Underclocking for beginners needed

GWillow · 2 May 2006 at 22:59

Hi all,

My machine has started showing signs of age.

Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Athlon xp 3200 Barton
Zalman CNPS7000A CPU Cooler
Radeon 9800Pro
Audigy 2
2 * 512Mb Crucial PC3200 DDR
NEC ND-3520A DVD-RW
PlexWrite CD-RW 16/10/40
1 * 40Gb IBM Deskstar ATA-100 H/D
1 * Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 200Gb SATA 8mb Cache H/D
Enermax Noisetaker 485W PSU

Full tower case (can't remember name but iss bright blue)

Let me list the problems, one of the SATA ports only gives a transfer speed of about 48Mb/sec (according to HDtach), the other gives 111 (I can live with this)

I'm using some software called CPU-Z and the initial boot-up display to play with the fsb and multiplier.

The machine has become unstable (especially WoW) at 200MHz with 11 multiplier so I thought I'd "downgrade" a bit but am now confused.

If I give my various settings and speeds maybe someone could enlighten me in this complicated world.

BIOS setting____________CPU-Z reports
Mult_____FSB___________Mult____Mhz_____Core speed
10______200____________8______200_____1601
10.5_____200___________8_______200_____1603
11______200____________11_____200_____2205

Why can't I get a multiplier of 10.5 to work (giving 2100)?

Is it time to go 64Bit? But that would mean new m/b, cpu, (probably) graphics, (maybe) RAM ..... Can't really afford all of these at once.

trojan698 · 2 May 2006 at 23:25

Why would you want to underclock it? Have you tried a clean install?

GWillow · 2 May 2006 at 23:28

trojan698 said:
Why would you want to underclock it? Have you tried a clean install?

I want to underclock because if I don't the World of warcraft and Oblivon both crash to desktop within minutes. With underclocking they are both stable.

Yep, tried the clean install.

binaryknight · 2 May 2006 at 23:36

running decent cooling?
cleaned out the fans / heatsink lately?
what sort of temps you getting under load?
power supply lines ok?

powned · 2 May 2006 at 23:50

good adv from binary, hate to state the obvious but your running latest sound/vid drivers, bios etc etc etc...right?? only that if it was your overclocked setting causing the probs i would have thought you would have had problems from the time you overclocked.
Is your vid card oc'd? i had similar probs in oblivion when i had my card oc'd, i think that was because it was getting too hot.
Are all your fans working ok?
just a couple of thoughts, hope u get it fixed soon

conuk · 3 May 2006 at 00:14

binaryknight said:
running decent cooling?
cleaned out the fans / heatsink lately?
what sort of temps you getting under load?
power supply lines ok?

Had various crashing / slow down with oblivion... when I checked my 6800GT heatsink was gunked up and overheated within 1 minute... to 120!... might be worth a check ?

Before !