Windows 7 - Voltage Setting

I have an AMD Athlon II X4 620, and I have quite a challenge for it to run with, so I decided to go with sufficient cooling and see how much I could overclock it. This is my first time overclocking and it's my first rig. I know exactly what I'm supposed to do, except I'm kind of stuck. When I setup my rig and I went into the BIOS to explore, I went into Ai Tweaker, and everything was set to [Auto] except now, I set my RAM to 1600MHz manually because at auto it was set @ 1333MHz. Though I'm going to be underclocking it since I'm overclocking the CPU but anyway...everything including the CPU voltage is set to auto, now I'm not sure what voltage it's supposed to be. In AIDA64 it says CPU Core is at 1.116v but that's at idle. How do I find out what the voltage is supposed to be set to?
PS Please click 'My System Specs' to know what hardware I have, incase it is required.

Try changing your power plan to High Performance and checking AIDA64 again. With High Performance selected all CnQ settings get disabled.

OK, I did so and now it says CPU Core 1.360v. When the BIOS says CPU Voltage and CPU Frequency, it only means at full load doesn't it? Just making sure...

Yes, BIOS numbers are always full-load only, because the BIOS has no understanding of Cool'n'Quiet operation, it will only run devices and chips at full speed, but it WILL clock down fans. For instance most AMDs run at 800mhz with Cool'n'Quiet on, but the BIOS will make no mention of that.

What do you mean it will clock down fans?
One more thing I'm curious about: If I finish with my overclock, run the stress test, and lets say my CPU isn't stable yet, will I get a BSOD? should I increase the voltage 0.001 at a time?

Most BIOSes have a setting to enable "smart fan control" or something else to similar effect. What it does is any fans it can poll the speed on (plugged into CPU and Chassis Fan Headers on the motherboard) it will slow them down if it doesn't need them at full speed. My board seperates CPU smart fan control from the rest as some people like running case fans at full speed, especially if they're silent fans.

If the CPU isn't stable and you try to stress test it, you'll just get an immediate BSOD that's about as helpful as an octopus that only speaks backwards Norwegian. It'll mention some seemingly random error but it will be because of the CPU clockspeed not being stable.

In regards to voltage, you can only raise it 0.1v at a time on most boards. You should figure out what your max stable overclock is on default voltage before tinkering with it.

Alright, the fans won't need to spin fast, but Smart Fan Control will automatically ramp up as soon as the temps go higher anyway?
Apart from that, this guy on YouTube (PCWizKid) he says if you're overclocking 500MHz you should stress test for 2-4 hours ect but your telling me, that if my CPU isn't stable and I stress test it, I'll immediately get a BSOD?

Yeah, there's several different types of unstable.

First kind: Boot *might* finish, odds are you'll see a BSOD very shortly after desktop appears or even before it appears
Second kind: It seems stable, but doing anything stressful bam BSOD (Can be as little as Prime95 for 45 seconds)
Third kind: May or may not randomly crash at any point and you're not even sure if it was the CPU that caused it.


You'll know within 10 minutes of Prime95 starting if it's really unstable or only maybe unstable.

Hmm...So after overclocking, I only have to run Prime95 for 10 minutes (If I reach that far) and that will declare my if CPU is stable? PCWizKid got a Microsoft MVP award, I've been learning from him for years.
OK, Thanks for the information!

No. Just because it lasted 10 minutes, doesn't mean it's stable. Just means it's probably "mostly stable". Do an overnight burn-in to see if it's stable.