Overclocking E6420

[slayer8322]

I now have an E6420, EVGA 680i Motherboard and 4 GB G-skill PC6400 Ram. I got my ram Unlinked and set to 800Mhz, My CPU is at 1.51v ram is at 2.0v everything else is at stock. I have a scythe infinity cooler. I am only orthos stable for about 35 minutes @ 3.2Ghz. Temps top out at 62c. Can anyone give me some help on getting it to 3.4Ghz. Right now I run it at 2.93Ghz at stock voltages on everything Orthos stable for 24 hours so I know there is plenty of Headroom on this chip, Any help will be appriciated.

 

[Zardnok]

How do you know there is headroom on the chip? Was it installed in a previous system that overclocked well? Some of the recent C2D chips have been struggling to get past the 3.2 plateau.

As for what to do to get it higher, perhaps a bit more voltage (+0.1) to your Northbridge. If you are running 4X1Gig sticks you might need to give another .1 to your Memory controller as well, should be OK at stock with 2X2GB. Also are you trying to run your RAM at the 4-4-4-12 settings in your sig at the higher 3.2 OC? If so, perhaps you need to relax the timings to 5-5-5-15 until you can get it stable and then try to tweak down from there.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you're only Orthos stable at 3.2 ghz for 35 minutes, I'd be more concerned about stabilizing the chip at 3.2 ghz than pushing onward to 3.4 ghz.

You might want to start off by improving the performance of your HSF. You can do this by mounting a second fan of equal power to the Infinity, which has been shown to be the best cooling strategy for that HSF.