Clocked AMD 64 3000+ Venice

chrislocalboy

chrislocalboy

chrislocalboy

Associate
Joined
21 Feb 2006
Posts
330
Location
Stoke on Trent
Hello just asking for a little advice, recently had my first attempt at overclocking today, got my 3000+ (1.8Ghz) up to a 3500+ (2.2Ghz) and all seemed to be going well that was until I started to have a few games of COD2 Multiplayer, every so often when playing my PC will just throw up a plain blank blue screen and I have to reboot.

Does anyone know what this indicates or what could be causing this? is my CPU getting a little warm and throwing its dummy? after the reboot I ran Everest and it was telling me my CPU was at 45 degrees C but that seems an acceptable temperature but bearing in mind this was the reading after a reboot.

For now I have reduced my CPU to 2Ghz just to be on the safe side but have yet to test this with a COD2 session.

Any ideas, suggestions or views would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra SLI
AMD 64 3000+ Venice (clocked to 3200+)
2Gb PC3200 Corsair RAM
Sapphire ATI X800XT
 
You really need to test your clock with something a little more thorough! Download Prime95 (and memtest).

Run memtest to check your Ram (couple of passes should do it).

Leave it priming overnight (min 8 hours for comfort.) But when you start, keep and eye on the temps for the first 5-10 minutes - 45C is fine - wouldn't really want to go above 50C (but that's just me)

Sounds like you're not getting enough voltage to the CPU - on air a safe max is between 1.45 and 1.50 on the Vdd (CPU voltage) - Have a read of the sticky for basic tips - there is some good A64 stuff buried deep in there! :D

EDIT: In fact - just read this:

Definitive A64 Overclocking Guide

All you need (even if it is designed for DFI - the principals are the same!)
 
Last edited:
are you running with your memory in 1:1 because if you only have pc3200 memory that may explain your blue screen.

i am running my pc3200 (400mhz) memory at pc2700 (333) and have managed to overclock my 3200+ to 4100+ 2.6Ghz and the cpu voltage is set at 1.55Volts.

an example if i havnt explained propperly.

running memory at 400mhz, and set a fsb of lets say 234 that means your memory will be running at 468.

but if you set your memory speed to 333mhz and your fsb to 234 your memory will be running at 200mhz so it is perfect stability if you have the correct cpu voltage.

once you get to this point, you can experiemnt with overclocking the ram timings and pushing the memory frequency higher than 400.

i hope this helps a bit lol
 
Thanks for your replies guys.

So lets put this in total noob terms because thats what I am at the moment, in effect I need to turn my memory down a notch to enable it to be clocked back up along with the CPU Frequency?

The trouble with a lot of these guides is that every BIOS is different and the dumb manufacturers cannot all agree and stick to using the same terminology as each other and most of the time I dont have a clue what setting I'm looking for!

Dont know if any of you are familar with the Gigabyte BIOS but I have a section called MIT, which is basically the tweaking section, would one of you be able to maybe list some of the settings I should be looking for?as when you say are you running your memory in 1:1......... I have no idea :o) and from what I have seen already there were no settings in the 1:1 format.

Cheers

Just had a thought, I have some shots of my BIOS I got of the web, how can I add them into a thread so you can see them and then tell me which settings I need to change? Cheers
 
Last edited:
Yeah - screenies would help:

But basically:
Htt is the overall Memory communication speed and should be kept between 600 and 1000 (DFI's are good well beyond this, but there's no real gain to be had, the controller no longer bottlenecks like it used to in the old Socket A days.)

So... LDTxFSB=HTT
LDT (is the multi - between 3 and 5 should do you fine - normally 3 or 4 to make the magic 1000)

Decide what clock you want from your chip: FSBxMulti (locked on your chip) = speed.

Now you will probably be looking at about 250 FSB initially, fine for the chip, but not necessarily great for your memory.

So we set up a divider to slow the ram (CPUvsRAM) - in the case above a divider of 5:4 will give you a RAM speed of 200 - perfect :D (ratios 250:200 = 5:4)

That's the clock sorted (you can play with the memory timings, or leave that till later - just leave them on auto to begin with.

Next is voltage.

Cpu voltage: will probably need upping. Try going up in 0.05v increments until your system is stable (probably not above 1.45v on air :p )

Chipset voltage: again, up it a bit - shouldn't need to go too far, and won't have to option to overdo it normally!

Now give it a go - run memtest first to check the memory - then prime overnight! And repeat... and so on.
 
Ok thanks for the advice, I have read through a good guide I found on the net and had already put som of it into place by the time I saw your post and infact have Prime95 running as I type.

If I were to take some pics of the settings I have changed in my bios would you be able to take a look at them for me as I have found it difficult changing the settings as the guides use terms and phrases which most of the time is not the same as the terminology in my BIOS and see if I am on the right track and/or make some suggestions as to what I should change?

If so could someone please tell me how to insert a picture into a thread as I cant seem to get the insert image thingy to work, when I click it just asks me to insert some text..... I have tried putting in the location of the file but that dont work!!! please tell me how as screenies would make this thing so much easier!!!

Cheers
 
Yep - you need to have the pic hosted (I found the Yahoo photo gallery was useless as they kept changing the ip addresses :rolleyes: ) Once you've got the image hosted just click the 'Insert image' button and paste in the http:/ address.
 
Right couple of shots for you to examine;

http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=BIOS1.JPG

http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=BIOS2.JPG

Hoping these work so you can have a butchers, now I'm only running at 2.2Ghz at the moment and want it to run steadily at 2.4Ghz, I will be well chuffed if I can get it to that speed and it be stable..... not being greedy.

Let me know your suggestions or things that would think need changing.

Cheers

Oh heres my current setup

AMD 64 3000+ Venice
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI
Sapphire ATI X800XT
1Gb Corsair DDR PC3200 RAM 2 x 512Mb (but have 2 x 1Gb sticks to replace that on the way)
Stock cooler on CPU
500W PSU
2 x 80mm case fans
1 x 120mm case fan

And at the time of posting this (which is pretty much idle) I have a CPU temp of 28 Degrees C
 
Last edited:
Is there a particular reason that u have locked the ram to pc2700 speed rather than locking it to 200mhz (pc3200)?, erm apart from that possibly increase the fsb some more and test stability.
 
Wow... see what you mean about different terminoligy in the bios :rolleyes:

FSB=Cpu Frequency
LDT=HT Frequency

Can you work out what CPU Voltage Control is?
How do you alter your Normal CPU VCore? (Ideally up to about 1.45 if not stable at 1.40v)

Looks like your board automatically assigns a divider to the RAM (yay!) so set your Max Memclock back to 200Mhz (remember to keep checking it with memtest - then later you want to start tightening up the timings to as close to 2,2,2,5 as it will go - but you can play with that later) :p

Lower your HT Frequency to 3 (4*250=1000 which is good but any more will take the HTT too high!)

If you want to run at 2.5Ghz you will have to set Cpu Feq to 277.7777* - or 278 :D You can either just do this, or work up to it in steps - Me, I'd just do it - but not sure whether your board/CPU is up to it so... At least that way you'd know! (I take no responsibility for smoldering mobos :p )

Probably give it a go at 260 then 270 then 280 and see how it goes - memtest and prime each time. At least your bios should make a bit more sense now. Enjoy :D
 
Right fellas, made a few changes, a couple as per your suggestions and one of my own, since then my PC would not boot and would freeze upon entering the bios, luckily after resetting the cmos and setting the BIOS to boot from my SATA drive first I am working fine again (without the overclocking of course)

This is what I changed, I put the memory frequency up to 200Mhz, turned my HT Freq down to 3 and also lowered my voltage a little (CPU Voltage control in the BIOS Screenshot)

Any ideas as to what could have caused this? to be honest when it would not boot it scared the hell out of me as I actually tried to reinstall Windows as I was getting NTLDR is missing (only because BIOS had gone back to defaults and put my storage IDE drive before my main SATA)

Any ideas chaps?

Cheers
 
Why did you put the mem up to 200? that means its running 1/1 with your HTT (which it cant do)

Those numbers are not frequencies as such, they are ratios, so 100 would be 1/2.

The reason why they arte listed as freqs is that the listed number is what the mem freq would be if you used that ratio and the HTT were at stock

If that makes any sense?


EDIT.. Blatantly stolen from a post of Farooqm.. :p

DDR400=200Mhz=PC3200=1:1 - so if FSB set 200, your RAM will be at 200Mhz
DDR333=166Mhz=PC2700 - so if FSB set 200, your RAM will be 200*0.83 = 166Mhz
DDR266=133Mhz=PC2100 - so if FSB set 200, your RAM will be 200*0.66 = 132Mhz
DDR200=100Mhz=PC1600 - so if FSB set 200, your RAM will be 200*0.5 = 100Mhz
 
Last edited:
iraiguana said:
Is there a particular reason that u have locked the ram to pc2700 speed rather than locking it to 200mhz (pc3200)?, erm apart from that possibly increase the fsb some more and test stability.
Click to expand...

As said by Defcon5, those settings don't actually lock the memory to those frequencies, they're dividers so are related to the HTT of the CPU.
 
So what do I need to set it too then? 166?

Its just that it was suggested to turn it up to 200, guess a misunderstanding with the terminologies again!!

I had it running fine and stable at those settings, except I then got it running at the equivilent of 3800+ which I think was 2450Ghz with an FSB of 270, so if I set everythink back to what you see in the screenies apart from the increased FSB is there anything that you can see that obviously needs changing?

Thanks a mil.
 
Last edited:
Yeah - my bad - I read it to mean what it said - max freq=200 I assumed that the max freq it would run at would be 200 :rolleyes: Oh well - best bet would be to take the memory out of the equation all together - set it to 133 - then when you get to windows you can use CPU-z to check what you've actually got!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom