am in NO WAY responsible if you damage your computer.


1. Go into your PC's BIOS. This is accomplished by restarting your computer and when prompted to enter setup hitting either F1 or DEL. It varies on your computer as to which key to hit.

2. Enter Advanced Chipset features, it's on the BIOS menu. (Note, some bioses require you to press crtl F1 to display the advanced features). This could also be called "Motherboard Tweaker", or Overclocking. On Asus motherboards, it's called Advanced AI.

3. Change the Ram divider to 2.0 to start with, that will give a 1:1 Ratio. Since it's Double Data Rate it will go up 2MHZ for every 1MHZ CPU Frequency. Depending on your RAM and CPU overclock, you may be able to take this to a higher ratio. If you are using a motherboard that shows the ram speeds, then lower it to the lowest speed. You can up this later to your stock frequency, or higher, but right now, we want to make sure that the CPU overclock is stable.

4. Set your PCI-E Frequency to 100MHZ, DO NOT leave at auto.

5. Increase your CPU Frequency slowly, 10 to 20MHZ at a time, until it either A, it won't boot, or B you are happy. If you're happy, skip to step 7. If you crash continue to step 6.

6. Increase CPU voltage by one notch and try again. Never go over 1.4V with stock cooling. On a 45nm Wolfdale chip, never go over 1.325V with stock cooling as these chips heat up much quicker and at less voltage than the 65nm chips. 45nm chips are: E5200, E7200, E7300, E8200, E8400, E8500, E8600. E5200 Revision* I can say that with stock cooling on an E5200, you should not go over 1.4V. With good air cooling 1.5V should be fine.

7. Always keep your temperatures below 60*C at FULL load using Realtemp.

8. Stress test with prime 95 and memtest to ensure stability. Use Realtemp for 45nm chips or CPUID's HWmonitor for 65nm chips to monitor temperatures.

9. If you are unstable, you have 2 options. Downclock your CPU Frequency by 15MHZ, or up the CPU Voltage by one notch at a time until it's stable.

Here are some pictures of the bios settings.
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/100_8305.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/100_8306.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/100_8307.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/100_8308.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/100_8309.jpg


NEVER PANIC if something goes wrong. If it refuses to post and you get nothing but a black screen, reset the Cmos. You can do this by removing the Cmos battery, or by using the clear CMOS jumper. Always have the computer OFF when removing the CMOS battery or jumper.

You can find Prime 95 here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Prime95_d4363.html
And Memtest here:
http://hcidesign.com/memtest/download.html
And Realtemp here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/
And HWmonitor here:
CPUID HWMonitor


If this guide helped you, there is a thanks button at the bottom of this post

For a more indepth guide, see XVI's guide here: A Beginner's Guide to Overclocking And Kursah's guide:Overclocking is Easy! Get Results!

[Richieb0y]

nice lil guide but since its for a C2D and i have quad i have a Q

in coretemp and in tat my temps are 35c first 2 cores and the other cores are at 32c but now the funny part speedfan says its 20c on two cores and other ones are 18c and sometime my fan dont spin at all he just sit still then sometimes it makes a spin and stops again.

when playing a game it spins constand

[JC316]

Originally Posted by Richieb0y

nice lil guide but since its for a C2D and i have quad i have a Q

in coretemp and in tat my temps are 35c first 2 cores and the other cores are at 32c but now the funny part speedfan says its 20c on two cores and other ones are 18c and sometime my fan dont spin at all he just sit still then sometimes it makes a spin and stops again.

when playing a game it spins constand

I am not sure if this applies to Quads, I am willing to bet that it does, but until I get a conformation that it does, I am not going to advise this one.

What you are getting is PWM support, meaning that the motherboard is controlling the fan to keep your CPU in a certain range. I turn mine off. Note the 15*C difference that I was talking about between TAT and other programs.

[Richieb0y]

Originally Posted by JC316

I am not sure if this applies to Quads, I am willing to bet that it does, but until I get a conformation that it does, I am not going to advise this one.

What you are getting is PWM support, meaning that the motherboard is controlling the fan to keep your CPU in a certain range. I turn mine off. Note the 15*C difference that I was talking about between TAT and other programs.

Oke but i have PWN off in bios

but which temp should i read as safe the TAT en Coretemp if thats the case i cant OC b/c i dont want idle on 40c<< reminds me of my PenD

thx for the Info

Edit: on my old P965 DS3 whit a E6420 coretemp TAT and speedfan showed all the same temp all where 30c-32 idle but that was on Winxp

[JC316]

Originally Posted by Richieb0y

Oke but i have PWN off in bios

but which temp should i read as safe the TAT en Coretemp if thats the case i cant OC b/c i dont want idle on 40c<< reminds me of my PenD

thx for the Info

Edit: on my old P965 DS3 whit a E6420 coretemp TAT and speedfan showed all the same temp all where 30c-32 idle but that was on Winxp

If you check this thread, it will explain more. But in a nutshell, 65*C in TAT at FULL LOAD is the safe limit, I can verify this because I have had mine at that. 50*C Is the safe limit at full load in speedfan.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=28373

[DOM]

Originally Posted by Richieb0y

Oke but i have PWN off in bios

but which temp should i read as safe the TAT en Coretemp if thats the case i cant OC b/c i dont want idle on 40c<< reminds me of my PenD

thx for the Info

Edit: on my old P965 DS3 whit a E6420 coretemp TAT and speedfan showed all the same temp all where 30c-32 idle but that was on Winxp

core temp 0.95.4 is the only one that supports GO cpus cuz yours is GO right ?

Supported Processors

[Richieb0y]

Originally Posted by DOM_ATI_X800XL_PCI-E

core temp 0.95.4 is the only one that supports GO cpus cuz yours is GO right ?

Supported Processors

ah thx Dom_ati ur always a great help

[Hawk1]

Is there a difference between Prime 95 and Orthos. I always used Orthos to check load temps/stability, but see lots of people recommending Prime95.

[JC316]

Originally Posted by Hawk1

Is there a difference between Prime 95 and Orthos. I always used Orthos to check load temps/stability, but see lots of people recommending Prime95.

Prime and orthos are the same. Orthos puts more pressure on the chip, which I think is actually a bad thing. Either one will work.

[happita]

Nice guide mate

[JC316]

Since there is no sticky, bump.

[JC316]

another bump, cant let my work go to the archives.

[Raizy]

This is what I needed.

[erocker]

I haven't seen this thread untill now. It is a much needed thread, that should be stickied!

[JC316]

Originally Posted by erocker

I haven't seen this thread untill now. It is a much needed thread, that should be stickied!

I tried, but was told that there were too many stickies in the overclocking and cooling section. It's just a basic guide, but it would still eliminate alot of questions IMO.

[Raizy]

Originally Posted by JC316

I tried, but was told that there were too many stickies in the overclocking and cooling section. It's just a basic guide, but it would still eliminate alot of questions IMO.

I say have them edit your AMD64 thread. Merge this thread with the amd one together

[JC316]

Originally Posted by Raizy

I say have them edit your AMD64 thread. Merge this thread with the amd one together

Thats a pretty good idea, I will see if i can get that to happen.

[JC316]

Ug, this is really getting irritating, the mods won't do anything. Apparently, it's too simple a guide to be worth jack shit, so it doesn't warrant a sticky. I even asked to replace this one with my Athlon 64 guide, since there are few Athlon questions than C2D question, but I never got a response out of it.

Oh and BUMP.

[erocker]

Copy all the stuff out of this thread and paste it into the A64 thread. Delete this thread. Request a title change for new combined thread.

[JC316]

ttt, gotta keep it somewhat new.

[InnocentCriminal]

Nice one dude, if only someone could do a nice, in depth guide to OC'ing the Q6600 I'd be extremely interested. I have a friend who wants me to OC his Q6600 this weekend and so far I only have a rough idea, but considering it's a bit different to OC'ing a DC it may be a bit... ooooh errr!

I read you can just change the FSB to 333 and with the locked multiplier of 9 you'd hit 3GHz without having to fiddle too much, I'm a bit sceptical about that to be honest, so if anyone knows of any guides, I'd really appreciate that.

[JC316]

Originally Posted by InnocentCriminal

Nice one dude, if only someone could do a nice, in depth guide to OC'ing the Q6600 I'd be extremely interested. I have a friend who wants me to OC his Q6600 this weekend and so far I only have a rough idea, but considering it's a bit different to OC'ing a DC it may be a bit... ooooh errr!

I read you can just change the FSB to 333 and with the locked multiplier of 9 you'd hit 3GHz without having to fiddle too much, I'm a bit sceptical about that to be honest, so if anyone knows of any guides, I'd really appreciate that.

Quad is no different than a Dual. I am running a quad and it's the same.

[P4-630]

Originally Posted by JC316

7. Always keep your temperatures below 50*C at FULL load. If you are using TAT, never let the temperatures go over 65*C on either core. This is due to it not reading the CPU temperature, but the CORE temperature, which will always be 15*C hotter than the CPU.

Yes I would think so that the cpu core temperatures are always hotter then the cpu temp, but could you explain me since I have a new motherboard my cpu temp is ALWAYS HIGHER idle or equal under load then the core temperatures



I re-installed my cpu cooler 2 times and the cpu temperature stays hotter then the core temps.

For example if the 2 cores are both 34 degrees, the cpu temp is 37-38, I ALWAYS have a 3-4 degrees difference between that.

btw I'm using speedfan and a zalman sensor @ the cpu, both temps show the same value.

With my previous motherboard I used the same cpu, same cooler but the core temps were always hotter then the cpu temp.

And the weird thing is, it should be cpu related since these temps have nothing to do with the motherboard!?

[babaquazi]

Originally Posted by JC316

Quad is no different than a Dual. I am running a quad and it's the same.

so ure saying that ure guide will work with q6600's??

[babaquazi]

Also, for how long should i stress-test the CPU for with ORTHOS? earlier you also mentioned that if the computer doesn't post ten you should "Increase CPU voltage by one notch and try again" Is that the same as VCORE? I'm currently @ 3.33ghz but everything except for FSB speed is set on auto but on full load, CPU-Z says that my VCORE is "1.312"? so do i go one up from that in BIOS. Alos, i see all these other terms like FSB termination voltage and a load of others