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.
 
It's running on both cores. Cpu-z shows 2 cores as detected.

If you really want to check Windows is detecting them then go to

Start ---> Settings ---> Control Panel ---> System ---> Hardware Tab ---> Device Manager

Under the tab marked 'processors' you should have two processors being shown if Windows has detected both Cores.
 
DEL 707 said:
CPUZ3.JPG
Click to expand...

I'm not too clued up on PCI-E settings, but there's something going on with your motherboard / gfx card, as Cpu-Z is showing your PCI-E gfx link width at 2x, when it should be 16x. Unless it's a bug in Cpu-Z :confused:

As you're running a DFI Lanparty, and your X2 4400 is doing 2.2ghz on 1.31v, I'd expect you could overclock your cpu to at least 2.5-2.7ghz, as long as you have a good heatsink / case ventilation.
 
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.
 
DEL 707 said:
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 :)
Click to expand...

Did the Supreme Commander demo run better with the card in the proper slot ?
 
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 ;)
 
You need to put the ram on a divider, its maxed out at 250, divide it down and then raise the fsb some more.

That board was made for tweaking ram, id kill to get my 3500LL in it
 
Townlea said:
Increase the multiplier and you want 1.39v < thats stock... atm you are undervolting it :)
Click to expand...
The multiplier should be 11, try setting the FSB to 220 and put your RAM on a divider, that'll give you 2.4GHz on the CPU, it should easily be able to cope with that at stock volts. See what the temps are like, check for stability e.g. prime95 or Orthos (if you can be arsed!), then increase the FSB by another 10MHz and see if it likes it or not. If it doesn't, increase the vcore by a little, then rinse and repeat etc :)
 
Defcon5 said:
Also lower the LDT multi to 3
Click to expand...
Lower it to 4 for HTT/FSB upto 250MHz, then lower it to 3 thereafter. You want it under 1,000MHZ when overclocking but it doesn't matter if it's lower than that, you won't lose any performance.
 
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
 
DEL 707 said:
What's the top level I should raise my CPU voltage to?
Click to expand...

That's mainly depends on how good your cpu heatsink is. Ideally you should try and keep your full load temps ( use Orthos ) under 55c. If you can stay under that, then 1.5v on air cooling is as high as you would want to go.

Then again, if you're temps hit 55c+ with 1.4 or 1.45v, then 1.4v / 1.45v is your limit :)
 
Hi,

Don't worry about the ram, anything around 200Mhz or above is fine with the A64. The performance difference isn't much, most benifit is from cpu speed so concentrate on that.

Regards

AD
 
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.
 
DEL 707 said:
I really am clueless when it comes to RAM dividers, I don't know what they mean or how they work.
Click to expand...

ca49a2eeed5cc2d6f3108d632bb72bce.png


All you need to know.

Those ones you quoted are to put the ram freq of 233/250 when your HTT is still at 200, multiplying it up rather than down
 
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. :)
 
/pokes Del

Nice overclock there :) What antivirus are you running? as that can slow things down if using Norton.
 
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