Overclock or Unlock an Athlon II x3 445 Rana
 

Alright I have and AMD Athlon II x3 445 Rana and I dont know if i should unlock or over clock I have a stock cooler but i dont plan on pushing it so much it reaches those deadly temps.
It is like 30C Idle I dont know what it is under load yet because i just got it . Any thing is helpful

Overclock after you find out what your current load temps are and work your clocks up to the max you want your load temps to be.

both unlock and overclock it

OK i tried unlocking it and in windows the task manager says there are 4 cores and
cpuz/occt says it is Phenom II X4 B45
Im running occt but since im a new to over clocking and everything I will just leave it on and check up on the temps ever 15 min tell me if you think its a good idea

thats good and thats great that it unlocked :) even at stock a quad gives better performance than a clocked tri would do for a while. just wondering did it unlock to a deneb or propus (does CPUz see any L3 cache)

It must be a propus but Cpuz shows it as a Deneb No l3

I ran occt for a while just to see how hot it gets
When i ran it for an hour the highest it reached was 46C will all cores on full load

That's plenty safe :)

plenty safe knock some clocks up lol

Alright I but i have no idea how to do it on my bio-star bios.
IT shows some options like fsb but when i press enter to change it nothing happens .
I guess i will spend my extra time learning how to use it.
Oh and i couldn't find the bios manual im at school so when i get home Ill post what exact motherboard i have .

One thing to remember malcolm2608 take your time, read and learn how to overclock. There is no need to rush it. Congrads on the unlock!!

That is probably because you have to click the space where to put a new number, enter a new number, THEN press enter and it changes ;)
I found that out, got a little frustrating at first, but the more mistakes you make or the more you don't know, you WILL now know or know in the near future.

Thanks man :D

This is the first little screen shot of my little progress. I increased the fsb from 200 to 210 and im running a short little test . i already tried 210 but it crashed after occt ran for a few minutes. The temps im not sure there accurate but the bios says so. At max the cpu dosent really go above 55C. At some time in the future im going to get a better heatsink and fan but not right now :D tell me what you think http://i55.tinypic.com/30kwxmc.png