New to overclocking...seeking sanity check

Hello, this is my first post so I'll give a little background then ask a few questions. A few months ago I got the ok from the war department to replace the Dell E510 3.0Ghz Pentium 4 machine that we were still running. It had served us well but it's time was well overdue. I intended to reuse the case and at least temporarily use the 550W PSU and the HDD. That's when I got an education in BTX form factor cases that until now I didn't realize even existed. Hopefully my signature will describe the new rig but long story short the HDD is all that remains of the Dell. And I plan to eventually replace that also.

So I am overclocking my FX-6200 to 4.4Ghz and it is stable in Prime95 blended. My primary reason for posting is to have someone who knows a lot more about OCing than I review my Voltages and temps etc. and let me know if anything I am doing is likely to damage my system. For now this is my main concern but since I am posting I will post a few other questions that anyone may feel free to answer if they are so inclined.

1. CUPID HWM usually but not always shows a data line entitled TMPIN1 and the values are alarmingly high. Hopefully you'll be able to see it in the attached file but it is around 126C. I am hoping this is a glitch since sometimes it is not there at all. I've been disregarding this data until now. Am I correct in doing so?

2. CUPID HWM sometimes but rarely shows a data line that shows Watts being used I think by the GPU but I'm not really sure as I haven't seen it in a while. It is not present in the attached screenshot. Is there some way to make it show this info everytime?

3. Any Ideas of how I might be able to get a higher clock? Right now if I raise either the FSB freq or the multiplier at all it becomes unstable. Now this was intended as a budget build so I realize my motherboard is not the greatest. 4.4Ghz may be all I can ask of her and if so I am completely happy with that. It just seems like it was a little too easy for a guy with little or no OCing experience to hit 4.4Ghz and I'm wondering if someone who is more knowedgable might be able to push it a little higher.

BTW when this screenshot was taken I had just applied Artic Silver 5 in place of the Cooler master thermal paste. The temps shown in TMPIN0 are all 2-3 degrees cooler now. Meaning it only just touches 48C Max but usually modulates between 46 and 47C.

Well that's probably enough for a first post. I'm sure I'll have more in the future. I hope this is the right place to post this. If not please move it or tell me where to move it. I've tried to add a signature and post screenshots that will hopefully help. If there are any other things I need to be doing please let me know. Thanks, Beluga

Try the coretemp utility, its probably more accurate for temperature reading...

Welcome to OCF...

Okay the fact you have the MB: MSI 990XA-GD55 is really a negative aspect. You and the other MSI AMD board (any AMD model) users that posted in about the last 2 years now make 10 users that I have done my best to accurately count. They just are not heavily used or they do not come here. Take your pick after the various issues with the VRMs exploding at times. Is that cured? No way to really know since few use AMD MSI boards and come into this forum section.

Are you using the latest Free HWMonitor? See we have not seen nearly enough boards by MSI to know if there is really an issue between Free HWMonitor and that board or not. For ALL other AMD boards we use HWMonitor and with better than average results since we want to see both the CPU Socket Temp AND the CPU Core Temps. Both are valuable in settting up an overclock. Of course as its' name implies CoreTemp only registers the Core Temp.

In the overall scope of things most every user coming in here for help tries to leave with his system passing at least 2 hours of Prime 95 Blend mode for at least 2 hours. If your system is capapble of doing that then I would suggest you use it. Likely not any real problems are happening.
RGone...

Beluga, welcome to the forum. If you have come hear for sanity you may want to walk away fast, sanity gets checked at the door for the most part here, . Your tmpin 2 temp is most likely a bad reading, considering you passed prime 2 hours without a crash. Your other temps look good, in general we try to keep the CPu socket, which I believe is the tmpin 0 reading for you under 70c and the package temp under 60. We have members that push their FX chips harder and run higher temps without issue, but we try to stay in the 70/60 area. Your Cpu V looks like it's about average for what I've seen FX 6300's do at 4.4. I can't recall if I've seen anyone come here with at 6200. You should have a read of this thread it's on both the FX 8350 which I have and the FX 6300. If you are looking to push the chip higher. Just keep doing what you're doing, push a little higher, test with prime add v core when needed rinse and repeat. I have found running my HT link and NB frequency at the same speeds gives me the best results when benching. I have also found that I need to add Cpu NB V core when I'm running high overclocks, above 4.9 when my nb is above 2500.

Based on your screen shot everything looks fine to me, a 4 hour prime95 blend test with no errors is always a good sign. I have the MSI 990fxa-gd65 and my TMPIN1 also reads a bit high but after placing extra fans in the case and using the finger touch method, I can't find any component that would match the reading.

Ok guys, thanks so much for the replies and reassurance. I will take a look for coretemp. RGone I think it's the latest version of Free HWMonitor. But in reality I don't know what the latest version should be. It's what I found doing a Google search so I assume it's the latest. I will look into that. Yah I realize now I could have purchased a better board. I bought it because it was cheap. If I had it to do over I would spend a little more. But it's what I have...live and learn I guess. Mandrake I didn't realize that I could take the temps that high. I have been trying to stay at 50C or less. My temps were 53-55C so I added the 140MM side fan and the 200MM top fan. That brought them down to the temps shown. I will try matching the HT Link and NB freqs. I'm not sure how to do that but I will take a look tonight when I get home. I've been wondering about the Cpu NB V core. I see it mentioned frequently in the reading I've been doing. How high can I safely go with it? As soon as I finish this post I am going to take a look at the suggested thread. As far as CPU Vcore I've been trying to stay at or below 1.45V. I only have one higher setting in my BIOS than where it is set now. So I'm going to run out of juice there quick. LoganG thanks for the input on the TMPIN1 readings. I will go back to ignoring it. Like I said sometimes it doesn't even show up. I have no other indications that anything is getting that hot. I'm surprised at the variance in data shown by HWMonitor at different starts. Does it behave this way for you all or should I look at maybe reinstalling it? Anyways thanks again everyone. I'll let you know if I make anymore progress.

For starters in a way I'm glad you have that motherboard. As the Gonester mentioned we don't see and or recommend many Msi boards for AMD because of the issues they have had with The VRM section failing. I personally experienced 2 on different boards then you have. I'm hoping that the board you have will hold up to the rigors of the FX 6xxx. These chips tend to need a lot of power when overclocking, this power comes from the VRM section. You have an 8+2 power phase count so your board should be able to handle it. It will be nice to see it be able to do it.

As far as temps go 70 and 60 is a pretty good area to stay below. You shouldn't run into any long term issues if those are the max temps while running prime. In every day use it is unlikely, in most cases that the cores or socket will be stressed as much as prime does. I personally have run mine higher for short periods of time benching my 8350. Is it recommended no and do we know what the log term effects are, not really, but it seems as if these FX processors are more durable then previous ones.

I run my Cpu Nb v at 1.25 for my 24/7 overclock of 4.7 @ 1.46 cpu v. That is on custom H20 mind you. Raising the cpu nb v will raise the temps though so keep an eye on them. At higher overclocks I have run it as high as 1.35 but that was at around 5.5 ghz.

I believe 1.55 is considered max on air that you'll want to go but you'll probably run out of headroom temperature wise before you get close to that. I know of one Fx 6300 that has been as high as 1.72 on water @ 5.5 and it still lives.

I alsoo get a miscellaneous temp reading from HWmonitor, my tmpin3 says it's -126 c and I don't live on Mercury so....