before i blow something up

[Pasha101]

first oc, so i've read all the guides that i could, and i think i finally got what to do. just have a couple of quick things i'd like to check to make sure i didn't miss anything major.

system
opty 170
msi nforce 4 ultra
4x512 geil value ram 2.5-8-4-4 (can do 2.5-3-3-6 and reach about 440ish

after reading all the guides i want to give a modest oc of 25 % a go. the cpu part sounds pretty straight forward drop the multiplier to 4 and up the fsb to 250. my 170 has what i think is a good oc setting of cccbe-615, and from everything i've read i should be able to run 250x4 without any issues, or raising the cpu voltage.

my questions revolve more around memory, and memory settings. geil did have some really fast chips circulating a year ago when i bought these, but i didn't win the lottery setting. on top of that i have four of them, which at ddr400 will only run single channel. so my question is as follows: since i will be using a divider anyway and dropping my mem down to 166 (333), and my board can handle four 333 sticks in dual channel, i should be able to run these i dual channel, right? also, cpu-z memory settings screen shows that at 166 my memory timings are 2-3-3-7. so should these be the settings i use while using the 166 divider?

if i read everything right i should be able to achive this 25% bump rather easily, and without any voltage bump to the cpu, and maybe even memory.

finally, i have a choice of using the opty's big 2 pipe (2 on each side) cooler or a year old zalman 7700 (i think). from what i've read, 25% isn't much of a bump for this cpu so i should be fine with the stock sink, but i do have the zalman avalable so.....?

any help is greatly appreciated

 

[Markfw]

well, my 170 is running 1.45 vcore, and I set my memory to 166, so at 250, its really running at 208.. I have an XP90, not sure on your choices, but my gut tells me the opty cooler.

 

[Pasha101]

thanks... that's what i figured. i guess i'm on the right track.

i will figure out how the memory performs when in all four slots once i have time. i guess i will check back next week with that.

i really like the zalman cooler, but the stock opty sink looks really beefy and i saw similar sinks sell for quite a premium maybe as little as half a year ago. plus it's new, and doesn't have a year's worth of wear and tear, so for now i guess it's a front runner.

again, thanks Mark.

 

[myocardia]

First, use the stock cooler, it's good for over 2.5 Ghhz. Secondly, there's no way you're gonna be able to run your RAM using the 166 Mhz divider, at least in dual-channel mode. Like Mark said, you'll be running @ 208 Mhz, with your HTT @ 250 Mhz. So, you'll need to use the 133 Mhz divider, and make sure that you enable 2T, which is a necessity with 4 sticks of RAM.

 

[Pasha101]

thanks to both of you guys for your help.

i upgraded my mobo with the latest bios, which does allow four sticks of ram to run @400 T2 vs 300 t1 as in the old bios.

from there everything pretty much went according to plan. htt at 249x4 with memory on 166 divider. board auto-set the memory timings at 2.5-3-3-7 at 207.5. the timings also happen to be the same timings i saw on other posts as the stable oc timings for this memory. ran about 7 passes of memtest before deciding to leave the memory alone.

ran prime95 for about 12 hours yesterday, with no errors. will set it to run a little longer later today. still not sure how to run it for both cores, as right now it only seems to run one of the cores only.

so far so good. this was a very mild overclock, but i'm very happy with it, and the performance i'm getting out of my computer.

ps... cpu-fan shows that one of my hard-drives is running very-very hot (avg 55c). this is one of the four drives i have sitting in the bottom hd cage of the p180. supposively this hd's operating temps are withing 29-65c, so technically it's within spec. Still this is a bit worrisome. i don't recall last time i had an hd run over 40c, and now all four hd's in the cage are somewhere in the upper 40's while my main system drive is pretty much always around 55c. fan pulling air off the drives is on and working fine and drives feel cool to the touch, so i don't really know what to do, but i guess that's a question i should ask on another forum. all i'm saying is i've never seen an hd run hotter than an overclocked cpu (my cpu temps are under 40c, even after 12 hours of prime.)

 

[Pasha101]

oops... sorry, i meant to say just under 50c. (48-52c full load) for the cpu.