I bought this processor because I wanted to try overclocking and this one was supposed to overclock effortlessly. I can overclock to 3.0 Ghz with stock voltage (1.35v) as promised, which is cool, but when I change the multiplier from 15 to 16 (3.2 Ghz) and raise the voltage to 1.4 as instructed in Tom's guide, I BSOD right after Windows loads. FYI, my BIOS doesn't give me a 15.5 multiplier, unfortunately; I'd have been satisfied with another 0.1 Ghz.

I've noticed similar problems in other recent threads, and several posters in those threads seem to suggest 3.2Ghz with 1.4v is reasonable and should just ... work. I'd have thought so too.

So my question is, can/should I try nudging up the voltage a step at a time and see if the stability improves? I just bought this CPU and mobo (ASUS M2R32-MVP AM2 AMD 580X CrossFire ATX / BIOS v906) so I'm really, really not interested in frying anything. I'm also an OCing novice. How high is too high? I briefly tried 1.45v, promptly BSOD'd, and chickened out. Anything lower than 1.4v BSODs even before Windows loads.

Thanks as always for any help.

Well, I had to up the voltage on my ddr2 in order to get my 6000+ to load at 3.3Ghz and had to up the voltage to a dangerous 1.6v on my vcore and 2.3v on my ddr2 to get my 6000+ to 3.4Ghz. Needless to say it didn't stay at 3.4Ghz long. I get chickened out too . If I were you, I would try and up the voltage on ur ram first. I even like to do this before changing multipliers. I guess that defeats the purpose of the black edition though. I'm impressed u got it to 3.0Ghz so easily; good job!

Overclocking takes time my young Padawan Learner...have fun! Heres a snapshot of my 3.4ghz in Vista:

Interesting. Okay, any suggestions about how high I can/should go with my DDR voltage? Right now it's set to 1.90v and can go as high as 2.45v in 0.05v increments. Is there some stock "highest safe voltage" for a pair of 1Gig DDR2 800Mhz sticks?

While we're at it, you describe 1.6v as "dangerous" ... is there a safe upper edge that I should be aware of for a setup like mine?

Thanks again for the help.

Each ram has a voltage specification on it. That's generally the highest you should go.

1.6v is dangerous because higher voltage means faster electron migration which means you'll kill your pc faster. If you do set it to 1.6v, expect you cpu to last no more than 3years.

You're right; I took a look at the specs for my G.Skill RAM and see that the voltage requirement is 1.8v to 1.9v, so apparently I'm already at the maximum. Fine.

Maybe I'll eek my way up to 1.5v on the CPU and see if stability improves at 3.2 Ghz. The highest I got was 1.45v.

Or maybe I'll just learn to love 3.0 Ghz. It's a respectible speed and rock-solid stable; do I really need more than that?

If you only play games, 3GHz is fine.