Undervolting your CPU

Since my motherboard sucks at overclocking quad core cpus (which I learned after upgrading to a quad)  and I need to tinker,

I've started undervolting my CPU (an intel Q9550).

(Hoping that in addition to lower temps and electric bill, if I get the voltage way down then there will be some headroom to try and overclock later)

The basics are: go into bios, set cpu voltage control to manual, lower vcore a notch, run prime95 (with round off checking on) for a couple hours to test for errors. If none are found,  repeat.

These guys were able to shave 21 watts off of their power usage (under full load)  which is nothing to shake a stick at. (They are also comparing the stardard chip to the 's" model that costs $150 more and already has it's voltage lowered by default)

This can also lower your CPU Temps!!! (and thus lower your required fan speeds)

This guy go some big drops!

This guy boasts some big temp drops even with OC on his i7:

13% overclock
30% undervolt
28% less increase in temperature

I've managed to get mine down from 1.2 volts to 1.104 so far. Will be sure to post my final results.