Overclocking advice

[hachiman]

Hi

My Rig is

Athlon 2500XP+ 333FSB
ABIT NF7 Mobo
1024 MB DDR400
Thermalite Volcano Heatsink Fan(currently going up to 52 Degrees max)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128 GC
Soundblaster Live 5.1 SC.

I am a completely Newbie at this so forgive any stupidness on my part as it comes naturally to me.


As far as i am aware my system is running at a FSB of 166.
The CPU/FSB Ratio is 11x166 giving me 1.83Ghz.
The Ram is running at 333 though they are capable of 400.

Now i believe to get the DDR at 400 i have to have my second multiplier at 200 rather than 166.
So i could have 10x200 for 2ghz or 11x200 for 2.2ghz.
Is this correct?

If any of this is bull guys let me know?

So my questions are.

1) Is my above statement correct?
2) How high can my cheap go generally?
3) Whats the average Temperature for my chip to fry?
4) What Voltage do i change?
5 And anyone got any instructions what to do?

All advise appreciated!!!

Thanx in advance.

 

[rcj187]

you are spot on with the fsb and multiplier. try and keep the ram in sync withe the cpu fsb if you can as this will give more performance. by that i mean if your fsb is 200 then set your ram at 200 if its 186 then set your ram at 186 etcetc
a typical oc for a good xp2500 would be about 2.1-2.2ghz
keep temps below 70c.. if you start hitting high 60's to low 70's back off and get a better cooling solution before you go higher.
only change your vcore when necessary as this will increase temps. typically if you are hitting instability at a given speed upping the vcore slightly may help stabilise it
take it slow no big jumps raise the fsb gradually if it takes 200fsb then start to raise the multiplier by increments stress testing after each increase. when you start hitting instability that you cant cure by increasing your vcore you have reached the limit of the chip. back off a step and run at that.
keep an eye on your temps

 

[scottchen]

You didn't tell us what kind of ram you have, is it generic? And if it's Samsung chips, you might be able to push the ram to 210mhz. If you're not planning to change the vcore then keep the multiplier at the default 11 and turn the FSB up to 200, this gets you a 3200+, then turn up to 210 see if your computer boots, if it does, keep going higher until it doesn't, meaning your ram has been pushed to max. Before you do that be sure to change the ram's timing to SPD, this way relaxes the timing. The other things I'm worried is your CPU temperature and you didn't tell us your power supply which plays a large role in overclocking. Tell us what volcano u got and what kind of ram you got then we might be able to help you more.

I hate Computers! My P4 2.4C won't go above 3840mhz. My Sapphire 9800pro core/mem speed won't go above 490/790. I really hate computers!

 

[hachiman]

My PSU is 350Watts
The Fan and Heatsink is Thermaltake Volcano 9 Rated up to Athlon 3000xp+.

Had a problem.

Changed to 11x200
Never touched the Voltages as i wanted to see if ok.
When i rebooted it came up as

2200mhz great
Ram 400mhz great

However a black screen then appeared with a message
It said i was missing a file.

<windows>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

and to install it.

I changed back to the default 11x166 and pc booted fine.

Any ideas?

 

[scottchen]

A couple things to check 1st is the heat, I think your CPU might be getting a little hot especially with high temperature at default speed. 2nd check what's your AGP/PCI frequency at.

I hate Computers! My P4 2.4C won't go above 3840mhz. My Sapphire 9800pro core/mem speed won't go above 490/790. I really hate computers!

 

[hachiman]

Ok

10 x 200 works great.
And the core voltage does'nt need touched on that setting.
Got an extra 500 marks on 3DMARK2001.

However 11 x 200 i have problems with.
With the default Core 1.65 Voltage i got the error so started to increase by 0.025 steps.
Computer would'nt start and i had to try and boot in safe mode.
Could only get a normal boot with 1.725.
However after windows started i had a black screen with my white mouse arrow.

Is that something to do with the other Voltages??

 

[scottchen]

Be 100% sure that you have locked your AGP/PCI frequency at 66/33 otherwise that could be causing dammage to your harddrive.

I hate Computers! My P4 2.4C won't go above 3840mhz. My Sapphire 9800pro core/mem speed won't go above 490/790. I really hate computers!