Overheating VideoCard

[Cephius]

Honestly just do your research and start slow. Get quality components and overclock bit by bit, monitor your temps and voltages, and adjust accordingly. The quads are silly easy to overclock but you do need to have an idea of what you're doing and what to expect. No two chips are the same, each can require different amounts of voltages to achieve different speeds so its up to you to do the testing.

Now, it is really hard to "kill" a chip, as they all have failsafes that will just shut off if they get too hot. That being said, the golden rule of overclocking is "if you can't afford to replace it... don't overclock it"

Setting up SLI is really easy. Put the cards in the slots, attach the SLI connector, and fire up the machine. Make sure that they're the same kind (don't mix an ultra with a GTS, ect) and know that the card in the first slot determines the speed of the second. The hard part is fixing driver problems. Never let windows update install your video drivers, get them from the nvidia or (better yet) the dealer site and install them without the added crap like their ntune software. If you start getting crashes in games, wipe out the drivers completely and reinstall them.

Finally I've posted this guide before, and I'll do it again because it does have a ton of newbie-friendly info in it for first time overclockers. Even if you don't use an evga 680/780i board it will give you a good idea of what to expect and how to go about it.

[zoobernut]

Thanks so much for all the info Cephius it is really helpful, same with you Mootsfox.

When I actually start ordering parts and messing around with this stuff I will definitely make sure to check in with you guys about things I am unsure on.

So am I correct in thinking that most overclocking is simply increasing the running voltage on your FSB and CPU?

[Cephius]

So am I correct in thinking that most overclocking is simply increasing the running voltage on your FSB and CPU?

More or less.. yes. Though its not quite that simple. You increase your FSB and multiplier, to achieve the speed you want, then adjust the voltages so it's stable at that speed. More voltage = more heat and heat is the enemy, so the best practice is to start a little high, check stability and temps on your cores, and if you're stable start going down on the voltage bit by bit until you have a stable system with the lowest possible temps. There are more things to consider, such as linking your ram speed to your fsb (helps stability) and increasing voltage to the RAM, FSB, ect as you go higher. You'll learn these things as you go along though.

[zoobernut]

Where do you make all these adjustments? in the BIOS? How do you link your RAM to your FSB? Are there any good applications that you can run while in windows xp to monitor temperatures or stability and voltage of all the different parts of your computer?

[Cephius]

Yes, always in the bios. Linking and Syncing your ram will be an option in the BIOS also, on the 680 and 780i its under the system clocks section. Check out that guide I posted, it has screenshots of each screen you'll be dealing with in the bios.

There are a bunch of applications to monitor your temperatures. A popular one is speedfan, but I've found that usually underestimates your temps. I like Coretemp, or HWmonitor. Links to all those apps are in the sticky in this section.

[mootsfox]

For voltages you can easily fry stuff.

DDR2 - stay at or below 2.2v
45nm Intel - stay below 1.4v
65nm Intel - stay below 1.55v

Other than that, don't touch your other voltages, and you should be fine.

With the E8400 (45nm Intel) in particular will destroy itself if given too much voltage. It seems to be sort of like a cliff though. 1.39875v is fine, but 1.4v and it dies. But, like Cephius said, every chip overclocks differently, even chips from the same batch/plant.

Another thing, I don't know how much of an issue it is these days, but you need to lock your PCI bus to 33.33MHz. Linking it to the CPU and then overclocking WILL destroy data on your HDDs.

[zoobernut]

When I start to mess with overclocking and such I am going to do it on a new computer with a fresh HDD that only has an operating system on it and nothing else.

[zoobernut]

Can you use SLI while running windows xp? or is SLI a vista thing only?

[mootsfox]

Both. SLI and Crossfire (for ATI) work under both OSes.

[zoobernut]

So I have not sent back the video card yet but it is going to get replaced which will hopefully fix the overheating issue. But I did get my new motherboard and I downloaded the HWmonitor software and I was wondering what is a normal/safe operating temp. for a Pentium Dual Core 1.8 Ghz E2160 800 mhz FSB? Idle temp right now seems to hover around 42-44 C all I am doing is surfing the internet and such.

[Cephius]

42-44 is a tad on the hot side for being idle but won't damage the chip. If It gets up into the 60s or 70s under load its starting to get dangerous and you should probably re-do the heatsink installation.

[zoobernut]

I was thinking about investing in a new heatsink the default one isnt that great. I read a review on this one that said it was really decent for the price and for being nothing too fancy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... er%2bhyper


Is there a guide anywhere on acceptable temp levels? The northbridge and southbridge temps were much lower around 30 C the new board I got has really great heatpipe over them and an extra fan over the northbridge.

[mootsfox]

None of you should be worrying about temps, since most of you don't overclock.

Keep your heatsinks from getting completely covered in dust and you will be fine.

[Avanarius]

sounds a little warm for that cpu, but it's definitely safe granted it doesn't leave much room if you want to OC

I personally like to keep cpu's below 60c as much as possible