Windows 7 or CPU-Z? Question to the OC'ers

[Agro]

I overclocked my Core 2 Duo E7400 a few months back. Still running on a Freezer 7 HSF (though admittedly in an Antec 1200 Case, all fans set to low). Very happy with the results at the time I looked at CPU-Z (used to be called CPUID) and saw I'd got an OC from 2.8GHz to 3.8GHz. CPU temp rarely strays over 40C so, as I said, I'm very happy with the results. Just now though I strayed into Windows 7's "System" in the control panel and that's reporting a CPU of 4.21GHz

I know it makes no fundermental difference since I've got a cheap CPU OC'd to run very fast yet stay perfectly cool, but still. Which is it, 3.8 or 4.21?

[Colt.ps]

I've not a clue i'm afraid - not an overclocker - but from what I read, I'd have thought if the temps are good and no cycles are being skipped, the 4.21 must be better. *

* depending on the rest of the system architecture.

[Septic Osbert]

Have a look around in the bios for the processor multiplier and fsb speeds, multiply the fsb speed by the multiplier to find out the cpu speed.

For example, if the multiplier was x10 and the fsb speed was 250, the processor speed would be 2500mhz.

[Agro]

the E7400 runs at 422 and I've ramped it up to 10x from 6.5x so theoretically that's 4.22GHz

So i've been under selling the OC all these months! Ah well, epic result either way

I've a funny feeling the varying results have something to do with speedstepping, or am I mixing up my technologies again?

[Tasku]

the E7400 runs at 422 and I've ramped it up to 10x from 6.5x so theoretically that's 4.22GHz

Actually E7400's multiplier is 10.5. You may have dismissed the fine CPU clock ratio accidentally or on purpose, or your motherboard does not support setting half multipliers manually.
If Speedstep® is enabled in BIOS the multiplier 6.5 is set by motherboard automatically when the CPU is idle. Speedstep doesn't fiddle with FSB, but it does lower the core voltage, from what it is set in BIOS, when CPU is idle.

CPU temp rarely strays over 40 ºC

... when idle!
Try running Prime95 blend stress test for a while and monitor the temps with RealTemp or CoreTemp at the same time. If the temps are around 70 ºC you should be getting worried.
Another useful tool is CPUID Hardware Monitor, it shows you most important parameters of CPU, chipset, memory, HDD etc.
You could also try if your PC is stable enough to calculate 1 and 8 million digits of π with Super Pi Mod 1.5 and what is the result.

I looked at CPU-Z (used to be called CPUID)

About CPUID

CPUID was founded in 2007 and is an expert in hardware related softwares. With more than 1.5 million copies downloaded every month, the hardware detection freeware CPU-Z is the most famous product of the company.

CPU-Z doesn't show you the temperatures and memory votage, but it has been the most useful OC tool for a while. It does show the core voltage, but not too accurately.
The voltage range specified to this processor is 0.85V - 1.3625V, but it should be safe to go up to about 1.45V - 1.5V. If you are letting the motherboard handle the core voltage automatically, there is a chance that your CPU is getting a little bit too much volts, as the motherboards tend to overvolt. If you have set voltage manually you should be aware of what is your motherboards Vdrop (the voltage your CPU is receiving is lower than what it is set in BIOS by x.xxxV) and Vdroop (under load CPU voltage will drop further by x.xxxV). CPU-Z and HWMon will show you how much voltage your CPU is actually getting.

On the BIOS side there are other things you should pay attention to: automatic overclocking (different manufacturers have different names for this function) should be disabled, memory performance enhancement should be disabled, PCI-E clock should be set to 100MHz manually (if it is set to auto it will go up proportionally with FSB and may cause graphics errors)... to name only few.

[Colt.ps]

what he said


nice one Tasku

[MacNetron.ps]

Best thing I know to read temperatures is Speedfan. Might require a bit of tweaking possibly to map all temp-readings to components...

[Tasku]

HWMon shows all the same temperatures as Speedfan without any tweaking. Speedfan shows also some bogus readings that it is not smart enough to filter out and it is incapable of reading S.M.A.R.T. data (including temperatures) from all drives/chipsets (my relatively old 320GB SATA drives on ICH10R Southbridge don't show up on Speedfan) for which HWMon can display the temperatures. Speedfan is developed by only one man and thought even it is occasionally updated, its support for different chipsets and mainboards is lacking. Some information and labels can be edited and bogus info removed, but there is always something missing.
Mainboard manufacturers have all developed their own system monitoring programs, Gigabyte's Easy Tune for example will show you everything you need and allows you change clocks and voltages right from your desktop.

[SleeperService.ps]

I use http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ for cpu temp as speedfan has defeated me at times, cant be aresed to configure it.