overclock help for amd x4 630.

hi all,
just built my 1st rig an trying to learn to overclock.i have a gigibyte GA-M68M-S2P motherboard,2x1GB of ballistix RAM,unknown 700W power supply.i have no graphics or other cards as i'm saving the money for my amd965 build in progress.2 weeks ago i got the 630 from 2.8 to 3.0(just over),i left it there as i only have stock cooler,all was fine an i would pass P.O.S.T with no worries temp were at 37 to 39 celcius maximum,i was using stock voltage of 1.310 in v-core,FSB at 215mhz.however yesterday i started to get the message;WARNING-STARTING IN SAFE MODE-PLEASE RESTORE CPU SPEED SETTINGS.why is this?it was fine for the 2 weeks,yesterday was hot an muggy an cpu temps did reach 41 C aat one point but iknow its not that.have i ruined my chip?i've gone through clearing CMOS,i am running fine at 2.9 GHZ,but want to go higher.

just to help the RAM is ddr2 800mhz-and am using BIOS version F1.

thanks for reading.any help appreciated.:help:

Try putting this in the hardware section. Maybe a mod could move it?

Well, always a good idea to update the BIOS, as I'm sure there are far newer versions than the first one.

Then, there are two possibilities: either the CPU (less likely) or the MB (more likely) is not very good at overclocking, so you may need to increase voltages to get stable operation (a bit of a warning in advance: raising voltages increases temperatures and power consumption significantly).

as Queelis suggested, firstly update the BIOS to the latest version if it's not already. as for the warning message you got, it may have been that Windows detected a change in CPU speed and attributed a system crash towards this.

with the latest BIOS you may find things to be more stable, but the ability to overclock does rely greatly on the motherboard used.

follow the standard route of raising the clock speed by 2 at first, then by 1 when things start getting unstable. run a PRIME95 test for at least 15 minutes between clocks to determine whether the speed you are running on is a) stable, and b) not running the CPU too hot. when things start getting less stable, up the Vcore voltage, but be aware that as stated above, this can **** things up if you aren't careful. take a look online to see what other people have been able to get it too

keep in mind that sometimes an extra 50-100mHz isn't worth burning out a chip..

and finally read a guide at Toms Hardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...hlon,2161.html