How to overclock?

[Serfaksan]

Hi im new here, and i am very interested in doing some overclocking to my pc, at least 3.4ghz. here is my system

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66Ghz, 1333mhz, 12mb cache

MB: Abit IP35 Pro

Ram: 8gb- OCZ Reaper HPC Cas4 PC6400 (800mhz) + Corsair Dominator Cooling Fan

Video: XFX Geforce 8800GTS Alpha Dog Edition XXX 512mb

Audio: SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Xtreme Gamer Edition PCIx 1x

Power Supply: Ultra X3 1000watts Modular

my pc has fans in the front and in the back as well, the only thing i'm missing (not for long) is the cooler for the cpu, right now i have the one that came with the processor, I will buy the Zalman CNPS9700 NT (nvidia edition), if you have any suggestion it would be really welcomed , so right now I'm a noob when it comes to overclock this would be my first time, so thanks in advance for any info helping me doing that

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

You really do need to wait for the Zalman, you have to take your motherboard out as far as I can remember to put on the back plate for the cooler to bolt in too.

Overclocking is basically changing your FSB to suit you.

Find your overclocking information out in your BIOS, and then you should be able to change it though you are going to most probably have to up your volts a bit too. I think you should put your volts up to 1.3v (never go higher than 1.38v on a 45nm chip or you risk frying it more than normal!)

When you're overclocking, make sure that your RAM frequency stays the same or near enough to the same (you change this by changing the FSBRAM ratio!) So that you don't get RAM stability problems.

Then when you have overclocked, download a program (preferably before you begin!) and check your maximum temperatures with that CPU, then you know how far you can push it. Most people can get to around 3.8GHz on air so you should be within the safe zone.

Download Orthos Stress Prime95 from here:

http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm

Hopefully you have a monitoring software running so that you can check your temperatures on the CPU.. If not, download this program:

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Thanks for your time, When you have found out this, I will gladly assist you if you need any more help

 

[Serfaksan]

thanks for all the info, I will take your suggestion and wait for the cooler, better safe than sorry xD, I have the abit uGuru utility (wich I was reading that it is not so recomended to do the overclock with that but only for watching the heat) to watch out the heat in the PC, also I downloaded CPUZ



I will try Orthos as well, so when I get the cooler I will try to overclock it , and thanks for all the info.

 

[PV5150]

Here is a good place to start for some basics on overclocking Intel processors. If you need additional info then please feel free to ask questions