Advice on Athlon 64 X2 AM2 overclock

[Herr_Koos]

Hi all,

I have an Asus M2NPV-VM (Socket AM2) board, with an Athlon 64 X2 5600+. This combo is pretty much end-of-life, but I would like to keep it running a while longer until I get around to upgrading it. A few basic questions:

1) The M2NPV-VM is a very limited overclocker, from what I hear. Does anyone have any experience with it, and if so, what features can I tweak?
2) Would I have to disable CoolnQuiet permanently, or can I switch it on after the overclock?
3) I'm pretty sure my CPU multiplier is locked. Can anyone confirm this?

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[unclefester]

@1) I don't have any experience with that board, but you should be able to turn up the FSB.

@2) I would turn CnQ off to find a stable OC. I've heard of people saying they could use it with an OC, but it's definitely not the norm.

@3) I sure it has a locked multiplier, but you may be able to lower it. I actually got a better OC by dropping the multiplier on my 5400 BE a notch and upping the FSB

 

[angry_ducky]

Unless your CPU is a Black Edition model (and it doesn't seem that it is), you won't be able to raise the CPU multiplier. You should, however, be able to lower it.

 

[Herr_Koos]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will give it a bash and see what happens.

 

[mindless728]

before OC'ing, use cpuz to find load voltage using prime95
make sure you set the voltage manually in the bios to this value and only bump it up when needed
if you leave it on auto, many motherboards go "voltage happy" when OC'ing

 

[Herr_Koos]

@1) I don't have any experience with that board, but you should be able to turn up the FSB.

@2) I would turn CnQ off to find a stable OC. I've heard of people saying they could use it with an OC, but it's definitely not the norm.

@3) I sure it has a locked multiplier, but you may be able to lower it. I actually got a better OC by dropping the multiplier on my 5400 BE a notch and upping the FSB

Just to confirm: The FSB refers to the reference clock, thus changing it will also affect the HT link speed and the memory frequency?

 

[unclefester]

Yes it will, it shouldn't be a problem though, but it may be a limiting factor on your OC. You can drop you HT multiplier if need be, with the set up I was running it would BSOD if I dropped it. You may want to loosen your memory timings to start with and then tighten them after finding the limit on the CPU.

This is what my OC looked like with the 5400 BE

 

[megamanx00]

1) Your CPU cooling and chip sample (especially if it's the earlier revision) is more likely to limit your overclock than the motherboard

2) Disable CoolnQuiet permanently. While you may be able to use it just fine, chances are it will cause all sorts of problems if you overclock your CPU.

3) Yes your multiplier is locked. You're going to have to overclock using the FSB. Make sure to use google to search for some Athlon X2 overclocking tutorials to get you started.

 

[Xeon Itanium]

Well i have the same motherboard with the 4400+ cpu... I can push the FSB up from 200@ 2.31ghz to 251@ 2.88 maximum with CPU MULTIPLIER 11.5x... But then again ur overclocking your RAM at the same time... I had to drop the RAM Frequency down from 667 to 533... After the overclock it was around 750... I did not even disable the COOL Ñ QUIET Function...

 

[Herr_Koos]

OK, I finally got around to trying this. Bumped up the bus from 200 to 215 without changing anything else. With a 14xmultiplier this gave me a nice 3GHz from my stock 2.8. I gave 3DMark05 a quick try, and the frames jumped significantly at least until I got the IRQ_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL BSOD.... :-(

What's the most likely cause of this? CPU overheating, or RAM going out of whack due to the higher bus speed? I would appreciate any advice, thanks.