Posting my question as Rob suggested I do :)

Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
The CPU is good up to 1.456v, as long as you have decent temps and not pushing 70-80C. So check for dust as Psi says.
 

marfig

No ROM battery
Don't laugh, I still have a Core 2 Duo E4300

Welcome to the club :)
An E4200, here. On the side currently, waiting for some use. But I only upgraded this February to the machine you see in my signature.

I'll hit the first one who laughs :)

Recently, I've had some instability, not sure too why. Ran Prime 95 version 26, and I noticed CPU 1 (core 1) failed after a few minutes with a "Rounding error. 0.5 expected 0.6..". CPU 2 (core 2?)

This is the reason I'm replying. Pay attention to everything you can learn from Tharic and good luck. But.., allow me to concentrate on another side to this problem.

You say "recently", so I'm assuming you have been running this OC for some time. Months? Years? During that time all was fine but recently instability started to become a problem. You decide to test and bang! A few minutes into Prime and you are already getting an error.

This follows the pattern of an OC that is damaging your hardware. I'd like to say this to you in a milder way, but there isn't. If all worked well for some time and not it doesn't, instability is starting to become a problem and your tests reveal errors, you hardware is failing on you.

You say you don't want to remove the OC, but truth the matter is that OC isn't doing much for you unless you only run 4 or 6 year old programs/games. Current CPU requirements are a bit higher and your OC won't give you a free ride out of the lowest performance level anymore. For which reason I would suggest you indeed remove the OC altogether and try to extend a bit more the life of your system until you upgrade. You'll be surprised at the fact you will retain most of the performance you had with the OC.

OCing (and many folks in here can attest for that, I'm sure) has diminishing returns as software requirements evolve against a reference machine. So what used to be a great OC to you yesterday, will start to demonstrate less and less observable performance gains as the same OC is faced with higher requirements software. Through the years, as these increase, your OC will thus become less and less of a real advantage.

We are in 2011, passed mid year and moving fast to 2012. I think it's time you give your E4300 a rest. She's in her old age and needs some rest and all your affection. No more OC please :)
 

Mysticode

Obliviot
Thanks for the awesome reply!

My cores maybe fluctuate between 0 to 1 degree difference between them in idle state. Right now they are jumping between 48c and 51c (in idle).

I'd say I've had this processor OC'd to 2.8 to 3.0ghz since sometime in 2007, so yes it's been awhile. Honestly the stability isn't causing any BSODing or anything drastic, just that occasional rounding error. I try to strive for perfection, so when I see an error in a stress test, I get nitpicky. I have though brought down the OC a smidgin, no real performance hits from what I can see thus far.
 

Psi*

Tech Monkey
OC-ing for some is sport; for others it is voodoo; then others with software that they earn their income with it is necessary to get projects done ASAP. I have OC-ed everything from a Radio Shack TRS-80, in the day. There are rumors of failed CPUs, but as gripey as people typically are on the net I have not seen any post made by a real victum. I might come close by turning on systems without the HSF in place. 10 years ago that was no big deal for Intel chips, AMD died instantly ... 1st hand experience with the geeky neck tie clip as a result. :rolleyes:

I have 2 I7 systems that are OC-ed as much as possible tuned to my software. These are a i7-920 (@4.3 -ish GHz for ~2 years?) and a i7-990x (@ 4.5 GHz) for the past few months. My numbercrunch software can run for days with alllll of the CPUs bouncing between 70% to 99% during that time and until today in an unairconditioned office. Because of a recent heat wave thru the region I had to back the OCs off a bit. Today serious A/C was finally installed in the house & the OC will get bumped up again.

During the decade(s?) of OC-ing, it has become clear that when things start crashing it is a direct indicator of clogged heatsinks. Somewhere on techgage are pix with some best bad examples of nasty looking collections of dust. And this is in the air you breath!!! And it is perfect sense that as you OC the margin of cooling with the HSF will decrease.

Also, buried in techgage are a few of my own rants about cleaning computers, either naturally aspirated (aka air cooled) or water cooled. The i7s are water cooled for what it is worth to you.

Last, I am only an occasional gamer. No time to do more which is a complaint, a bit of a brag, and a high class problem. The point is, is that video cards are not much of a priority for my computational interests == less $$ investment in video cards. But, I have thought about it, and I would definitely get WC-ed video cards to OC without hesitation if they were a priority.

I have 6 computers of various "power" levels around me. Because of that and the cleaning issue, I am now waiting for this device to arrive. When it arrives, I'll post a minimal crude review on techgage, but to the elimination of searching for cans of compressed air .... YAAAY!!!
 

Psi*

Tech Monkey
Wow, a 500 W duster. It will blow the chips right off their socks :p
hahaha ... yes, a comment review from someone did express concern about that possibility. Of course that immediately drew me closer to the purchase. :eek: But cleaning out these d@mn heatsinks & radiators does require verve considering the PITA it is to get them out. I am hoping to avoid the yearly (waaay to often for me) extraction & disassembly of a system *just* to clean. I always feel that I ought to be putting that energy into building a new system.
 
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