Just upgraded my system from an E8400 and a crappy board to a EP45-UD3P, Q9650, nvidia GTX 285 OCFU and kept my old ram which is corsair twin2x4096-6400c4DHX on winxp pro 32bit and just started learning about overclocking.After doing a bit of research and learning the theory and methods of clocking similar systems, I am completely surprised at the amazing results I am getting and I am really wondering why my system is taking the overclock so well, as well as wondering if I am doing something wrong or just plain lucky... Here are the details...I am clocking the system specifically for FSX/accel and the J41 from PMDG... The system is running rock solid at these settings... 3.6 gigs at 9x on the CPU multiplier, 400 on the FSB, memory multiplyer is 2.0 to keep the ram frequency at 800, now heres the baffling part... After doing stress tests at a CPUVCore of 2.26 with all other voltages at auto in the bios my hottest core was running up too 67c, so I made it a goal to run hottest at 55ish, so I started lowering Vcores to see where the system would hang... I got down to 1.10v in the bios on the CPU Vcore and it finally wouldn't boot, then next boot raised Vcore to 1.15 and it passed the stress test for a good hour at a max temp of 55c with an indicated Vcore of 1.12v in CPUZ :( , so then I started working on the other CPU voltage settings. Last stress test for an hour passed at these voltages CPUVcore at 1.15, CPUTermination @ 1.20, CPUPLL @ 1.50 and CPUReference @ .76. Now I know this isn't a very agressive Overclock at 3.6 gigs, but these voltage settings are really low and the chip after an hour doesn't even vreep up past 54c and the gains I have got in FSX are profound for sucha small increase. I mean I went from running the PMDG J41 at stock values with a descently smooth locked 30fps to an amazingly Icey smooth locked 30fps with 70 percent stock FSX traffic and autogen set to very dense and full blown rex thunderstorms. My question is this... Am I doing something wrong? Could these voltages be too low and possibly damage the system? How is it that sucha small OC can make sucha huge difference? Why am I seeing others with similar systems having to run such higher Vcores to attain similar OC's?ThanksJB

My question is this... Am I doing something wrong? Could these voltages be too low and possibly damage the system? How is it that sucha small OC can make sucha huge difference? Why am I seeing others with similar systems having to run such higher Vcores to attain similar OC's?

Probably not - I have no experience with OCing a Q9650. But as you say: it's not an agressive OC. When I OCed my i7 940 (default 2.9GHz) I could get it up to 3.8GHz with only a minor increase of core voltage. All other settings on Auto except the RAM timings. But going to 4GHz needed a big increase of core and qpi/dram voltage, which of course made the temps go up.Too low voltages will only result in an instable OC/system. Too low voltages won't harm your mobo or CPU. If that would happen you could imagine the result when you turn your system off :-) Too high voltages might damage your hardware.

The only voltage that is dangerous to run too low is QPI/DRAM on a i7 system. The rule with that voltage is it must live within .5v of DRAM voltageas for what is being reported above, this is normal for a Q9650 processor. They are well known for running 4GHz+ at decent voltage so a 3.6Ghz clock to that processor is really nothingI would however caution that just because you pass in stress tests does not mean you will be stable in long term heavy load 3D. It may require a bit higher CPU voltage than what your stress tests indicate is stable. You will know if that happens.The only other boost I can see is moving to DDR2 1066 @ 5-5-5 timing and trying for a 450SFB/4Ghz clock. You will find both northbrige and CPU voltage will need to come up and success at that FSB is problematical to the design of the motherboard and how well the voltage regulation is designed/filtered however the P45 chipsets were not known for being stable much over 410FSB but there have been P45 boards that are known to hit over 450Sound like everything is running fine to me. Enjoy it

The only voltage that is dangerous to run too low is QPI/DRAM on a i7 system. The rule with that voltage is it must live within .5v of DRAM voltageas for what is being reported above, this is normal for a Q9650 processor. They are well known for running 4GHz+ at decent voltage so a 3.6Ghz clock to that processor is really nothingI would however caution that just because you pass in stress tests does not mean you will be stable in long term heavy load 3D. It may require a bit higher CPU voltage than what your stress tests indicate is stable. You will know if that happens.The only other boost I can see is moving to DDR2 1066 @ 5-5-5 timing and trying for a 450SFB/4Ghz clock. You will find both northbrige and CPU voltage will need to come up and success at that FSB is problematical to the design of the motherboard and how well the voltage regulation is designed/filtered however the P45 chipsets were not known for being stable much over 410FSB but there have been P45 boards that are known to hit over 450Sound like everything is running fine to me. Enjoy it

Thanks for all the replies, it makes me feel more comfortable as a Newb system tuner. In regards to going further, I am more than happy with the results. I see no need to go past a rock steady locked 30fps with the settings almost maxed and perfectly smooth track Ir panning across the PMDG J41 VC. One last question though... What would be the smallest indications of an unstable system due to low voltage settings? I'm aware that CTD's and boot failures, even shutdowns would be a sign of instability, but what would be the less noticable sign to look for?JB