My first proper overclock :)

[Mark A]

Hi,

Well i bet you've all seen this millions of times but this is the first time Ive overclocked properly and I'm pretty pleased with it so far.

I tried overclocking my old CPU (3200+ winchester) and managed to get it to 2200 from 1800, any further and it BSOD on me .

I plucked up the courage to update the bios on my Abit AV8 from 17 to 24 as 17 didn't support Sandiego. I got myself a 3700+ from OcUK as they're so cheap to see if i can overclock it any better than my old chip.

Well I'm a noob but i think i have the basics so this is what i have done so far:

Locked AGP and PCI slots to 66 and 33
changed HT to 4x from 5x
raised Vdimm voltage to 2.7 from 2.65
raised cpu core to 250 from 200
Put ram on a divider @ DDR333

Giving me 2750mhz

At the moment my HT is now running at 1000mhz again so i think I'll have to lower it further to 3x. I think the ram will clock to about 214 (Geil value 1gb matched kit) so that should be OK for now.

I'm on air at the moment and the temp idle at the moment is 36oc.

I think my chip is a KABE2 what do these clock to?.

Mark

 

[Mark A]

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out tomorrow. So far Ive just tested it using the FEAR benchmark a few times. Got much better FPS than with my 3200+, i think the 1mb cache will be making a difference as well?, is it the equivalent of 200mhz?.

Temp after exiting FEAR benchmark after a good few mins was 58oc. I think that will improve slightly when the AS5 has had a chance to settle down. I think my 3200+ Winny was slightly higher temp than that but i had to raise the core voltage to get that stable at 2200.

I dont think i'll be going crazy or anything, I might just go a bit higher if i can so that my ram is running at around 205mhz as its @196 at the moment. I might have to give the HT more voltage because that will then be running a tad over 1000mhz. From what ive gathered the HT clock speed doesn't give any real world difference in performance anyway so shouldn't be a problem to drop it down to 3x?.

According to Everest home Ive got a 25% clock .

Ooops, i saw the "***The Official 6320/6420 Overclocking Thread*** " and assumed this was the section for overclocking. If a don could move it that would be great, thanks.

 

[Mark A]

Thanks . Ive edited my above post. I'll have a tinker tomorrow and also check out the programs you suggested.

I'm looking forward to moving to conroe in the near future, just need to save some pennys and wait for some decent games to appear then I'll take the plunge. Ive had this rig for over 2 years and when i built it i couldn't afford the 3700+ Sandy so had to get the 3200+ Winny, when i saw them for £35 i just had to have one lol.

 

[Mark A]

You brave man you!

, It was brave for me as I'm not made of money so if it doesn't post or anything after Ive changed it I'd of been pretty miffed. I don't possess a floppy drive and i don't have any floppy disks so i couldn't do it the safe way and had to rely on the dodgy windows based program = plucked up the courage . Ive read loads of horror story's over on the abit forums so i was reluctant to do it.

Ive got to do a bit of encoding in a minute so i can monitor the max load temp when i do that.

 

[Mark A]

updateing bios in windows is dodgey?

iv allways done it in windows lol, done it about 30+ times in the past without thinking twice about what could happen.

even when i got this brand new rig i updated it imedietly lol.


i dont own a floppy drive

Yeah but the Abit AV8 is a very problematic unstable board and many people on the Abit forum have needed new bios chips from updates gone wrong. The proper way to do it is by making a bootable floppy and doing it in dos but i don't have a floppy drive and I'm not about to buy one just for that so just took a chance.

Ive finished encoding and the temp never went about 49oc.

 

[Mark A]

I downloaded the latest version of Prime 95 and it failed within a few mins , yet it encoded for over 2 hours . Ive dropped the CPU clock back to 240 from 250 for now, I'm going to retest it in a minute.

I tried to get it stable by upping the CPU core voltage to 1.375 and the NB to 1.70 but it didn't work. Temp was nice and steady at 51oc so i don't think thats an issue. Anything else i can try?, should i raise the CPU core voltage up a bit more?.

 

[Mark A]

Thanks.

Ive gone back to 240 for now and ran prime 95 its passed all 5 tests twice so i assume its prime stable?. So I'll keep upping the core till it fails then up the voltage abit more?. Then run prime for a few hours to make sure it really is stable.

Yeah regarding the HT its @ 4X so should be running at around
960mhz, when i had 250 clock on it would have been running at stock speed of 1000mhz. Would it be wise to reduce the HT multi to 3x?, as Ive read that it doesn't really make much difference to performance anyway.

The temp during Prime was steady at 51oc, is this an OK temp or should i speed my case fans up a bit?. My case fans (Akasa Ambers) are currently running at 5v.

i popped my motherboard at 1.75V with a amd4400x2 the motherboard couldnt handle the volts, but i think the cpu survived tho lol

 

[Mark A]

Cheers IceShock. Ive got it up to 245 so far and its prime stable for 1 hour 20 mins so i'll nudge it up a bit more.

 

[Mark A]

Thanks for the info . I have been doing the torture test, i think its the mixed one that tests a bit of everything.

Ive let it run for over an hour on 248 earlier on so I'll try for 250 again tomorrow. Ive nudged the core voltage up to 1.425 and temps have risen slightly but nothing to worry about.

I think 250 is as high as I'm going to get on air, unless any of you can spot anything Ive done wrong?. I need a better cooler if I'm going to try and clock any further which I'm not prepared to do as I'll be upgrading next year anyway.

 

[Mark A]

but its great fun doing it isn't it! And its great having the OCuK forums, cos there are plenty of genius's on here willing to help a noob out!

Yeah, getting more performance for 0 extra cash and £35 for the chip, I'm well pleased.

Yep Ive learned loads through this forum on all sorts of things, great community. It even mentions this forum in the Prime 95 text document.

Ive clocked it back up to 250 and its prime stable for 2 hours 45 mins . Ive raised the CPU voltage to 1.425 and lowered the HT to 3x giving me 750mhz.

My temps are hitting 57oc during the stress test , this cooler is rubbish (Akasa Evo33) i think i need a bigger fan than the 80mm fan on this.

I might try for 255 what do you think?.

 

[Mark A]

I just tried 255 and it posted then i got a BSOD , looks like 250 will have to do.

One question i have is, my ram is now slightly under clocked at 196mhz, will this drastically reduce performance?. Could i reduce the CPU multi to say 10x and get it back up to 2750mhz while slightly clocking my ram at the same time?. I'm not sure i can change the multi with my mobo though.

I bet most people here are on Core 2 duo now so don't remember what I'm babbling on about .

EDIT:
Just noticed something, i have Geil Value 1gb memory, i used a divider and i thing the timings were lowered automatically. Stock timings are 2.5-3-3-6 and according to everest they're now at 2-3-3-5. Do you think this could be whats caused the BSOD. I dont know why im asking theres only one way to find out lol.

 

[Mark A]

Cheers Mul. I'm at 255 now , it must have been the ram timings holding me back. My overclock is now 2810MHz, I'll run prime 95 before going any further i think.

Memory is now running at 200.8MHz and HTT is running at 766.5MHz.