Help me OC my 3200+

[basslover1]

So I've got a 3200+ NewCastle that I want to reach stable speeds of 2.4ghz instead of me going out and buying a 3400+ or 3700+ (expensive but MUCH easier, and always stable).

I've tried slight overclocking before but haven't had that good of results. If I up the FSB to 210 with a multiplier of 11 I get 2.3ghz. Now, thats all fine and dandy, but as soon as I do something cpu intensive, mainly playing Far Cry, after about 15-20 minutes after it's had plenty of time to heat up the game will crash. I know for a fact that the OC is the cause because right now I'm running at 205x11 and it runs just fine.

I'm pretty much new to OC'ing this is my first computer that is actually worthy of calling it that, previous two were a celeron 733 eMachine and a Pentium I HP from way back in the day.

Any help would be appreciated, and try to keep it simple as possible .

Thanks guys.

 

[xrest]

your cpu is with stock cooler?i have a friend with the same cpu as u and with stock cooler had reached 2.34.and me too i have a 3400 running at 2.54 with stock cooler.dont expect much

 

[basslover1]

Ahhh, sorry I forgot that part isn't in my sig. I'm air cooling w/ an xp-90 heatsink...trust me, I have adequate cooling in this system.

Sounds like a stinkin jet plane...but fan controllers are your friend .

 

[Furen]

did you lower your hypertransport/ldt multiplier? did you use a ram divider?

 

[basslover1]

I'm really new to this stuff...I know how to lower the HT multiplier, but I'm not sure how to change the ram divider, and even if I did I don't understand what it does.

 

[basslover1]

Anyone at all?

 

[bdoople]

Lowering your RAM divider makes it run at a divider with the HTT, instead of at the same level (1:1) as default. I, for example, am runnin a 5/6 (I think) divider on mine, so my DDR is set at 166mhz, HTT at 240mhz, which puts the RAM up to 200mhz (stock speed with better timings and 1T are benefits) so my 3200+ is running at 2400mhz, with minimal effort, stock heatsink, fan, and thermal compound, on air cooling, and my temperature didnt budge from stock clocking. 91F idle, 104F load. (114F is the highest load Ive ever seen)

 

[Furen]

what he said. It should be under DRAM settings. It should be DDR400 (or 200Mhz, or something of the sort) by default. It could also be Auto or something, just set it to DDR333 (or 166) until you hit HTT240, you'll have to drop it a bit after that.

 

[basslover1]

Oh ok...yea I was actually doing that. Instead of the mobo choosing 200mhz I was putting it at like 133 to see if it would work so I'm gonna go fool with it a little more.

If I up it to 240, what ram settings should I pick (other than 166), I.E. what speeds? If I set it to auto, sometimes it'll take 2.5-2-5-2 1T...is that a good start, or what else should I do? I'm not really familiar with how it works but from the gist of things...lower numbers mean less time it takes for the computer to speak to the ram, is this corret?

 

[basslover1]

Ok,

FSB @ 218x11 (2398) but the mobo sees it as 2400 and Windows system properties sees it as 2.41ghz.

It's stable so far, I'm going to tinker more and run Prime95 and memtest as well.

 

[Furen]

Does your 166 ratio not work? I'd do 240x10 @ 166ram, since right now you are underclocking your ram. Check your ram speed with cpuz.

 

[Furen]

Memory timings are probably the most complicated thing you can set up in the bios. I can explain it to you if you want me to, but it's pretty technical and there really isnt much need to know it. The main point is that you want your latencies to be the lowest possible.
2.5-2-5-2 is pretty good if your ram is not overclocking ram, though I'd try setting the cas (first setting) to 2 and the min ras act time (the third setting) to 10 (since that's what anandtech's tests seem to indicate is better for nf3, I havent tested this myself, though).

 

[basslover1]

I tried it at 166 but when the computer POSTs it reads that the ram is at 185 mhz instead of 166...is that normal? Also, at 10x240 it didn't work, I tried 11x218 and it worked but wasn't stable in Prime95 or Far Cry...


Any other combinations I could try, or other settings I should change?

 

[Furen]

It'd be helpful if you gave me more info:

Do you have other ram dividers other than 200-166-133-100?

Have you tried raising the voltage a bit with the 240x10 setting?

 

[basslover1]

Ok,

No, those are my only ram dividers...I have it at 166 in my bios right now but CPU-Z says it's still 200mhz.

I have the voltage set at 1.6 for the CPU and 2.8 for the ram...the timings right now are 2.5-3-7-3 1T (all auto cept 1T)

It's currently running fine @ 240x10, but I haven't tried a Prime95 stress test yet.

 

[basslover1]

Ok, I just ran Prime95 on my system. It failed the Small FFTs and the In-Place Large FFTs within a few seconds, but it ran the Blend test for 5 mins no problems.

Should I be worried that CPU-Z still lists my ram @ 200mhz and do the first two test mean much, or should I just run the third one for a few hours.

 

[basslover1]

Well, I had a lightnight storm here so I decided I would unplug my computer...now if I OC to 10x240 w/ cpu voltage @ 1.6-1.65, ram w/ a divider of 166, 2.5-3-10-3 1T timings and voltage @ 2.8 or so, It won't get passed the Windows Logon screen before I get a BSOD.

Is my hardware just not OC friendly, could me generic 350 watt PSU have something to do with it maybe?

 

[Mesix]

2.4 on stock cooled venice. It was really easy, but I'm using a divider. I'm gonna go for more when I have better cooling.

 

[bdoople]

I'm up to 2.55Ghz @ 1.54V on a stock cooled Winnie.

 

[basslover1]

Ok, I'm gonna bump this back up.

Since the last time I replied in this topic two things have changed. One, I now have an X800Pro (XT PE bios flash) instead of a 9800Pro, and two, I have an Antec True Blue 480 watt PSU now instead of the generic 350 watt that came in my case.

I tried everything you guys said, 10x240 and setting ram to 166, timings are all on auto (this is the only way it seems to work ), CPU voltage is at 1.65 and DIMM voltage is at 2.8.

Sadly, I'm not able to get past the Windows Load screen w/o it crashing. Is there something else I could try to see if this will work?

Thanks guys.

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: basslover1
Ok, I'm gonna bump this back up.

Since the last time I replied in this topic two things have changed. One, I now have an X800Pro (XT PE bios flash) instead of a 9800Pro, and two, I have an Antec True Blue 480 watt PSU now instead of the generic 350 watt that came in my case.

I tried everything you guys said, 10x240 and setting ram to 166, timings are all on auto (this is the only way it seems to work ), CPU voltage is at 1.65 and DIMM voltage is at 2.8.

Sadly, I'm not able to get past the Windows Load screen w/o it crashing. Is there something else I could try to see if this will work?

Thanks guys.

If your windows is not booting..you got a problem. Just clear your CMOS settings, and run everything on default. Things should ran fine

 

[basslover1]

I figured that was the case. Anyone know where to start looking? I really want this to work but I guess I could always just find a used 3700+ clawhammer and start from there .

 

[Powermoloch]

Well each cpu is unique, some can reach a higher clock speed, some others don't. It depends. If your upgrading another cpu, that's great, beats the hassle of not worrying about a comp blowing up into smoke

 

[basslover1]

Yea, thats kinda why I might just go and buy a 3700+ clawhammer. It's got the 2.4ghz clock speed like I want to reach, plus it has the 1mb L2 Cache, can't really complain about that. Only down side is the 265 dollar price tag, I'm kinda broke right now lol.

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: basslover1
Yea, thats kinda why I might just go and buy a 3700+ clawhammer. It's got the 2.4ghz clock speed like I want to reach, plus it has the 1mb L2 Cache, can't really complain about that. Only down side is the 265 dollar price tag, I'm kinda broke right now lol.

=( i'm broke also