How good does a power supply need to be for overclocking a p4?

[obeseotron]

I'm experiencing difficulties trying to overclock my p4 1.8a at all, i was wondering if a power supply problem might be the cause. I have a p4 1.8a on an epox 4g4a+ with two 40GB 7200RPM hard drives, a 16X dvd drive, a 40x12x48 burner and a 6x4x20 burner, 512MB DDR RAM, a Geforce 1, 2 NICs and a Vortex2 soundcard. It's powered by an Antec 330W power suppy. I'm having trouble getting it stable with any kind of overclock even to 1.96Ghz, but it boots almost all the way into windows at up to 2.7Ghz. I've had a decent amount of overclocking experience with p2's, p3's, and the early celerons, and I've never seen a chip that wouldn't overclock 10%, especially if it could almost load windows at a 50% overclock. Is it the PS?

 

[Showtime]

Unplug all the bs and find out. You only need 1 HD or if its a raid array than run those 2. Use only 1 cd rom/burner. If it oc's better now than you need more power.

good luck,
-show

 

[SpeedyGonzales]

It can be the PSU, but before buying a new one, make sure you have tested every option.

As mentioned by Showtime, make sure to remove all PCI cards. Start with the most basic configuration.

Does your motherboard allow to fix the PCI operations at 33Mhz ? If yes, make sure that this is activated.

How high do you have the Vcore ? At 1.96, the default should be enough, but over 2.2 you will most likely need more than 1.5V.

What memory are you using ? Make sure you do not overclock your memory, whilst trying to find out the limits of your CPU. Set the DRAM : CPU ration to 1:1 for all tests you are doing.

If nothing of this helps, than it may be the PSU. I could not operate my 1.8a stable over 2.2Ghz, with the PSU, that was in my Avance miditower. However it was no problem to boot into Windows at 2.5Ghz. I replaced the PSU by a TSP 420W PSU (Enermax is also possible, but the TSP got better reviews), since then the CPU runs Windows XP rock stable at 2.4Ghz at 1.65 Vcore. I have not yet tried to go further.

Hope that helps
Speedy

 

[scottrico]

I had the same issue overclocking my 1.8a. It became unstable at 2200.
I was using a 400w power supply that came with my case.
I got a verry nice 430w (maby more, I dont remember) power supply from new egg and "pow" stable at 2394 (1.8 x 133).

Da lesson: a good power supply is like a good monitor. It will follow you from system to system. It is money well spent.

peace.

 

[Trader05]

Hmm...i was just thinking of the same question, and i have my 1.6@2.3 and want to go higher. I have an older Antec 300w ps now, but i think my main problem of getting this baby to 150mhz bus is my memory. I have Kingston Value ddr2100 and Crucial ddr2100. With my 300w without p4 connector has 1 Ibm 60gxp 7200rpm hd, 1westerndigital 5400rpm hd, 16x dvdrom, and 24x burner, Geforce 4, Nic, SB audigy and i'm getting 133 bus. Thinking of whether or not to get a 400+w.