OC'ing Athlon 3700+ recommendations?

Hendrix89

Hi Im a gamer and im at a stage now where I really want to get the very most out of my current system before I eventually upgrade and get with the times next Summer. Of course im talking about OCing. Im still fairly new at overclocking so I need a bit of advice but so far i've managed to get my athlon 3700+ (stock 2.2) to 2.53GHz. Thats on air, stock vcore and stock HSF cooling. Temps idle - 30/31C | Load - somewhere in high 40's. Actually more like low 50's. Vcore is stock 1.48v. I would like to know how far of an OC do you think my system is capable of doing without too much voltage tweaking? Keep in mind that I will be getting a better cooler in next week. It will be a Zalman 7000B Cu. Thanks.

My system:
Athlon 3700+ @2.53GHz
Asus A8N-SLI Premium MB |v1009|
2GB Corsair XMS memory
XFX 7800GTX 256mb (475MHz)
Seasonic s12 600W PSU
Raptor 150GB HD

Oh yeah and memory is currently at DDR333
CPU bus speed is 230x11multi

awhir

try 1.6vcore.

mess around with the multi like 260x10 or 280x9 you never know it might work out better.with the rise in vcore ya should get a good overclock those 3700+ are great overclockers (ask conzy mather :d)

GOOD look.

Hendrix89

Seems like 1.6v would give me alot of headroom if I got it that high successfully but I don't think I feel comfortable going that high on the voltage. As I said I want to know how much higher I can get (stable) from 2.5GHz without needing to touch the vcore yet. I know I can get to 2.6GHz safely enough and thats what I will definately be doing once I get my Zalman in but I want to go higher, hopefully without raising volts.. or at least not too much. Could I reach 2.7 maybe 2.8 without any voltage increase? Think I could do it on 1.5v? Stock vcore is 1.48.

BadCharlie

My 3700+ chip is running at 2.56ghz and i cant get it to go any higher cause my motherboard wont let me raise the V-core then 1.45 i think it is. Im happy all the same with this speed but you can push yours a bit higher so you should get around the 2.7ghz or maybe more if lucky.

L31mr0d

I got mine to 2.75Ghz on the stock cooling with a load of around 55'c and 1.45v, I had the bog standard A8N-SLI and a gig of Twinmos DDR400.

You should be able to push it further. I know conzy on here got his 3700+ to over 3Ghz :eek: I guess he was lucky with the stepping he got.

What are your chipset temps? Can you increase the voltage to your chipset? Also what is your HTT multiplier set at?

Hendrix89

L31mr0d wrote:

I got mine to 2.75Ghz on the stock cooling with a load of around 55'c and 1.45v, I had the bog standard A8N-SLI and a gig of Twinmos DDR400.

You should be able to push it further. I know conzy on here got his 3700+ to over 3Ghz :eek: I guess he was lucky with the stepping he got.

What are your chipset temps? Can you increase the voltage to your chipset? Also what is your HTT multiplier set at?

Wow thats good too know. My vcore is at 1.488v now so that should let me get to at least 2.75GHz with the vcore as it is right?

Chipset temps are around low to mid 30's.
I have my HT multi set at x4
Also HT Link is set at 920.1mhz
Memory frequency is 180.7mhz

L31mr0d

Have you got 4x512mb or 2x1GB of RAM? Either way take all but one stick out and find your CPU's limits before putting the 2 gigs back in. I've read that people are getting significantly lower overclocks with 2gigs than with 1gig.

Heres my OC log from yonks back which you should have a read through because its a pretty similar spec to yours.

Also when I was starting out this thread was very usefull as conzy gives a pretty good step by step guide to overclocking my system.

Help with Overclocking

Hendrix89

I have 2x1GB RAM. Yeah I'll have a try at using 1Gig. Tbh I did not know it was better to have 1gig rather than 2 when OCing. Like I said I am waiting until my new CPU cooler arrives before I start OCing any more cause right now I only have the AMD stock HSF on! So I'll will aim for 2.7GHz for now and if I get that far I'll be happy! Although from whats been said about the 3700 here I should be able to get higher! Im surprised at the little 3700's potential! Thanks for the guides I'll read through them. They'll definately help. If anyone has more advice keep it comming.

Anti

1gb is better then two when going for a max oc. I managed to get 3.01ghz from my 3500+. But that took months and numerous bios updates. My 3800+ would hit 2.9ghz, but that was with only 3 hours of messing around. They key to it is. Overvolting the ram, cpu and chipset. But you need good cooling. For the 3500+ i took the vcore to 1.65. as the vdroop was 0.08.

Stepping is a huge factor too. As if its a bad stepping it just wont overclock.

First off i would work my way towards 250x10. With everything on stock. Then work the voltages up untill it becomes stable at that.

Then try 260/270x9. But do this slowly. As with your ram id be supprised if it passes 250mhz.

Once you can get it stable at them, its time ot play around with ram dividers. and relxaed memory timings. so you can puch further.

Dont forget after every time you overclock run super pi 32M to make sure it is stable. Even if it was only a 5mhz increase in fsb. Then when you finially have it there, its time to death test it. So run orthos and prime95 over night. If its still up in the morning. Yore grande

Any questions ? just drop me a pm !

Hendrix89

Hey thanks man your a great help I actually understand that! I know my RAM will be holding me back but I wont be upgrading that cause I will be getting a new C2D upgrade in a couple months. Last few months with my 3700. May as well make the best of it I just got a new CPU cooler today. Sadly not the pure copper one I wanted but its decent anyway. Its the Zalman 7000B AlCu. Im gonna fix it on tomorrow and then get into more OCing. What do you think of the cooler I got? I'd like to know before I put it in.

Hendrix89

I just put in the new cooler. Immediately OC'ed up to 2.62GHz (still stock vcore) and its cool and stable Think I could get 2.7 at stock volts or would I be pushing it?

Anti

Easilyl get that. Just loosen the ram timings and you will be fine. If you can hit 2.7on stock vcore. you should easilly hit 3ghz with 1.65v.

While the heatsink was off did you write down the full stepping ?

My 3500+ was a lbbwe 0543appw ada3500daa4bw.

Some have managed to hit over 3.5ghz on this with 1.6vcore.

Hendrix89

Ahrrrg I forgot to check out the stepping! I'll do it eventually

Had a little freeze at startup there but I think (i hope) it was just the mouse cause when I plugged it back in it was fine. My current timings are 3-3-3-8 on 1t. What do you suggest?

awhir

hmm were can i find my stepping only on the chip ??

cant see it on box anywhere??

L31mr0d

awhir wrote:

hmm were can i find my stepping only on the chip ??

cant see it on box anywhere??

Yeah only on the IHS. I just remembered to take a picture of mine before lapping it

Also, you might want to loosen those RAM timings until you know what the max clock of your CPU is. Try 3-4-4-12 @ 2T. Sometimes having your RAM running in dual channel at 1T can severly hamper your CPU overclock.

What are your temperatures like with the new cooler at idle and load?

Hendrix89

OMG guys my CPU idle temp is at 25C! Thats at the 2.62 OC! Mobo dropped to 29C idle and gfx temp dropped also down to 40C idle! This fan is a wonder!! Maybe its also something to do with the fact that my new cooler is going at 2500Rpm!! (Automatically controlled...) My PC is like a jet engine now At least its cool.

Oh yeah CPU load I havn't checked. Idont use monitoring software. Only look in BIOS. I assume its not very high though.

Anti

MEasuring any temps in the bios is not worth a ****e. As when in the bios your computer is using less then what it would then in idle in windows.

Im guessing your using a nforce4 motherboard. So download ite smart guardian. It will monitor the temps of your cpu, pwm and chipset. You can also control the fans for these too. It also tells you what voltages are going to certain components too.

Also do NOT download clockgen if you do have a nf4 board. This will make your computer severly unstable. Do all the overclocking from the bios.

L31mr0d

anti wrote:

MEasuring any temps in the bios is not worth a ****e. As when in the bios your computer is using less then what it would then in idle in windows.

Im guessing your using a nforce4 motherboard. So download ite smart guardian. It will monitor the temps of your cpu, pwm and chipset. You can also control the fans for these too. It also tells you what voltages are going to certain components too.

Also do NOT download clockgen if you do have a nf4 board. This will make your computer severly unstable. Do all the overclocking from the bios.

Ditto, also a few other monitoring programs to add your list are coretemp, cpuz, systool and speedfan. They are free, stable and use hardly any (if any) system resources so get them now!

Hendrix89

L31mr0d wrote:

Ditto, also a few other monitoring programs to add your list are coretemp, cpuz, systool and speedfan. They are free, stable and use hardly any (if any) system resources so get them now!

Yeah its system resources im always paranoid about! I mean really paranoid. I already have CPU-Z (thats pretty much a must). Speedfan is what I have heard about most and it seems very basic which is perfect. Do you think speedfan is the best choice? Core temp ive heard about too.

Anti thanks for the warning about using clockgen. I won't touch it

L31mr0d

Personally I like systool, as it also displays information about RAM usage, temps, fan speeds, graphics card information...etc, pretty much everything going on in your system. You can integrate it into a program like samurize which will only run the drivers from it so that you can place a widget on your desktop to display this info so you can always monitor temps without having to open up any programs.

Anti

If i were you i would ship off the heatsink and not down the spepping ( full ) and then see what others have found safe and stable !

G'wan, it will only take 10 mins max

I'll show you my stepping if you show me yours

Hendrix89

Right well I installed speedfan. My idle CPU temp is actually 35C and load is 57C!!!? I'm not happy about this at all! This cooler really is no better than stock!!:mad: Well thats the end of OC'ing for me.

Anti

Hang on now. Dont stop there.

First of all, venice and newcastle core cpu's can happily run at upto 70C.

So now we try a few things to lower the temp.

1. refit your heatsink. Make sure it is screwed down tight to the backplate.

2. use a small ammount of paste. Rice grain sized.

3. Do some cable tidying. dont have cables blocking airflow. Cable tie ones not being used under a dvd drive, o up by the psu.

4. fit more fans.

5. Do the same for your graphics cards heatsink. and NB.

6. remove un-needed hard drives. They give off alot of heat.

7. use ite smart guardian to set all your fans to maximum speeds.

8. pray

9. RTFM

10. < left blank for future thoughts >

Hendrix89

Hmm.. Yeah I'll give some of that a go and see if I can drop a couple of degrees but im doubtfull. Im pretty sure it's just the cooler. Its just not good. I definately put the correct amount of paste on (and dead center) although it's not Arctic Silver. I couldnt get my hands on it, searched everywhere... I used the paste that came with the Zalman.

I have a very large case (Therm. Armor) and its supposed to be the king of airflow! I only have one Hard drive in at the mo and its right at the top of the case with a fan blowing right onto it. 25C. The case has alot of fans and it's deafening already but I will try get another fan and mod it on. There is alot of space in the case.

I will try tidy up cables now but as I said there is already packs of space for airflow.

By the way in the mean time should I underclock my CPU back to 2.5GHz or are the temps at moment safe? 57/58C load! My 3700 is a sandy if i didnt mention before.

Anti

Yeah, you will still be safe for upto 70c.

But there is no way your cpu shoudl be hitting that. My 3500+ @ 2.52ghz with 1.585vcore hits 40C under load. And that was with a coolermaster vortex. Which is great and underestimated tbh. As the tuniq only cools it 2C more under load, and 1 c idle.

So i would deffinently try refitting the cpu hsf first. Make sure it is really tight. And upon placing the hsf on the cpu, make sure you do a 10degree turn eachway on making contact.


If that fails ill sell you my other cooler, the coolermaster vortex. As the alu hsf you have really isnt that good for overclocking. If youhave the money invest 20€ of it into a artic 64 freezer hsf. Cheap as chips and really good and quiet. just attach a delta screamer to it and watch you temps drop

Anti

And also, All Athlon 64+ cpu have a inbuilt max core shutdown. So if it gets to hot the system will reboot. So no need to worry just yet.

Hendrix89

anti wrote:

So i would deffinently try refitting the cpu hsf first. Make sure it is really tight. And upon placing the hsf on the cpu, make sure you do a 10degree turn eachway on making contact.

Do I really need to do remove the hsf? It's just that I don't have anymore thermal paste left so I would be stuck. The tube with the paste was tiny. Could'nt I just go in with a screwdriver and tighten while the hsf is still fixed on the cpu?

ricka05

What case do you have?If its has only 1-2 fans try to remove side panel-if the temp will go down-you need a to set a better airflow inside you case....

Hendrix89

Case is a Thermaltake Armor. Its a beast of a case and has four fans! One 120mm intake fan, 120mm outtake (rear), 90mm outtake (rear) and another 90mm outtake on the top.

Anti

Um, thats not a beast.

Remove your side panel. As 4 fans just wont cut it. On my tuniq i have 3 fans alone. 2 at front of case. 2 at rear, 2 at top. 2 at side. and one underneath.

Im thinking about adding 4 more to the back of the motherboard to circulate the air a bit.

For now leave the side panel off. and yes, you need to re-attach it. As it might be tigher one side then the other. I always screw untilli get tension. Then do 1 full turn per screw at a time untill its even. If you have it use a torque wrench. By the sounds of it, the small tube you got is about enough for 4/5 applications, if you used the whole thing. then there is your problem.

the whole idea of the stuff is to fill the viod between the metal contacts and to provide heat resistance. So the less the better mate.

Hendrix89

Well its a beast to a guy who doesn't mod:D It is very modable though:) I could easily slide in another 120mm at the front of the case right above the current 120. I am going to order an AKASA 120mm fan from Komplett as soon as possible. Do you think an extra 120mm intake would make a difference? Or at least start to?

By the way about the paste tube, I forgot to mention the reason it ran out is because the first go I messed up and I had the blob off centre and also had let air between. I re-cleaned and then re-did it which used up the tube. I did not put much on at all. Definately not too much, its too little Im worried about. It seemed about right to me. And the tube was tiny. I mean penny sized tiny!! Enough for two applitions, 3 at most.

Right so I will order some fans. One 120mm for an extra front intake and I was thinking of modding (first time!) a 90mm onto the window on the side panel of the case right infront of the Zalman. Not sure if it should be intake or outtake. You seem very knowledgable about this so plz advise