Windows 7 - Question about overclocking my E5400.

Hello people.I was thinking to oc my cpu.

I was reading through the Web and found that this cpu runs stable at 3.2Ghz.
Now,my answer is will I be able to oc it to 3.0 ghz ?
I have stock cooling,and one additional 80m cooler behind the psu. Tomorrow I'll see if I can mount the 120mm fan also.

I have asked JK and he gives me good answer,to try lets say at 3ghz and to run Prime95 tests for about 30-45 min. If it pass that test to increase a bit,and if fall to get back.
He also mentioned that if it falled I can bump cpu voltage for a hair. How fair can I go with that voltage ?

Here is print from CPU-Z.



Also my temps ATM.

I think 3.0GHz is realistic, though I'm not really familiar with this particular CPU.

I have an E6600 rated at 2.4GHz and it runs perfectly stable at 2.7GHz. I even had it at 2.8GHz for a while but then decided to back it down just a little bit (actually, I had FSB problems at higher clock rates).

Thanks for answering Corazon.

Anyway 1 day untill cpu is oc'd at 3GHz,and run perfectly. ATM I'm with the stock cooler just,and the temps are good with normal work. CPU Temp is 22-26 C. Core Voltage is going up to 1.278 V max. Are this volts good ?
Also I noticed that my RAM freq. is higher now after oc'ing the cpu. From 800 to 889Mhz.

Tommorow I'll move this parts into my other case which is bigger that this and should have better air flow. Also I'll mount one 80,and one 120mm fans there. So the temps should be lower that this.

Sounds good so far, but I hope your RAM is still stable at almost 890MHz too...I'd probably run memtest86+ just to be sure. If it does throw an error, try loosening the RAM timings in your BIOS a little - or maybe you can change the FSB:RAM ratio and run the memory at a lower speed.
But nice going so far

Thanks for the answer . This week I'll put my other fans in other case(today I was not able) and will give a try. Also I'll post again.

22-26c seems a little bit low to me, that's lower than the ambient temperature in your case.

Yep you can easily do 3 GHz. I'm not sure what the rating for that chip is, but I imagine you can have it at 1.35 volts or more safely. The temperatures are what is most important. Something to consider: Your temperature doing "normal work" is low, because it isn't doing cpu intensive tasks. With stock cooling (regardless of how many extra fans you put in there), when running Prime95, that temperature is going to go up probably the high 80s. If you regularly use your cpu at full load like that, you will need better cooling. But if you just use the computer casually, there is no issue with the cooling - just keep an eye on it.

Regarding the ram, as the FSB is increased, so is the ram frequency. That is probably going to limit your over clock more than anything. You can lower the ratio between the FSB and the ram if you run into problems.

Hello frogger4,thanks for answering !
Yesterday I was running AIDA 64 system stability test for 30min. Here are the temps...



According to Intel's CPU guide it says that the Voltage rage is : VID Voltage Range0.8500V–1.3625V

I'm using my pc just for surfing on the internet,and my brother is playing some games(PES '12,WRC..) and temps are pretty good then. As I said in my case costumizing thread I'll cut a hole in left side panel and put there a grill,and it will be able to get more air out.

For the RAM. Yes,it's limiting my overclocking. How can I get lower the ratio ? My ram is now working great,there are no any problems,but I'm just asking to know for the next time.

If anything those temperatures shown in the AIDA64 test are low - that's good! You should considering downloading the program CoreTemp for monitoring temperatures if you want to overclock more.
And really, based on what you will be doing, temperatures don't look like they will be an issue at all.

Cool, glad you found the spec from Intel. Basically, as long as temps are good, you can safely take the volts up to 1.3625 like it says, although only raise volts if the system fails a stress test. Given what you are using the computer for, the best stress test is arguably just playing the games that will be played on it. If the game crashes, then it is unstable and you'll have to adjust voltages. I'm suggesting that less than 100% stability is ok, since it doesn't sound like you are doing anything "mission critical," and it allows you to keep the voltage a little bit lower.

Since you are at 1.278 V right now, you can do a lot more overclocking! (If you want, I mean).

On to RAM - I don't know for sure what options you have in your BIOS, but I'll do my best. The easiest thing to do is choose the next lower option for "RAM Frequency" or something like that. That option is probably in the same section where you adjusted the cpu clock. It probably says DDR2 - 889MHz right now, and you can just go to the next lower one which is probably 741 MHz. If you keep clocking the FSB up (and so the ram goes up as well), you'll get to a point where the system won't boot, so just back off a notch on the ram when you get to that point. You can learn a lot more over at this section at overclock.net.

Hope that helps!

Edit: Another thing worth mentioning - If you are going to overclock further, be sure to set the vcore to a specific number (like 1.278), rather than it be on auto. Also, consider disabling Intel SpeedStep while you are working on getting the clock speed up. What it does is it automatically slows the processor down to save electricity (good) but can be misleading when you are working on overclocking (bad).

Thanks again for you're great post.

For the temps, yes I was using Core Temp atm also, temps were the same as they there. So it mean that they are true.

For more overclocking I'll see, after I cut that hole and after my example at Tuesday.

Thanks again for the answer, I'll post results if I made some changes.

StalkeR