need advice for o'clocking mobile barton 2600+

[Tango57]

my mobile barton 2600+ and albatron kx18d nforce2 ultra pro board arrived from newegg today. so i popped the chip in and the first thing i noticed was that the bios was showing the default voltage at 1.57v not 1.45v. i ignored it at first 'cause i wanted to test it first and see how well it overclocked. i got it to clock at 2000, 2200, and 2400 with relative ease but when i get up to 2500 it hardly stays stable for long and cannot get it to post at 2600 yet. it will either make it into windows and then crash; freeze after a few minutes, or i'll just get a sudden black screen. the "most stable" setting for 2500 mhz seems to be 200 x 12.5 at 1.85-1.9v. i was able to complete 3dmark 2001 and aquamark with no problem but at these voltages it pretty much starts to overheat after a while with temps getting up into the 60's. i have a cooler master aero fan/copper heatsink with artic silver 5. my memory is 256 x 2 kingston valueram pc3200 @ 200 (400 mhz) ddr:cpu ratio of 1 with timings of 3-3-3-6. i tried several other timings but couldn't keep it stable at 2500. these seem to be the most stable timings. increasing the multiplier higher than 12.5 at any speed prevents my system from even posting. i still have yet to run prime95 once i feel it's at a somewhat stable speed but first do you guys think i should RMA my chip 'cause of the voltage discrepency i'm getting in the bios? could my board be the problem? other mobile barton owners seems to be hitting 2500 easily at only 1.65-1.75v without having to ramp it up to 1.85-1.9v and suffer overheating from what i've read. do you guys think my memory is holding my overclocking back? i know my memory isn't the best for overclocking so should i also upgrade my ram while i'm at it? thanks for any advice. :beer:

edit: won't run prime95 with 2500 at 200 x 12.5 at 1.85v. getting errors at the start.

system specs:
mobile barton 2600+
albatron kx18d nforce 2 ultra
kingston valueram 512 mb pc3200
leadtek 5900 ultra 256 mb
eps-12v 500w server psu
lian-li pc-60 with 2 intake/2 outake fans
windows xp home
using latest nforce drivers & win xp updates

 

[Zebo]

RMA? If your chip runs stable/passes prime at 166mhz bus/12 mulitplier and 1.45 Vcore you have no right to RMA since it's running at it's rated speed.

 

[myocardia]

Actually, 12x166 is overclocked. 11.5x166 is stock speed for a desktop Barton 2600, and 14.5x133 is stock speed for the mobile 2600.

 

[Cheetah8799]

Your bios may just detect it funny. My mobo detected my 2500 mobile as 6x multiplier and 133fsb I think. It also defaulted the voltage higher than the 1.45 normal default. not a big deal

I can hit 2.5ghz at 1.75v stable (200 * 12.5).

Not everyone hits 2.5ghz. Some only go up to 2.2 or even less. luck of the draw. RMA if you like, but the cpu isn't "bad". I just doesn't OC as high as other similar chips.

EDIT: myocardia is right, the default fsb on the mobile bartons is 133mhz.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

my barton needs 2 volts to get 2.5ghz stable, i don't know where half the people get their numbers from nor do i trust many of them. the variables in overclocking are infinite. just do your own thing and stop worrying, 2.4 is respectable.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

the bios was showing the default voltage at 1.57v not 1.45v

That is normal when using a mobile Barton in a desktop mobo. I'd be happy with what you got, I have a Mobile 2600 that I can't get over 2400MHz stable. Have gone through two of them in fact.

 

[axia55]

I just got my system going and my mobile 2600 does 2.4 @1.65 but only runs 2.5 for afew minutes in P95 (@1.75).

 

[Tango57]

thanks everyone who replied. i see your point. i guess it's just luck of the draw of how well your mobile barton will o'clock compared to others. i'll go ahead and just keep the chip. anyway it's running prime stable so far at 2400 so i'll keep testing it further and just look into improving the cooling for it.

 

[myocardia]

What I think you should do is look into getting some ram with CAS 2 (the first, and most important number in ram timings). 3-3-3-6 isn't giving you anywhere near the performance you would be getting if you had some 2-3-3-6 ram. BTW, you should be running 3-3-3-11, since you have an nForce2 chipset.

 

[Tango57]

ok i adjusted my timings to 3-3-3-11. yeah i'm looking to upgrade my ram hopefully soon. i'm just running my chip now at 2400. by the way is anyone having problems increasing their mulitpliers to 13 or higher on your boards? i read in the overclockers forums that there seems to be a problem with boards getting past 13 with these mobile bartons.