Newbie on his first OC has some questions for the Xperts.

[Gatt]

Hi all.

Specs first I guess.

AMD 4200+
OCZ Platinum 2x 1gig Cas 2-3-2-5 DDR 400
BFG budget line 7800GTX(3d fuzion I believe it's called)
Seagate SATA 250gig HD

At stock it runs at 33-34celcius idle and 46 under load(two instances of Prime 95).

Got it up to 208x11 FSB with the memory controller set at x4 stable, and holding at 36-37celcius idle and 48 under load.

At 210x11 I destablize, blue screens and whatnot. No problems posting and booting, but Windows isn't stable.

Could this be a memory timing issue? If so do I just try switching to 2.5cas or do I need to alter the other timings as well?

Or would this be a voltage issue? No idea how to tweak voltages, and I'm kinda hesitant to do so as I don't want to fry anything. Ntune is reporting 1.550 voltage, I'm assuming that's to the processor.

Any advice is appriciated, was hoping to hit 2.4ghz on air if possible.

 

[Mogadon]

Read Zebos guide, this will answer many if your questions. Whatever questions you have after reading it, post 'em and we'll help you out.

 

[Thor86]

What motherboard are you using and are you using a memory divider?

 

[lifeguard1999]

I echo Thor86. We need to more specs to be able to help out. For example, here are mine:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Processor (Venice) @ 2.7 GHz, stock air; 1.55V
DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR
XFX GeForce 6600 GT PCI Express 128MB
Enermax EG565P-VE FMA 535W Power Supply
OCZ 2x512MB; Model #: OCZ400512WV3; 2.9V

 

[Gatt]

Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
I echo Thor86. We need to more specs to be able to help out. For example, here are mine:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Processor (Venice) @ 2.7 GHz, stock air; 1.55V
DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR
XFX GeForce 6600 GT PCI Express 128MB
Enermax EG565P-VE FMA 535W Power Supply
OCZ 2x512MB; Model #: OCZ400512WV3; 2.9V

You're right, and I even know better than to do what I did. Sorry, full specs as follows.

AMD 4200+
Asus A8n-e rev 2.0
OCZ Platinum 2x 1gig 2-3-2-5 DDR 400
BFG 3dFuzion 7800GTX
Seagate Barracude 7200.8 SATA drive
BenQ DVD/CD burner
Soundblaster Audigy 2 Gamer
Seasonic 430w Dual Rail PS

The memory is in Dual Channel mode at stock timings running 1T, the vid card is at stock settings, Memory Controller is at 4x when OC'd. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the option for memory dividers. I've got the vid card on it's own plug with nothing else on it, and everything else on the other line.

When I go to 2.3ghz through using 210x11 I can Post and Boot without a problem, once in windows I eventually get a blue screen followed by a reboot.

My major confusion is on the memory timings, I've gathered from poking around that 1gigabyte chips have a hard time holding timings that tight for much of an OC. Is there a pattern that needs to be followed when messing with timings like do I need to take it to 2.5-4-3-6 stepping everything up one, or can I go 2.5-3-2-5, and does it need to go from 1T to 2T or is that something seperate from timings?

The reason I ask, and I know there's a sticky up there now, is because my MB seems to lack some features that'd make this easier. For instance, I don't seem to have dividers and I can't run the memory below 200mhz, so I can't isolate the CPU from the memory to see if it's the CPU or the Memory.

Any advice is much appriciated.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Gatt
For instance, I don't seem to have dividers and I can't run the memory below 200mhz, so I can't isolate the CPU from the memory to see if it's the CPU or the Memory.

Any advice is much appriciated.

Asus A8N-E AMD Athlon 64 socket-939 PCI-Express motherboards main features include:

...4 x 184-pin DDR dual-channel support for up to 4GB unbuffered, PC2100, PC2700 & PC3200
(DDR266, DDR333 & DDR400) DDR or ECC memory

You do have memory dividers, you just have to find them.
On your mobo, it's called MaxMemClock

You can find more info in this thread