When overclocking, how much voltage should I add per MHz increase?

[overdog]

I have set up my computer and everything is running stable (I guess). So now I am ready to overclock it. I intend to increase the FSB voltage little by little, but I am not sure how much voltage to add to accomodate. Right now my VCore measures at 1.82 V. I am running a 1.2 Athlon TBird AXIA "9" at 133x9.

I understand that if I up the FSB, but leave my voltage at 1.82, my system may not be stable. How do I know it is not stable? Will there be random crashes? Or will it not boot at all?

Should I

1)Increase my FSB little by little without touching the voltage. When system can't boot anymore, increase the voltage.

or

2)Inrease FSB and voltage at the same time?

Finally, how high of a voltage do you think I can take? I have a Epox 8k7a board with a Taisol 7600092b HSF (the one with 30 CFM Delta fan). My idle cpu temp is around 40 C now.

Thanks in advance.

 

[InFlames]

For FSB overclocking, increase the I/O voltage. It;s very touchy so feel it out.

when overclocking the CPU, raise the Vcore by .025V for every 100MHz over the default speed.

 

[overdog]

How do I raise the I/O voltage? The 8k7a only has jumpers for the vcore voltage and the DDR adjust. What is the DDR adjust by the way? It doesn't say anything about it in the manual.

 

[Richardito]

I understand that if I up the FSB, but leave my voltage at 1.82, my system may not be stable. How do I know it is not stable? Will there be random crashes? Or will it not boot at all?

--Your system may 'seem' stable, but really it may not be. Try running progrmas like Prime95, CPU Hot Tester and 3DMark2000. They all stress the CPU and can uncover hidden unstability.

1)Increase my FSB little by little without touching the voltage. When system can't boot anymore, increase the voltage.

or

2)Inrease FSB and voltage at the same time?

--I would first increase the voltage to a reasonable value and start overclocking. When you reach the limit (crashes, no post, etc.) come down on your FSB and try running the stability programs to check your system.

Finally, how high of a voltage do you think I can take? I have a Epox 8k7a board with a Taisol 7600092b HSF (the one with 30 CFM Delta fan). My idle cpu temp is around 40 C now.

--How high can your motherboard go? You also need to keep an eye on the CPU temperature.

 

[overdog]

bump...how do I raise the I/O Voltage? I don't see anything about this in the manual.

 

[Cherub]

Folks, overclocking is a science of experimentation, not rules. Besides, if you don't want to explore, don't overclock. The fun is in the adventure as much as in the results.

That being said, there is no formula that anyone can give that will apply to your system. Run your system hard (games, digital video, etc.) after each incremental step over default speed. If some problem occurs that didn't occur at the last step, you have instability. There are many causes of instability in general, but by comparing how your system acts at different increments of your overclocking progress, you can tell if a problem is caused by the aspect you last pushed. You will never know how far a component will go until there is a problem, at which point you focus on remedying that problem before continuing.

As for voltage, always use the smallest increase in voltage possible that results in stabilizing the system, and continue to the next increment. Voltage increases heat, so you want the minimum voltage that will maintain your system.