How to overclock my phenom II

[Thresh25]

Hmm I have never messed around with upping or lowering volts, is it safe and what exactly do I have to do?

 

[hikaricloud]

Well, you can't raise the vcore over 1.55 anyway, without screwing with over voltages, which are not things you should mess with without knowing what you're doing. Just watch your temps.

Cool N Quiet throttles your speed when it's idle, and it can make overclocks unstable. I turn it off by default when overclocking, and since I fold 24/7, it wouldn't be a good idea for me to turn it on.

Also, I stuck 3.5ghz at 1.425v, it is 100% stable. Depending on your case/airflow, you should get 100% load temps no higher than 50c. I notice I keep 5c off by taking my tower out from under my desk out into the open.

But most importantly, GET AN AFTERMARKET HSF. I cannot stress this enough. you can overclock just fine without one, but you really need to get one for higher overclocks. at 3.6ghz (under my desk) I got up to 70c with a prime95 test. It's not safe. 3.5 is a happy medium with stock cooling.

 

[Thresh25]

So you are telling me I can get 3.5 on stock heatsink? I've got pretty good airflow. I was really just hoping to get 3.2 on stock. 3.4 would be amazing, 3.5 a godsend. I know this is getting repetitive, but what can I OC to w/o getting an aftermarket cooler?

Also, what should I set the vcore to, 1.425?

 

[hikaricloud]

I would say 1.425 for 3.5ghz, 1.4v for 3.4ghz. You'll have to test each one out for temps. Go to 3.5ghz first (17.5x multiplier by 200), then use Prime95 and CoreTemp to see what happens temp wise. Since it's been getting slightly warmer, I've had to dial back to 3.4 for the time being until I can grab my core contact.

I would say 3.5 is the max you could safely overclock to on a stock HSF. 3.6 just gets too hot. But that's still a 700mhz overclock.

 

[Thresh25]

All right will try 3.4 first. Is coretemp reliable, for some reason it tells me I've only got 2 cores.

 

[hikaricloud]

You got the latest one? Mine says I have 3 cores, but it just doesn't know what model it is.

And a good way to test it (like I did) is by rebooting, checking the temps in the boot-up hardware monitor, then comparing it to core temp when you first boot into Windows.

 

[Thresh25]

I think I do. I googled coretemp and downloaded what I thought was the newest version lol.

 

[hikaricloud]

I think I'm using 0.99.3 and it shows all the cores...they have a 0.99.4 with updates for AMD processors.

 

[Thresh25]

I've got 0.99.4 and it shows 2 cores... bah w/e.

 

[hikaricloud]

Weird...thanks for letting me know, I won't update to that yet, lol. Try to find a download of 0.99.3, i know it shows all cores. But just test the temps how I said, it should be accurate.