It's an HP Blackbird that has 3 fans and it does have water cooling. It's 3 years old and I really don't know how effective my cooling is. I think it should be better. Under idle conditions or regular use the temps are in the low 40's. Running Prime 95 it has hit 70C but no higher after 2 hours. It does seem quite stable
You are perfectly fine with those temps. Great temps actually.
~Lordbob
Oh great. Thanks Lordbob. I was actually a bit worried since I'm new at this and have seen other people post lower temps. I should post all my settings which I copied off the internet (some other forum I think). I was forever searching for someone who had a BIOS that looked like mine because I didn't know what all the stuff meant. I'm learning a lot faster now though.
The HP Voodoo 5.6 BIOS looked somewhat different than the Asus ones because HP modified it but finally when I downgraded to an older Asus one (1504 I think) I found a guy who had posted a very long list of settings for a quite similar BIOS although perhaps not the exact 1504. My computer refused to accept an even older BIOS (I guess they have a mind of their own).
It was that list that really got me going successfully. I should post everything for the opinions of this forum but unfortunantly I am traveling this week with my laptop. I can do it when I get home at the end of the week though. Maybe you will see something I can improve upon.
Those temps are a little under what I am running, and I have no OC on mine at all, with basic air cooling. Ok, not so basic, but its not extreme
Copying settings off the internet (or anywhere else for that matter) is the WRONG thing to do. Every CPU (literally each and everyone) is different from each other, even from the same model of CPU. Same for GPUs.
The best way to overclock is to learn how each part works towards the whole, and then slowly tweaking them until you get where you want. The tweaking process can take weeks, with hours of stress testing, temperature monitoring, and changing little by little.
For most people, this is way over the top, but some people thoroughly enjoy the process.
If you are OCing your machine (I thought you were, but I'm not positive), then you should take the time to research your BIOS, your CPU, and what the BIOS settings that you modified do.
We can help you out there (though personally I am an amateur at CPU OCing), and provide useful information to help you understand how to OC (for the future) and how it can affect your computer.
As a basis, here are some terms to know (that I am sure you modified):
Clock Multiplier (might be labeled differently): This is the multiplier that gives you total speed (such as 3 GHz). The core clock is essentially how many times the CPU can compute per cycle.
Front Side Bus (FSB): The "actual" speed of the processor. This is how fast it can perform each cycle. This seems low, but the higher speeds come from a higher multiplier and slightly higher FSB. You could expect to raise this a few MHz. So if you have a 333MHz FSB, don't try to take it to 400, be happy with 350 or so (it makes a big difference).
Voltage: This is
directly related to heat. The higher the voltage, the more heat the CPU will generate, and heat is
bad. The idea here is a LOWER voltage, but it is also the last thing you mess with. After you have upped the FSB and Clock Multiplier, you would try to lower the voltage until it becomes unstable. The higher the FSB and CM, the more voltage you will need, but the idea is to be just over what you need to keep the CPU stable, but low enough to keep it as cool as possible.
Hopefully that will help you understand some of the things you changed, and help you with OCing in the future.
~Lordbob
