Finally got the garage computer put together and it won't OC.

[balane]

I realized I had nearly enough parts to put together a half way decent computer from old builds and with a day or two on Craig's List I finally got it all together.

It runs well at stock settings but I want to overclock this processor because I understand it can handle 3GHz easily but no matter what I set the bus to in the BIOS it won't boot into Windows at anything other than the stock setting of 9x200MHz.

The gear rundown is below. I know this isn't very modern, or even quality, hardware but it is a pieced together system that will stay in the garage and play games, watch movies, surf the web, word processing, etc. Probably the most stressful game which will be played on it is World of Warcraft. I had to buy about $60 in parts to get it running so even if I can't OC the processor I'm OK with that.

Intel E62160 1.8GHz dual core processor
ECS P4M800Pro-M 2.0 motherboard 8x AGP http://www.newegg.com/product/...x?Item=N82E16813135027
ATI HD 3850 AGP video card
2GB Corsair PC2 4200 533MHz RAM (2 x 1GB, board max.)
Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA hdd
Vantec 500w PSU
Windows XP Pro 32 bit

Is there a reason the CPU overclocking in the BIOS either doesn't allow Windows to boot or simply won't register in CPUZ when mild FSB numbers are tried?

 

[balane]

A quick couple of more things;

The motherboard has the latest, and most likely final, BIOS installed.

The HD 3850 overlocks very well. Using HotFix drivers and RivaTuner.

 

[stevty2889]

Don't think the CPU is the problem, it's most likely that motherboard. It might not even have a lock on the SATA frequency, which pretty much makes it useless for overclocking. If you set the FSB to exactly 266mhz, it might let you do that since it's a supported FSB. You would need 333mhz FSB to get to 3ghz, which is probably quite outside the range that motherboard can handle.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Intel E6150 CPU? Never heard of it.

 

[Denithor]

Yeah, I've never heard of the e6150 either. What are the fsb & multiplier?

Could it be your RAM holding you back? Remember 533MHz ram will only run 1:1 at fsb 266 so it that's the stock fsb of the cpu and you're not using a divider to drop memory speed, it may not OC well. Even worse is if your stock fsb is 333MHz, then you may not have a divider low enough to push past stock speed at all. If that's the case, buy some cheap DDR2-800 and it'll work fine.

 

[taltamir]

to OC the biggest most important deal is the MOTHERBOARD!
an Extra Crappy Systems board is just not gonna cut it for OCing.

Although admittedly they do have some relatively ok ocers... and higher end companies do have bad ocers... basically OCing boards are advertised as such, they usually tout things like solid capacitors, ultra durability, extra power phases, ferrite cores, etc.

EX: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Fil..._ud3_ultra-durable.htm

 

[balane]

Typo, sorry. I was tired. E2160 CPU

 

[Arkaign]

Want to overclock 2160 on ECS = conductive pin trick. That way the mobo doesn't have to work out of spec on FSB / Memory.

EDIT : This ---> http://www.techspot.com/galler...7/cat/500/ppuser/25139

 

[balane]

Oh, thta's pretty cool. I see they are using the E4300 processor which is different than mine. Are the pins the same regardless of which CPU you are running? Thanks for the info.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: balane
Oh, thta's pretty cool. I see they are using the E4300 processor which is different than mine. Are the pins the same regardless of which CPU you are running? Thanks for the info.

Yes, BSEL is the same for any 800MHZ FSB E2000/4000 series. Takes it from 800Mhz to 1066 (200 to 266). Mobo is none the wiser, so everything runs in spec. Works golden on almost all cases. Particularly useful when trying to squeeze extra performance from non-OC-friendly boards like ECS makes.

 

[balane]

That's great, seems like exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you very much.

 

[Arkaign]

Update? Did you get the defogger/BSEL mod done?

 

[balane]

Yes, but I had a hard time with it. When I made previous attempts to overclock my computer the operating system could not be found at boot up. Well, after multiple and careful attempts at the BSEL mod using a Circuit Writer pen I kept getting the same error and just figured it couldn't be done on my motherboard. So I gave up, reverted it back to stock and went to reassemble the computer.

When I was putting my case back together I noticed the power connector had been knocked free from the hard drive, it's a weak SATA power connection and it has happened before so I should have known.

After fixing that a little more permanently I ripped the heatsink back off for the dozenth time and performed the mod once again. Once I booted up the overclock showed just fine and my 3DMark06 scored jumped from 7800 to 9300 and WoW bumped up 3-4 frames per second on average.

The pen was not easy to work with for me, it was very globby and resistant to exit the pen. I ultimately found a system by popping the tip and squirting out a pool of liquid and using a tooth pick to draw the lines. I scanned it at ultra high resolution to check for mistakes and, while it looks like complete crap to me, it does function solidly.

So I'm very pleased with the mod and thank you for your assistance. No voltage increases were performed and Prime 95 was run on both cores for several hours with no issues.

 

[Arkaign]

Cool great to hear! 2.4Ghz vs. 1.8Ghz = Win

 

[balane]

OK, I just noticed this popping up when I power on the computer.

A 200MHz system bus processor is installed. This processor is not supported on this system board, and will run at reduced processor clock speed. System performance will be impacted.

This is in the POST

But CPUZ says it's Core Speed 2395.5MHz, Multiplier x9.0, Bus Speed 266.2MHz, Rated FSB 1064.7MHz

My 3DMark scores and games are clearly faster than before.

Can anybody explain what is going on? Thanks.

 

[betasub]

The POST message reflects that fact that the BIOS wasn't written to handle OCing and OCed processors. It recognises there is a conflict between model number FSB (200MHz) and hardwired FSB (266MHz) and POSTs the default warning message (intended for when an high FSB processor is installed but is forced to run at the lower mobo-limited FSB).

In your situation, "reduced" should read "increased".

 

[Arkaign]

Yep, nothing to worry about. The CPU reports itself to be a 200/800 Bus, 1.8Ghz CPU, but the it's not matching the stock speed, so it flashes a warning thinking because it doesn't understand the speed issue.

What's important is that you are running 2.4Ghz no problem, and on stock 1066 bus (which your board supports).

It's possible that a bios flash might make this message go away, but it's really harmless.

 

[balane]

OK, easy to ignore. Again, thank you very much. Computer is zipping along nicely.