Newbie asking for info-help on overclocking.

[silencerius]

I just got my new pc a couple of weeks ago and since then I made one attempt to overclock it, unfortunately i didn't get the desired results.
To cut a long story short, I kinda failed.

My rig is:
P4 2,6C
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe
2x256MB Kingston DDR400 PC3200 (CL3 :|)
ATI Radeon 9600Pro
Creative Audigy ZS Platinum Pro
Case: Antec /w Antec PSU 380Watt
Seagate 120GB (8mb Cache)

I would like to -safely- overclock my PC up to 3.0Ghz or even a bit more (but I want it to be stable), so, if someone had the patience and kindness to explain me some things that (from what I read in other posts) I need to know, I would be more than obliged.

First of all, what are dividers and what exactly is their use? Generally, but mostly in overclocking. How do I modify their values? (I searched every single inch of my BIOS settings and I couldn't find anything refering to dividers or something similar).

Secondly, what should be my default memory clock settings? My motherboard has everything on auto mode and I don't know what the default values are in some things. How do these clock settings help on overclocking and how/when should they be changed?

Third, what is Vdimm voltage and where is it changed from? Same questions asked in #2 apply here.

And last but not least, up to what speed do you think my CPU could/should be overclocked and be stable? Approximately what is the life expectancy of an overclocked CPU?

I would like to thank in advance anyone that takes the time to help me out by answering these questions!
Bill.

 

[Shimmishim]

Dividers are used so that you can overclock higher (well most of the time) when you are limited by your ram.

in the case of your ram, you have pc3200 which is supposed to run at 200 mhz. so when you start upping your fsb and using a 1:1 ratio then your mem and fsb go up at the same rate ...

so setting your fsb to 250 means yoru ram will run at 250 as well...

so here's where the magic of the dividers come in...

when you're running a fsb of 250, you can set the divider to 5:4 (i'm not sure what the option is in asus boards.. something like ddr320 i believe is same as 5:4 and ddr266 is the same as 3:2) and now your ram is running at 200 mhz (250 X 4/5 = 250)

#2 I'LL skip for now.. someone else can explain this

#3 vdimm is the ram voltage or how much voltage the ram gets... i have no idea where to change it in the asus bios... but most ram should state what the safe range is for usage...

my geil gold dragon is rated for up to 3.1 volts...

#4 you should be able to hit at least 3.2-3.3 easy at least with default voltage... (hopefully) but maybe not...

 

[silencerius]

Hey, thanks for that quick and helpful info!

I raise my CPU FSB at 250 and change DDR Freq setting to 320Mhz. When I boot up it displays "DDR Frequancy 320Mhz" and not 400. Does this mean that my RAM doesn't run @ 400Mhz? After that it won't load Windows (XP), it displays a message that says something like "We are sorry for the inconvenience, windows cannot start, this could be due to a recent hardware change.." etc and it prompts me for safe mode or normal bootup, after I select normal bootup, the pc stops responding. Just before I did the whole procedure, I set my DIMMs in dual channel, do you think maybe that has something to do with it?

Maybe you could explain/guide me through RAM timings/clocks etc too?

Thanks again for the help

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: silencerius
Hey, thanks for that quick and helpful info!

I raise my CPU FSB at 250 and change DDR Freq setting to 320Mhz. When I boot up it displays "DDR Frequancy 320Mhz" and not 400. Does this mean that my RAM doesn't run @ 400Mhz? After that it won't load Windows (XP), it displays a message that says something like "We are sorry for the inconvenience, windows cannot start, this could be due to a recent hardware change.." etc and it prompts me for safe mode or normal bootup, after I select normal bootup, the pc stops responding. Just before I did the whole procedure, I set my DIMMs in dual channel, do you think maybe that has something to do with it?

Maybe you could explain/guide me through RAM timings/clocks etc too?

Thanks again for the help

your ram should be running at 200 mhz if your fsb is set to 250 and running the 5:4 or ddr320 divider

weird that it won't boot...

you may have pushed it too far...

up your vcore voltage from default which is 1.525 volts to something like 1.55 or 1.575 and see if it boots

once it boots (i'm sure it should now hopefully).. download prime95 from the top of the cpu/oc forum and run two instances of it at once in torture mode... make sure it runs for 6+ hours to make sure it is stable at the speed...

once you've established a stable speed, you can go then mess around with your ram timings...

 

[silencerius]

Thanks again. I couldn't get online yesterday so I managed to learn something for myself.

I have it now @ 2,93Ghz w/ FSB @ 225Mhz. It run Prime95 (i knew about Prime ) for 10 hours straight but one instance. Should I repeat the process with 2 instances or is that ok? Also, what torture test is the best? I selected the "In- place large FFTs (maximum heat etc). I'm going to try to raise the FSB a little more, I want to get a little bit over the 3Ghz mark.
My heat ratings was, 49°C max at Prime95, 39°C max at PCmark2002. Isn't ~50°C a little too high?

I understand now that indeed what the boot monitor displays about the RAM frequency isn't correct, cause my girlfriend Sandra (oh she's so soft ) tells me now that it's @ 225Mhz. I haven't been able to do a memtest86 though cause I don't have a clue on how to make a bootable disk in XP.. But it seems to be working fine at this speed (reminding: It's double rate, I guess this doesn't have to do anything with anything right?).

I checked kingston's site. My default RAM timings are 3-3-3. My motherboard has 5 values for clocks, I figured out where the 3-3-3 goes (it is in order of mentioning right?) but of course I don't know how they can be used for overclocking.

Btw, what is the Power Fan? Is it the PSU fan? I haven't managed to find it. Is 1300rpm a logical value for it?
Oh and something that burns me, about the vcore adjustment.. How much time will it have after that, doctor?

 

[silencerius]

OMG the default value for vcore is 1.525V!?!? Asus probe tells me it's 1.6V and I haven't touched it! What the heck? It varies from 1.580V to 1.6V...!

 

[silencerius]

I changed the Vcore value from Auto to 1.525.. And when i log in to windows it still tells me it's 1.580 to 1.6V... What is going on? I think I have a problem..

 

[silencerius]

help?