Need Help overclocking, Suggestions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Grendel99]

I have a Abit BX6 rev2 mobo, IWILL Slocket II, P3-700E w/ CoolerMaster DP5-6H51. I want to overclock this bad boy. So I went into BIOS, set to 133mhz FSB, 2/3 AGP divider, and the PCI was at 1/4. Defualt voltage btw (1.65V). It posts, I get into Windows! Yeah! I run SiSoft Sandra and seems good. Temps are about 33C-36C. Then I play some Crimson Skies, runs well, no lock ups or stutters. Then I try playing Quake3. It loads game, then as soon as your start playing it locks up! And you have to reboot. I tried upping the voltage thinking that might help but to no avail.

So does this mean my video card can't run under the overclocked agp? Or is it the CPU itself? I have 2 x 128mbs of PC133 cas2 SDRAM from Crucial btw, so I don't think the ram should be a problem. Any other suggestions? New video card? Or new mobo?

Also, if I end up getting a new mobo, I was thinking the Asus CUSL2-C. Is it worth getting a new motherboard? Isn't there a bunch of new stuff from intel and amd around the corner? Should I just stick with 700?

Sorry for the long post and all the questions.

Thanks

 

[KR]

Before you hang up the BX6-R2, try bumping up the core voltage to 1.70 or 1.75V. You're exceedingly fortunate to have a chip that allows as much as you've acheived at default. You should be OK for cooling with the slight bump in voltage and that may be all takes to get everything running at 933. I'm using an overclocked 800e in the same motherboard and it needs 1.7V for everything to run in a stable fashion. (Note: Intel's nominal voltage for a 933 version of the PIII is 1.7V so I'd guess that it's more likely to get everything running at 933 MHZ with 1.7V core - not always, but makes some sort of logical sense).

A couple of things I've discovered include problems with overclocking my V3-2000AGP beyond 170MHZ causing graphics glitches and hang-ups. (Default is 143MHZ but can go up to 168MHZ with no ill effects). Another problem was noted when I changed the Precharge control from "disabled" to "AUTO". Though memory benchmarks were slightly faster with "AUTO" selected, I encountered lock-up when that option was chosen.

Either I missed what your graphics card was or you didn't say - you might want to drop the overclock to the 124-1/4 setting to see if things get stable at that speed - still a good bump over 700 MHZ. Also, unless you have one of the boards with the CPU temp monitoring intact, you're measuring mobo temp and not CPU temp so you may need to try a beefier HSF - I'm not sure how the HSF you're using compares with the available options.

 

[Grendel99]

My video card is a Diamond V770 Ultra (TNT2). I had this same system except for them ram and proc. I had a Celeron 366 @ 550, but that was on 100mhz fsb so it wasn't messing with the video too much. I upped the voltage to 1.7 and it still didn't work. Why would it work ( @ 933) with 1.65 volts playing Crimson Skies? That game uses the video card. I also played Total Annihilation (not a 3d game though) for several hours with zero probs. But soon as I play Quake3, everything goes downhill. I will try 124 (1/4) now and will post my results.

Thanks

EDIT: My temps are with Motherboard Monitor 4.16.

 

[Grendel99]

Ok, I am running at 124FSB (1/4). I did the timedemo 002 about three times with no problems. It was also at defualt voltage (1.65v). MBM4 reports 35C after the time demos. What should I do now?

 

[KR]

I suspect that you are exceeding the top end of your graphics board capabilities with the 2/3 X 133 MHZ AGP bus speed. If you are overclocking the TNT card, try taking the clock back to default, otherwise it is probably that you've topped out the card's abilities at 83 MHZ(124 X .6666). Q3 hits the graphics card much harder than many other games and will crash if there is a weakeness in the graphics system (as well as processor induced crashes if the cpu is not stable).

If you have access to a PCI graphics card or can borrow a Gforce card (these seem to handle higher bus speeds) you can verify the problem being the graphics card. In the meantime, you can happily run at 124MHZ FSB and merely have a 700e @ 864MHZ overclock - still not too shabby.

 

[DarkMajiq]

Does your board not have a 1/2 AGP divider?

 

[Grendel99]

My mobo only has a 1/1 and 2/3 AGP. I am going to keep it at 124FSB for now. Still not a bad overclock like you said, but I know this chip can do more

And are my temps with Motherboard Monitor accurate? I mean does it read them accurately?

Thanks