First Overclock

U

UEAKCrash

n00b
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
Messages
41
Ok, Finally got around to learning how to overclock. First thing I did, went into bios, changed my fsb to 210. Rebooted, MBM showed my 3.2 was now at 3.38 and 33c. I was like, w00t. Figured, hey, that was easy, I'll do some more tweaking. Raised the fsb up to 220. Rebooted, 3.53 and 35c. At this point, I was very happy with how easy that was (as I was paranoid about overclocking before). So, I downloaded and ran Prime95. Let it go for about a half hour (no major testing, but a little) and my max temp was 52c (little high?). After that, I decided to listen to some music. Heres the problem. Hit play on winamp, system goes beep. Says something about DirectSound drivers being bad and I need to reinstall them. Reboot, same thing. So, me being the paranoid one, I bring my fsb back down to 200, just to check. Boot up, everythings fine. CRAP! I'm using onboard sound, which has gotten the job done well and I've had no problems with it up until now. So, how in the hell is my overclock affecting my sound drivers?! HELP!
 
Make sure you have your AGP/PCI fixed. Likely it is set to go up with your FSB increase and your onboard chip can't take it. Samed thing happened to me with my first overclock on a board with crappy AC'97 :)
 
I know that its nice to run on the bleading edge of preformace, but 52c is just a wee bit hot. Then again that just may be my opinnion, but keep in mind that the proc will get hotter when playing games, or doing anything for that matter.
 
Sounds like you forgot to fix the AGP/PCI speeds. Thats probably what caused the mess up. As for heat, 52c in Prime95 isnt so bad. If you have an Athlon XP chip they seem to run really hot for some reason but even if its a p4 dont worry too much. The worse that can happen is you'll bring your cpu life down to like 10 years or something silly like that. Unless you plan on keeping it for 10 years....

...just dont play around with the voltage ;) :p
 
In the bios, when i go to AGP/ PCI/ SATA clock the only choices I have are Auto (the one most likely changing as I overclock), 66/33/100 MHZ, 80/40/100mhz, and 73/36/100mhz. I take it one of the last 3 would be fixed. Which should I choose? And, since this is a learnign experience for me, what does all that mean? :D

Edit: Memory speed ratings? That I have no clue nor where to find. help?
 
im also lost on the memory timing thingy, but i have crappy ram anyways, im in the process of upgrading(for a while now...sigh) and my first OC is the one im running, williamette p4 1.6 runnin @ 1.9, didnt afect at all, but i guess its cause my FSB is low, just needed some more juice and runs fine, prime95 for 8 hrs stable
 
okay... you want the 66/33/100 setting to lock the pci bus at it's standard speed. wrt the memory rating, what speed is your memory rated for? telling us whether it is either PC2700/3200/3500/3700/4000 or DDR333/400/433/466/500 (or something else in that format) will tell us what we need to know.
 
wangFu: memory timings are different than memory speeds. they're usually quoted as something like "2.5-3-3-5" or "3-4-4-8" or something like that. this is basically how fast the memory wakes up to make a response to a request. smaller numbers are better in all of these, because if it takes less time to wake up it can respond to more requests in the same time. however, lowering the last number too far can result in data corruption on the hard drive. some nforce2 mobos also run better with the last number set to 11 e.g. 2-3-3-11. my memory currently runs at 2.5-3-3-8 at DDR400, or PC3200 speeds. I can push it lower but I figure if one can cause corruption any of them could. The difference between high and low latencies (in terms of speed) is only 2% anyway. Don't push these too low unless you're desperate. Memory bandwidth (DDRXXX) is all that really matters.
 
Data corruption is a possibility, although somewhat far fetched with so modest an overclock. My friend's 3.0c can hit 3.6 with no real problems nor instability, although it always depends on luck and the chip itself.

As stated though, Pentium 4 processors demand a high bandwidth for a better overclocking and overall performance since they have more stages in their pipeline architecture. Also, it's imperative that you lock your PCI and AGP frequencies to prevent any possible data corruption.

Another note: To find your memory timings, it's located in the BIOS. I don't really know much about other BIOS', but Abit's Phoenix Award BIOS has a nice section called "Advanced Chipset Features" which allow you to see them and modify, if desired.

A Windows based way to find out alot about your system including memory speed rating, timings, front side bus frequency, and CPU core clock frequency can be discovered by downloading a simple program called CPU-Z. It can be found [url="http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php]here[/url] in the "Download" section.

Hope this helped.

Dark Assassin
 
nice, now i know some more for when i get that 3.0c, and my bios also has the advanced settings, its an asus mobo, the timings are at auto right now
 
I don't know how anyone can suggest memory timings to you without knowing the speed your ram is rated for. What speed is your ram pc3200(ddr400), pc3500(ddr433), pc4000(ddr500). Forget changing the timings until you know for sure the timings the ram is spec'd for.
 
Oh I see what you guys are saying now, brainfart! Its PC3200.

Edit:
Dark Assassin said:
Another note: To find your memory timings, it's located in the BIOS. I don't really know much about other BIOS', but Abit's Phoenix Award BIOS has a nice section called "Advanced Chipset Features" which allow you to see them and modify, if desired.

A Windows based way to find out alot about your system including memory speed rating, timings, front side bus frequency, and CPU core clock frequency can be discovered by downloading a simple program called CPU-Z. It can be found [url="http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php]here[/url] in the "Download" section.
Click to expand...

My board also has the Phoenix Award bios and I actually have CPU-Z already installed, any information I need to give you guys thats in there, just tell me and I'll get back to you with it as soon as I can. Thankfully I managed to get today off, so a full day of messing with (and hopefully not breaking) my computer!

edit2: I would've posted screen shots from cpu-z, specifically the CPU and memory tabs, but my FTP decided to not let me login and my host is sleeping still. Crap!
 
I have seen some people that get this ram to run at over 230, I have the same ram as you and I never got it past 216. I really had to relax the timings on it for that to happen.

You should be able to use 2-3-3-6 timings at 200 - 205mhz 2.5-3-3-8 should take you to about 210 above that 3-4-4-8.

Assuming this is not the "Value" Golden Dragon, the memory isn't that bad.

PS, I noticed you're already using a 3.2, assuming thats a C chip, you may not be able to get more than 3.4 or so, stable on aircooling.
 
up your vdimm and increase your latencies. just for testing, change your vdimm to 2.8 and your latencies to 3-4-4-8. if all goes well and everything seems ok, then start lowering the latencies again. if you get the latencies down to where you want them, then try backing down the vdimm to 2.7 or 2.65v. from what i hear geil ram needs lots of volts to overclock.
 
acascianelli said:
up your vdimm and increase your latencies. just for testing, change your vdimm to 2.8 and your latencies to 3-4-4-8. if all goes well and everything seems ok, then start lowering the latencies again. if you get the latencies down to where you want them, then try backing down the vdimm to 2.7 or 2.65v. from what i hear geil ram needs lots of volts to overclock.
Click to expand...

This is correct, you can increase the voltage to 3.0 on these without voiding your warranty. With this ram, higher voltage=better stability.
 
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