Athlon XP-M 2400+ Mobile Overclocking Wierdness

[ArachPres]

Alright, I got one of these guys home to play with. Standard speed is something like 13.5 x 133 Mhz (1.8 Ghz) and I've read some great things about achieving speeds like 11, 12, even 13 x 200 Mhz! (2.2, 2.4, 2.6 Ghz) on just air cooling.

So I had to try this out. Right out of the box, I achieved 11 x 200 Mhz with no sweat. The standard voltage for this chip is 1.45 V but my Mobo goes no lower than 1.65 V. Anyway, it's stable at 40^C Load. So, I push it up a little. Achieving 12 x 200 Mhz took a little extra voltage (1.7-1.75V) but it was completely stable. I was even able to achieve a massive 13 x 200 Mhz!!! with just a $9 OCZ heat sink/fan! Amazing! Temps were a little high (about 52^C-55^C Load) but these processors are rated to go as high as 90^C before giving out!( www.amd.com&nbsp


But, I have one small problem. At any speed higher than 11.5 x 200 Mhz (2.3 Ghz) I have a wierd issue. Whenever I restart the computer at any speed the computer works wonderfully and remains stable. But if I were to shut down the entire system (at any speed higher than 2.3 Ghz) I cannot start back up. I have to reset the BIOS (and in one instance, actually pull the battery) to get the computer to come back to POST.


Does anyone have any ideas? Is it possible that the power supply could be the cuplrit? It's a generic 400 W. I also have a 9700 Pro sitting in there sucking a little juice. But why would that be the case?? If it works for hours while the computer is on, then why would it not turn back on when I turn the computer off??

Could it just be that I need to let it "burn in" for a day at 2300 Mhz?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

 

[SpaceHulk]

What motherboard are you using? I heard about this issue, you should check out the forums over at http://www.amdmb.com

 

[ArachPres]

I am using a ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (the revision with 400 FBS support) motherboard. I'm not sure what version number the software is, but I think it's current to at least six months ago.

 

[BlueWeasel]

From what I've read, some of the A7N8X boards don't like 200 FSB, even though they claim support for it. I know you said the chip is stable at 200 FSB in Windows, but have you tested it under benchmarks like Prime95, SuperPi, etc.?

I'd try running at 195x13 and see if that makes a difference.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: ArachPres
I am using a ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (the revision with 400 FBS support) motherboard.  I'm not sure what version number the software is, but I think it's current to at least six months ago.

Hmmm, kind of weird, but after you reset your cmos, do you overclock it again immediately?

 

[ArachPres]

Right, well, the system is stable at ALL speeds up to 2.3 Ghz. Testing 10, 10.5, 11, and 11.5 x at 200 Mhz FSB works fine and boots fine even after shutdown. It seems as though only when it goes over that (at 12 x 200 or 13 x 200) that it will not start up ONLY AFTER I shutdown the entire system. Restart is fine.

I'm not sure what's going on.

 

[myocardia]

You just need a more powerful power supply. A "warm boot" (rebooting from Windows) doesn't require as much power as a "cold boot". This one is awesome, though it's fairly expensive: link. Wait, it costs less than my Antec TruePower 480 did! Anyway, I want one of those now.

 

[ArachPres]

Thank You for your suggestion!

I also have an Antec TruePower 480 and will try it when I get home. Are you sure that this is the problem though? (I like re-assurance because it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that someone is pretty convinced that it's the answer to a puzzling problem)

Thank you.

 

[myocardia]

Am I completely sure that it's the answer to your problem? No, but I am sure that there's a very good chance that it is. Computers are like women, just when you think you've got them figured out...

edit: Of course, you may still need to give your processor more voltage to be stable at 2.5ghz.

 

[pillage2001]

Try giving it a higher vcore. See if it get rids of the problem. Your antec should be more than enough to OC that chip.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: pillage2001
Try giving it a higher vcore. See if it get rids of the problem. Your antec should be more than enough to OC that chip.

No doubt, my TruePower 480 runs my mobile 2600 at 2.5ghz, and has enough left over power to run two 7200 rpm hd's and still let's me overclock my 9800 Pro.

 

[ArachPres]

What V-cores do you have your mobile chips at?

The max my motherboard lets me go is 1.825 V which might not be enough to keep 2.6 Ghz stable. I acheived 2.6 Ghz stable for a little while but some 3D applications wouldn't run at all so I'm guessing maybe I needed more. Or maybe it's just the power supply.

Anyway, what are your V-Cores at? (mainly to maintain 2.5 and 2.6?)

 

[multifacitedonyx]

ArachPRess,
I am having the same problem with a ceiling on my Vcore. I have a gigabyte 7n400 pro2 that only allows overvolting in 5%, 7.5 and 10% increases. This was fine to get my 2200+ running at 2.4, but now that I have a 2400+ mobile the highest I can get the vcore is 1.72 or so. That is enough to support 2.4GHz, but temps are low and I KNOW this chip will do better.

Do anyone know of a way to get the vcore higher on such a rig (besides trashing the mobo and getting another)? Is there an AMD variation of the wire trick?

Help is much appreciated.

 

[ArachPres]

If I'm not mistaken (I could be) I believe you can perform a Volt-Mod to the motherboard somewhere near the socket to give it a little extra voltage directly from the power supply. I don't know how to do it and don't know anyone that can but it involves soldering and I don't have the necessary materials.

Unless there's another, easier and simpler way to do it, please tell me my friends! I would love to enable up to 2.0 Volts in the V-core.

Also, I'm still wondering what others had their V-core at to obtain 2.5 and 2.6 Ghz!!

 

[myocardia]

Okay, mine runs Prime95 stable at 12x209@1.80v (bios), which is actually 1.760-1.774v under 100% load. If you want to give your chip more voltage, you don't need to do anything to your power supply, that's to raise your power supply's voltages. Here's a link to how to do it: link. I used that way (we call it a pinmod) to raise the vcore on my daughter's old motherboard, and it worked as well as raising it through the bios would have. (Though obviously not as easily.)

 

[ArachPres]

OK, some bad news. The power supply had no effect. I used the Antec TruePower 480 and the issue still remains. I will be looking for an update to the motherboard/chipset software and maybe it will fix the issue.

As for now, I switched to another motherboard (still in the same family of motherboards) the Asus A7N8X-X. I cannot seem to get the system stable at 2400 Mhz or above. It will boot to windows as high as 2600 Mhz but cannot do any intensive processing (games, etc) without crashing. It seems as though it's perfectly stable at 2300 Mhz @ 1.75 V-core.

So, any ideas as to what causes the problem of shutting down and not being able to get back without reseting the BIOS over 2300 Mhz?

 

[ArachPres]

You know, for the future, I'm really considering Abit motherboards to do my overclocking. I was just looking at some features that most of the upper Abit boards have and it looks like a tweaker's dream! 5x-22x multiplier range, 1-2Mhz incremental FSB increases, much high V-core settings, etc.. just blows away any board I currently have.

But for now, I'm stuck with not being able to pull anymore than 1.825 V in the core. I'm actually finding it harder to maintain stability at 2500 and 2600. Maybe this processor was just one of those that just can't stand to go this high. Or maybe I need 1.85 or 1.90 V-core? Whatever the case, I still would like to boot and remain stable at 2400 Mhz but can't even seem to keep that! If I shutdown, I'm stuck reseting the BIOS to get out of a possible jam! Sadly, I'm running out of ideas and am almost willing to setting for 2300 Mhz and be happy that I got that! For $87 ($78 for the processor, $9 for an OCZ cooling solution) I am pretty happy to get an Athlon XP 3400+ out of the deal....

Sigh... Any last minute ideas? Anyone else have this problem before?

 

[multifacitedonyx]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Okay, mine runs Prime95 stable at 12x209@1.80v (bios), which is actually 1.760-1.774v under 100% load. If you want to give your chip more voltage, you don't need to do anything to your power supply, that's to raise your power supply's voltages. Here's a link to how to do it: link. I used that way (we call it a pinmod) to raise the vcore on my daughter's old motherboard, and it worked as well as raising it through the bios would have. (Though obviously not as easily.)

I have looked at his page, but either I am dense, or the page is not self explanatory. I am worried about modding the pins in the wrong way. Also, once you do the mod, will the Bios still work? I.E if I mod this to run at 1.7, can I then use the bios to bump it up to 1.785 or all the way to 1.87? Is this reversable?

Thanks

 

[ArachPres]

I'm trying a bunch of different things and still can't seem to get the system to cold boot at a multiplier of 12x or higher. I'm starting to lose hope.

To compensate, I pushed my RAM speed to 205, giving me a little 58 Mhz boost to 2358 Mhz but it's still nothing what I expected to get out of it. Still looking at my options. The BIOS update to my motherboard is useless (only fixes stability problems with modules of RAM that aren't mine) and I've plum run out of ideas.

*cries to himself*

Well, fate it seems is cold... just like the boot I can't seem to do.

 

[xylem]

Arachpres, have you tried cold booting the high multiplier you are seeking with a low bus speed? This may not be a solution to your problem, but I received a 2400+ Mobile Barton from Newegg about a week ago, and I noticed something strange about it... at higher clockspeeds it seems to be less tolerant of high bus speeds. I get Prime95 errors at a little over 2.4 ghz with a 200+ bus, but I'm stable at 13.5x184= 2490MHz (1.80 v-core). It is possible that the motherboard may be contributing to this phenomenon (NF7-S without VCC mod), but it seems odd that the motherboard would only be stable with a certain bus speed at lower cpu clockspeed...

 

[ArachPres]

Now, this was an interesting solution!

I was actually able to cold boot at 12.5 x 190 Mhz and acheived some decent Clock speeds! However, the performance tests I ran showed that the lower memory speed actually decreased performance from the more stable 11.5x 200 Mhz @ 1.75 V-core.

I lost like 1-2% performance.

So, I am basically going to remain at 11.5 x 200 Mhz @ 1.75 V-core until I can find a way to cold boot from 12 or 12.5 x 200 Mhz @ 1.825 V-core.

Still looking for a way, but the motherboard just doesn't want to let me. If you were wondering, I am running two sticks of Corsair Value Ram PC3200 512MB with 2.5 CAS latency.

 

[ArachPres]

This is really frustrating to know I can run this chip higher but I can't cold boot with the higher multiplier applied to the 200 Mhz bus.

AHHH, IT'S DRIVING ME NUTS!

 

[ectx]

I have an a7n8x-deluxe rev 1(.? - not ultra 400 nforce2 chip), use bios 1007. I have my share of problems.

Asus has the voice announcement of booting status (I used to turn if off in bios, but turned it back on as it does help when there is no boot and I wonder what happens). Have you used it and what did it say?

I definitely will set make it "stop on no error" and see if it boots up.

A long time ago I had a p3v4x (still have the mb sitting in a box in the basement) with cold boot problem - it turned out that I need to put a hs on one of the small chips. (It was a well known problem and soultion.)

I had a MSI board that has the same problem - I booted it up at a lower setting and used a utiltily to oc the fsb (auto starts at windows startup). If you can boot up at the proper multiplier at a lower fsb, then I would think this is the perfect soulution. You can use clkgen (from cpu-z' author) to do this.

Finally, I hate to say this - are you really sure your system is really stable at higher oc? I think you are most likely right (that it is stable) but, when debuggin a problem, it is easy to miss the obvious.

Good luck.

 

[ArachPres]

Well, for the most part, the computer is stable at 2.4 and somewhat at 2.5 Ghz. I have noticed failures at 2.5 (mainly gaming and heavy processor work). So, I guess it's not stable at 2.5 but it is at 2.4 but I still can't cold boot at 2.4 Ghz.



I pretty much gave up. Figured maybe it's my RAM (being Corsair Value Select) PC3200.

I ran out of options and kept it set at 11.5 x 200 Mhz @ 1.75 V-core.

 

[ectx]

Can you boot it up at say, 12x190 at the proper voltage (for 2.4g)? If so, use clockGen at windows startup to set the fsb to 200. Isn't that a solution?