Overclocking: Leave voltage as is?

I'm running a 3500+ (90nm) processor on an AN8 ('Fatal1ty')
motherboard, and I've overclocked it from 2.2 to 2.5 GHz. However, the
voltage remains at 1.4 despite having multiple options in BIOS. Should
I up the voltage? If so, how much? Could I be damaging the processor by
leaving the voltage as is? I've not encountered any problems, but it
does seem as though it would require more juice.

The only reason you'll need to up the voltage is if things get unstable.
The trade-off is that you get more stability with more voltage, but you
also get higher temperatures, which can cause instabilities if your
system isn't cooled correctly. 1.4V the core voltage seems low, but I'm
not an expert. I'm running my XP-M 2500+ @ 1.8V. As fast as I know,
AMD Athlon XP chips run at 1.65V, and the XP-M chips run @ 1.45V by
default... but if you can run @ 1.4V, all the power to you!

JB

aether wrote:
I'm running a 3500+ (90nm) processor on an AN8 ('Fatal1ty')
motherboard, and I've overclocked it from 2.2 to 2.5 GHz. However, the
voltage remains at 1.4 despite having multiple options in BIOS. Should
I up the voltage? If so, how much? Could I be damaging the processor by
leaving the voltage as is? I've not encountered any problems, but it
does seem as though it would require more juice.

It seems to be running steady. The only side effect to increasing the
voltage (I went from 1.4 to 1.5), was a slight increase in temperature.
(from around 40c to 47) I'm currently back at 1.4.

as long as it runs stable, there is absolutely no
need for increasing the voltage. A lower VCore
results in a cooler CPU and therefore longer life
and maybe even a more silent system. (if you have
temperature controlled fans)

aether wrote:
It seems to be running steady. The only side effect to increasing the
voltage (I went from 1.4 to 1.5), was a slight increase in temperature.
(from around 40c to 47) I'm currently back at 1.4.

They're temperature controlled. I'll leave it at 1.4. I am curious,
however, why it is that some with AMD processors, which are not very
old, speak of using voltages much higher than 1.4. (from 1.6 to even
1.8) Is this because of the motherboards, extreme overclocking, or both?

Thats because they are talking about a Athlon XP.
The standard VCore for this model is 1,65 Volts.
Therefore increasing the voltage to 1,8 is not
such a huge step. (But even there an upper limit
for convntional cooling)

I would recommend stress testing your CPU to make
sure that everything is running stable.
The Ultimate Boot CD is a good tool for doing so.


aether wrote:
They're temperature controlled. I'll leave it at 1.4. I am curious,
however, why it is that some with AMD processors, which are not very
old, speak of using voltages much higher than 1.4. (from 1.6 to even
1.8) Is this because of the motherboards, extreme overclocking, or both?