amd 64 3000 overclock, have I reached the limit?

[oxygene]

Ok I got from 1.8ghz clock up to 2.4ghz with zero problems. I upgraded my ram to 2gb recently and had to start from stock speed, but I got back to same clock without trouble. I upped it again to about 2.48ghz as it is now, and temps are still about 45c under load. But I have now some instability. As in windows will restart or freeze at random nitervals, usually when playing a game.

I tried upping the voltage steadily to now 1.6 from 1.4, and see no difference in temp or stability. Could it be the ram thats having problems? I clocked it down to 333 before clocking the cpu higher again but its now at 456fsb. Should I try downing it again to 300 base? Or whatever is the next lvl.

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

2GB will cause strain on the CPU's memory controller, which is often the weak point.

If you use a divider and keep the memory around 200 Mhz, you will most likely be able to clock the CPU higher. This in itself will increase the memory bandwidth.

Remember - the CPU is key to the overall system performance, but as you are finding out, clocking an AMD64 can be confusing. When you think it's your memory giving up, it's often the CPU's on-die memory controller, so you either need to clock the CPU down (bad) or drop the divider on the memory (really not bad at all).

Excellent article here:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/athlon64oc/

(My findings are the same).

HTH?

Jimbo