Northwood - max safe vcore?

My 1.8A is a bit of a dud for overclocking, at 2.4GHz it needs 1.8V to boot
reliably into win2k without BSODing, and 1.85V to make it through a
worthwhile Sandra burn-in session. This is a little scary, as that's the max
my mobo (Asus P4S533) can supply - 1.7V in the BIOS, plus a nominal extra
0.2V jumper setting, monitor reports as 1.85-1.87V.

I tend to assume that if it's stable and the temps are ok (40°C idle, levels
out at 55°C under load when the fan kicks up to 5000rpm), then no damage is
being done, but I still feel a bit uneasy with a 25% overvolt on vcore. I
know this has been discussed plenty before, but is there a concensus as to
whether it is safe to run that high a voltage permanently?

Tony

Tony A. wrote:
 > My 1.8A is a bit of a dud for overclocking, at 2.4GHz it needs 1.8V
 > to boot reliably into win2k without BSODing, and 1.85V to make it
 > through a worthwhile Sandra burn-in session. This is a little scary,
 > as that's the max my mobo (Asus P4S533) can supply - 1.7V in the
 > BIOS, plus a nominal extra
 > 0.2V jumper setting, monitor reports as 1.85-1.87V.
 >
 > I tend to assume that if it's stable and the temps are ok (40°C idle,
 > levels out at 55°C under load when the fan kicks up to 5000rpm), then
 > no damage is being done, but I still feel a bit uneasy with a 25%
 > overvolt on vcore. I know this has been discussed plenty before, but
 > is there a concensus as to whether it is safe to run that high a
 > voltage permanently?

IIRC, the chance of being hit with sudden northwood death syndrome increases
rapidly as you move above 1.7V vcore. So at 1.85V, you've got a high chance
of killing your northwood very quickly, regardless of the temperature.

--
Michael Brown
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