Should I reseat before OC?

[j1dopeman]

Hey,

I replaced the stock cooler a while ago and planned to overclock but then procrastinated. I want to do it now, but looking at my temps they seem kind of high for stock speed. Here's what I've got:

Xigmatek HDT-S1283
Intel Q6600 - G0 - 2.4ghz
Gigabyte - GA-P35-DS4 Rev.2
Raidmax Smilodon

On my case I removed the two side fans so it has 2x 120mm fans, one in front, one in back. The sides wouldn't fit with my cooler/video card. It's summer where I am now, NY, and it's been pretty hot recently. I'm too lazy to install an ac, so my ambient is like mid-80's to low 90's right now (worst case). Which is like 28 - 33 C. My temps are:

Idle:
44, 44, 41, 41

Prime 95 Load:
58, 58, 56?, 54?

Sorry, I'm going off memory, but I remember the higher ones clearly. I'm using everest to measure them. It seems like most people are getting these temps after overclocking and I haven't increased anything yet. I want to do a modest OC like 3 or 3.2 ghz. I think I'm safe if I stay under 65 C.

Do you think I could do that or would I need lower temps to start with? Should I be seeing lower temps with that cooler? I can't remember what they used to be with the stock cooler, but I think it was like 55-60 idle, 70 load. I remember when i saw 40 I was like yeah that's pretty low, but now reading about people in the 20's 30's it doesn't seem so hot, or rather it does, I hate puns.

So I'm wondering if it's worth it to try reseating it, or if I could oc without doing that. I have some artic silver 5 left over from like a year ago, I keep it in the fridge so I think it's still good.

 

[grieve]

Your temps look pretty good... 28 ambient is high.

You could try reseating, no harm there, but i think you have a nice clean fit happening now.

Not a lot of head room for OC

 

[jsc]

The key may be how far you can push the chip without a voltage increase. I was able to reach 3.0 GHz. with the sock HSF by just raising the FSB.

But I'm in an airconditioned house in Saudi Arabia and my ambient is around 24 C.

 

[j1dopeman]

Ok, I decided to give it a try and I made 3.0 without changing any voltage. I'm very happy with this. The temps seem to be at about the max I want to go:

Ambient - 26 (I think I was exaggerating with 33, but I can see it going to 29, 30)

Prime 95 Load:
CPU - 61
Core 1 - 65
Core 2 - 65
Core 3 - 60
Core 4 - 60

Idle is:
CPU - 42
Core 1 - 51
Core 2 - 51
Core 3 - 47
Core 4 - 47

One odd thing is that I can't seem to set the memory multiplier to 1:1 on my motherboard, it only goes down to 10:8, so my memory is at 416mhz x ddr2 = 832. It's ddr2 800 so I think it will be fine, my timings are at 4-4-4-12.

What do you guys think, that's decent right, no imminent hardware failures on the horizon I hope. I guess this should maybe be in the oc forum now that I decided not to reseat my cooler but I wanted to follow up in the relevant thread. One last question, I'm going to run prime 95 overnight and while I'm at work tomorrow, so like 18 hours. I turned off C1E, left on TM2, and couldn't find EIST/SppedStep. I plan on turning C1E back on, do you think I should run more stability tests after that or are the stress tests at 3ghz are enough?

 

[Conumdrum]

Plenty. There are a few tests in Prime 95 for diff stressing if your interested.

 

[j1dopeman]

I ran the small FTT tests the other night and part of the day, it went for 18:40 without any errors. I started the large FTT last night and when i looked this morning it hadn't erred. If it's good when I get home I think that will be enough. I know some people run them for 24 hours but I use my pc pretty much every day. I did turn c1e back on and so far it's stable. Highest temp I've seen is 66.