Overclocking on Air: Need some advice

[Never Say Never]

I just recently put together my new (and first ) hackintosh and now I'm looking at possibly overclocking it a bit. I'm interested on doing this on air with the stock heatsink. My CPU is the Pentium Dual Core 2.8GHz. I was wondering what would be considered a "safe" OC based on my system specs (listed in full in my signature) using the stock CPU fan. Just to note, my Case is Sunbeamtech's Freezing Storm, which has 3 x 120mm fans. According to Temperature Monitor my CPU is constantly around 44 degrees C at stock speeds while running OS X and around 39 degrees C in Vista according to CoreTemp.

 

Anyways, based on that, what would you guys recommend for OC'ing...and do you guys have any recommendations on the BIOS settings to OC it?

 

Also, on my motherboard, in the BIOS Gigabyte has a built in setting to "automatically" overclock it...it has options such as Standard, Turbo and Extreme. Should I try any of those settings?

[hrsetrdr]

Well, not being familiar with your particular motherboard, I'd say that in general you should start by raising the CPU clock in increments of 5, then exit BIOS and let the machine at least get to the POST screen, before going back into the BIOS to increase it. Keep an eye on how much you are raising the memory clock, rather than choosing "auto" you should choose a multiplier that combined with your target OC, won't take you more than say 10% over the rated memory speed. Once you get you CPU clock to where you want it(and running stable) then you might want to work the memory timings and speed. However, I never do anymore, OCing memory is a PITA and unless you're a benchmark junkie, I doubt that there is much benefit to be realized, in terms of performance.

 

For my purposes I turn off all the following features that "clock-down" your processor, for heat reduction and/or for energy saving:

C1E

EIST

...some others, I forget.

 

Speaking of heat, you will generate more heat with overclocking so make sure to monitor temps closely, and either adjust your cooling to accommodate your overclocking goals, or adjust your overclocking goals to accommodate your existing cooling capacity. ;-)

[vbetts]

Well you can do some things for overclocking.

 

The most common ways to overclock is the raise the FSB, however this always isn't the most effective and stable way to overclock. So I don't reccomend overclocking based on fsb raising alone. Do it in combination.

 

1.First disable speedstep. It's called CE1 I believe, something like that.

2.Mess with the mutliplier of the cpu. I'm not too familiar with overclocking on Intel, but raising the multiplier of the cpu is an easy and quick way to get a bigger overclock. That's if you can on that cpu.

3.If you can mess with the multiplier, then only raise the fsb by 5-10. This will have a nice effect.

4.This is a must for overclocking, to ensure stability. Raise the vcore of the cpu up, but raise it as low as you can. Too much, you'll burn out the core, and in over time you'll burn it out.

 

For extreme overclocking, you really need to watch a lot of things.

1.Disable speedstep still.

2.Multiplier needs messed with still. This hasn't changed.

3.Instead of raising it up to a max of 10 mhz, go in increments of 5 mhz.

4.Here's the biggest thing to watch now. Vcore is a big thing to watch, because to get an extreme overclock you need to change the Vcore, and also change the north bridge voltage.

5.Also increase frequencies of the the pcie bridge, and memory. However, you also need to tighten up your timings of your ram.

 

Overclocking is not easy, but overclocking is not hard. As long as you look more into what are good timings, voltages, and walls for your cpu and motherboard, you've got it in the bag. One thing I always do though with my cpu and cooler, is I lap the cpu and cooler for better contact.