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What is the Real OC Wall?

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Orion101

Registered
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
I'm in the process of overclocking my E6400. As I step between the core voltage and FSB increments, my overall rig is consistently stable; I can boot into XP every time, and everything runs fine. Prime95 never seems to complain, and I only know it's not 100% because OTHOS kicks out a rounding error after a bit.

What I've been wondering is since it seems pretty stable (far more than OCs I've done in the past), what is the real wall to watch for? I expect eventually it'll just not boot right? Then back off to last known good and test some more to be sure. But what about temps--I'm now seeing core temps spike to 63C using Core Temp. Isn't that getting a little high? Is there a point where a temp is high enough that it's time to stop even if the machine is otherwise still a rock and seems to be able to go farther? I don't want to burn anything up, and that's my concern.

Oh and hardware info is in the sig below.
Thanks
 
Looking at your sig.. the only thing that will get in your way is CPU cooling, eventually.
So long as you give your components enough voltage (and stable settings on the ram) the only thing to look for is temps that I can see.
 
Yeah, but I guess the question is can a C2D boot to clock that's unsafe because of heat that can damage the cpu or motherboard? I've not OCed anything in a while, and I'm used to components that show instability much faster. Should I simply keep stepping up till it won't post regardless of heat?
 
If you want to keep your chip up I suggest against that. The C2D don't like more than about 60-65C. Unless you have your motherboard to shut off at a certain temp then the only other thing to wait for is complete meltdown.
 
The DS3 has an option called CPU Thermal Monitor that I did leave enabled and is supposed to throttle the processor if there's a heat issue, but I've not been able to confirm whether it's a reliable safety feature or not.

And when talking top temps, is 65C a good cap for the average load temp, or do the occasional spikes higher than average count if they're generally only occurring when at maximum load?
 
inkfx said:
The C2D don't like more than about 60-65C. Unless you have your motherboard to shut off at a certain temp then the only other thing to wait for is complete meltdown.

i have never seen a complete meltdown with C2D. my cpu has happily run orthos at 72c (when it was very hot out still). there is really nothing that suggest that C2D doesn't like much more than 60-65c. not that i suggest running over 65c ish. but you are making it sound like catastrophic failure is right around 65c, and it isn't. :)

to the OP, most people max out their e6400's around 3400-3600mhz. like green said, it will all come down to cooling. keep the temps around 65c or less (my personal comfort zone) and keep on clocking!
 
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