# Anyone overclock a Q9450 on an Asus Striker II Extreme board?



## malonn (May 28, 2006)

Just wondering, if so, what voltage adjustments did they have to make? I posted on this forum a while back about overclocking, and came to the conclusion I have a bad board. But now I'm starting to think I don't.

Right now I have my CPU running at 3.066MHz from 2666MHz stock. But I noticed that I needed to increase my North Bridge voltage for it to be stable. Is this normal? Is it safe?


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

I've read about people doing it. It is safe.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

OC'ing is never "safe". It puts unnecessary stress on components and voids warranties.


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

Well yeah, I guess you're right. But it can be done without adverse effects, if careful.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

when increasing voltages you only ever do it to the next available voltage and then see if it boots and everything is ok, then if you need to go back and do it again.

Overclocking isn't an exact science as someone with the exact same rig as you may get better or worse results.

I know people with the same setup as me and they cant get past 3.8GHz even with higher voltages for vcore etc where as I can get to 4GHz easily.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

malonn said:


> Well yeah, I guess you're right. But it can be done without adverse effects, if careful.


It can certainly be done and it is common practice but there are always adverse effects when stressing hardware beyond it's intended use.


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

greenbrucelee said:


> when increasing voltages you only ever do it to the next available voltage and then see if it boots and everything is ok, then if you need to go back and do it again.
> 
> Overclocking isn't an exact science as someone with the exact same rig as you may get better or worse results.
> 
> I know people with the same setup as me and they cant get past 3.8GHz even with higher voltages for vcore etc where as I can get to 4GHz easily.


Okay. Thanks. Right now I have my CPU at 3185MHz. I had to set my NB voltage at 1.42. That's two voltage increases past the default value. I use games to stress test my machine more so than generic apps. Because I game so much, if the rig can handle my games everything should be okay.


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

One thing I've noticed, monitoring voltages and stuff with Asus PCProbe II, is that some voltages will drop into dangerously low voltages and then recover in a second or less. Is this a result of O/Cing, or a bad board?


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

It's related to the voltages I have applied to various things. Lowering voltage on one thing removes the error. Weird.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

first of all a game does not stress test an overclocked system Prime95 does, OCCT does too.

Asus PC Probe is a load of crap do not use it always use the BIOS for temperatures and voltages. Never use software to overclock your system this should also be done in the BIOS

I only ever increase the vcore if at all possible, my northbridge and southbridge are at their lowest voltages.


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

A game _does_ test the general stability of your system. I use Prime95. But that tests the CPU. Not the FSB, etc. Take, for example, I ran Prime95 for 10 mins after a clock adjustment with no problems. I fired up a game and it crashed 2 mins into it. I had to go and adjust my NB voltage. After that, the game didn't crash. But Prime95 ran no matter the NB voltage.
The temps reported by my BIOS and Asus PCProbe are completely identical. I've tried several different CPU temperature monitoring programs in the past, and the only one that accurately reported my CPU temp (i.e. identical to the BIOS) is PCProbe. Others report me idling at like 60C.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

Sorry mate but I have been overclocking for years and there is no game out there that stresses and overclocked system like prime95, OCCT or Orthos.

With prime 95 when you do a the full on cpu stress test it is testinh the FSB because thats how the cpu communicates but it is only using the lanes on the motherboard that are connected to the cpu whilst if you run the other stress test on prime it tests everything and when using prime to fully stress test when your at your final overclock setting you need to be running it for 6 hours + to determin stabilty.

When a game is running the stress on the system goes up and down due to what is occuring in the game, with a proper stress test app this stress is maintained for the duration of the test so it is far more rliable as an indicator or stability.

Even if PC probe is reporting the temps as same as the BIOS you should still check the BIOS for accuracy to be sure.

Apps like speedfan should never be used for temps if I am using an app for temps I always use real temp or core temp.


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

Well, how come after I bumper up my FSB, I ran Prime95 with no errors or problems, but once I launched a game my system became unstable? Games are stressful on your rig. Some of the most stressful things you can do with a computer. I've used Real Temp and Core Temp. They don't report accurate CPU temperatures.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

Thats because your system isn't stable. Prime95 isn't a 10 minute job. A stress test should be run for a minimum of 1 hour or if your at a level your happy with it should be a minimum of 6 hours whilst monitoring the temps.

I know games that every time you increase the FSB when you launch the game it will not recognise the hardware configuration you have and you need to re set the games settings. Oblivion and world in conflict are such games.

You said you ran prime for 10 minutes, prime wont have even got started there is a period of a pre warm up before it starts properly.

CPU temp and real temp do report proper temps if you set the TJ max correctly.

Now I am not being funny but you came here for advice, I have overclocked many PCs and overclocked your motherboard with various CPUs in it, I have won overclocking competitions so whilst I dont profess to know everything about overclocking I do know what I am talking about when it comes to the average overclock on your system.

Games at this current point in time can use no more than 2.5GB of RAM and there are only a couple of games that venture into using two cores on a multi core CPU so there is no way a game can stress a system like a stress test app like prime, OCCT or Orthos.

Remember after each 60MHz increase stress test must be completed for atleast 1 hour if that passes then you can increase, once you get to an overclock your happy with then you stress test for 6 hours +. Read the overclocking guide by hexus which is at the top of the overclocking forum called if you are new to overclocking please read here. This will back up everything I have said and there are other links in it which will also back up what I said too.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

greenbrucelee said:


> first of all a game does not stress test an overclocked system Prime95 does, OCCT does too.
> 
> Asus PC Probe is a load of crap do not use it always use the BIOS for temperatures and voltages. Never use software to overclock your system this should also be done in the BIOS


Ditto! ^


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## malonn (May 28, 2006)

greenbrucelee said:


> Thats because your system isn't stable. Prime95 isn't a 10 minute job. A stress test should be run for a minimum of 1 hour or if your at a level your happy with it should be a minimum of 6 hours whilst monitoring the temps.
> 
> I know games that every time you increase the FSB when you launch the game it will not recognise the hardware configuration you have and you need to re set the games settings. Oblivion and world in conflict are such games.
> 
> ...


Okay, okay. I have found an overclock that I am happy with, so I'll run Prime95 for a few hours to see if it's stable. Thanks for the advice, by the way. Games are taxing on your system though. Not as much as something like Prime95.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Games are more demanding of the GPU than the CPU. Most games are more than happy with Dual Core CPU's and few can take advantage of 4 cores.


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## Johnny1982 (Oct 15, 2010)

Games also tend to use more GPU power, hence they don't stress the CPU 100% all the time, some of the load is diverted to the GPU. I know that if I play games on my system the temps are on average a few degrees cooler than say using OCCT. I run Coretemp in the background monitoring temps and load while playing games and it never reaches 100% load for sustained periods of times. OCCT is a killer on CPU load. If it detects an error I change it lower. Very trustworthy. I also played with my NB, SB volts, pushed a little too far and had to reset my CMOS in order to boot my PC again, wouldn't even go into the bios.


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