Wanted. Idiots guide to overclocking, or help from member

[topgeartom]

Right, basically i want to overclock my processor. I bought a relatively base spec computer about 1.5 years ago, that was brill at the time, but now, little old me wants more. I have upgraded it over time with more RAM - it now has 1gig. I have put in a new graphics card, and have bought myself a decent soundcard, the only thing left for me to do, to make it up-to-date is a new processor, however, processors are £100+ and at the moment (and for the forseeable future) i have precisely £0. You dont need a calculator to realise im fucked when it comes to getting a new one, so i could do with OVERCLOCKING my current one.

My processor is an AMD athlon XP2000+ @ 1662mhz. Now, while i do not hope to achieve anywhere near Jabba-like speeds, i would like to know if somewhere near2ghz is possible.

There are two main issues though:

1) I have no knowledge of overclocking.
2) At the moment my cooling consits of one fan sucking air in on the case, and another over my cpu - and there is the one inside the PSU.

While i may be able to bribe an extra fan or two from my mother - cash flow is likeely to remain at zero.

{edit} I could do with knowing how to reset CMOS bios (or something similar) in case i fuck up.

Any help would be appreciated

Ta,
Tom

[mindgam3]

http://www.viperlair.com/articles/howto/cpu/unlock/index.shtml

try this, i was gonna do it ages ago, but never got round to it as it seemed a bit too much hassle

[abbor]

You have excactly the same CPU as I have.. :wink: :D

I only know the easiest parts of overclocking.. Going into the BIOS and changing the values on some shit I don't remember.. But I'll guide you through that if you want.. I hope your CPU is not locked like the article says, mine wasn't... :wink:

[mindgam3]

u can change settings in bios to tell it ur running a faster processor eg a 2300XP+ but this doesent actually change the clock speed, you'll still have to unlock it to increase its speed

[abbor]

Perhaps it doesn't change the clock speed, but it definetly makes the computer go faster.. :wink: And that's what it's all about, ain't it?
I realise that he maybe want to do some serious shit, and get better results, but if he don't, my solution is the best...

[mindgam3]

Perhaps it doesn't change the clock speed, but it definetly makes the computer go faster.. :wink: And that's what it's all about, ain't it?
I realise that he maybe want to do some serious shit, and get better results, but if he don't, my solution is the best...

if ur not changing the FSB, multiplier or relative voltages then chances are your computer isnt actually running any faster. And if u havennt changed any of these and u've just told the bios you have a different processor then nothing will have changed

[abbor]

Perhaps it doesn't change the clock speed, but it definetly makes the computer go faster.. :wink: And that's what it's all about, ain't it?
I realise that he maybe want to do some serious shit, and get better results, but if he don't, my solution is the best...

if ur not changing the FSB, multiplier or relative voltages then chances are your computer isnt actually running any faster. And if u havennt changed any of these and u've just told the bios you have a different processor then nothing will have changed

It gets better results in 3DMark and the games runs better, and that I'll take as a proof that it's faster...

EDIT: If FSB is the thing I change in the BIOS-settings, that's what I said all along..

[5vz-fe]

As mindgam3 previously mentioned, it might get HOT....ur case circulation sounds fine to me, but u might want to keep an eye on the CPU temp after OCing and run a few programs....if it gets over 50C, change ur CPU fan.

[PATo355]

Most likely you still have the old 2000+ on 0.18µ or the T-bred A on 0.13µ . Both overclock for shit and get fucking hot.

Keep your hands of it if you don't know what you are doing. Giving your windows a good reïnstall + some good windows tweaking gives you a huge performance boost also.


If you want a cheap and good cpu, go for the AMD Sempron 2400+.

Experience overclocking 2400+ ?

I would suggest a 2500+ barton , it goes to 3200 without any effort or change in the Vcore , just a good fan .

BTW , we need to know some stuff

1- Get cpu-z , give us all the info on it
2- Which motherboard do you use and which is the chipset ?
3- Speed of the memories , if they are 133 , 166 or 200 , or 2000 , 2700 3200
4-Which fan are you using ?
5. Download MOTHERBOARD MONITOR and give us the temps on your system

That would help to make a no risk overclock

[PATo355]

As mindgam3 previously mentioned, it might get HOT....ur case circulation sounds fine to me, but u might want to keep an eye on the CPU temp after OCing and run a few programs....if it gets over 50C, change ur CPU fan.


50 is not THAT hot , running at 55 at full work in an athlon wont make any problem , maybe 45 idle is a good temperature and 55 on full work , the processor wont harm at anything below 70 ( AMD says it can run safe at 85 degrees tho )

[5vz-fe]

ops.....yeah...it's a typo there...it should be 60......

(hmm...didn't aware of what AMD quotes...thx PATo for correcting that, I don't want to give topgeartom the wrong info)

[PATo355]

ops.....yeah...it's a typo there...it should be 60......

(hmm...didn't aware of what AMD quotes...thx PATo for correcting that, I don't want to give topgeartom the wrong info)

BTW my ahtlon runs at 30 degress idle with 1.65 VCORE and 2500+ ., at 3400+ and 1.700 V core it runs at 32 degrees , so its not much difference

[5vz-fe]

30 degress? ur cooling must be masive........

[PATo355]

30 degress? ur cooling must be masive........

30 degrees celsius

No ... i use a standard medium tower with artic silver paste and a Cooler master Xdream2 as fan .

It goes from 32 34 in the day ( 27 degrees celsius this days ) to 27 29 in the nite

[topgeartom]

right an update. Just after i posted i had a crack anyway. My bios isnt that complex, and i couldnt find anything that clearly gave the indication that it was either the FSB or clock multiplyer, but there was a setting for directly changing the clock mhz. I bumped it up from 133mhz to 143mhz, and this sent my overall speed from 1.6 to 1.8 Ghz. I already had speed fan, which sense the temps, and there was only a degree change - up to 41 on a general run. I still need to know how to reset the CMOS bios, in case i really screw it up, but i think i know what i am doing enough to have a go. I really didnt have much time yesterday, but when i get home today i will have another go - just increasing it in 1 mhz increments. Also gona have a look at getting another fan, to improove the airflow over the cpu.

[PATo355]

right an update. Just after i posted i had a crack anyway. My bios isnt that complex, and i couldnt find anything that clearly gave the indication that it was either the FSB or clock multiplyer, but there was a setting for directly changing the clock mhz. I bumped it up from 133mhz to 143mhz, and this sent my overall speed from 1.6 to 1.8 Ghz. I already had speed fan, which sense the temps, and there was only a degree change - up to 41 on a general run. I still need to know how to reset the CMOS bios, in case i really screw it up, but i think i know what i am doing enough to have a go. I really didnt have much time yesterday, but when i get home today i will have another go - just increasing it in 1 mhz increments. Also gona have a look at getting another fan, to improove the airflow over the cpu.


Check the stability with superpi , dont know which memories are you using , but 10mhz in the FSB can be dangerous for the memories

[db350ztrack]

superpi isnt the greatest stability test, use Prime95 for a real stability test.. if you can run that on torture test for at least 12 hours then you're ~stable ;)

BTW.. don't put too much stock in the cpu temps reported by your motherboard, different boards can easily report 10-15°c different... the best test is system stability ;)

[PATo355]

I would suggest changing the Multiplier instead of the FSB , check if youc an control the FSB apart from the Memory bus , and also check your memories speed , if they are 166mhz ( 333DDR ) , try putting the fsb to 166 , but slowly upping from 143 , if the system comes unstable , up the Vcore in 0.025 intervals , till you get the system running stable

[topgeartom]

Right. I got myslef another fan today, so that means i now have a fan low down on the front sucking in cold air, another on the back, blowing out hot air, a fan in my PSU, and a fan on my CPU. At steady tickover at the moment, running at 1.8Ghz i am at roughly 37C.

So, as you heard i have managed to alter the FSB (im learning the lingo now :P ) to 143, so my overall speed is just under 1.8 - i think i am going to pusha little harder soon, with a final goal of maybe 1.9Ghz.

As pato requested though,
1) cpu-z results:
CPU-Z Report

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU-Z version 1.24.


CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1

Name AMD Athlon XP
Code Name Thoroughbred
Specification AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+
Family / Model / Stepping 6 8 1
Extended Family / Model 7 8
Package Socket A
Core Stepping B0
Technology 0.13 µ
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, Extended MMX, 3DNow!, Extended 3DNow!, SSE
CPU Clock Speed 1787.5 MHz
Clock multiplier x 12.5
Front Side Bus Frequency 143.0 MHz
Bus Speed 286.0 MHz
L1 Data Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Cache 256 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 1787.5 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 64 bits



Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer
Motherboard model K7VM2., 3.0X
BIOS vendor American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS revision P1.90
BIOS release date 08/28/2003
Chipset VIA P4M266/KM266 (VT8375) rev. 0
Southbridge VIA VT8235 rev. 0
Sensor chip Winbond W83697HF

Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Status enabled, rev. 2.0
AGP Data Transfert Rate 4x
AGP Max Rate 4x
AGP Side Band Addressing supported, enabled
AGP Aperture Size 128 MBytes



Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 1024 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 143.0 MHz
FSB:DRAM 1:1
DRAM Interleave none
CAS# Latency 2.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 6 clocks
# of memory modules 2
Module 0 Hyundai Electronics DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3200 (200 MHz)
Module 1 DDR-SDRAM PC2700 - 512 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC2700 (166 MHz)



Software
Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Workstation Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
DirectX version 9.0c

2) Motherboard
It is an ASrock K7VM2 with chipset VIA P4M266/KM266 (VT8375)

3) Memory speed
The max speeds are listed above, but they are both currently running at 143Mhz (i think/hope)

4) Fan
I have the two case fans - not sure what brand, and my CPU fan which is stock - i have not changed it. There is a ribbed metal thingy below the fan as well, which i presume is the heatsink. This is also stock

5) Temperature
I havent tried mobo monitor yet, but my current temp sensor shows about 37C after been run for a few hours, with normal usage.

Hope this helps! :D

{edit} WTF the ailien is doing in ym post i dont know - i think that i must have accidentally typed it's shortcut! lol :P

The motherboard model is K7VM2 3.0 X

[topgeartom]

well, it's running fine at 1.8 at the moment, and it's even cooler than at 1.6 wot with my new fan 'n' all.

I'll take your advice though, and put a new motherboard at the top of my shopping list! any good recommendations at a good price?

[topgeartom]

your a legend! when ido get some money in, i will name my budget!

So, expect to get a call from me in about 3 years! :P

{edit} i've just had a look at the otherboard you mentioned, and it is the exact same one i have been looking at on amazon! Roughly £50 so falls in the "maybe achievable" category.