Can anyone help me overclock?

just Scott · 16 Sep 2006 at 20:38

Hey guys, first post here.

I would like to overclock my computer, basically I want slighty better performance out of it. I'm not expecting to go far with it, just a little until I get better at it.

Here is my computer specs:

ASUS A8N-E
Athlon 64 x2 3800+
1GB Corsair DDR RAM
Leadtek GeForce 6600

I have been reading about overclocking for a while, I've read through many articles/guides (including the sticky here). It's pretty complicated stuff. I basically have stock cooling, a 120mm fan that comes with my Sonata II case and the stock AMD heatsink. My average temperature at the moment is about 38-40 degrees C.

So, if anyone has any experience with this hardware it would be greatly appreciated if you could give me some tips on where to get started.

Thanks a lot.

just Scott · 17 Sep 2006 at 18:57

Anyone? Please?

easyrider · 17 Sep 2006 at 19:03

There is a guide at the top of this page.

Do a search there are hundreds of threads on x2 3800 overclocking.

Defcon5 · 17 Sep 2006 at 19:07

Essentially...

Lower your HTT Multi to 3 (from 5)

Lower your ram divider to 266 (from 400)

Raise your HTT in small increments til you fail pi 1m

Raise vcore to 1.45, ram to 2.8 and chipset 1 increment.

Raise htt again til you fail 1m

Lower htt til you pass prime/occt/whatever

post back here them we can sort out your ram timings

just Scott · 17 Sep 2006 at 20:42

Defcon5 said:
Essentially...

Lower your HTT Multi to 3 (from 5)

Lower your ram divider to 266 (from 400)

Raise your HTT in small increments til you fail pi 1m

Raise vcore to 1.45, ram to 2.8 and chipset 1 increment.

Raise htt again til you fail 1m

Lower htt til you pass prime/occt/whatever

post back here them we can sort out your ram timings

OK before I do this (I'm new, sorry) should I do the first two changed right after each other? Or do one change, run PI, then go back and make the second change etc.

I've never really used PI untill just this second, how will I know if I fail 1m?

Thank you so much for the help by the way.

And one more thing, what you're telling me to do, it will be fine on stock cooling yeah?

just Scott · 17 Sep 2006 at 22:41

Oh and I just did a search anf found that the best Vcore to use was about 1.5v. Should I set it to that (or slightly less) right now? Even though I haven't started yet?

Just thinking that if I set it now, I wouldn't have to worry about it later.

Anyway I'm going to bed, I'll check back to this thread tommorrow. If anyone can post anything that could help I would really appreciate it, and I'll get to work on doing those things you listed tommorrow Defcon...because I still don't quite understand at the moment.

Defcon5 · 17 Sep 2006 at 22:47

Yeah do the first two straight off else your ram will fall at the first hurdle.

You can always set the vcore higher to start with, you can lower it later if needs be.

Get some temp sensing software, dont let your cpu go over 55c else ul be in trouble. You might want to invest in a freezer pro, think their only about 15 quid.

You know if you fail pi as it will throw up an error box saying something.
Its also good as you can see the difference your making to the speed of your cpu.

just Scott · 18 Sep 2006 at 08:14

Defcon5 said:
Yeah do the first two straight off else your ram will fall at the first hurdle.

You can always set the vcore higher to start with, you can lower it later if needs be.

Get some temp sensing software, dont let your cpu go over 55c else ul be in trouble. You might want to invest in a freezer pro, think their only about 15 quid.

You know if you fail pi as it will throw up an error box saying something.
Its also good as you can see the difference your making to the speed of your cpu.

Sound, thanks mate.

I'm using ASUS Probe to monitor my temps, and I was thinking about the freezer 64 pro, will come in handy (I'm guessing I just replace it with the AMD stock heatsink yeah?). I'll order it after school. I'll also do those things you said above after school too.

Thanks again.

A.N.Other · 18 Sep 2006 at 09:23

Click my sig for a guide of what you can do.

As above, download some decent stress testing software - I use SP2004 and Pime95 mostly. Then, before you change any clocks, lower the RAM multi (from 400, as above) and the HT multi (may be called LDT multi). Also, make sure that your RAM is running at the correct voltage (check the corsair website) - my Corsair XMS runs at 2.75. Then you can raise the HTT. Raise this to about 230 - that should be managable on stock volts and then in 5s after this. After each increment, stress test (making sure you are stressing both cores - SP2004 does this automatically, which is why it's good). If you see any instability (the programs will tell you), reset and bump up the VCore.

Basically, keep on with this process but watch your temps - if loaded you're getting much above 55C then stop and see if you can lower the VCore a touch whilst retaining stability. Don't bump the VCore up to start with, as if you don't need the increase for the sake of stability, it's better for the chip if you're running at a lower voltage.

As I said, use the table in my sig image as a rough guide (there will be people in there with your mobo etc). Also, be sure to give me your results in that thread when you're done

Don't be afraid to ask questions before you start if that isn't clear - it's better to know what you're doing before you do it

.

just Scott · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:20

A.N.Other said:
Click my sig for a guide of what you can do.

As above, download some decent stress testing software - I use SP2004 and Pime95 mostly. Then, before you change any clocks, lower the RAM multi (from 400, as above) and the HT multi (may be called LDT multi). Also, make sure that your RAM is running at the correct voltage (check the corsair website) - my Corsair XMS runs at 2.75. Then you can raise the HTT. Raise this to about 230 - that should be managable on stock volts and then in 5s after this. After each increment, stress test (making sure you are stressing both cores - SP2004 does this automatically, which is why it's good). If you see any instability (the programs will tell you), reset and bump up the VCore.

Basically, keep on with this process but watch your temps - if loaded you're getting much above 55C then stop and see if you can lower the VCore a touch whilst retaining stability. Don't bump the VCore up to start with, as if you don't need the increase for the sake of stability, it's better for the chip if you're running at a lower voltage.

As I said, use the table in my sig image as a rough guide (there will be people in there with your mobo etc). Also, be sure to give me your results in that thread when you're done

Don't be afraid to ask questions before you start if that isn't clear - it's better to know what you're doing before you do it .

Thanks mate.

I'm about to go do those changes now. Stupid school, gets in the way of everything. >_<

And yeah, I have SP2004 Orthos because I read it stresses both cores. I'll make to report the results to your thread after I've finished too.

EDIT: Right, I just looked in the BIOS and couldn't find HTT multi or RAM divider. I'm assuming they have different names, and I found these: Hyper Transport Frequency and Memclock index value. I'm assums they are HTT and the RAM divider, correct?

As you said, just making sure before I go ahead and change anything.

A.N.Other · 18 Sep 2006 at 16:51

Yer, those are the ones.

The memclock should be on auto and will display 400, 333, 266 etc when you go to alter it (some BIOSes may display this number div 2 ... so, 200 to 133 etc).

The HTF will be either set to auto or 5x (maybe displayed as 1000). Going to alter it will display 4x down to 1x (or 800 down to 200, depending).

Good luck

// EDIT // A little more explanation ...

With the RAM, drop it to the first option down after the 400 to start with. When you're clocking, watch the RAM speeds (CPUZ will do this if you don't have it already). When the speed gets to about 215, drop the value in the bios again. The Corsair RAM will be able to go above 215 pretty easily, but you can play with that later.

With the HT multi, drop it to 4x to start with. This needs to be dropped to 3x if you get above 2500MHz. As a rule ... FSB x HT Multi <= 1000.

just Scott · 18 Sep 2006 at 17:38

A.N.Other said:
Yer, those are the ones.

The memclock should be on auto and will display 400, 333, 266 etc when you go to alter it (some BIOSes may display this number div 2 ... so, 200 to 133 etc).

The HTF will be either set to auto or 5x (maybe displayed as 1000). Going to alter it will display 4x down to 1x (or 800 down to 200, depending).

Good luck

// EDIT // A little more explanation ...

With the RAM, drop it to the first option down after the 400 to start with. When you're clocking, watch the RAM speeds (CPUZ will do this if you don't have it already). When the speed gets to about 215, drop the value in the bios again. The Corsair RAM will be able to go above 215 pretty easily, but you can play with that later.

With the HT multi, drop it to 4x to start with. This needs to be dropped to 3x if you get above 2500MHz. As a rule ... FSB x HT Multi <= 1000.

Sorry if I'm being a pain, but I don't want to mess this up.

Alright, so this is what I'm going to do first.

Lower the Hyper Transport Frequency to 3. Then the Memclock index value to 266. Then Defcon says to "raise the HTT in small increasements", this, I'm assuming is the CPU frequency, so I'll raise it by ~50, log back on, stress test, if no probs, go back and raise it again, logg back on, stress test again etc. until I fail. Then raise the Vcore to 1.45, Defcon says "RAM to 2.8" what exactly does he mean here? And after that "chipset 1 increasement", what's that exactly aswell?

I understand the second part, about watching the RAM speeds. I should be good there thanks.

badboyz · 18 Sep 2006 at 17:55

2.8 = 2.8V: The voltage that you are giving to your ram. Set it to 2.8V. Chipset increment: Increase the voltage of your Chipset (Motherboard) by 1 increment for stability if your system is not stable after running Prime95 for example.

just Scott · 18 Sep 2006 at 17:58

badboyz said:
2.8 = 2.8V: The voltage that you are giving to your ram. Set it to 2.8V. Chipset increment: Increase the voltage of your Chipset (Motherboard) by 1 increment for stability if your system is not stable after running Prime95 for example.

Alright, and by "increase HTT in small increasements" he means increase CPU frequency?

Just making sure.

badboyz · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:05

H2F Scott said:
Alright, and by "increase HTT in small increasements" he means increase CPU frequency?

Just making sure.

"Raise your HTT in small increments til you fail pi 1m" = Your HTT of your RAM. If your system is running at DDR400, the default HTT for the ram will be set to 200. 'He' means increase that figure (200) by a little bit e.g. 201 then boot to your desktop and run SuperPI. However, i think with that ram you could start off a little higher e.g. 215 for example.

A.N.Other · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:11

Yeah, you've got it basically. The HT Multi can stay on 4x until you go over CPU Frequency of 250, when you should drop it to 3. TBH though, this makes virtually no performance difference, so many people just drop it straight to 3. Either is fine, it's up to you.

I would imagine that on stock volts, the CPU should be able to do 230. Jump to here and stress test it. It'll save you some time.

A.N.Other · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:12

badboyz said:
"Raise your HTT in small increments til you fail pi 1m" = Your HTT of your RAM. If your system is running at DDR400, the default HTT for the ram will be set to 200. 'He' means increase that figure (200) by a little bit e.g. 201 then boot to your desktop and run SuperPI. However, i think with that ram you could start off a little higher e.g. 215 for example.

?! He means the CPU Frequency unless I'm greatly mistaken. Nothing to do with RAM.

badboyz · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:17

A.N.Other said:
?! He means the CPU Frequency unless I'm greatly mistaken. Nothing to do with RAM.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, quite unexperienced with OCing. However, i think (i hope) he got what i meant. He is trying a similar OC as to what im trying to achieve

just Scott · 18 Sep 2006 at 18:55

A.N.Other said:
Yeah, you've got it basically. The HT Multi can stay on 4x until you go over CPU Frequency of 250, when you should drop it to 3. TBH though, this makes virtually no performance difference, so many people just drop it straight to 3. Either is fine, it's up to you.

I would imagine that on stock volts, the CPU should be able to do 230. Jump to here and stress test it. It'll save you some time.

OK here's what happened.

I lowered the HTF Multi to 4, RAM divider to 266, upped the CPU frequency to 230, ran Ortheos blend test. While doing this test my CPU temp went from 35C all the way up to 52C after 18 mins of stress testing. That's a little too high don't ya' think? This is at stock volts.

So, here's the choice. Order my Arctic Freezer 64 Pro (this good enough? Any other recommendations? I don't have much money right now, 15 quid on this is great at the mo'), wait for it, and then carry on OC'ing. Or order it now, carry on until I need to raise the Vcore.

Not so sure about the second option, I probably can't go much further than 230 without having to raise the Vcore now anyway can I?

I think I'll just wait 'till I get better cooling.

Oh and one more thing. I bought the retail 3800+, and I've been reading about thermal paste. The retail CPU will have it applied right? Because I didn't apply anything, and I didn't get any paste either. I should have some applied though right? If not, should I buy some now along with the CPU cooler?

A.N.Other · 18 Sep 2006 at 20:16

52C is OK ... 60 is too hot. You want to watch out if you're getting much above 55C.

An freezer 64 pro would be a good choice, or a scythe ninja or scythe mine. I have a Zalman CNPS9500 cooling my X2 3800 @ 2500 MHz to about 40/41C fully loaded. I think it's a good cooler and would highly recommend it.

Do you have any thermal paste on there at the moment - sorry didn't understand your post - sounded like you weren't sure. You'd know if there was - you'd have to apply it from a tube or it would be on the bottom of the heatsink already (a grease-like stuff). You shouldn't really be running the CPU without thermal paste on it. Anyway, Arctic Silver 5 would be the best choice for the thermal paste and instructions on how to apply it can be found on their website.