Newbie Overclocker

[edm]

Ive never overclocked anything before, but I'm trying to get a little more out of an older system (until I build a new one) to speed up some older games I play, like civ4, COH, etc.

I'm running a 3500+ with a K8N neo2 Plat board, 1gig corsair value RAM, and a ATI AIW X800XT. XP Pro

So far, I've set the FSB in bios to 220 (default is 200) The CPU now runs at 2.4ghz (2.2 is default). I tried going to 230FSB, but got a disc error during boot up. I'm guessing I'm limited due to the value ram? I went back down to 220FSB and it seems to be running stable. Idle temps are 38, load are around 50.

Next, I want to overclock my video card. I'm using ATItool 0.27 and the latest ATI drivers. The default CORE/MEMORY speeds are both at 499.50

I ran 'find MAX core' and it got up to about 555 when my system froze. When I rebooted, and ATItools said the last stable was around 550. I then ran the 'find max memory' and at around 570 it started giving artifacts, in the ATItools 3d view. So I aborted there. GPU temps maxed out in the lower to mid 80's (C) during both tests. Idle GPU temps are mid to upper 40's (C)

I'm using the stock cooler or the x800 and a freezer Pro 64 for the 3500+

My main question is, what will give the best performance increase with the video card, overclocking the core or overclocking the memory? or both?

I'm thinking about running the core at 530 and leaving the memory at default. Or would I be better off finding a happy medium between core and memory, for example 520/520. And going from there?

thanks for any help

 

[Pyrokinetic]

Your limit and disk error may be due to the fact that you must manually lock the PCI and PCIe clocks to standard levels. Otherwise, as you increase the HT (aka FSB) past 200, your are overclocking the frequencies of the PCI and PCIe buses, which really cannot handle overclocking. BTW-the PCI and PCIe clocks are the buses that manage your drives, and-in cards, ect. That is why you probably got the disc error.

Lock those buses and try again.

 

[edm]

ok, thanks, I'll take a look now. also, I should have mentioned in my post, but my video is AGP.

 

[stevty2889]

You also need to lower your HTT(sometimes called LDT) mutliplier from 5x to 4x once you start overclocking. You need to keep the hypertransport at 1ghz(200x5) or lower. So for 201-250mhz FSB you want to use 4x, for above 250 you want to use 3x.

And as already mentioned, if the PCI and PCIe as well as SATA frequencies aren't locked, they can and will cause disk errors once you overclock. Not sure about your particular motherboard but there were some boards that only had certain SATA ports locked, while the others werent' and would become unstable during overclocking.

 

[edm]

ok, I read up a bit on my mobo (K8N NEO2 PLAT). It looks like I needed to set the AGP speed from 66 to 67 to lock the PCI/SATA Slots. Also, it looks like SATA 3/4 are the only ones that will lock on this board, I was already using 3/4 anyway. I also tried using HTT 4x and 3x. Unfortunately, I still can't get windows to load at anything above 225FSB. When I tried 233 again, the disk error message went away, but it hangs or restarts during bootup. Even with 225, even though Windows loaded ok, I was getting some weird anomalies, like Firefox crashing, AxtiveX errors, so I went back to 220 for now.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: edm
ok, I read up a bit on my mobo (K8N NEO2 PLAT). It looks like I needed to set the AGP speed from 66 to 67 to lock the PCI/SATA Slots. Also, it looks like SATA 3/4 are the only ones that will lock on this board, I was already using 3/4 anyway. I also tried using HTT 4x and 3x. Unfortunately, I still can't get windows to load at anything above 225FSB. When I tried 233 again, the disk error message went away, but it hangs or restarts during bootup. Even with 225, even though Windows loaded ok, I was getting some weird anomalies, like Firefox crashing, AxtiveX errors, so I went back to 220 for now.

You've done everything right so far, except reducing the speed your RAM runs at. Since the memory controller is on-die with Athlon 64's, reducing the speed of the RAM doesn't affect your performance, like it does when you have a front side bus. Set your RAM to run @ 166 Mhz, and you'll be able to max out your cpu.

My main question is, what will give the best performance increase with the video card, overclocking the core or overclocking the memory? or both?

With video cards, overclocking the core, and not overclocking the memory (or vice versa) provides hardly any benefit. If I were you, I'd run the core @ 525-530 Mhz, and the memory @ 540-550.

 

[edm]

Thanks for the help so far all. ok, i lowered the ram to 166 and Windows loaded right up this time, using 233 FSB! Currently running at 2.56GHZ with Idle temps at 29C-31C with coretemp

edit: I upped the fsb to 236, running 2.6ghz, seems stable so far. will run some tests tomorrow. i had tried 240, but the system rebooted during boot up, so i went back down to 236. idle temps 30c, load temps, with stress prime, are 40c.

 

[warpigeon]

Same board here.

Not related to oc'ing but consider upgrading by getting a 4200+ for ~$75 (and then oc it) and an x1950pro for ~$125. Sell your gpu right here on AT for ~$70. For around 130 bucks or so your rig will be literally twice as fast (frame rates in games, 3d mark etc.), plus you'll now have dual core.

 

[21stHermit]

Here's a A64 How to OC thread.