Overclocking Advice

B

Brodel

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 22, 2005
Messages
140
I've never seriously overclocked before and have been attempting to overclock my cpu a bit today.

These are my specs beforehand.




I've managed to get the following results, but can't seem to go higher. I've put my voltage up to 1.5 on the cpu but wasn't sure if I should go higher or not? My temps idle around 32c, before they were 30c. Or should I be overclocking my ram (which sucks i know) beforehand?
Like I said, I'm new at it so want to be extra carefull about it.

post-63802-1136904597.jpg
 
fenderltd said:
you might want to try running a ram divider
If you are new to overclocking I highly suggest to read this
(cf)Eclipse's A64 OC Database & Overclock Guide

to me your ram looks like average PC3200 with the timings 2.5-3-3-6 What kind of mobo, ram & power supply do you have?
Click to expand...

thanks for the link, i'll take a look.

My ram timings are 2.5-3-3-8. My Mobo is an Asus A8N-E, 2x 512mb PC3200 ram (forget the brand but its pretty basic) PSU Hiper Type-R Modular 580W.
 
The above settings were working fine and ran PC Mark 05 but when I sent a document to print across the network and my system crashed. Put it back to default settings and it's fine now though.

Should I just leave it, or any advise as how to push it further?
 
Well, I've got exactly the same stepping chip as you, looks like, and mine hit 2475 with some modification (I removed the heatspreader. :cool: )

But before that, I was able to run a 260FSB with a 2340CPU with just 1.375V

Basically, the best way is to eliminate your ram with ram dividers...

Try a 5/6 divider at 250FSB, that'll only be a 208MHz memory clock. Put your memory voltage up .05V, to 2.65V or something... and then run prime95 overnight. If it fails, try increasing your cpu voltage in .025 steps until it's stable.

Are you using the default heatsink, or d'you have something more substantial?
 
Logan321 said:
Well, I've got exactly the same stepping chip as you, looks like, and mine hit 2475 with some modification (I removed the heatspreader. :cool: )

But before that, I was able to run a 260FSB with a 2340CPU with just 1.375V

Basically, the best way is to eliminate your ram with ram dividers...

Try a 5/6 divider at 250FSB, that'll only be a 208MHz memory clock. Put your memory voltage up .05V, to 2.65V or something... and then run prime95 overnight. If it fails, try increasing your cpu voltage in .025 steps until it's stable.

Are you using the default heatsink, or d'you have something more substantial?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, like I said I'm fairly new so I'm gonna go read up a bit on ram dividers because I don't quite understand their impact yet etc.

I have a Zalman CNPS7000 AlCu heatsink instead of the stock one.

Have you noticed much of a difference in performance with your overclock?
 
from 1800 to 2475 is a pretty substantial increase, yeah... I'm using a 5/6 ram divider and 2-3-3-6 1T timings on my 2 512 sticks of OCZ 3200, so my ram is at 225MHz.

Basically the ram divider is like an inverse multiplier... if you "increase" the divider, it lowers your ram speed in relation to your frontside bus.

The normal dividers are 1:2 (100mhz ram for 200mhz fsb), 2:3 (133mhz ram to 200mhz fsb) and 5:6 (166mhz ram to 200mhz fsb)

Some boards also have dividers inbetween these... at 7:12, 3:4, and 11:12
 
thanks, I'll give that a try today.

With regards to upping my voltages, as long as I do it slowly and don't go above 1.60 - 1.65 the only problem I'll have is heat right? I can't zap my cpu with voltages that it can't handle?
 
As long as your temps arent breaking 45-50c under load, dont be afraid to give it some voltage. No more than about 1.65. If temps are good then its close to impossible to magically zap the processor just because you increase the vcore......unless you give it more than 1.8 volts or so...which you'll never want or need to do.

Make sure that your LDT mult is 4x when HTT is between 201 and 250. Lower it to 3x if you make it over 250HTT.

Overclocking the CPU is FAR more important than the ram. Dividers are not really much of a "negative" when it comes to gaming.
 
go up in increments of 0.05...if your trying to hit 2.3ghz for example but your only getting 2250 then go up 0.05 and try again..but dont add to much voltage otherwise you can say bye to your cpu...

do you need any more explantion on dividers? if you do pm me or ask here :)

dont worry i was apprehensive and a noob at ocing but with a little help from eclipse i got my 3500 to 2.7ghz stable :)
 
Aaron_ATX said:
As long as your temps arent breaking 45-50c under load, dont be afraid to give it some voltage. No more than about 1.65. If temps are good then its close to impossible to magically zap the processor just because you increase the vcore......unless you give it more than 1.8 volts or so...which you'll never want or need to do.

Make sure that your LDT mult is 4x when HTT is between 201 and 250. Lower it to 3x if you make it over 250HTT.

Overclocking the CPU is FAR more important than the ram. Dividers are not really much of a "negative" when it comes to gaming.
Click to expand...

gd advice...try running some benchmarks on prime95 before and after your oc...the you'll really see the difference :) and run some gaming benchmarks such as fear and cs source because theyre very sensitive to oc'ing...also run prime and memtest to check for stability

if you hit a wall with your oc and think its your memory...you can add some more voltage to that in 0.05 increments or you can reduce the timings...but lets not go into that yet :p

if you want help pm me or (cf)eclipse or any other person who u think is helpful
 
btw nice oc....

can you take a screenshot of your memory with cpu-z so i can see the timings and speed its running at...thnx
 
ok, I set my ram to DDR333 and LDT at 4x.

I am currently at HTT = 245 MHz and CPU = 2.2GHz

I ran PCmark 05 and score dropped to 3851 when before I was getting 4037 with the settings in the cpuz screenshot below and RAM and LDT set at auto.

post-63802-1136904597.jpg


Why is this? :confused:
 
The DDR333 setting is basically underclocking your ram. I believe the actual ratio is 5/6 (.83333333333333)

So before, when using no divider (DDR400) and HTT set to 235 your ram was running @ 235 mhz.

Now with the divider, and HTT at 245 your ram is running just a tad higher than normal (245 x .833333333 = about 204mhz)

Thats fine, you are on the right track. The idea is to see how high you can get the CPU clock first (you'll probably need to use an even bigger divider) and then worry about dialing in the ram.
 
Aaron_ATX said:
The DDR333 setting is basically underclocking your ram. I believe the actual ratio is 5/6 (.83333333333333)

So before, when using no divider (DDR400) and HTT set to 235 your ram was running @ 235 mhz.

Now with the divider, and HTT at 245 your ram is running just a tad higher than normal (245 x .833333333 = about 204mhz)

Thats fine, you are on the right track. The idea is to see how high you can get the CPU clock first (you'll probably need to use an even bigger divider) and then worry about dialing in the ram.
Click to expand...

ok, I thought it may be that.

So I keep going with the CPU until just before it gets to unreasonable temps or voltages, and then deal with the RAM once I've figured out that limit?

thanks for your help man, i appreciate it.
 
well I set my target of getting to 2.4ghz which is where I am at the moment. As far as I can see it looks pretty good, cpu voltage is 1.4 idle at 33c and peaks at 45c running PCMark05.



Should I keep pushing it, or are there any measures I should take before doing that?
Also, how do I tell how hot my RAM is getting, should I pick up some ddr heatsinks?
 
Nice, not bad at all. Have you tried to run SuperPi or prime95 now to see if its stable?

If your load temps are hitting 45c then its about time to get some better cooling before pushing it much farther.

Dont really worry about the ram getting too hot. Its doubtful that you could damage it unless you have jacked the voltage way up to the ram. 1800mhz to 2400 isnt to shabby at all with that little voltage...IF its stable.... (and its probably not :) )
 
yea, it doesn't seem to be stable. It crashed halfway through 3DMark 05 and I couldn't seem to get past 512k on Super PI, although I haven't used it before so I'm not sure how it is 'supposed' to be.
 
I upped the voltage to 1.425 and it seems to be pretty stable now, one thing I noticed is that although my PC Mark scores have gotten higher, my 3DMark05 score has dropped, it was around 6750 but now it comes out around 6600.

Is this related to the PCI lock being set at 33?
 
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