Question about overclocking my E5400.

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).

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 :)

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

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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.

StalkeR said:

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).