CPU Overclock Inquiry

ok. first thing you'll need are some sort of heatsink on those mosfets. This is the part that will cost you a little $$.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

here are examples of what i'm talking about. I would probably get the MOS-C10 C1100. There should be enough in just one pack to cover your mosfets. Clean the surface of the mosfets with rubbing alcohol and qtips. use the included thermal tape, and stick them onto the mosfets.
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Next go back to microcenter, get yourself a good case fan, then get some double sided tape. You're going to need to secure that fan directly over the new mosfet heatsinks. Because you have a solid cpu cooler, and i don't know the size of your case, you'll have to figure out the size of fan you'll need. it probably will be 2-80/90mm fans... though some cases you might be able to fit a 120mm fan instead.

now you'll be able to aggressively overclock this computer.

Go into the bios, go to the advanced tab, scroll down to the cpu, change it from automatic to manual, this will unlock most of the overclocking options. Now go to the turbo, and change it from automatic to disabled. Then go to quiet and cool, turn it off. Turn off c1 and c6 power states. Go to your LLC settings and change the cpu to ultra (or whatever that bios calls it's highest setting), and the northbridge to high. jump down to the voltage control, turn off offset mode, and change the voltage setting from automatic to manual. manually set it to whatever voltage the cpu is currently operating at (this is different on every chip, so i can't tell you what to set it too. it will probably be somewhere between 1.32-1.38 volts. Do the same to the northbridge (this also varies chip to chip, but should be somewhere around 1.1-1.2 volts). Now slow down your northbridge and hypertransport speeds to 2000 (note the original settings)... keep them the same speed. make sure the cpu frequency is 200, save and reset your computer.

now you're ready to overclock.

go back into the bios and Head back up to the top and change the multiplier by +0.5 (it will now be 20.5), keep the cpu frequency at 200. save and restart. Make sure you can load into windows. Save and restart. load into your bios and bump the cpu multiplier by 0.5 again (it should now read 21, and your cpu will now be operating at 4.2ghz (21x200=4200). save and load into windows.

Keep doing this until you no longer can load into windows or POST. If the pc fails to post typically it will reset your bios to stock settings after 3 failures... sometimes this doesn't happen. You can fix that problem by clr_cmos.

anyway, once you run into trouble, you'll know what your last good setting was. make sure your bios is identical to that setting. load into windows, download Intel Burn Test - AVX, and HWMonitor. Keeping an eye on your cpu core temp and motherboard socket temp, run IBT on it's 2nd toughest setting for 10 passes. if any result is a negative number the cpu failed. if the program crashes, a negative number comes on any core in IBT-AVX or your computer blue screens or simply resets you'll need to add vcore.

Load back into your bios and increase your vcore by +0.0125V. save and restart, try IBT-AVX again. continue bumping vcore until your system passes IBT-AVX or your computer temps get too high (core temp over 65C and socket temp over 72C). assuming you can pass 10 runs of IBT-AVX without overheating or failing the test, you can bump your cpu multiplier another step. from this point on you'll need to test the overclocks with IBT-AVX until temps stop your overclocking. once you get to a ghz (probably around 4.5-4.8) which maxes your cooling, you'll need to run IBT-AVX on it's hardest settings for 10 passes, to insure you're completely stable.

Assuming you pass you'll be good to go.

Now go back into the bios. turn c1&c6 back on. Save and make sure your computer will post, load into the bios, increase the northbridge and hypertransport to their stock settings (this depends on the motherboard), save and restart, assuming it posts, see if you can't get it to work with the NB frequency at the same speed as the HT... piledriver gets it's best performance from a 2600/2600 setup... but only some motherboards will give you this. I'm not sure about that m5a78, but its probably unlikely you'll get better then 2400/2400 out of it.