Under voltaging the cpu?

[Deagle]

I know that when you raise the vcore it makes the cpu hotter and it can be dangerous so if I want to make it run cooler. I can make the voltage lower right? There shouldn't be any negative effect or is there? Example, a cpu default voltage is 1.6 but I lower it to 1.4, is that a bad thing?
Thanx:cool:

[gwallen4]

If you incrementally lower the voltage, you will discover that the voltage can possibly be reduced from 1.60v. to 1.55v but probably not to 1.40v. At some voltage, the computer will fail to boot, and depending on your motherboard, you may have to reset bios before it will boot again.

Also you may not gain much in the way of lowering the operating temperature, and your computer may not be as stable as you desire operating at reduced voltage.

Really, the only way to reduce the heat output is to underclock the CPU. You could also provide more efficient cooling by getting a better heatsink/fan and/or insuring that the flow of air through the case is optimal.

Please post your specs, particularly your CPU specs - Athlon, Pentium, speed, model.

[Deagle]

Haha, thanx Gwallen but I prefer to overclock rather than underclock.
:p

[saphalline]

Today's CPU's get their heat output almost entirely from "leakage", aka electronic tunneling. Unless you also underclock your CPU, lowering the voltage will likely do nothing but starve its transistors. That creates instability, as already noted.

Likewise, the only situation where you'd want to raise the voltage would be overclocking. Using the above reasoning in reverse :p, if you overclock and have system instability, it can sometimes help to raise the CPU core voltage. This creates more heat, but if it lets one gain more precious MHz... :rolleyes: