Overclocked my P4 3.06

[DSM Storm]

Guys, Im kind of new to this, but lately I have been playing with my P4 system. Its an Alienware Roswell with an Asus P4PE board and a P4 3.06 cpu. I have the board set at 3.4 mhz (23x148) and have set the motherboard to auto adjust the cpu voltage and memory speed. @ 3450 the computer makes it to windows and eventually crashes. I know I can stabalize the system by increasing cpu voltage, but my question is how much it too much?
For memory, im running samsung pc-2700 with 2 512 chips. I did turn down the memory speed and that seemed to help it some. I also have the board auto adjusting pci/agp speeds. The cpu has a fairly decent sized heatsink with a small fan on it, no major brand name but it seems to be doing ok. At the original speeds, the cpu temps were at 116F at idle, and now i see anywhere around 125F with light duty tasks and this is going by asus pcprobe. I have been so out of the computer thing for quite a few years now, im just starting to get back into it. A friend of mine said there is a way to unlock the multiplier in the P4 processors? i did not think this was true, can anyone relate? What do you guys have in mind for P4 cpu cooling?

Thanks,
Storm <--FNG

[Darthgary]

For the voltage, take it up about .50 Volt if still unstable drop it 50 Mhz.

For the cooling, get a Swiftech HSF.

Yeah forgot to mention that unlocking the P4 is impossible.

[beppodmime]

As for unlocking multipliers on the P4, your friend is mistaken. There is currently no known way to unlock the multipliers on the P4. As far as cooling goes, if you have the stock HSF, you could try something along the lines of a Thermalright SLK 800 or 900 with a good, variable speed fan like the Thermaltake Smartfan 2.

With the voltage, just turn it up by the smallest increment possible, boot to windows and run some sort of full-load stress test, like Prime95 to check for stability. If that's not enough, keep going, the smallest increment possible at a time until you get a few hours of stability under full load.

Other HSF recommendations you're likely to get include the Vantec Aeroflow, good cooling at low noise levels. I've had experience with the AMD version of this cooler, and it works very well. Never had personal experience with the Thermalright units, so I can't offer personal experience on those.

[DSM Storm]

My biggest concern at the moment is cooling, I found last night a setup from thermaltake, its a subzero4G and its fairly priced at around $125- or at least I think thats fairly priced, what do you guys think of that setup? My last question is the core voltage, what is the most the processor should see? I dont know much about the topic but I have heard that the P4 cannot withstand higher core voltages as opposed to the Athlon?

Thanks
Aaron

[beppodmime]

I don't personally think that any air cooled peltier would be worth it's weight in salt, much less 125 dollars. Yes, it's a novel idea, but don't think you'd be getting any sort of super cooling from it. A Peltier can only be as good as the medium with which the heat is taken off of the hot side, and in my opinion, you may as well not have a peltier with an air cooled heatsink. The peltier is just adding heat to something that probably cannot handle it. Or if it does, it's going to be just as effective without the peltier, and probably with alot less noise. Get yourself a good quality air cooled heatsink, or if you're feeling spendy, take a look at the water-cooling kits from Swiftech, Innovatek, or DangerDen.

As for the voltage, putting it up into the 1.8-1.85V range would worry me a little bit for extended periods of time, but you should be able to do a decent overclock on that chip and keep it under 1.7-1.75V. Only go as far as you're comfortable with. More voltage with compound your heat problems, so take it a small step at a time, and only give it as much as necessary to make it stable.