Overclocked my E8400 with stock cooling, is it safe?

Test the memory and if that works it looks like you are OK. Why did you stop testing after an hour, leave it run for 12 hours to be sure it is stable. The temps are OK, not great.

How do I test my memory? and is it safe?

I stopped after an hour because I was too scared keeping my pc on a turture test for the whole night.. can't any harm happen?

Do you have some kind of "boost" feature enabled on your mobo? I do not allow my motherboard to control my proc speed, this will also hinder your overclock. First and foremost I would make sure in bios that this "boost" feature is disabled, meaning, 3.4ghz MEANS 3.4ghz at ALL times. I would also make sure your fan is at 100% at all times. I would look into an aftermarket fan, I use a arctic freezer pro 7 on my q6600. Secondly, CRANK IT UP. Stay below 65.

That's how it looked in the BIOS before the overclock:




All I did is to change the multiplier to 9 and host freq to 380.. (it should be 333 default)

This might be of some help:
GUIDE: Overclocking On EP/P35-DS3L
when it comes to BIOS settings as the settings are almost identical on the P45/P43.

To monitor temps: Use RealTemp
Burn in CPU- Prime95 for 8+hrs.
Burn in RAM - Memtest86+ for 8+hrs.

Is tnere any risk in running these tests? is there any chance I'll wake up and something in my pc will get burnt?

I downloaded realtemp am iI supposed to set TJ MAX as 72 degrees? or am I supposed to keep settings the way they are? because when I change it to 72 it looks says my temperature is at like 11 degrees..

+1 for ^. Real temp(or hwmonitor), prime95 and memtest86.

Set everything manually. DO NOT use auto controls for voltages or frequency. Those settings on auto will ramp up with your FSB.

the pcie frequecy, on auto will go up a proportional amount. This could damage your pcie channel or the vid card. Set the pcie freq to 100.

Set the DDR2 freq to a ratio that will result in 800.

CPU or DDR2 voltage could get very high on auto. Manually set them to recommended voltages for your components. The CPU voltage may need to be increased for your OC. Read the OC tutorial for voltages an temps. Most 45nm core 2 duos can run safely up to 1.34v. READ TUTORIALS shadow mentioned. I run my e7200 at 1.32v @ 400Mhz x9.5 = 3.8Ghz. Stable now for over 6 months. If you are crashing during load or prime95 you may need to bump up your cpuv. Start at stock ~1.28v.

set performance enhance to standard.

Enable CPU host clock control and use it to OC the fsb. That is the safest way to OC. IMHO.

temp guide:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/221745-29-core-quad-t...

OC guide for C2D:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overc...

Look I'm a soldier and I don't have so much time to mess up with this especially when I have zero experience.. I'd rather remove the overclock than start changing so many settings I've no idea about..

In that case, your BIOS should have a 'load defaults' option. Hit that and you're should be back with the defaults.

its called "Load Optimised Default" select that and reboot and everything back to normal 

Well I decided to give it another chance.. I set everything manually this time, and read the manual.

I increased from 333x9 to 370x9 without touching voltages..

set PCI-E freq to 100

Memory ratio is 1:1 (tho instead of 400mhz it's 370mhz now)

Prime95 is running for an hour and so far the highest temperature reached is 64 degrees celsius while it's usually 61 on other tests.

So my questions:

According to the guide: "GUIDE: Overclocking On EP/P35-DS3L "
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tom...

I don't have to increase voltages as long as it's a 10-11% overclock.. which I did.. 3000 > 3333, right?

It's also mentioned that I need to increase memory voltage by +1.. is that really necessary? or am I supposed to do it in case the OS doesn't load? It's currently on 1.8v according to CPU-Z

You only need to increase voltage if you find that you cant run Prime95 (or MemTest for memory) without errors.

Why do I have to run these programs? (prime95 and memtest)
Can't I just keep it that way and see if the PC stays stable?