Overclocking E5200 on Gigabyte G31M-ES2L

[buckeyeseller]

I want to overclock to as close to 4.0Ghz as possible off air cooling, if someone could guide me thru process and recommend good after-market cooler, it would be much appreciated!!!

specifications are as follows:

Processor: Intel Dual Core E5200

Motherboard: Gigabyte G31M-ES2L

RAM: 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix 800MHz DDR2

Graphics Card:ATI HD4830 DDR3 512
Hard Disk: 320GB Western Digital Blue SATA II

PSU: 600watt OCZ

I have tried various forums to overclock, for some reason unknown, I cant overclock thru my bios. I have been using an Gigabyte utility on Windows to oc, had it at above 3.0, with lowered memory specs, and higher voltages, but didn't know haow far to push the temps so I backed off, temps reaching over 70. Please help any tips appreciated, Thanks ......

 

[jsc]

You should be able to use your BIOS.

This should be your first stop.
Core2 Overclocking Guide (generic guide)
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/259899-11-core-overclocking-guide

Shadow's Gigabyte motherboard OC guide:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-245679_11_0.html
It's for an EP35-DS3L but all the Gigabyte Core2 BIOS's are similar. Your BIOS will not have all of the settings.

Go through the guides. Then take your core voltage off Auto and set your memory voltage to factory recommended values. Change the System Memory Multiplier from AUTO to 2.00, 2.00B, or 2.00D - whichever you need to set the Memory Frequency to twice the FSB. Then when you increase the FSB, the memory clock will rise in in proportion with it. At a stock FSB freq of 200 MHz, your memory clock should be at 400 MHz.

The G31/G41 chipset is an economy, entry level chipset. The upper ceiling of the FSB freq is around 360 MHz. That means that it will work well with the E5200 and its 200 MHz FSB freq (lots of headroom) and high internal multiplier.

If you are going to push the chip hard, you will need better than stock cooling.

Don't exceed 70 C core temps under load and do not exceed 1.45 volts vcore.

And don't bother trying to overclock the RAM. Overclocking RAM in a Core2 system does not accomplish much:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/251715-29-ratio-myth
And the increased instability can be critical.