Overclocking Your P4 800FSB - Testing
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That word above, "Testing," is key. The only way to determine if your rig is actually stable at the overclock you programmed into the bios, is through testing with various programs. For me, getting into Windows and getting a screen shot isn't a good determination that my computer is stable for what I do day to day. Yes, I use it for work. I wouldn't appreciate it if I'm doing a lab, and my simulation kicks out wrong numbers because it miscalculated something, especially as I have no way of knowing anything is wrong unless it crashes out. This is where programs like
Memtest86, and
Prime95 come in.
Both Memtest86 and Prime95 are the kind of benchmark I like for stability testing. They test against
known results. Both are also extremely picky. If you can run both of these overnight, then you know your system is going to be stable. Memtest86 is run from a boot disk, in DOS. This is to ensure that it's able to use all of your memory (that's all it tests, memory stability). Prime95 is run in Windows, and puts a large strain on both your CPU and memory. If you can pass both tests, move on up the speed scale. If they fail out, head back into the BIOS, and change things around. Add more voltage, change memory timings/ratio, or drop your overclock back down a few notches. However, here's a few words of warning. If you are getting above 1.75V for the core voltage (CPU), don't go any further. Northwood core P4's have a disturbing tendency to die without warning over this level. Also, you basically aren't going to be able to keep a CPU running that kind of voltage cool. If you have to jack it up that high, it's time to get better cooling to continue your OCing adventure.
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