overclocking temps questions

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rabiddawgs

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
459
im in the process of overclocking my a64 3500+

right now i got it to 2532 mhz. but im still upping it.

my question is how long do i have to run like 3d mark or prime 95 to find out what my load temps are?

thanks
dawg
 
It's really your prefrence. There are some people that run it for an hour and say it's all good, and then others that run it for days on end. If you really want to know the stabability Run it at least for 24 hours.
 
If you're just load testing it for temps at load, you'll be able to get a good idea of CPU temps at load in just a few minutes of Prime.

But Prime loading only tells part of the story.

If you're gaming, you also want the video card(s) worked out...as they get hotter, so does case temp, and as case temp goes up, so can CPU (depending on venting, cooling method, etc). Same with HD temps...

If you're looking to build a "benchmark queen", it's not so important, the stuff just needs to remain stable long enough for you to run your ePeenMark0x, and you can cheat the temps a number of ways (open case, turning down the room temp, all the non-air cooling methods, etc).

If you're looking to OC a "daily driver" that you want to remain stable as possible in a closed case, spend some more time heat loading everything to worst case or near worst case.

What I've found to work very well is to load one instance of Prime95 in Blend (actually SP2004, same thing with a better UI), and then fire up my Catalyst Control Panel and run the automatic overclocking utility.

Between the two programs running, it pegs my X2 4200+ at 100% (either one alone would come close to pegging a single core chip), and it also heats my X1900 video card up to it's max operating temp.

The ATI test takes several minutes to run, I usually run it through twice just to make sure everything inside is at an equilibrium point. You can do something similar with ATI Tool and Nvidia cards, or the Coolbits auto OC (though it doesn't run as long as ATI's).

The difference? With just SP2004, even using two instances, my CPU at load hits around 53c at 246x11 1.5v, and my case temps stay around 33c, and it stays there for hours with little fluctuation.

With SP2004/CCC overclock, after two runs my CPU temps got up to 59c, case temps got up to 45c, and repeated runs after that were about the same.

Had I just ran Prime, I would have thought that 1.5v and my current cooling was acceptable, 53c under load for an X2 isn't bad, and I had the same results no matter how fast or slow I ran my case fans.

But once the video cards got to cooking at full load, it pointed out to me that I needed to get that hot air out of the case better, since I'm not using the stock ATI exhaust leaf blowers. My current solution was to crank up the juice on my rear and top exhaust fans (Antec P-180 case) from 1000 RPM to 1400 RPM, which lowered case temps to 40c and CPU temps to 55c (didn't really change the GPU temps, the cooling there was working, it was just relocating the heat elsewhere).

The other solutions would be to use less voltage on the CPU and settle for a lower OC, go water cooled, ditch one of the Crossfire cards (that's good for about a 3c overall temp drop), or live with the occasional heat-induced lockups.

Simply playing a 3d game for a few hours can have a similar result, but keep in mind that 3d games aren't (generally) quite as stressful as the OC tools, there's plenty of breaks and pauses in the rendering process, as well as CPU loading. I can alt-tab out of a hard session of BF2 or Oblivion and see temps many degrees below my "peak" testing temps.
 
hey thanks croak thats the answer i was looking for. im not running it to be the top ocer in the community. i want stability as i pretty much just play games with my rig.

right now my oc is at 2532 mhx. htt is at 230 mem is at 180 and htl is at 921.
isnt not the best oc but i think i still have a little more room.

the weird thing is i am failing prime 95 within the first couple of min.
i upped my mem to 2.7 and cpu volts to 1.45
i might have to feed the mem a little more volts to 2.8. not really sure as i am still new to ocing the a64.
i just got playing about 4 hours of bf2 and had no problems what so ever so its running stable.
thanks
dawg
 
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