Barton 2500+ & A7N8X Overclocking

[I3igDmsu]

I just received my Barton 2500 => AXDA2500KV4D, AQUCA0309SPDW, 9850908240194
is this a week 9 cpu, what are people having luck with for overclocking results for this week... or does it
vary?

I am probably going to mildy overclock it tonight, any advise on where to start would be of help..
should i just up the multiplier at first and fool with the bus later? I am sketchy as to up the voltage
because I hear it can degrade the life of the cpu drastically... anyone that wants to change my view then
go for it.

My asus board is a revision 2.0, and im planning to flash the mobo with teh 1003 before i do anything.

I am also running an SLK-800 heatsink and a TT Smartfan II and tons of case fans so cooling should be
adequate.

 

[Jeff7181]

I have a week 7 XP2500 and the A7N8X Deluxe
As far as voltage goes... I don't like going higher than 1.750 volts. No matter how good your cooling is, high voltage will shorten the life of the CPU, and from what I've experienced and read, 1.750 seems to be the high end of the safe zone for Thoroughbred and up cores.
As far as overclocking, I'd jack up the multiplier in steps... when it won't boot, or reboots when Windows is loading, increase the voltage one step. Keep doing that until you're stable at 12.5 multiplier.
If you feel like going for more, set the multiplier at 10, exit the bios, the set the FSB at 200. (I say to exit before because doing too many major changes at once seems to fudge up the BIOS and it doesn't want to reboot unless you turn the power completely off, and then back on) If you're stable at 200x10, increase the multiplier again in steps, increasing the voltage necessary to keep it stable until you're at 1.750 volts... at that point, I would stop.
Also, consider your RAM... if you have PC3200 RAM, by all means, run it in sync with your FSB... but if you have PC2700, you may have to set it to 83% I'm running my week 7 XP2500 at 2210 Mhz (221x10) at 1.750 volts and I have PC2700 RAM, so I have mine set to 75%.
Benchmark results are in my profile... if you want any more information that I left out, ask away. I'm sure others can provide more information too.

 

[I3igDmsu]

thanks tons jeff... tons of help!
as far as ram, i bought 2 sticks of 512mb corsair pc3200 cl2 so i am hoping it will perform nicely

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: I3igDmsu
thanks tons jeff... tons of help!
as far as ram, i bought 2 sticks of 512mb corsair pc3200 cl2 so i am hoping it will perform nicely

That should do well... with that RAM you should be close to a PCMark score of 6000 for the RAM. As soon as I get some money I'll be upgrading my RAM so I can at least run it in sync with a 200 Mhz FSB... might even go for some PC3500 to allow an even higher FSB since the motherboard and processor are perfectly capable of a 221 Mhz FSB that I'm at now.

 

[skouk]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and would like some technical assistance on setting up my Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard BIOS with Barton 2500+ CPU, and (3) 512MB PC2100 Crucial memory. (Current bios level = 1003)

Here is my current settings: Advance Chipset Features:

CPU External Frequency = 166MHZ
CPU Frequency Multiple = 14.0x
System Performance = Optimal => Resulting CPU Interface, Memory timings options greyed out!
CPU Interface = Optimal
Memory Frequency = By SPD
Resulting Memory = 133MHZ
============================
Since I'm running Crucial PC2100 memory, I'm looking for the optimal setting that I can utilize this memory frequency.
I tried different settings but it resulted in Memory Failure during reboot after bios settings

Thank you in advance for your help and recommendations.

Sort

 

[Jeff7181]

The XP2500 uses a 166 Mhz (333 effective) front side bus. Your ram is running at 133 Mhz (266 effective). To get optimal performance, you're memory needs to be running in sync (at the same speed) with your front side bus. You MAY be able to overclock your RAM and get it to run at 166, but you'll probably have to raise the timing, which will slow the RAM down. I highly recommend you upgrade to at least PC2700 RAM... PC3200 isn't that much more expensive, andit will give you room to upgrade to a 400 Mhz FSB processor in the future, or overclocked your current processor and use a 200 Mhz (400 effective) FSB while still being able to run your RAM in sync with the FSB.