My Shuttle AK31 is a P.O.S. for overclocking. What are my options?

[davidos]

I have a Athlon XP 1600+ and I get spontaneous reboots at anything over stock speed. I know it's my mobo as I have a new power supply, SK6, good ram, etc. Should I scrap the whole thing and go Intel or is it worth buying a new AMD motherboard, if so, which one. I'm trying to keep the costs down. Is my 1600+ lame? It should dance a little, right????
Thanks.

 

[JamesM3M5]

My Shuttle AK31A v3.1 is fine at 150MHz FSB and 1.85VDC on an Athlon 1800+ Palomino chip. I'm running the memory at CAS 2.5 (2 is occasionally unstable) with 4-bank interleave and all others set as low as possible, 2.6VDC on the memory. I have 2 sticks of 256MB Kingston PC2100. My system was not designed for blazing speed (unless you compare it to my old POS P2-350), nor was it designed with overclocking in mind. COST was the issue, and I only spent $59 on a mobo, $90 on 512MB of PC2100, and $103 for a retail Athlon XP 1800+.

Maybe it is your mobo, maybe not. Have you tried upping the Vcore? I ran 145MHz FSB perfectly clean for the first 2 weeks with only 1.825 (+0.075) Vcore. Do you have any PCI cards that might be sensitive to a bus frequency change? Try removing any suspect cards and see if that helps. I have a Netgear FA311 10/100 NIC and 5-port USB 1.1 card.

JamesM

 

[davidos]

Hey James:

Can you let me know your BIOS settings? memory and V-core? What slots are your memory in? I'll give your settings a whirl.
Thanks!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You must have a dud CPU brudda! I have the AK31A and when I had a 1500+ in it I ran it at 10x150fsb=1.5ghz, 1.85Vcore(I'm bent that the overvolting feature is a sham) monsterII and ASII with delta 38cfm, Crucial 2100DDR most aggressive timings@2.7v, and Sparkle 300w PSU very stable. I have a 1ghz Morgan@133x9=1.2ghz now, not a tremendous overclock but it's about all the CPU has in it

 

[JamesM3M5]

Most of the settings are in the previous post. I currently have it at 148HMz FSB, +0.100Vcore, CAS2.5 with 2.6VDC and 4-bank interleave, DRAM Queue depth at 2 Level, all others as low as possible. I ran some benchmarks with the memory settings, and 4-bank interleave posted the best numbers vs Disable and 2-bank interleave. The system would hang occasionally with DRAM Queue depth at 1 level. The memory is in slots 0 and 1 (closest to the CPU). I am running SETI @home 24/7, and it takes under 3:30 for a WU to complete.

Your sig is hilarious--1 annoyed wife. Same here. I feel your pain, bud.

JamesM

 

[birddog]

do you have the revision 3.1 board or one of the older revisions? Revision 3.1 boards are great overclockers.

 

[birddog]

Just saw that is a 3.1 in you signature.

Do you have access to someone elses board & CPU? try a different CPU in your board & your CPU in someone elses. THis could help you determine if it is the CPU or board holding you back.