I won't blow up my PC will I ?

[f1rem0uth]

hi, I have overclocked my CPU to 3.9GHz and would like to take that final step to reach 4GHz, I am using a 565 BE CPU along with a 890GPA-UD3H motherboard, my computer is running perfectly at 3.9GHz and has never crashed once. Shall I just do as I have been and just increase the CPU multiplier to the next step, if this Fails at 4GHz can I just resort back to my previous settings and all will be fine, I won't blow up my PC will I?. As I have read a lot of people saying to adjust the Voltage, mine is at 1.312v at the moment and I have never changed it ever, I would rather just leave the voltage alone, if I reach 4GHz without adjusting the voltage and my System is stable- does that mean I can leave the voltage as it is and my Computer will be ok like this. Obviously I do understand that I could destroy my CPU by overclocking it, that is a risk I am willing to take to a degree, as I have a spare 550 BE CPU. 

[f1rem0uth]

hi, well I just kind of answered the part of the question myself, I have just overclocked to 4.02GHz, and my PC booted up just fine,  Temps are around 25°c sometimes lower but never hardly much higher. I think that is as far as I should go, I'm happy with that, of course 4.2 would be better, lol. This Thermaltake Frio sure is a good CPU cooler, the fans that came with it go upto 2400rpm, I took the speed controllers off a while ago and just twisted the 2 ends together on each of the Fans and heatshrinked over them, I then have 1 Fan on the CPU Fan header and the other on a Zalman Fanmate, the Fanmates work good, giving a good speed range and decibel range too!, yes the Frio can be loud on full blast but at half speed you can't hear it, hence the use of the Fanmate, the speed controllers that came on my Frio both fell off to be honest due to brittle wiring where the potentiometers(speed controllers) had been soldered on, the wire is so thin it just snaps apart, it can't hold the weight of the speed controller knobs(potentiometers), and it's really difficult to solder them back on. The Frio does have its faults but if you like modding things then its not a problem, the mounting brackets aren't so good either, but can be fixed up with some washers and better nuts. Just checked my Temps and the CPU is at 23°c now, it' actually the same as when my CPU was as 3.4GHz, the Temps are the same, the overclock hasn't really changed the Temps at all, down to the good CPU Cooler I would say. I just wish I could unlock my CPU, I think it could be down to either both my CPU's not being  unlockers or this Motherboard I'm using, no offence here to Gigabyte but I have feeling it is this motherboard, apart from unlocking Cores this is great Motherboard so far.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

You seem to be getting on quite well there wiithout any help. The main problem with overclocking is heat and this is usually cause by the increase of voltage. If you can increase the speed without increasing the voltage you are fairly safe as long as you have decent cooling in both the case and the CPU itself.

[f1rem0uth]

thanks for the nice reply. I have left my PC at 4.02GHz and I have had absolutely no problems at all, very pleased!. While I'm here- I know at lot of people say this Windows Experience performance rating thing is a load of rubbish as it is not very accurate, but when I installed my 565 BE at stock 3.4GHz all my scores were at 5.9 except my for CPU which was at 5.7, after overclocking in 100MHz steps to 3.7 it changed to WE score of 5.8 for the CPU, now my CPU is at 4GHz and still only 5.8 for WE score, anyone know what it will take to get it go to 5.9, or would I need to buy a Quad Core perhaps???. It is just odd I think to have a 4GHz CPU and the WE score for my CPU to be the lowest out of all, all be it by .1 on the score level now.

[Dark Mantis]

I really wouldn't worry about it at all as there are a lot of discrepancies with the WEI. It is like the Primary Hard Disk, it doesn't matter what drive you use or have RAIDed as a 0 array you will never get above 5.9 on the index. You can put in a SSD of any description and immediately go above that figure. It just doesn't work accurately.

I have 7.4 on my i7 920 at stock speed but my i5 2500K comes in at 7.8 at stock.

I guess that upgrading to a quad core would increase your score but for what benefit.

[f1rem0uth]

yeh, its a strange one that WE score, as for why I really want to get all the Scores the same well- it was just bugging me that is all, no particular reason other than that, apart from maybe to satisfy my OCD to have things in matching order!. I've given up it now anyway, as I know without upgrading to a better CPU I will not get the score to rise further, plus like you say- do I really need a better CPU, the answer to that is- I think not, of course if money was no issue then I'd be using a Hexa-core or an i-7. Anyway back to the original subject about overclocking my CPU, which I did for the first time ever few days ago- as mentioned in a Post above, I said I had overclocked my 565 BE to 4.02GHz without any problems, my PC was running fine, although I had not stress tested it!, my thoughts where to just see if it would be ok for my needs without testing, but after a couple of days with no probs I loaded up a Game and it crashed somewhere about in the Games start menu, I had all these jiggy jaggy flashing triangular-ish black lines appear on my Monitor screen, I thought this does not look good at all, so I switched off my PC straight away, rebooted, and entered my BIOS and downclocked to 3.8GHz, loaded up the same Game again and ever since for the last 4/5 days my PC has been running great as usual. I'm fairly sure the Crash was due to the high overclock, remember I had not changed the Voltage at all, and I believe it could have been caused by the Voltage not be set to the required level. As this overclocking is all new to me, I thought best to leave alone now, 3.8GHz will be fine for me.

[Dark Mantis]

I think that is the most sensible approach for now as those few extra MHz are not gping to make much difference to you anyway. You probably could have got it stable by increasing the voltage but then that means more heat and maybe a better cooler etc, etc.

[f1rem0uth]

hi, a few weeks have passed since I overclocked my 565 BE and it has run without a single fault, I haven't attempted to overclock any higher than 3.82GHz, I did try at 4GHz as mentioned in the above posts and my system appeared to be running fine until I went to run a Game and as soon as the Game loaded, went to start Game, pc then blue screened, I put CPU back to 3.8 instantly!. Seriously thinking about buying a 555 BE, but this time before I buy, I will find out the batch number, as the last 2 CPU's I purchased- for some stupid reason unknown to myself I never ask for the numbers so I could see if they were good unlocking numbers, that wasn't really the reason I went for the AMD phenom II x2 BE CPU, it was because they are a good performing CPU's for the money, I didn't even know about unlocking them when I first purchased one, it was only after I found this out, so it was like bonus really, not that I have managed to do this yet.

[Dark Mantis]

There is always time for that in the future if you stay with that chip. If not you can put it on Ebay and someone else can try.

[Grozdan]

I am a little late with this reply but NO, you can't blow up your PC (well, except your PSU if it's not a proper one). If you OC your CPU too much, it will just restart your computer. Days when you could fry your AMD CPU because of too much OC are long gone...

It seems I don't need to tell you how to OC your CPU since you are doing just fine, but I do feel the need to say this: When overclocking any component try to do so without raising voltage immediately. Try raising your MHz step by step in small amount at the time so you could give your component some time to adjust to new settings. I've seen people who raised voltage to the limit and tried raising MHz to the max at first step... and of course it didn't work! But, when they did it properly, it worked just fine...

When overclocking, be sure to have some testing software such as LinX and Furmark and of course some power hungry game and if there are no crashes you can continue with OC. First time you get BSOD or some other irregularity try raising voltage by small amount and then run tests again...

In the end you will reach your maximum but you will have 24/7 stable maximum. Of course, you will need some really nice cooler if you are going for max!

It does sound like a lot of work but it isn't called "fine tuning" for no reason!

[Dark Mantis]

Agreed! And you will find that for every step forward there is a couple backwards but that is what it is all about and why it's called Trial and Error!

It is only really heat usually through voltage that can kill your hardware so while you stick to the stock voltage you should be safe. When you do finally increase the voltages do it just by a small amount and then plenty of testing until you are happy it is safe and stable.