A Few Questions

Dempsey

What is the N/B Strap and what setting should I be using when im overclocking. Im currently using "By CPU"

When should you increase the Vcore and Vdimm? How do you tell?

What settings should I use in prime95 and its seems that i have to be on the internet to use the thing...

What factors determine a stable overclock?

fatmander

I don't understand a lot of what you mean but I can answer a couple of your q's

When should you increase the Vcore and Vdimm? How do you tell?

In order to remain stable at higher speeds both the chip voltage and ram voltage need to be increased(also causes more heat-this is how overclocking blows things). Keep bumping the fsb up, as little as possible, until it wont boot, remember your fsb settings. reset the cmos, increase the vcore voltage by .1, try and boot-
if she dont boot do the same to the ram, don't increase the ram by by much-she cannee take it jim!

What factors determine a stable overclock?
Computer not crashing/restarting (especially when gaming)
Processor running at about 70Centigrade , motherboard less than 55/60Centigrade- people will disagee about the temp settings, chips will run at up to 90 degrees

hth

Boro

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=gethowto&howtoID=43

good guide to overclocking an amd system
should be useful for you

Dempsey

Im overclocking a P4 Northwood, hard to find a decent guide for P4's

fatmander

Made a mistake
instead of saying
Keep bumping the fsb up, as little as possible, until it wont boot
should have said, Keep bumping the fsb up, as little as possible, until it starts crashing , or wont boot

Dempsey

I just cranked up the FSB to 214 and it seems fine:D

The RAM i read can go up to 894MHz in dual performance mode. I think my PSU is gonna limit me cos of whats powered off it

Col_Loki

Yea the PSU looks a little dodgy for the system if you go any further IMO . But sure why not try a little more, run prime95 to see if your stable and monitor temps and voltages.......

Every Ram module is different and in the review there was prob extra voltage put through it. Its decent Ram so should be ok for more.....

Dempsey

Im using Abit EQ to graph the voltages. Under load the only one that varies is the 12V rail and that varies by about .3 volts at most.

I have increased the Vdimm from 2.6to 2.65 to tighten the timings. Larger modules use 2.7 as stock and OCZ rate it to handle 2.8. I say the review had it running at 2.8

I havent had to change the Vcore yet. If I get 3.2 ill be quite happy but I'll probably have to increase it abit first.

I was surprised that the PSU wasnt struggling at stock with the 9800Pro and the 3 HDD's in it

Dempsey

I threw the FSB up to 229 which would have given me 3.2 but the system is totally unstable. Should I change the Vcore till it becomes stable or is something else. prime95 gives a hardware error almost straight away. Is it a case of the Vcore being too low or the PSU cant give more current or wha?

I seem to have it stable at 3.12 havent tried to slowly increment yet. Temperatures arent a problem. Winbond are reading 53-54 under load which means 43-44 on a abit:)

Col_Loki

If you havent changed the Ram timings / voltage id say thats definetly an offender. Id put the voltage to 2.8v (thats not much and should still be covered in warrenty, people go to 3.5v) and mabye loosen timings or set a divider to see if memory is at fault of it its the CPU.

You have good cooling so that shouldnt be a prob. Stay under 1.7v Vcore (mabye 1.65v max) and you should be fine. Try a memory divider and a little more voltage like 1.625v and see what you get from the CPU........... then adjust memory accordingly.

You should definetly get 3.2ghz and prob more without any real problem TBH.

Dempsey

Thanks for the help so far lads. Here is how things are panning out.

I put the FSB to 229 and put Vcore to 1.55, Vdimm to 2.7 and put a divider of 5:4 in and it went grand.

I loosened the timings to 2.5-4-4-7(By SPD) and changed the Vcore to 1.6V and Vdimm to 2.8V but at 3.2GHz the blend test still stopped after 2 minutes. Changing the voltages doesnt seem to affect stabilty.

Soooo, which is better to have?

3.12GHz @ 892MHz FSB (1:1)

OR

3.2+GHz @ >800MHz FSB (5:4)

I would need to get 3.5GHz( to get the memory to 800MHz) with the divider. Suggestions?

Col_Loki

See what the CPU can do with the 5:4 Memory divider. Keep the Vcore to 1.65v or under to be very safe. You have a v.good cooler , see how the CPU does..........

3.5ghz mite be a possibility!!

Dempsey

I tried 3.5GHz, prime95 lasted about a minute, FAIL. Then I tried 3.4. Vcore at 1.65 but when under load it dropped back to 1.6 and it was reading 3.37. PSU aint able for it I think. I didnt let prime95 work it too much and i dropped it back.

I probably could get it but the Vcore would be about 2V

Without a 450W PSU and new RAM id say im stuck at what I have.

Increase the clock speed while decreasing the ram speed with dividers i think gives the same system performance but just added heat

Col_Loki

Abit Boards generally under-volt when it comes to Vcore. Sooo if you have it set to 1.65v in the BIOS its going to be giving out 1.6-1.62v roughly, you can afford to go to 1.675v in the BIOS but just watch temps.

Even the fact that its lasting a min in prime95 @ 3.5ghz is a good sign, 3.4ghz should be fine (mabye 3.45) . Just watch the + voltage rails when running prime95, mainly the +12v and see how much it goes down during prime95. The Vcore will change up and down dont worry too much about that.

Dempsey

Well Igot 3.4Ghz with a 5:4 divider and Vcore 1.675V, put the Vdimm to 2.8 aswell.

Performance didnt seem better than what I had:dunno:

3.12Ghz 1:1 vs. 3.4GHz 5:4

The page behind the PCMark window has the 3.12Ghz scores, ignore the HDD test as I have changed the RAID stripe size

For the massive increase in temps (load is 67+, havent left it long enough to see if it goes much higher). What do ya think?

Col_Loki

Wow load 67'C ok so thats not an option. Am supprised with the High temps and such a good heatsink.

Using a memory divider is going to hurt your performance anyway, never mind the fact that you have to run the memory at a lower speed. I suppose find the Max for your Ram and leave the FSb like that for the min as it looks to be the best option for performance and stability.

Dempsey

Well, 67'C on a Abit board is about 57'C or something, I dont have a external probe on the CPU. The default warning temp is 85'C :eek:

The max the RAM seems to run is 892MHz (1:1). I think increasing the CPU speed and bottlenecking the RAM cancel's any performance gain. cos the faster CPU cant access memory quick enough.

I could get 3.5GHz with a Vcore of 1.7V but I like the cpu to last longer than a year too.

Col_Loki

The northwoods are known for sudden death syndrome on high voltages. AFAIK your ok once you dont go over 1.7V but id rather keep it under that figure if it was me.

That 67'C is prob 60'C on other boards but i think that Abit is actually closer to the actual temp than other boards are TBH.

What fan do you have? It must be a pretty low CFM one?
Its prob best like you said to reduce the overclock and not increase memory performance.....

Dempsey

Ya its a Vanted Stealth. Extreme Overclocking isnt what I was going for anyways Otherwise, I would have gotten tornados. They are about 28CFM.

Not increase memory performance?

Col_Loki

not decrease memory performance.....by using dividers and a slower speed

Doh!!

Dempsey

But I like my 892MHz