A7V8X and overclocking...

[chsh1ca]

Well, I've had this Asus A7V8X for almost a year now, and its accompanying Athlon XP2000+ running at stock speeds/1.60V. I've been thinking of upgrading my processor to a Barton 2500+ or higher, but I don't have the money now, and in the interim, I wouldn't mind trying to squeeze as much outta this as I can.

Here's what I managed to work out while tinkering last night:
14x133@1.60V = Doesn't boot
14x133@1.65V = Boots okay, but I get CRC errors booting linux, and windows hangs.
14x133@1.70V = Boots okay, seems stable.
15x133@1.70V = Boots okay, CRC/Hang issues.
15x133@1.72V = Boots okay, CRC/Hang issues.
15x133@1.75V = Boots okay, CRC/Hang issues.

Any overclock of the FSB by even one MHz causes the hard drives to fail detection at startup.
It's running right now at the 14x133@1.7V setting, which is 1.867GHz, 200MHz more than stock. I know this board isn't the best overclocker, but surely there's a way I can squeeze a bit more than a 200MHz overclock out of it? There is no option for a PCI/AGP lock on the board (at least that I saw).

 

[myocardia]

Yep, raise the vcore.

 

[chsh1ca]

It won't do it even at 1.8V VCore, it boots, and I get CRC/Hang issues again (failed CRC check in linux, Win98SE hangs). I guess I'm stuck at 14x133@1.725V.

 

[nick1985]

buy an nforce2

 

[myocardia]

That means you need a bigger, badder power supply, along with an nForce2 motherboard.

 

[OCedHrt]

My 1700+ does 166x13 at 1.8v on the a7v8x..but then again thats the 1700+..i doubt its the board, so either the cpu or the psu.

 

[jjyiz28]

there are no pci/agp locks, but it has dividers for 166fsb, so 166fsb should work. therefore, raise your FSB to 166 exactly so when the divider kicks in agp/pci are 66/33. then play around with the multi, the vcore, and maybe the mem ratio.

 

[chsh1ca]

Thanks guys, I'll give it a shot.

 

[chsh1ca]

Results:
- 166x12@1.725V: POST/Crash
- 166x12@1.750V: POST/Crash
- 166x12@1.775V: Boot/Crash
- 166x12@1.800V: Boot/Crash
- 166x11.5@1.725V: Boot/Crash
- 166x11.5@1.750V: Boots, seems stable.

Not a huge increase in overall clock speed over my previous OC (from 1867 to 1909). So as it stands, my AXP2000+ is running @ 1909.
Not sure if Linux is accurate, but this looks to be on par with the XP 2600+ from /proc/cpuinfo:

model name : AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2600+
cpu MHz : 1916.547
cache size : 256 KB

As far as overclocks go, this isn't 2GHz, but not too shabby considering my rather budget setup.

EDIT: Temps are 27C MB/47C CPU. CPU peaks at 55C under load. Using a generic "AMD-Approved" HSF that came with the proc.

 

[jjyiz28]

good job, even though the mhz is very close, jumping from 133 to 166 fsb is a moderate jump in speed. are you running your memory in sync?

 

[chsh1ca]

Yep Memory is running at DDR333 Speeds. For complete stability under load I had to bump the vcore to 1.8V, and thus the temps are a bit hotter, however it is 100% stable.