Having problems

BKtje

Right to be honest when it comes to overclocking this is my first real project so my experience is severely limited.

Now two things im pondering.

1) On my msi k8n neo plat is the AGP/PCI lock auto enabled? I found a place where it says limit mem mhz to 150-200 in 5mhz increments. However when i stick it to 200 and up the fsb the mem clock speed still rises ( i think).

2) Now the real problem is this. Im upping the fsb to 205, and 210 nps (10x multiplyer and stock voltage on cpu, 0.05v under stock on memory ( 2.7 instead of 2.75)). However when i go to 215 i will get a bsod after a few minutes running windows and at 220 i get it on windows startup. Would this be my hd and thereofre the pci/agp lock not working/enabled?

System:
Amd 64 3200+ Clawhammer (2ghz 1mb cache)
MSI k8n Neo plat
Antec 480w truepower
9700pro
1gig corsair XLS3200XLPT CAS2 (at 2-2-2-5 atm)

Col_Loki

Ok its most lightly your memory holding you back there. You need to use a divider FSB:RAM , something like 6:4 or 5:3 .... ie you can work on what your memory can do after.

At 215mhz with 2-2-2-5 and 2.7v thats pretty decent and you would either need to loosen timings, up the voltage, or decrease speed.

The PCI/AGP lock should be auto enabled. What alot of people do with the AMD64 is use clockgen , set the FSB to 201mhz to enable the lock and overclock in windows...... tends to yield better results.

Amd 64 3200+ Clawhammer (2ghz 1mb cache)

Thought you had the newcastle? Any chance you have the stepping or code on that chip?

BKtje

Ok its most lightly your memory holding you back there.

Hmmz thought ir ead in revies that this memory had gone to ddr450 with 2-2-2-5 timings with 2.85v. Could be wrong tho. 9think it was on anandtech, must check again later).

hought you had the newcastle? Any chance you have the stepping or code on that chip?

Had planned to order the newcastle but i seem to have gotten the clawhammer. Didnt check the code on the chip and would be difficult to check now with all the HCC covering it

All this comes from Sandra:
Generation: G8
Name: M4 Athlon 64 (K8 Clawhammer) 130nm 1.4ghz-2.2ghz 1.45-1.55v
Revision/Stepping: 4/a (10a)
Stepping Mask:Sh7-CG

(also says L2 on board cache: 1024kb ECC synchronous Write-back (16-way, 64byte line size)

It all points to a clawhammer.

BKtje

Whats a divider exactly? Ive heard people mention it on these boards but never really understood what it was.

WIll google it now.

(i think i get the general jist of it tho.. 6:4, 6 cpu clock cycles for every 4 mem ones or sommet?)

Col_Loki

Hmmz thought ir ead in revies that this memory had gone to ddr450 with 2-2-2-5 timings with 2.85v. Could be wrong tho. 9think it was on anandtech, must check again later).

Different memory will perform differently. Also your putting lower voltage through the memory, so it might do 2-2-2-5 @ 220-230mhz FSB but you will need a voltage increase for sure. Also generally most of the reviews dont have a good way of testing stability so take there figures with a grain of salt.

Keep your memory out of the limiting equaion by using dividers, so then its all down to CPU.

Had planned to order the newcastle but i seem to have gotten the clawhammer. Didnt check the code on the chip and would be difficult to check now with all the HCC covering it

Looks like you got the CG revision so alls good and well . The newcastle will prob do 100mhz-150mhz more of an overclock on average but the clawhammer equals it out with extra cache. Main prob with clawhammer is taking the chance of getting a C0 revision which isint the best ....... lol think you prob picked up a nice chip.

Whats a divider exactly? Ive heard people mention it on these boards but never really understood what it was.

It sets the speed of the memory from the FSB. Its an FSB : RAM divider. Ie if the FSB is running at 200mhz using the 4:3 divider the memory would run at 150mhz.

You will need to use a pretty steep divider as your talkin about mabye getting near 280mhz FSB........ so you want your memory running 200mhz or a little less just to make sure its CPU limiting

BKtje

Also your putting lower voltage through the memory

Right well ill try upping the voltage to 2.8 (which isa little under the most the people over at andantech put through it).

Also generally most of the reviews dont have a good way of testing stability so take there figures with a grain of salt.

Point taken but i imagine they got it to load windows

think you prob picked up a nice chip.

Glad to hear it

so you want your memory running 200mhz or a little less just to make sure its CPU limiting

Yer i guess best would be to keep the mem at stock and up the cpu for now, then after see what i can get the memory up to with perhaps slightly looser timings.

So how i go about getting/using dividers. Is it a bit of software/hardware or something? (sorry for asking whats probably a stupid question)

BKtje

Hmmz i dont think its the memory limiting it...

I upped the voltage to 2.75, relaxed the timings a lot and then tried to hit 220fsb. Wouldnt load windows at all. Just gave a blue screen with a loong error messae explaining stuff.

Very strange. Could it be that a newer bios would help?

Col_Loki

Memory dividers should be available in the BIOS.

Try using clockgen for the overclock, some people still have probs withh the AMD64 boards and PCI/AGP locks at times and setting the FSB to 201mhz and upping the FSB from there sorts out the problem. Sometimes looser timings might not help.

Also people have better results with FSB and Ram timings using windows to overclock. Think thats what most reviewers use for testing.........

Dr4gul4

As i said owen the 1.1 bios aint the hottest, and no offence to any of the lads here on boards but i think the best place you should look about OC's our plat's is on the MSI forum as most of the crazy kidz there are gettin them up to 240 and below, i think i sent you the link but if not you can get it form me l8r.


D.

BKtje

Yer dave im over there as well m8

As i said owen the 1.1 bios aint the hottest

yer gonna flash to a later one when i get a floppy drive (can ya flash from cd??)

Memory dividers should be available in the BIOS.

Theres this option which says limit max mem to 200. I enable that but it makes feck all difference. Memory still has the run of itself. That it?

Try using clockgen for the overclock

I have, i upped it 5mhz and a second later it blue screened.

Tried to access the dvd drive at 210fsb and i got a blue screen. What i did then was removed the dvd drive from the system to see if it would help. Surprisingly the loading of windows got further along before it bsod'd giving an NTFS file error.

Could it beto do with the IDE bus thingy that this isnt working?

Dr4gul4

there's a builtin flasher jobbie u can use when in windows owen, off the top of me head i cant remember what it's called but i've used it twice now on my board and no side effects, i'll get the name 4 ya l8r, did u install all the driver's from the cd ?

also what temps r u getting ?

BKtje

all the drivers from cd i think yer.

err im getting -23 idle cpu temps and -20 ish under load.

Dr4gul4

-20ish FFS and there i was thinkin i was doin ok @ 36 idle and 45 on load

fiacha

all the problems with overclocking on the k8n are covered here and on the OCUK motherboards forum

The AGP lock is not automatic, i think you need to set agp to 67 in BIOS...anyway you'll find it all in those forums.

i'm not gonna bother trying to overclock mine until MSI bring out a decent BIOS for the k8n.

you having the in game (COD) freezing issues like a lot of us ?

BKtje

Surprisngly no i dont fiacha. Played a clan match last night and had nps at all and average fps of 125 (max fps at 125). When i disabled max fps i got anywhere between 90 and 400.

Thanks for link btw, will give that a read.
I love this pc at stock...just wish i could overclock.

Ah but Dave m8 i got the Vapo like , dont feel bad

BKtje

Believe it or not im now at 2.2ghz. Which is nice.

Stuck the AGP to 68mhz, FSb is at 220 and multiplyer is 10. Relaxed the timings to 2.5-3-3-7 as well.

However even tho i tried to max the memory speed at 200mhz it unfortunately came up to 220 with me which is a pain to say the least. Will try a newer BIOS and hope that it fixes it.

BKtje

My gfx card is now reporting errors and crashing back to desktop. Even when i restore stock speeds. I have however started using the catalyst 4.5 drivers since last night. Am going back to 4.3 and hope.

Better not have ****ed up me 9700pro

Dr4gul4

AYe fecking COd problem, it's damn annoying, good to hear ure gettin her up and runnin n e way owen, hope we get new GART drivers soon


D.

BKtje

The fan on m 9700pro has died. I dont think its spinning which is why im getting this vpu failures.

It was very hot to the touch. GOD DAMN IT

BKtje

Right fixed, just needed a good hoovering. Man my nerves are going

Audigy has packed in now but i can prob get it working, then to start overclockin.