How far can I safely overclock

[Enigma]

an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ without needing extra cooling fans? With extra cooling fans can I push the CPU to 3GHz?

The reason I am asking is that my BIOS it gives me the option of setting the CPU speed to up to 3GHz. I'd like to know how far can I overclock without needing extra cooling fans and also what kind of cooling fans do I need if I were to overclock it to 3GHz?

[Seggybop]

3ghz? no. Probably not even with an infinte supply of liquid nitrogen.

How high it can actually go will depend upon the model of core your processor has, along with other factors like your motherboard and RAM. Overclockers.com has a database that might give you some idea, though. The only way to find out is to slowly raise the speed in small increments until it fails. It's difficult to actually kill modern CPUs doing this as long as your heatsink is securely in place.

[Vertigo1]

It would depend mostly on how good your hardware is. If you've got cheap RAM, and a stock heatsink, you're not going to go very far. I would seriously suggest you do your research before even attempting to overclock. And don't be one of those to shoot for the highest option the first time out. More than likely you'll just get POST errors, and end up resetting your CMOS just to get it to even boot properly.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

It depends... on how well your hardware was built, what quality it is, ambient temperature, whether the computer's insides are squeaky-clean or dustier than a nun's snapper, if someone sneezed on it during assembly, the phase of the moon, if your Invisible Massless Jupiter-size Homosexual Pink Dragon with Antipurple Polkadots™ in the room (c'mon, we all have one!) just laid a fart, or if a cosmic ray just happened to pass through the CPU at that moment...

So, you see, it's a very complicated equation as to what Speed Y that Processor X can attain max OC.

[Enigma]

It depends... on how well your hardware was built, what quality it is, ambient temperature, whether the computer's insides are squeaky-clean or dustier than a nun's snapper, if someone sneezed on it during assembly, the phase of the moon, if your Invisible Massless Jupiter-size Homosexual Pink Dragon with Antipurple Polkadots™ in the room (c'mon, we all have one!) just laid a fart, or if a cosmic ray just happened to pass through the CPU at that moment...

So, you see, it's a very complicated equation as to what Speed Y that Processor X can attain max OC.

Athlon XP 2400+ x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~1990 Mhz
Asus A7V8X-X ASCPI
1GB of RAM. 1x 512MB PC2100 and 2x 256MB PC2100

Does that help how high I can overclock? I think the temp is 70 degrees.

[Spyder]

Celcius? I probably wouldn't overclock that at all, it sounds like it's plenty hot enough.

[Enigma]

Celcius? I probably wouldn't overclock that at all, it sounds like it's plenty hot enough.

but that was a few months ago but since then I've cleaned it and repositioned my desk and so forth so the temp might have gone down but I forgot what program tells you the CPU temp.

[weemadando]

I love my Intel.

When she gets above 38 degrees I consider her to be "running hot".

[Enigma]

I love my Intel.

When she gets above 38 degrees I consider her to be "running hot".

where can I get a program that tells me how hot my CPU is running?

[Lancer]

check the ASUS website. Their MB's should come with stock thermistors, all you need is the software to display them.

[Enigma]

check the ASUS website. Their MB's should come with stock thermistors, all you need is the software to display them.

Ok. CPU temp is 64 baseboard (motherboard?) temp is 31degrees and the CPU fan is running at 4041RPM.

[Praxis]

an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ without needing extra cooling fans? With extra cooling fans can I push the CPU to 3GHz?

The reason I am asking is that my BIOS it gives me the option of setting the CPU speed to up to 3GHz. I'd like to know how far can I overclock without needing extra cooling fans and also what kind of cooling fans do I need if I were to overclock it to 3GHz?

You want to overclock a 1.9 GHz processor to 3 GHz?

You're insane.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

It depends... on how well your hardware was built, what quality it is, ambient temperature, whether the computer's insides are squeaky-clean or dustier than a nun's snapper, if someone sneezed on it during assembly, the phase of the moon, if your Invisible Massless Jupiter-size Homosexual Pink Dragon with Antipurple Polkadots™ in the room (c'mon, we all have one!) just laid a fart, or if a cosmic ray just happened to pass through the CPU at that moment...

So, you see, it's a very complicated equation as to what Speed Y that Processor X can attain max OC.

Athlon XP 2400+ x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~1990 Mhz
Asus A7V8X-X ASCPI
1GB of RAM. 1x 512MB PC2100 and 2x 256MB PC2100

Does that help how high I can overclock? I think the temp is 70 degrees.

Fahrenheit (that's really cool, like it's not running at all ) or Centigrade (HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT THING IS ON FUCKING FIRE!!!!!!1~~!!1:shock:)?

I love my Intel.

When she gets above 38 degrees I consider her to be "running hot".

Same here, except I have an Intel (Celery... ) that's running hot anyway. She can definitely take the strain of Quake tho

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

where can I get a program that tells me how hot my CPU is running?

Motherboard Monitor is a good 'un.

[WyrdNyrd]

BTW, no-one can tell how well any particular CPU will overclock, regardless of the quality of the rest of the components. As Einy said, it will depend on, amongst other things, the phase of the moon...

To be specific: During manufacture, dozens or even hundreds of chips are made simultaneously, burned onto a single 20cm or 30cm plate, called a die. Now different CPUs from the same die will actually have different characteristics. There's a certain degree of randomness when making components that are mere nanometers across. Some chips will fail completely, and be discarded, some will run only at low speeds, and will be marketed as e.g. 1.8Ghz, and others will attain higher speeds, and will be sold as e.g. 2.0GHz.

Sometimes there will be a glut in the markets of 2G chips, and a shortage of 1.8G, so then a chip that ran at 2G will be sold as a 1.8G. If you get one of these, you're in luck, and you can safely overclock. But there is usually no way of knowing this before you buy! It's the luck of the draw.

With good supporting components, you can usually overclock any chip slightly, because the manufacturers like to leave some "margin of error" when they decide what label to stick on their chips. But getting anything beyond a 5% or 10% gain, is pure luck.

[Enigma]

BTW, no-one can tell how well any particular CPU will overclock, regardless of the quality of the rest of the components. As Einy said, it will depend on, amongst other things, the phase of the moon...

To be specific: During manufacture, dozens or even hundreds of chips are made simultaneously, burned onto a single 20cm or 30cm plate, called a die. Now different CPUs from the same die will actually have different characteristics. There's a certain degree of randomness when making components that are mere nanometers across. Some chips will fail completely, and be discarded, some will run only at low speeds, and will be marketed as e.g. 1.8Ghz, and others will attain higher speeds, and will be sold as e.g. 2.0GHz.

Sometimes there will be a glut in the markets of 2G chips, and a shortage of 1.8G, so then a chip that ran at 2G will be sold as a 1.8G. If you get one of these, you're in luck, and you can safely overclock. But there is usually no way of knowing this before you buy! It's the luck of the draw.

With good supporting components, you can usually overclock any chip slightly, because the manufacturers like to leave some "margin of error" when they decide what label to stick on their chips. But getting anything beyond a 5% or 10% gain, is pure luck.

Makes sense. I downloaded PC Probe and it said that my processor current speed is 2GHZ and it's max speed is 2.25GHZ.

[Enigma]

Fahrenheit (that's really cool, like it's not running at all ) or Centigrade (HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT THING IS ON FUCKING FIRE!!!!!!1~~!!1:shock:)?

I love my Intel.

When she gets above 38 degrees I consider her to be "running hot".

Same here, except I have an Intel (Celery... ) that's running hot anyway. She can definitely take the strain of Quake tho

It is Celsius. When idling the temp is 61 degrees. It is always been like that and haven't had any trouble with it.

[Ace Pace]

an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ without needing extra cooling fans? With extra cooling fans can I push the CPU to 3GHz?

The reason I am asking is that my BIOS it gives me the option of setting the CPU speed to up to 3GHz. I'd like to know how far can I overclock without needing extra cooling fans and also what kind of cooling fans do I need if I were to overclock it to 3GHz?

You want to overclock a 1.9 GHz processor to 3 GHz?

You're insane.

Same way the P4 Presscott(or was it Northwood?) went from 2.8 to 4?

[phongn]

Generally speaking, one increasingly overlocks a computer in reasonable increments and then stress-tests it for 12-24 hours (using some tools Prime95, Memtest and maybe 3Dmark). If it remains stable then you're good to go, otherwise clock down and try again.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ without needing extra cooling fans? With extra cooling fans can I push the CPU to 3GHz?

The reason I am asking is that my BIOS it gives me the option of setting the CPU speed to up to 3GHz. I'd like to know how far can I overclock without needing extra cooling fans and also what kind of cooling fans do I need if I were to overclock it to 3GHz?

For an Athlon XP 2400+? A safe, stable, overclock for that chip with a good stock configuration is going from the stock 2000 MHz to 2100-2133 MHz. This will gain you about the equivalent of a Athlon XP 2600+. This is the setup that I'm currently running (overclocked XP 2400+), and I'm the sort who never shuts his computer down unless he absolutely has no other choice.

Of course, you can allegedly go to 2250 MHz, and some have had success on air-cooling up to 2400 MHz, but the higher you go, the dicer things become, the more willing you must be to take risks, the more you should know what you're doing, and the higher-quality a cooling setup you will have to buy.

[Meest]

It is Celsius. When idling the temp is 61 degrees. It is always been like that and haven't had any trouble with it.

I wouldn't go any further then, 60-70sC is pushing the thermal limits of the chip as is. You ideally want a 30C-ish idle 40C-ish under load 50 tops, then i'd consider jumping a few steps up. Also your power supply counts for alot, you need good clean voltage to overlock properly, especially for faster ram.

I would go with at least 4 80mm fans, 120s if you got the room. With decent air cooled setup you can probably run a safe 2.2Ghz.

[Ace Pace]

To be exact, 1 120mm exhaust can do the work of 2 80mm fans if its in the same spot, and most of the time with less noise.

[Glocksman]

The board's chipset also plays a part.

My old A7N8X nForce2 board overclocked a XP 2200+ to 2400+ speed no problem and would have gone higher except that the core was a T-Bred A that simply couldn't go any higher.

The nF3 chipset on my old DFI S754 board allowed me to overclock the 3000+ to 3400+ levels easily, but the K8T800 chipset on the replacement Asus board won't let me overclock at all.

[Alan Bolte]

I've got two CPU temperatures (assuming I've configured MBM correctly), a diode reading that maxes at 50 (running BOINC SETI) and another that maxes at 42. My case is a steady 31. Am I correct in understanding that the number you guys are referring to would be the non-diode, 42?

[Glocksman]

I've got two CPU temperatures (assuming I've configured MBM correctly), a diode reading that maxes at 50 (running BOINC SETI) and another that maxes at 42. My case is a steady 31. Am I correct in understanding that the number you guys are referring to would be the non-diode, 42?

Go by the diode temp, and 50°C (122°F) is well within spec for a P4 or P4 cored celeron.