Basic Concepts of Overclocking Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs

Restore BIOS defaults

To start off, it’s very  crucial to understand that you should eliminate any “green environmental” behavior of your motherboard along with any auto-adjusting features. Simply put, we are going to push hardware up to its limits, meaning that overclocking and low power consumption can’t live together under the same chassis. Similar technologies that dynamically adjust your CPU frequency (like Turbo Boost) should be equally disabled; because we need to have the full control of our computer, instead of automatically adjusting itself on demand.

It’s crucial to disable all these auto configuration settings; if you don’t then it’ll be much harder to identify what’s the faulty parameter in case of instability or failure.

That has been told, get into the BIOS and load optimized defaults. Please disable spread spectrum settings, EIST, Turbo Mode, C1 and lock your PCI frequency to 100MHz and enable LLC (Load-line Calibration). Save and Exit from BIOS.

Although it’s not necessary but recommended to turn off  any start-up slash screens, so that you can view your system’s post behavior. Also, feel free to disable any “integrated peripherals” that will not be used (i.e. NICs, extra PATA/SATA controllers, legacy devices, blah blah etc).

If your motherboard fails to post after changing certain settings, you will have to locate and reset the CMOS. Resetting the CMOS restores the BIOS to its factory settings and is a “hard” reset of these settings. Please read your motherboard’s manual and familiarize yourself with Clear CMOS jumper — you’re going to need this most likely in case of overclocking failure to restore hard-reset settings.

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