First time overclocking

MG42Maniac

MG42Maniac

MG42Maniac

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Hi,

I recently got a new setup (see sig). I deliberately picked components I thought would allow me to overclock to 2.4GHz - 2.6GHz with not too much trouble hence the DFI board, artic cooler and semi decent RAM. Now i've only ever overclocked a video card ( simple move of the slider :p).

I get the basic idea of how clock speed is made up. I.e HTT x Mulitplier. If I have looked it up right the 3700+ has a 11x multiplier so to get to 2.6Ghz I need 236 HTT. I know my RAM won't do stock timings @ 236Mhz so do I run a divider or loosen the timings? I ideally want the best performance. I had a very quick look through the BIOS but could not see a divider option, but then i'm not very familiar with my new BIOS. I did find the options to set the memory timings and I think they are set to auto?

I also went into BIOS and under Genie settings and raised the HTT from 200 to 205 giving me a clock speed of 2255MHz. I assume this is how you overclock an AMD64, I've read up on a few guides on the net but none of them seem to give you a good guide with pics. I don't really want to mess around with volts as i've never overclocked before unless it really is simple and safe.

Also about stability, I will most likly **** myself if sirens go off inside the case so what stability tests would you recommend? I know the usual is Prime 95 but if there anything that will really test for stability that does not take hours? Also does the DFI motherboard lock the PCI frequency by default?

If anyone could give me some pointers I would be most thankful

Edit: The stepping for my CPU is: KACAE0552FPBW, i've seen people getting 2.8GHz with a KACAE stepping but i've no idea under what circumstances.
 
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NICE system dude!

You are right that you raise the HTT to overclock the CPU and increase the divider on the memory to keep it at the speed you want.

Have a look on DFI Street for loads of info on the board.

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20823



A few pointers:

1) I would recommend flashing to the 623-3 BIOS.

2) The memory speed is determined by the CPU speed / divider.

e.g. you run 11 x 230 = 2530 Mhz on the CPU.

If you run a 140 divider on the memory, it will actually take the 2530 of the CPU and divide by 13 = 194.6Mhz. (As opposed to just doing 230 * 140/200 = 161 Mhz). Hope that's clear.... :)

I can highly recommend running the memory on as tight timings as they can do, even if it means keeping them around 200 Mhz. For games this will more than likely give the best performance. If you want the system for video encoding, you MIGHT find higher memory speed and slacker timings is best.
 
Thanks for the advice.

I read through th DFI stickies which I found to be of good use. This is what I plan to do when somene confirms its right that is so I don't damage my hardware :)

Unfortunatly silly me forgot to buy a floppy drive so I can't update my bios :( Was there something worth having in the 623-3 BIOS?

Anyway If I use a divider to run the RAM at 180MHz that effectivly underclocks the RAM from 200 Mhz to 180Mhz while still preserving a 2.2GHz total clock. If I now move the FSB from 200 to 220 that will give me 2.6Ghz? ( 12 x 220?) But would the HTT be too high at 2200MHz, so should I drop down the multiplier?
 
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Ok cheers I used a program called 'winflash' to download NF4LDB14.ZIP.
Flashed it using the program and I assume i'm know running the latest BIOS. First thing i'm going to do is drop the RAM down to 180MHz and start raising the HTT.
 
Yeh, use the BIOS Boot CD. I don't have a FDD either. Hate the things.

Re: HTT - the DFI board should do 300 HTT without sweating. I've run mine up beyond 330. That was with a 9x multi chip (Venice 3000). I'm on a 10x multi now. Have a look at my sig to see what I'm running on the CPU and memory.

Also, an excellent article here:

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

In essence, it's ALL about the CPU speed. Sure, clocking the memory is nice and sees you some gains, but DO NOT sacrifice CPU Mhz for memory Mhz.
 
Ok little update to make sure i'm doing things ok.

I dropped RAM to 180MHz and increased HTT to 210 and got this:
23ghz3fw.jpg



Am I right in thinking all I need to do is keep moving up thr HTT in steps of 10MHz and running stress tests after each 10MHz?
 
yeah you got plenty of head room with volts and such so up it by 10/20, boot into windows and run something like super pi ( quickly testing it) then do it again or you can do it the stupid quick way like i did and try and jump in at a certain point ( i went it at 2.6 and then start doing little tests up until 2.8 then full tests)
 
Ok cheers now at 2.4GHz so i'm happy but i would love to hit 2.6GHz. I am assuming random restarts, freezing, BSOD etc indicate an instable system. Regards to Super PI what size test would you advice?

CPUZ gives this

I am getting to the point now where my RAM is back upto 201MHz so sohuld I drop it down from 180Mhz to 160Mhz?
 
might not be need as your ram may be able to handle higher speeds, i dont really know, depends on how much futher you can push your fsb but for now yeah i'd put it down and then fiddle with it later when you reach max cpu OC and yeah they are pretty much what tells you you have a problem.

with regards to super pi you could run one around 8mil if you want for a quick test and then when you start hitting the higher OC you can start running snm small tests/prime but this is only how i did it, i dont know what other people may reccommend.
 
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Ok Ran 3DMark 01 and my scores gone from 28.5k to 30.6k so thats shown a nice healthy increase. I'm gonna try for 2.6GHz now. Would now be a good time to take the HTT multi down to x4 as I am hitting the 250HTT mark if I go to 2.6GHz.
 
indeed it would be altho the HT limit on your board may be different as i think some are, all i know is mine is 1000 ( i think :p )
 
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Success!
26ghz9dy.jpg


I don't really want to go any further i've reached my target of 2.6GHz. Now I need to make sure shes rock solid. Do I need to add some more juice to the CPU to ensure its stable? I was thinking of running a 16M Super PI and all the 3dmarks. Would that ensure its stable?

Only thing i'm not liking is this:
ntune9sc.jpg

It appears i've gone over the red line...
 
yeah mine does that on ntune but i dont know what it means and i never use that.

whats your Vcore in the bios ? from the looks of things you can still get more out this chip rather easily but if you want to stop there and give it a full test generally 24 blend test on prime95 is the test
 
Raise the volts and show that chip whos boss!

Id put the cpu up to 1.5 and everything else up by ine notch and go for 3ghz
 
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