![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
GSDragoon
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2004
- Messages
- 262
First off, I have some experiences overlcocking as I had good success with my XP 2400+ mobile. But anyways, I picked up that $100 deal with the A64 3400+ and the Biostar NF3 board.
CPU: http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/details.aspx?opn=ADA3400AIK4BO
Mobo: http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=nf325-a7
My old system should be in my sig still. I was looking for a cheap CPU upgrade as it was my bottleneck and I really don't play too many intensive games. Mostly FFXI which is REALLY CPU limited. I saw this as a good oppertunity for a cheap upgrade where I could keep my current video card, RAM, drives, PSU, ect.
So, I'm using my Antec true 430watt PSU, GF6800, Corsair pc3200 2x 512MB sticks, a PATA and SATA drives. I ended up getting a Thermalright XP-90 with a 92mm fan and I have 120mm fans in my case with good airflow. Idel temps are around 32C and voltages are good.
So I was googling and reading a bunch of guilds on A64 overclocking. I started out by lowering the RAM speed to 166 MHz. Then bumping the AGP bus to 67MHz(to lock it, since I have a NF3 250 board). From there, I tried raising the CPU overclock(bad working in the BIOS...) from 200 on up. Without changing voltage I can't get past 210. I've tried loweing the HT link from 4 to 3. I can get the speed to 215 with upping the voltage 1 setting (which happens to be +1.7%, next is 3.6% I think). But even then, I can't even get to 220. I get that BSOD error about IRQ not equal or less than error while trying to boot up WIndows XP(regular/non-64 bit edition). If not that, I just get random crashes/lockups. I've also tried loweing ram speed to 133 and 100, still the same errors.
The one problem I see is Cool 'n' Quiet. CPU-Z will show the voltage changing. Like it will be normal when windows boots and jump up to 1.5 while running prime95. I almost think I'm SOL with this board because there's no option to dissable it. I've tryed changing windows power settings to always on and uninstalling the Athlon64 driver thing that you can download from AMD's site and the voltage still changes.
My other guess is that it has something to do with the HD/PCI bus not getting locked at 33MHz? Other than that, I really don't know what else I could do. At stock speeds, I'm still able to get FFXI to run soooo much better than before, but I had got a nice heatsink and was at least hoping to get a little OC out of this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: I have ClockGen running now and if I up selection the PCI bus also goes up, along with the CPU speed.
Is there a way I can lock it? I have a PATA HD on IDE 1, a DVD drive on IDE 2 and a SATA HD on SATA 4. For SATA, there's 4 and 5 only. Maybe I'll try it with the SATA drive on 5 and see if it works.
EDIT2: http://www.overclockers.co.nz/ocnz/review.php?id=04boardnf3250gbmsi00000k8nneopl0505
Hrm, the only SATA ports I have are the two between the CPU and video card. There are none by the bottom right.
CPU: http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/details.aspx?opn=ADA3400AIK4BO
Mobo: http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=nf325-a7
My old system should be in my sig still. I was looking for a cheap CPU upgrade as it was my bottleneck and I really don't play too many intensive games. Mostly FFXI which is REALLY CPU limited. I saw this as a good oppertunity for a cheap upgrade where I could keep my current video card, RAM, drives, PSU, ect.
So, I'm using my Antec true 430watt PSU, GF6800, Corsair pc3200 2x 512MB sticks, a PATA and SATA drives. I ended up getting a Thermalright XP-90 with a 92mm fan and I have 120mm fans in my case with good airflow. Idel temps are around 32C and voltages are good.
So I was googling and reading a bunch of guilds on A64 overclocking. I started out by lowering the RAM speed to 166 MHz. Then bumping the AGP bus to 67MHz(to lock it, since I have a NF3 250 board). From there, I tried raising the CPU overclock(bad working in the BIOS...) from 200 on up. Without changing voltage I can't get past 210. I've tried loweing the HT link from 4 to 3. I can get the speed to 215 with upping the voltage 1 setting (which happens to be +1.7%, next is 3.6% I think). But even then, I can't even get to 220. I get that BSOD error about IRQ not equal or less than error while trying to boot up WIndows XP(regular/non-64 bit edition). If not that, I just get random crashes/lockups. I've also tried loweing ram speed to 133 and 100, still the same errors.
The one problem I see is Cool 'n' Quiet. CPU-Z will show the voltage changing. Like it will be normal when windows boots and jump up to 1.5 while running prime95. I almost think I'm SOL with this board because there's no option to dissable it. I've tryed changing windows power settings to always on and uninstalling the Athlon64 driver thing that you can download from AMD's site and the voltage still changes.
My other guess is that it has something to do with the HD/PCI bus not getting locked at 33MHz? Other than that, I really don't know what else I could do. At stock speeds, I'm still able to get FFXI to run soooo much better than before, but I had got a nice heatsink and was at least hoping to get a little OC out of this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: I have ClockGen running now and if I up selection the PCI bus also goes up, along with the CPU speed.
Is there a way I can lock it? I have a PATA HD on IDE 1, a DVD drive on IDE 2 and a SATA HD on SATA 4. For SATA, there's 4 and 5 only. Maybe I'll try it with the SATA drive on 5 and see if it works.EDIT2: http://www.overclockers.co.nz/ocnz/review.php?id=04boardnf3250gbmsi00000k8nneopl0505
Hrm, the only SATA ports I have are the two between the CPU and video card. There are none by the bottom right.