Setup & Volt Mod:

To make a long story short; I have two ASRock boards and none has vcore adjustment provision. Since the last pin mod went smoothly, I assumed the same would apply here. Besides, I was not planning on pushing the vcore in more than a couple of settings. I figured when a processor is willing you don't need to do much work and it would run its course; otherwise, I would be working for the processor rather than the other way around by adding expensive cooling and memory, etc.

My last E4400 was pushed to 3.27 Ghz at a rather high 1.55vcore. The Stock Intel Cooler was holding on its own inside a case until we had our "Indian Summer" in the Mid-West, USA. At almost 31°C room temp without A/C, the system had a slight CPU throttling. With my recent trip to South-East Asia a couple weeks ago, the high temp and humidity made me think twice before I up the vcore too high for a few MHZ gain. I have since reduced the vcore to 1.45v and settled in at 3.09 GHz.

I was pleased to find out the E4500 default at only 1.185volt, and planned on no more than 1.4 volt no matter what CPU speed I could attain. For a few dollars saving, this is an OEM processor. I paired it with an inexpensive Intel 775 P4 631 Cooler for a mere $8.50. I figured they both have similar thermal load and ought to be sufficient.




When I received the Cooler, it is almost the same as the one came with E2140 retail pack; Genuine 100% aluminum with slightly smaller fan blades.

Setup:

• ASRock 4Core1333-Viiv P965
  
• ASRock 4Core-eSATA P31
  
• G.Skill PC2-6400 2x1GB
  
• Seagate 500G 7200.9 HDD
  
• Scythe Kamariki II 550 watts PSU
  
• NEC DVD Optical Drive
  
• ChainTech 7600GT
  
• Intel Stock P4 631 Cooler & TIM
  
• Windows XP Pro SP2

Including ..... small amount of kitchen tin-foil, Scotch tape, AS-5 for gluing purpose.

Without much of a thought, I went for 255FSB at default vcore. It was nice to watch it passed OCCT.



CPU temp did not even break 40°C at about 21°C ambient. A bit more than 2.8GHz, I was doubtful it would go any higher with only 1.18 volt. Here is where I was stopped cold. The default voltage was much lower than most C2D default of 1.325 or 1.285 range; I had a difficult time to find out the pin mod configuration at 1.1875 default.

I dropped a note in our [M] secure forum looking for help, hoping one of our resident Gurus would wake up early enough to guide me through. Geoffrey responded; a few minutes later, I was rescued from the lack of vcore.



A spreadsheet with built-in Macro that calculates VID locations depending on varies default vcore to the desire increase. I know most enthusiasts will use motherboards that will have at least some sort of vcore increment, but most low end boards don't and some PC users including myself are "cheap" or "challenging" enough not to have one. This table will sure come in handy. I will leave a link at our forum for those who are interested in keeping a copy; many thanks to the guy who wrote the table.

While you have heard often times that most overclockers get their hands on highly motivated processors achieving 3.4, 3.5 and 3.8GHz C2D speed at or slightly over default vcore. Don't look at me, I am lucky enough to have a slight above average overclocked speed at the best of my time.