How far past an intended clock speed is "safe" to overclock? Ok, so I know that overclocking isn't recommended.....but I'm doing it anyways

I've got a Celeron D 2.93ghz 533 fsb which has been overclocked to 3.12 ghz for nearly a week now with no problems at all (even while playing battlefield 2142).

Question is, how far can I overclock it before I blow it up? My mobo will support up to a P4 3.4 ghz 800 fsb cpu....so do you think I can OC this celeron to 3.4 without errors/issues/extreme meltdown resulting in catastrophic failure and ensuing fire? Also, when will I know when to much is to much (system instability etc.), like what signs to look for?

My cpu cooling fan is rated up to a P4 3.4 ghz/800 fsb cpu, and I've got 1 80mm and 1 120mm case fans (both exhaust) and a cooling fan on my gfx card and a fan on my psu, so I think I'm fine with cooling.

Plus, if I blow this up then my wife has to let me get another one.....which means that I'll step up to a P4

Well I did some reading on overclocking my processor, until I realized this certain type of Dell,like most, won't let me. What I did read is just keep doing it slowly and gradually until you do finally find a limit. That way you don't blow up your processor or anything else (even though watching it blow up might be cool as well as a good excuse to get something better ). You could also use liquid nitrogen to cool it off and get it up to 5.4Ghz. http://youtube.com/watch?v=IVSgtskg5sE lol if you haven't seen that watch it sometime, its pretty cool. Well sorry I guess this wasn't really helpful.

You can never blow it up (well, not without my help! Actually, you'll melt it. But before that it'll generally just quit working.

Heat is the enemy here - too much heat and you shorten the lifespan of the CPU significantly. The more heat, the shorter the lifespan.

CPU overclocking is an art form - there's no real recipe for doing it. You experiment until you get what you want - or you fry the CPU doing it.

Sweeeeeet! So, what you're telling me is that I can put it to (or upwards of) 3.4 ghz and it'll either die or work fine?

Thanks for the help usasma!



Hey Sterling14, any input is good input IMHO! I just appreciate people replying! As for the liquid nitrogen......well, that's a little out of my league! Perhaps I should try water cooling then liquid nitrogen...you know, like crawl before you walk! LOL!!!!!

BTW Sterling14, I do plan on increasing it gradually as to not ruin anything (or try not to!) So see, that was indeed good advice!

Actually, it will die well before reaching temperatures of that extreme.