AMD 64 3700+ Sandy OC?

I currently have a AMD64 3700+ San Diego cpu and never tried OCing it because I never had the need to but I wouldn't mind doing some now :P

Idle temp seems quite high, but it's summer here so roughly ~30 Celsius room temp during the day. Idle temp sits at about 46-8 degrees (although temp sometimes drops to 30 degrees for a few seconds, might just be a glitch I think, using MBM5 to check temps) and full load is about 54-5 degrees. Was just wondering if these are high temperatures for a non oc'd cpu and If not I'll start some OCing of it. The newer AMDs run cooler I think, am I right?

Also I tried searching to find a thread on someone who OC'd a 3700 Sandy but couldn't find any, also wondering how high they can go and still run stable on air cooling.

Case has 2 80mm intake at the front and 1 80mm at the rear and 1 80mm at the top. Using a Zalman CNPS 9000 on the cpu with AS5.

Woot another sandy.

Temps seem ok, a bit on the high side, but I live in Arizona and over the hotter months my were in that area, sometimes a bit lower, sometimes a bit higher. What kind of cooler are you using?

For threads, I think all my stuff is in the hwbot threads, Was running it daily at 2.75 for awhile, have gotten it up to 2.92, but I run it at just over 2.5 right now to work with my ram dividers.

Go slowly, maybe 10 mhz for the first few rounds, then go 5 then 2mhz increments etc... Keep your ram at or below stock at first, you can go back later and overclock it.

Best advice I got for overclocking (at least when going for a daily stable OC) is too change 1 thing at a time, boot windows, run super pi 4m to check quick.

If you start having issues throw it on prime 95 for a few hours.

REMEMBER to keep your bus speed under 1000mhz, that was always my biggest issue, your HTT multiplier is very important. You can sometimes get away with on slightly over but once I was at 1050+ it would start getting unstable. If everything of this is good, then if you feel like it you can start tweaking voltages.

Watch your temps, they shouldn't go up too much until you start adding voltage, and even then it seems like a pretty moderate increase.

In general though, athlon 64's are pretty dang easy to OC.

As for high how they can go on air, it depends I couldnt get over 2.75, other people get 2.8 on stock volts. Just test it and see.

Thanks for the reply. As for the cooler I got a Zalman CNPS 9500 on my Sandy.

In winter temps are much lower but air-flow in my college room isn't so good right now, the PSU exhaust goes up and hits a shelf so hot air doesn't really move.

Thanks for the info and I'll start testing it out once exams are over hehe.

Also running it at 2.5, what are your usual idle and load temperatures?

High 40's I believe. I'll have to check later.

But it used to run at low 50's with no problem, so you have some room to work with temps.

Ah ok, Installed a new program, pc wizard 2008, to check temperature and it's now reading at 31°C Proc diode temp and 39° Proc temp, which one should I go on?

No software reading is ever very accurate. I always use speedfan but just as a idea to get the general range of temperatures.

Hmm ok thanks, used speedfan for a bit and seems my proc temps are still high when ambiant room temps are low, 20°C ish at night. Still reads as high 40s even when on low load. I was thinking it may be a problem with the contact with the heatsink. I've used it for 2 years at the moment should I reapply the AS5 or lap the heatsink?

I've read reviews on my heatsink and it seems to do quite well according to them.
I lapped my old heatsink, CU-7000 Zalman, and it cut off 2-3°C when I did.