Hi Turnip,I think you might want to look at better cooling. I have a nice VID of 1.225 Volts, and even overclocking my Q6600 a little bit nearly killed it. Basically, anything but the stock cooler will work well.In the mean time, I'll see what can be done for you without new cooling.Thanks, and sorry if any of this is not a good answer.Regards,

Thx BG. I'll look at NewEgg when I get some time today and see what they have. If there's a chance of doing damage, I'll just look into getting a faster dual core CPU in about 6 months or so.I went with this one due to the price and it runs Crysis great. FSX is a totally differant "bird" tho so having my cake and eating it too may not be possible.

We are talking a dual, not quad core, CPU here so let's not dismiss the stock cooler as potentially usable for a slight overclock. At 20% overclock, the CPU is only running at 2.8GHz using the very same stock cooler the E6850 does to run at 3GHz. I'd only bother with a better cooler if CPU core temps were headng into the 70's or I was overclocking that CPU above 3.2GHz and extra CPU core voltage was required.Gary

Then if I bring the CPU up 20% as it says in the BIOS, would I need to do anything to the RAM or other voltage etc? In other words, what would happen if I just pushed the BIOS up to, say... 15%?

>Then if I bring the CPU up 20% as it says in the BIOS, would>I need to do anything to the RAM or other voltage etc? In>other words, what would happen if I just pushed the BIOS up>to, say... 15%?Unfortunately, no one can give you a direct answer to that question. It might work and it might not work in which case you would have to make other bios adjustments in an attempt to get it to work. Each CPU and each motherboard are unique. You'll have great overclockers, good overclockers and poor overclockers.The only way your going to know is to give it a try.

If I bring up the BIOS overclock to 5 or 10%, in VISTA, under SYSTEM - DEVICE MANAGER, there is a callout for my PROCESSOR. There are 2 entries there that say 2.33Ghz. I assume that this means dual core. When I increase the O/C in the BIOS only the second one shows an increase. Anyone know why this is? The first one stays at 2.33 while the second one goes to 2.45 ( I think thats what it said )

How are you accesing the BIOS via Windows?? There are apps that will allow you to make O/C settings via Windows but the best way is directly via the BIOS. Your BIOS is usually accessed during boot by pressing DEL, F1, F11 etc.

One of those listings is probably only reading the processor's name coded into the chips. The other is the detected speed. Use CPU-Z to read current clock speed. Also, Core 2 processors have energy saving features that will automatically lower the cpu multiplier, and thus, the processor speed depending on usage. For example, at idle, my Q6600 runs at a FSB of 370 and a multiplier of 6, giving me 2.220 Ghz on each core. At load, it will go up to 370 FSB and a multiplier of 9, giving me 3.330 Ghz. CPU-Z will give you realtime readings of your clock speed. http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

VIA Boot. Not thru Windows.

OK I'll check it out. How will I know if both core are overclocked and not just one? Will CPU-Z tell me this?TurnipSPECS:VISTA Home Basic 580 WATT Sunbeam PowerCrucial Ballistix 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAMASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6550ATI Radeon 3870 512250 GB WD SATA HD 120 GB WD IDE HD[/url]

>OK I'll check it out. How will I know if both core are>overclocked and not just one? Will CPU-Z tell me this?I'm having a hard time figuring out how in the h**l you could possibly overclock one part of a chip/cpu and not the other if your BIOS doesn't support separate OC of the cores. Just download cpu-z and trust the cpu frequency reported. Just trust it.Edited: Turnip, if you doesn't feel comfortable with the potential hazards of screwing something up with OCing, then don't. Or do a lot of research of how to OC your cpu and mobo. Have you visited Asus support forum yet? If not: Do it and look for other OCers and ask questions. You'll probably get more specific answers regarding your cpu, mobo and memory over there.Ulf BCore2Duo X6800 3.3GHz4GB RAM Corsair XMS2-8500C5BFG 8800GTX, Creative SB X-FiFSX Acc/SP2, Vista 32

Roger that ulfb. There is only one callout in cpu-z and it says 2.6 now that I have the BIOS set at 15% O/C I had gone to the ASUS web site last week and asked questions, unfortunately a guy went into the jargon that confuses the #### outta me. Understand that this is not a major issue for me. It is curiosity at best. I want to see how easy it is and if I feel comfortable, I'll give it a shot. I am of the mindset that if need be, I'll just buy a faster CPU. I will run this setting for awhile and observe the system for anomolies. At idle, my CPU temps are running at 36 and 39 with 15% O/C. I'll run FSX now and see what it does. Thx again everyone for the input.

>the ASUS web site last week and asked questions, unfortunately>a guy went into the jargon that confuses the #### outta me.Experts showing off instead of helping out is allways a PITA. But after reading some time you'll get into the jargon. Read some posts and articles on OCing every now and then and try to locate the settings in your BIOS. After a while you'll get into the jargon and how to proceed to safely reach a stable OC.Ulf BCore2Duo X6800 3.3GHz4GB RAM Corsair XMS2-8500C5BFG 8800GTX, Creative SB X-FiFSX Acc/SP2, Vista 32