Need help on Overclocking my AMD 2400 Mobile

[snowpeas]

I'm having trouble for it to get to 2.4ghz stable. I tried 200fsb x 12mutli. For it to boot into windows, i'd have to set the cpu vcore to 1.8 which seems very high comparing to people who got to 2.5ghz @ around 1.7. The temp gets to when running prime95 52 C. And after running prime95 for around 5min, the system would reboot itself. Plz help

My setup
AMD 2400 Mobile (stepping IQYHA) << i thought this was the best stepping?
Abit NF7-S 2.0 (stock bios)
SP-97 H/F
2 x 512 Buffalo DDR 3200
Maddog GeForce 4 TI 4200

 

[myocardia]

Well, overclocking a mobile Barton is just exactly like overclocking any other chip. If it fails Prime95, you have to raise either the vcore (cpu voltage) or the vdimm (ram voltage). Although, Prime95 rebooting tells me that (from past experience), you either aren't giving your ram enough voltage, or you have your ram timings too low (lower=faster with ram timings).

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

mine runs fine at stock voltage at 2.4ghz but its not prime stable,i need 1.85-1.9 volts to get it stable. i really don't see where most people get their numbers anyhow, i don't trust half them. just do your own thing.

 

[snowpeas]

btw.. when i set my voltage above 1.85, after i exit out of cmos, system begin to beep and screen stays black... y?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

thats really strange considering there isn't much that should be holding you back, esp since your still running stock FSB. try bumping the AGP and DDR voltage a hair and see if it lets you add more cpu voltage to gain the stability.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: snowpeas
btw.. when i set my voltage above 1.85, after i exit out of cmos, system begin to beep and screen stays black... y?

Because you don't have a powerful enough psu (power supply). You'll need a minimum of an Antec TruePower 430 to hit anything higher than 2.4ghz with a Barton.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: snowpeas
btw.. when i set my voltage above 1.85, after i exit out of cmos, system begin to beep and screen stays black... y?

Because you don't have a powerful enough psu (power supply). You'll need a minimum of an Antec TruePower 430 to hit anything higher than 2.4ghz with a Barton.

i hit 2.6ghz(not stable of course) with my 380watt and 3 hard drives and two opticals and various other PCI objects.

 

[snowpeas]

I have antec 340watt truepower.. I don't have any pci card other than my gforce4 ti4200

 

[ectx]

Originally posted by: snowpeas
I'm having trouble for it to get to 2.4ghz stable. I tried 200fsb x 12mutli. For it to boot into windows, i'd have to set the cpu vcore to 1.8 which seems very high comparing to people who got to 2.5ghz @ around 1.7. The temp gets to when running prime95 52 C. And after running prime95 for around 5min, the system would reboot itself. Plz help

My setup
AMD 2400 Mobile (stepping IQYHA) << i thought this was the best stepping?
Abit NF7-S 2.0 (stock bios)
SP-97 H/F
2 x 512 Buffalo DDR 3200
Maddog GeForce 4 TI 4200

(1) Some people test it 1 min and call it stable.
(2) I'd try raise the voltage a bit more and use better cooling (oops. you have pretty good cooling already) if at all possible.
(3) I have 3 mobile bartons. I do not have the luck of hitting 2.5ghz at <1.8v on any of them. Of course my testing is very very rigorous. I can boot into windows and test a few hrs at 2.5g at 1.8v on one of the 3 but it did fail after 5 hrs at high fft p95 tests. (it actually could pass small fft tests for a lot longer).
(4) good luck. I don't know why I got into the bad habbit of overclocking my chips. It wastes time, money and does me no good. (most people do not understand overclocking so I cannot brag about it anyway).

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

I have antec 340watt truepower.. I don't have any pci card other than my gforce4 ti4200

thats cutting it close :\

do you have the 4 pin plug for the cpu plugged in? not sure if your board supports that feature.

 

[ectx]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy

I have antec 340watt truepower.. I don't have any pci card other than my gforce4 ti4200

thats cutting it close :\

do you have the 4 pin plug for the cpu plugged in? not sure if your board supports that feature.

What is 4 pin plug?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

yea,his board has it, its right above the ATX connector.
it was originally for P4's to provide dedicated power to it, new socket As offer it to. its a standard power plug conformed into a smaller square four pin plug. i dunno its name,i just know of it. :\

 

[snowpeas]

hmm i thought 340watt would be enuff. Is it not enuff? Even if you say my psu is underpowered, it should'nt effect my vcore and cpu speed. Its taking more than 1.85 to get to 2.4ghz and stable

Anyways, i just tried to hit 2.3ghz.. and at 1.7volt its not even stable.. I think i have to assume the cpu chip that i got wasn't good.

 

[ectx]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
yea,his board has it, its right above the ATX connector.
it was originally for P4's to provide dedicated power to it, new socket As offer it to. its a standard power plug conformed into a smaller square four pin plug. i dunno its name,i just know of it. :\

You are right. NF7-S has it.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: snowpeas
I have antec 340watt truepower.. I don't have any pci card other than my gforce4 ti4200

Antec doesn't even make a TruePower 340, you better check again. Oh, and if you've got an Antec TruePower 330, then you don't have enough power. If you don't believe me, just ask Jeff7181, because he couldn't hit anything over 2.4ghz with his mobile 2500, and he was using an Antec with exactly the same specs as the one you have (he had the SL350). Then he replaced that with a TruePower 430, and was able to hit 2.5ghz, no problem.

 

[ectx]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: snowpeas
I have antec 340watt truepower.. I don't have any pci card other than my gforce4 ti4200

Antec doesn't even make a TruePower 340, you better check again. Oh, and if you've got an Antec TruePower 330, then you don't have enough power. If you don't believe me, just ask Jeff7181, because he couldn't hit anything over 2.4ghz with his mobile 2500, and he was using an Antec with exactly the same specs as the one you have (he had the SL350). Then he replaced that with a TruePower 430, and was able to hit 2.5ghz, no problem.

interesting info. I have enermax 465, 2 tc 550 and spi 300 and a no-name brand 400 (which burned out in <1month, btw). I have never gotten any different oc using any of the psu listed above. I have 14 cpus sitting around.

 

[myocardia]

You don't need an ultra-powerful psu unless you are going for a max overclock. Jeff had argued with me about not needing a bigger psu, also, because his Antec SL350 took his non-locked desktop 2500 to 2.3ghz. But after he got the TruePower 430, he didn't argue anymore whenever I told someone that it was their psu holding them back.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

i never had a problem with lacking power, if one lacked power that pc would merely not boot,correct? or would it just be unstable?

 

[ectx]

Originally posted by: myocardia
You don't need an ultra-powerful psu unless you are going for a max overclock. Jeff had argued with me about not needing a bigger psu, also, because his Antec SL350 took his non-locked desktop 2500 to 2.3ghz. But after he got the TruePower 430, he didn't argue anymore whenever I told someone that it was their psu holding them back.

Makes sense becuse I do not go for the max-overclock. I need the peace of mind that if I run some mission-critical tasks, my pc should not go wrong. ( of course, I have yet run a mission-critical task on my home pc's since my first one in the 80's).

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
i never had a problem with lacking power, if one lacked power that pc would merely not boot,correct? or would it just be unstable?

Not at all. I could get a P4 3.4ghzEE to boot with a no-name 300 watt psu, but even at stock speeds, it wouldn't be stable, of course! More processor power requires more psu power, plain and simple. Hey, I still remember having to buy my first psu upgrade (because the one I had didn't have enough power) that had 100 watts. Of course, that was for my overclocked 486DX2!

 

[snowpeas]

Ya im sorry bout the mistake, its actually a 330 true power. But the thing is i hit 2.3 ghz at 1.7 volt. ran prime95 for around 2 hrs, stable. Anything under 1.7, wouldn't be stable. If it was powersupply's problem, wouldn't i be able to run 2.3ghz at a lower voltage? So because of that, im assuming that its the cpu chip, not the powersupply.

If i were to oc it to around 2400 and 2500 then maybe it would've been the psu. But the chip is already having trouble running 2.3ghz at a lower voltage than 1.7. Is this assumption correct?

 

[myocardia]

Yes, the mobile 2400's aren't all that great at overclocking, unless you bought it more than a month ago. The newest ones usually aren't reaching 2.4ghz stable, no matter what the people who've bought them try. That's why I went ahead and spent the extra $24 on a mobile 2600, and I haven't been a bit sorry that I did. Mine runs 12x211 on 1.760-1.774 actual vcore, and is Prime95 stable for >6 hours at that speed (2530 mhz!) and voltage. I'm testing it now, using the larger fft's only, since I just found out that the "normal" blend test doesn't find errors nearly as fast. Anyway, if you're going to keep that chip, just raise the vcore to whatever it requires to be stable at 2.3ghz (probably between 1.70v and 1.75v), and keep your TruePower 330. But, if you decide to sell it and get a better overclocking mobile chip, I promise you that you will need a bigger, badder psu.

 

[snowpeas]

whats is there that much of performance difference between 2.3ghz and 2.5 ghz? Should i sell my 2400mobile and get a 2600 mobil and try to oc it to 2500? or just stay w/ my 2400?

 

[myocardia]

Well, that's really going to depend on what you use your computer for, like most of the questions like that that we answer. But, I can say this: it will be a pretty cheap way to prevent the need for future upgrades. A little while back, a respected website (not anandtech, though) did a cpu comparison of the brand-new Athlon64 FX-53 vs. the 3.4ghz Prescott, and they decided to throw in an overclocked mobile 2500, just for comparison. The mobile Barton they used was running at 12.5x200, which is exactly 2500mhz, and it beat the Prescott in every test, except for video encoding! That's assuming that my horrible memory isn't failing me now. The Prescott may have beaten it by a point or two in one or two tests, besides video encoding, for those of you who saved that link. But, it's going to be up to you how much money that's worth to you, since a mobile 2600 costs $101, and an Antec TruePower 430 costs $67: link. Now, assuming you can get ~$60-$65 for your mobile 2400, then it's going to cost you a little over $100 now, but will allow you to not have to upgrade for awhile longer (like until 64-bit applications become readily available, for instance).

 

[magratton]

Originally posted by: ectx
(1) Some people test it 1 min and call it stable.
(2) I'd try raise the voltage a bit more and use better cooling (oops. you have pretty good cooling already) if at all possible.
(3) I have 3 mobile bartons. I do not have the luck of hitting 2.5ghz at <1.8v on any of them. Of course my testing is very very rigorous. I can boot into windows and test a few hrs at 2.5g at 1.8v on one of the 3 but it did fail after 5 hrs at high fft p95 tests. (it actually could pass small fft tests for a lot longer).
(4) good luck. I don't know why I got into the bad habbit of overclocking my chips. It wastes time, money and does me no good. (most people do not understand overclocking so I cannot brag about it anyway).

^^^ Amen to all of that