Could my machine run faster?

DEL 707

DEL 707

DEL 707

Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2004
Posts
4,610
Weren't sure whether to put this here or in general hardware.

I built my machine over a year ago and I've had a few "fun and games" with it over that time, RAM in the wrong slot, FSB too low, windows set to single core etc :p.

I've now got a nice working and stable machine, but I'm worried that it's running slower then it should. After trying the latest Supreme Commander demo and watching it crawl along and hearing about people with similar specs playing it fine, I'm feeling a little disheartened.

Here are my specs:
MD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit
BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)

Here are some pics of CPU-Z to show my settings.
CPUZ1.JPG
CPUZ3.JPG

CPUZ4.JPG
CPUZ5.JPG


I'm a bit of a clueless overlclocker, I tried to get my RAM past 250, but no matter how high I raise my FSB (it's at 265 at the moment), it doesn't make any difference.

I've managed to get the CPU past 2.3ghz, even up to 2.4ghz and work in windows, but ORTHOS always throws up errors. I havn't played around with the CPU voltage etc, pretty sure it's set to auto.
Is there a way I can check that XP is using dual cores, I remember messing around with the boot.ini ages ago, just want to make sure I still don't have it running as a single core.

I havn't messed around with the PCI-E FSB or with any of the GFX card settings, since I'm not sure what I'm doing.

Other then that, I'm using the latest Nvidia drivers for the GFX card and motherboard, the bios is up to date. I remember downloading some drivers ages ago for the CPU, but I'm not sure which 1's to get these days.

Any ideas/advice is greatly appreciated.
 
Got help with the PCI-E problem, looks like I had it in the 2nd slot, put it in the 1st slot and it's running at 16x :)

It looks like my CPU voltage is on auto, but I'm not sure which setting to change, on my motherboard I have.

CPU vid startup value
CPU vid control
CPU vid special control

All seem to relate to the voltage.
 
Just trying it now, not many units on screen but it's running very smooth, a noticible difference :D
Can't believe it though, 1st the RAM, now this, just because I had them in the wrong slots :o

Got it running at 1600x1200 with high detail on "Level of detail" and "texture detail"

Still want to have a go of getting this CPU to a higher setting though ;)
 
Thanks for all this help.

I've lowered the FSB to 220 and changed the ratio to 11, machines running at 2.42ghz at the moment and seems steady, I upped the voltage to 1.39 as well. I have no idea what that LTD function does, but I changed the "LTD FSB Ratio" in the bios to 3.0.

I really am clueless when it comes to RAM dividers, I don't know what they mean or how they work.

Here's the last 3 selections in my bios

200 = RAM/FSB : 01/01
233 = RAM/FSB : 07/06
250 = RAM/FSB : 05/04

Can anyone explain what they mean?

I've been running Orthos for about 10 minutes and the machines looking stable, I installed speedfan to keep an eye on the temperature as well, but it's confusing me a little. Is "Temp 1" the actually CPU temperature, because it seems very similar to what my bios is saying, it also increased when I started Orthos. The "CPU" temperature actually went down. :confused:
 
What's the top level I should raise my CPU voltage to?

My RAM should reach 250 without a problem? I'm hearing a lot of conflicting views :o
 
Ahh thanks for that, was wondering why people weren't emphasizing on me hitting 250 with the RAM.

I'm currently not using a RAM divider, FSB is set to 250 with a ratio of 10, so my CPU's up to 2.5ghz, voltage is 1.408, I ran orthos for 45 minutes, no problems detcted, but my CPU temp did go up to 52c, so I'm starting to wonder if I should leave things as they are.
 
Was playing around with it a little more last night, probably wasn't the wisest thing to do at 1 in the morning after a few beers :p

These are my current settings.

CPUZ6.JPG

CPUZ7.JPG
CPUZ8.JPG


I'm pretty happy with how things are running, I can probably lower my CPU voltage, I had it higher last night when I was trying to get the speed higher.
I can't seem to hit 2.6, I tried raising the voltage to 1.49v but Orthos came up with errors. Are there any more settings I could try.

Thanks for all this help by the way, my machine has gone from feeling average to high spec, only wish I did all this a year ago. :)
 
MoodyB said:
66c on 1 core is very risky afaik. And one of your hd's is at 53c which is also pretty hot. Most hd's recommended operating temp is between 5c - 50c or 5c - 55c, can't remember which....
Click to expand...

That hard drive's faulty, it runs that hot on other machines, even if it's outside the case :(
 
Quick question about Speedfan, which temperature do you pay attention to? CPU Temp or Core Temp.

The CPU temp seems to be all over the place, while the core temp is more in line with the rest of the programs.
 
Defcon5 said:
The temp on coretemp is the temp of the cores (no, really :D) wheras the max recommended temp (of 65c) is at the IHS (IIRC)
Click to expand...

Aren't CPU temp and Core temp the same kind of thing? :confused:
Also what's the IHS?
 
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