Need to overclock?

BloodWolf

BloodWolf

BloodWolf

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Before we start, i'll post my specs:

Asus a8n-e ultra nforce 4
amd x2 3800 - artic cooler
ati x1900xt 512mb
2gb mushkin dual channel
320gb seagate

here's my cpu-z stuff: http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=131871

Basicly I got on Super PI for 1M I got 45 seconds and people say it's bad

FatRakoon said:
It seems just a tad slow.

Admittedly, My winchester 3200 gets 42s on stock, and I feel, that all thigns considered, the 3800x2 should have been a much better CPU, the fact is, its not. Ok, so its a good clocker, but then the winchester clocks further, so for most things, the Winchester is a better chip in my eyes...Dont give any stuff about this SSE3 rubbish, its not shown me anything that needs it, wants it, or anything?

Anyway, your CPU will overclock... Maybe by not much, but maybe by a fair bit, I dont know?

That will really depend on your Motherboard. This is not the place to talk about overclocking, so put a post in the correct section, tell us your PC specs and lets see if we cant get you below that 45second mark yeah?
Click to expand...

So i'm a first time overclocker, aka a noob! :D

So if someone can help me out..

thanks
 
Man this computers dumb.

I put the thing up to like 210, it didnt change anything.. it just stays the same

and yes, i did save before i exit the bios.

could my motherboard be naff? because it wont change any of the clocks its stubbon :|
 
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Got virtually the same setup as you (minus the posh ram of course).

try this.

Turn off Cool n Quiet.
Turn the HT Bus speed from auto to 3x (you can try 4x but ensure in CPUz it doesnt say more then 1000MHz for the bus. The A8N-E doesnt like much more than 1100MHz, it freezes solid! 3x bus wont hamper your GFX card much as thats tonnes of bandwidth.

ENABLE floppy (Even if you dont have one.... if this is disabled overclocking wont work. Its a known bug with the A8N-E mobo). This is a MUST if you want to oc this board.

Nick into your ram settings and turn down to 333mhz for now. Ensure your timings are correct for your ram (available probably in the rams instructions or on the mushkin website).


Go into the Jumper free config. Set overclocking to manual. lock the PCI bus to 33mhz. If this value raises above 36mhz things will start to go wonky :). In the past this hampered overclocking.

Raise your Bus speed to 240. Set the CPU voltage to 1.35 (i managed 2.6GHZ at stock voltage on my CPU - maybe im lucky). Set the multi to 10x.

Give this a try. If it hangs just after the bios or when the XP bootloader kicks in drop the ram down a notch. If it resets whilst loading XP give your CPU a little more volts. I dont think your ram will hamper your efforts as much as me.

Depending on your temps you may get away with 2.4GHz on the stock cooler. I can run 2.8GHz through my 3800 on the stock cooler although it gets toasty - 55c at full load. SuperPI completes in 31 seconds or so instead of the leisurely 43 I get at stock. Sandra (benchmarking tool) grades it neck and neck with a stock FX62 at 2800MHz.

Hope this helps, let me know how ya get on :)
 
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BloodWolf said:
Man this computers dumb.

I put the thing up to like 210, it didnt change anything.. it just stays the same

and yes, i did save before i exit the bios.

could my motherboard be naff? because it wont change any of the clocks its stubbon :|
Click to expand...


Enable the floppy in the BIOS and it will spring to life... seriously!
 
Well done! Thats not too bad at all. Why dont you try for 2.6GHz?

The CPUz link there shows your HT bus running at 721MHz. I asked you to put the HT bus at 3x to take that out of the equation as it crashes the system if it goes over 1000MHz+. You can pump that back up to 4x (as 4HT x 240 Bus = 960MHz) - you wont see any real improvement AFAIK but its nice to have it running close to its intended speed. Once we go over 250MHz bus we need to use 3x as 4x 251MHz = 1004MHz... You get the idea :)

So, 2.6 GHz. Depending on your temps this could be the sweet spot. Ive noticed also that you have the Toledo core, Ive got the Manchester core. Not sure how the mileage will go with that difference - I presume that one will top out before the other, the Toledo core was used in the larger chips x2 4400/4800 etc. So the potential is there as its likely that your chip just didnt quite make the higher grade bins on production for whatever reason.

I realise you have pretty high quality ram there. Can you remember what it was graded at PC3200? or was it one of the Low latency/High speed specimens? Mushkin Webby. If its the Redline PC4000 we can clock that too :).

Im thinking the best way is to attach some screen grabs and what I have changed from my initial instruction on the previous post.

Here goes.


Stock - Probably the sight your used to.
HT BUS 4X Setting now!
2400 - What we did above, RAM to 166/333 on a 12 divider.
HT BUS 3X Setting
2500 - Nothing much changed, just upped the Bus speed to 250. HT multi set to 3x!!
2600 - At this point I had to turn my RAM down again to 266 (you may not as mine is Value, Yours is quality). Try at 333MHz if it hangs at the bootloader turn it down a notch. Try to avoid as turning RAM down affects your PI time!
2700 - This is where it gets fun. Ram is down at 266 on my machine here SuperPI time at 34 (likely to be 32 if the RAM did 333MHz). Upped the voltage slightly to 1.375v. VDimm voltage at stock as the ram is still running under DDR400 speeds.
2800 - This is where things get toasty for me. I have to crank up the voltage to 1.45v to get Windows to boot without BSOD. RAM still at 266MHz. SuperPI down to 32Secs.
2850 - This is where I've gone to so far with stock cooling. CPU temps jump so fast and voltage is at 1.5v now. You will notice the SuperPI time has dropped back to 36secs which initially stuns you but then its because the memory is way back at 200MHz. If i had some decent memory and could run 266MHz I reckon SuperPI would read 30secs dead.

To prove to myself that the 2850MHz was actually running I ran the Sandra Arithmetic test. Picture here.

Hope this helps and let me know how you do. I wouldnt go past 1.5v by much as the temps do get a little hairy. You may find that your chip has extra cache which has been disabled im not sure if this will effect your temps...

The A8N-E is a great board actually. Until you hit the vcore limit at 1.5v. I guess this is why DFI gets raved about for the hardcore clockers. But for us guys on air dare I say it, I think it's one of the best. Apart from that damn floppy drive/overclocking bug. Even then thats a set and forget fix anyway.

Hope this helps - let me know how it goes :)
-Jon
 
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Hmm that is odd. Although I use the Windows drivers for PATA it certainly thinks that im running Multi-Word DMA Mode 2.

How have you got the DVD drive connected? If you use the 40pin ribbon cable try the 80pin one (if i recall Asus gave us one each with the board).

I use the 80pin cable with a Liteon 8x burner.

There is an area in the BIOS which allows you to select DMA mode... If you go into the BIOS and select the DVD drive from the main window. It will give a new window where you can set PIO/UDMA and shows the capacity. Ensure these options are on Auto. Pop back to the main screen and goto Advanced/IDE Function Setup. Ensure that IDE DMA Transfer Access is 'Enable'.

I cant think of anywhere else in the BIOS these options can be set. Im pretty sure swapping the cable and checking these options will do the trick :)

Good luck with the clock. It will be interesting to see!

Cheers
-J
 
indeed :D

i see where i can set udma mode in bios.. but its only Auto/Disabled i can select.


the cable thats connected is the one that says "CD Rom Drive" on cable.. ive tried puttin it on slave and master didnt do anything though
 
totalllama said:
*snip
Click to expand...

Spot on help there Jon.

Exactly my findings at 2.8 as well, although down at 2.75 at the mo ;)

Did you try running your HT at 4? Im running at 2.75 and my HT Clock is 1075 and still very stable.
 
Hi again guys :)
Hmm lets see...

BloodWolf said:
indeed :D

i see where i can set udma mode in bios.. but its only Auto/Disabled i can select.


the cable thats connected is the one that says "CD Rom Drive" on cable.. ive tried puttin it on slave and master didnt do anything though
Click to expand...

I think we could try the ribbon cable labeled Hard Drive on this one. You will notice the difference between the two if you have a look. The hard drive one has 80 pins/wires on the ribbon... CDROM has 40. This may make the difference depending on the drive. Checked my settings and everything is Auto for me. The next suggestion is to unload the nVidia PATA driver and see if the MS one allows you to change. :)

markyb said:
Spot on help there Jon.

Exactly my findings at 2.8 as well, although down at 2.75 at the mo ;)

Did you try running your HT at 4? Im running at 2.75 and my HT Clock is 1075 and still very stable.
Click to expand...

I scared myself before with this - when I first moved over to AMD64 processor (admittedly from a P3 800) I didnt realise the HT bus existed. I ramped up the clocks sending the HT bus sky high and it knackered my onboard sound and USB controller. It was funny for a while as sound would play at 2x the speed it should!

Since then Ive done some digging and the arguement at the moment seems to be that the HT bus on boards at the moment doesnt like going much over 1000MHz. The other arguement is that having it lower, to a certain point, doesnt degrade performance as devices on that bus just dont need 1000MHz. I guess it would run fine at 1075MHz but when you calculate it bidirectional that comes out at 2150MHz which is pushing a wee bitty and after my scare im cautious :)

El Jimben said:
His RAM timings are currently at 3-3-3-8, could he try and put the CAS Latency to 2.5 or would things start going wrong?
Click to expand...

I think he could screw those timings down a good bit - it will certainly give apps an edge. Following the overclocking examples above, he hasnt overclocked the RAM at all - some cases its underclocked by up to 20MHz. If he has the Mushkin Redline PC4000 RAM it will run at DDR500MHz @ 3-3-2-8 1T out the box. At 400MHz id hazard that he may be able to do 2-3-2-6. So there is a trade between timings and speed. I think that those timings at 500MHz may be a little conservative by Mushkin so its a case of trial and error. Tweaking the memory would be best done with the CPU at stock or even underclocked (lowering the multi to 5 or 6x to eliminate the CPU).

If he has the Redline PC4000 memory he could possibly run the ram at a 1:1 ratio with the CPU clocked at 2.6GHz. Now that would be pretty darned fast provided his cooling is up to the temps at 2.6GHz. His processor should run 2.6GHz with 1.4V or less (0.5v less more than stock - mine did it at stock).

Cheers
Jonny
 
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Cool I think the cable might just make the difference :)

I think ive found your memory kit on the Mushkin site. Linky Seems that its rated at 3-3-3-8 @ 400MHz which isnt bad. I reckon it might do 2.5-3-3-7 1T. It might even achieve 420-430MHz on an overclock but not much more. Think concentrating the timings would yield better performance than bumping up the bus speed :)
 
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