OC help....

[Duvie]

Ok, I got my 1.8a ghz northwood from Malay and My MSI Ultra ARU board here ready to go....A couple questions because I am not the ocing king as I have always picked boards for features or price with ocing features as a bonus...

1) Should I try to boost this thing up immediately to see if it post at 120,125,133, etc or should I install winxp first?

I thought you always tried to avoid tweaking and ocing as it may cause some potential problems that may effect a proper install. Is this right?


I am not sure the dividers that are used and when they kick in...I am not sure if I can pick the multipliers at all, at least the manual doesn't show much. So I was thinking I can tinker slightly with it and use sandra and cpuid to see what I am effecting when I boost the fsb. Is this a better plan?


I may just play and see if it even post at certain speeds now and monitor the idle temps in hardware monitor, then install os and default and see what ocing may be limited by the xp software....What do you think?



I also have n ata133/raid controller but I am wondering when I should install the card...I just want it for its ide channel I will not be using or setting up a raid array....

 

[Duvie]

any ideas ppl???

 

[THUGSROOK]

hiya Duvie,
install the os at stock speed. (you can go ahead and install the ata PCI card too)
dont overclock at all til you have benchmarks loaded and ready to test.
use 3dmark2001 and scisoft sandra2002 at the very least.
any games you play that have builtin benchmarking will be good too.

once its loaded run benchmarks at default speed. write them down and reboot between benchmarks.
then go upto 105fsb and repeat. (110, 115, 120, 125, 130, 133, etc)
at some point you may have to raise your voltage and/or lower your memory multiplier.

the end will come when benchmarks crash or a reboot fails. if a reboot fails, thats prolly as far as youre gonna get.

hope this helps