Overclocking Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300

[comptech81]

I just installed Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 in my Alienware m17x. I have a couple questions about overclocking.

I am wondering if anyone has some pointers on safely overclock it?

Will overclocking to 2.93GHz drastically reduce the life of my cpu?

Will I see a huge increase in heat output?

Any other advice?

 

[comptech81]

Anyone?

 

[christop]

No 2.93 is not a huge overclock. the extreme chips are pretty solid.. I am running my e8400 at 4ghz and the thermal are low but I am water cooling it. I don't think heat will be a huge problem at that clock speed.

 

[overshocked]

Yeah, your going to want to get more than stock cooling though. Otherwise it will shorten the life. You could go much past 2.93 ghz.

May i ask why you dropped 1k on a old generation chip?

 

[comptech81]

I didnt pay 1k for it. I got the cpu from ebay for a lot cheaper and installed it myself. Also this is a laptop so I cant really put aftermarket cooling in it.

 

[overshocked]

O, i didn't realize that. Overclocking in a laptop is a bit more dangerous. Just open up a temp monitoring program to make sure it doesnt go out of spec.

 

[comptech81]

I dont have the option to upgrade to the core i7. The motherboard in my laptop doesnt support it. Therefore, the best I could do is the QX9300

 

[comptech81]

Ok so this is my very first overclock and need some pointers. I have read that 2.93 should be very stable and achievable with my cpu. I can get this by moving the multiplier to 11. However, when I do this and log on it blue screens after a short while. Is there any other settings I need to change to make this stable?

 

[comptech81]

Anyone have some pointers on how to get a stable overclock on my machine?

 

[overshocked]

Are you overclocking in the bios? If so, i didnt know alienware supported that.

I would suggest reading some guides (like the one posted at the top of this section) on overclocking. When you get a bsod you are going to need to add some voltage to it. I would also suggest to lower the fsb affect on the ram.

 

[comptech81]

I did the overclocking in the BIOS which is a feature on Alienware m17x. I believe it is stable right now at 2.8GHz. I got to this by just moving the multiplier from 9.5 to 10.5

I ran the cpu at 100% load using prime95 and was seeing max temperatures of 75c in all cores. Normally it runs in the mid 40s and when I am gaming mid to high 50s
Do these temperatures sound about right for a laptop? Or are they a bit high?

 

[comptech81]

Anyone?

 

[sportsfanboy]

I wasn't aware that Intel made X series chips for laptops, hmm, why?