Before overclocking, I did some research online. There were two websites I visited often: Tom's Hardware and Hard Forum. The HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) guide on Tom's Hardware provides an introduction on overclocking, and the Hard Forum database provides a reference on each CPU overclocking limit.

Before overclocking, my CPU Vcore was at 1.250. I increased this voltage to 1.300 when I began. At the same time, I relaxed the ram timing to 6-6-6-18. Since my motherboard can handle FSB 1333Mhz, I set my bus speed to 333Mhz right at the beginning. Then, I restarted and booted to window. Window booted up with no problem. Next, I set Window to run in high performance mode, which my computer can run in 3.00Ghz constantly. Lastly, I used SpeedFan to monitor the temperature. Everything look good so far.

Next step, I lowered the CPU voltage (-0.01) one increment at a time. I was able to lower the voltage to 1.250. To test stability, I ran two instances of Orthos and set affinity to all CPUs. At Vcore 1.25, I received the blue screen right away. therefore, I increased voltage by 0.01, and rebooted. Window started fine, but as I ran Orthos, blue screen showed again. I repeated this step and increase CPU voltage 0.01 one increment at a time. As I reached Vcore 1.300, Orthos ran smoothly without BSOD. After 4+ hours of Orthos CPU stress test, my CPU was stable at 3.00Ghz. (Please see screenshots below)

After CPU was stable, it was time to configure the ram timings. Throughout the configurations, my ram voltage stayed at v2.0. First, I lowered the timings to 5-5-5-15, and reboot. Window started fine, therefore I lowered the timings again to 4-4-4-12. This time, I was unable to boot into window. I relaxed the timings one at a time to 5-4-4-12, and reboot. Window had no problem starting up. Next, I rebooted and ran Memtest86+. The ram test ran for 4+ hours and produced no error. Therefore, my ram was stable at 5-4-4-12. (Please see screenshots below)

Orthos Stress Test (4+ hours)

Memtest86+ (4+ hours)