So for xmas i decided it was time for some computer upgrades and got myself the "world record holding" Biostar TPower I45 along with Intel's champion e8400. I also got a 4Gb set of gSkill 5-5-5-15 1066 mhz ram to support my efforts in overclocking my new toy. I feel like i'm sort of out of touch with all of this stuff so i have a few general questions that i think any owner of an e8400 could answer:
I have one of those big fancy Zalman coolers and while i'm no pro, I think i've seated it very well on my chip with good ole' arctic silver 5. The very first time i put in my new mobo and chip, before installing any of the motherboard drivers, SpeedFan told me my core temp was 26c idle. Within a few hours after installing all my drivers and whatnot my new idle temp is around 35-38C. Is this because the sensor reads bad temps until I install the mobo drivers? Or could something have happened to my heatsink setup? I checked it again and one side of the mounting piece that sits on top of the motherboard had came out but somehow the heatsink was still making good contact with the chip, thank god i didn't fry it a few days after i got it. But even after screwing it all back together, the idle temps are still the same. But my real concern is my load temps. After a few minutes on 100% load (both cores) their temps get into the 70s. This certainly seems atypical so i was wondering: what are good load temps for these processors?
Now, on to the fun stuff: the overclocking. I should have mentioned before that all these temps are with my CPU running at 4.5GHz with a vcore that i'm not so sure about. In the I45 bios i have my CPU vcore set to +0.250 which I thought would yield a ~1.4 vcore, seeing as the default vcore seems to be 1.2V. However i could be completely wrong about that because CPU-Z is telling me now that my vcore is 1.25V. But anyways, I will admit i've only read maybe 4 threads regarding overclocking this chip, but everyone seems to be whining that they cant get over 4Ghz on air cooling. Well, I would like to whine that i can't get over 4.6 GHz. I haven't started increasing my bus speed by 1 to find it's limit but i can tell you this:
500mhz -> 4.5ghz = perfectly stable, havent had any problems
510mhz -> 4.6ishGHz = will post, will boot, i can run applications, but crashes after a few hours
520mhz -> 4.65something = no post
So i am wondering if anybody has had success in achieving higher speeds than this.
Another thing i'm wondering about is that in my bios, i MUST leave the option enabled for my memory timings to be assigned by the SPD. I can set it to manual and loosen them all i want, for example i tried 6-6-6-18 but no matter what, my computer will not post unless I enable timing by SPD. I'm really annoyed by this because my bus to ram clock speed (i know thats not the right term) is 2 so my sticks are at 1000mhz. At bus speed 530, my ram speed would be 1060 mhz aka what its rated for, yet i can't get a post.
So any advice on how to squeeze another .5ghz out of this chip would be very much appreciated.
I have one of those big fancy Zalman coolers and while i'm no pro, I think i've seated it very well on my chip with good ole' arctic silver 5. The very first time i put in my new mobo and chip, before installing any of the motherboard drivers, SpeedFan told me my core temp was 26c idle. Within a few hours after installing all my drivers and whatnot my new idle temp is around 35-38C. Is this because the sensor reads bad temps until I install the mobo drivers? Or could something have happened to my heatsink setup? I checked it again and one side of the mounting piece that sits on top of the motherboard had came out but somehow the heatsink was still making good contact with the chip, thank god i didn't fry it a few days after i got it. But even after screwing it all back together, the idle temps are still the same. But my real concern is my load temps. After a few minutes on 100% load (both cores) their temps get into the 70s. This certainly seems atypical so i was wondering: what are good load temps for these processors?
Now, on to the fun stuff: the overclocking. I should have mentioned before that all these temps are with my CPU running at 4.5GHz with a vcore that i'm not so sure about. In the I45 bios i have my CPU vcore set to +0.250 which I thought would yield a ~1.4 vcore, seeing as the default vcore seems to be 1.2V. However i could be completely wrong about that because CPU-Z is telling me now that my vcore is 1.25V. But anyways, I will admit i've only read maybe 4 threads regarding overclocking this chip, but everyone seems to be whining that they cant get over 4Ghz on air cooling. Well, I would like to whine that i can't get over 4.6 GHz. I haven't started increasing my bus speed by 1 to find it's limit but i can tell you this:
500mhz -> 4.5ghz = perfectly stable, havent had any problems
510mhz -> 4.6ishGHz = will post, will boot, i can run applications, but crashes after a few hours
520mhz -> 4.65something = no post
So i am wondering if anybody has had success in achieving higher speeds than this.
Another thing i'm wondering about is that in my bios, i MUST leave the option enabled for my memory timings to be assigned by the SPD. I can set it to manual and loosen them all i want, for example i tried 6-6-6-18 but no matter what, my computer will not post unless I enable timing by SPD. I'm really annoyed by this because my bus to ram clock speed (i know thats not the right term) is 2 so my sticks are at 1000mhz. At bus speed 530, my ram speed would be 1060 mhz aka what its rated for, yet i can't get a post.
So any advice on how to squeeze another .5ghz out of this chip would be very much appreciated.
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