OC'ing 'advanced' questions

rcomo

Senior member
Jan 21, 2004
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OK, not sure if these are advanced questions, so I thought the quotation marks were appropriate. First, my specs.

Abit AI7 mobo
2.8c 800fsb intel
true ATI 9800 pro
Audigy 2zs
WD 80gb 8meg cache HD
Lite on 16x DVD
Sony 52x cd-rw

I could only get my cpu oc'd to 3.0 by increasing the fsb from 200(x4) to 210(x4) and hit a wall there, no matter what I set the fsb at my CPU would stay at 3.0ish.

So I changed the AGP/PCI busses from 66/33 to 75/38, which allowed me to change my fsb from 210 to 227, giving me what I was shooting for, which was 3.2 (I am very happy with this speed, no reason to go over). After about 2+ hrs of Jedi Academy I will (very infrequently) get crashed to my desktop, which I reboot to check my temps in BIOS and everything normal. So does this happen to anyone else that plays this game? Or is this hardware related to me and I should worry?

My OC'ing questions are these:

1. Did I do the OC'ing correctly? I don't want to burn out anything but after a week everything seems to be handling these settings ok. I am just not sure that you are supposed to increase your AGP/PCI busses like I did, I do not want to fry my vid card or my Audigy 2zs.
2. Since I increased my AGP and PCI busses, does this now mean that I have OC'ed my soundcard and vid card too?
3. I downloaded Powerstrip to OC my 9800pro card, but if I increase anything my system becomes unstable (Games will not play/operate correctly). Is this related to my changes in my bios for the AGP bus?
4. Whenever I look at my Abit bios to check my temps, I am always (during gaming) getting an average of about 55-57 degrees. Many people on this board say Abit's boards report temps 10 degrees higher, is this true? I could find nothing on Abit's webpage or their forums about this. Rumor or real life? A link to this info would be greatly appreciated. If it is true, then I am OK with running temps of 45-47, but if it is false, then I need to look into a better cooling solution.

If anyone has OC'd their AI7 board, I would really appreciate a PM so I can discuss what you did privately.

Thanks as always for your help.
 

Big Lar

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 1999
6,330
0
76
I don't have your board, but I have run similar components at 1 time, first off, whats your ram, and the settings for it. What voltage are you running for the ram/vid and Cpu? I doubt that the idea of running your pci/agp out of spec is doing you any good at all, if anything it may be botching it up. Also, What size Power Supply, and brand name of the supply, in other words, need more info.
 

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
11
81
I'm not familiar with your motherboard... but here's some general overclocking "rules"

- keep PCI and AGP frequencies as close to spec as possible (33/66)
- to "calibrate" your motherboard's temp sensors, stick a thermometer in the case while it's running and compare the temp that shows to the temps your motherboard reports as the case temperature... this will give you a rough idea of how far off your motherboard is... another easy way is to stick a temp probe between the fins on the heatsink (from the side of course) and put the probe as close to the middle of the heatsink as possible, making sure it's touching the base of the heatsink, and record temps... that temp should be about 2 degrees lower than what your socket temp will read, and your socket temp will read about 5 degrees lower than what the CPU core actually is

I think that's enough babbling for now, lol
 

rcomo

Senior member
Jan 21, 2004
227
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I have 2x512 of Corsair XMS 3200 ram at 6-3-3-2 with a 5:4 ram/cpu setting. My PSU is a Raidmax 420 watt, and all my vid card and cpu voltages are unchanges from factory settings.

If there is no advantage to upping the AGP/PCI bus, then why would my CPU not go past 3.0 until I upped those settings? Wow now I feel like I know less than originally thought...but I am trying to learn! Thanks for the help.
 

rcomo

Senior member
Jan 21, 2004
227
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0
Jeff, thanks for the temp info. My mobo reports that my case temp is 36 degrees, and I have a case sensor that tells me that it is 23 degrees. So then I guess the reporting discrepancy is over 10 degrees...wow that seems alot.
 

Big Lar

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 1999
6,330
0
76
Try running the pci/agp in Auto mode once and try it at 3200 and see what you get.
 

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
11
81
Originally posted by: rcomo
Jeff, thanks for the temp info. My mobo reports that my case temp is 36 degrees, and I have a case sensor that tells me that it is 23 degrees. So then I guess the reporting discrepancy is over 10 degrees...wow that seems alot.

That info isn't printed fact, but that works pretty well for me. I use Motherboard Monitor to check my temps and it allows you to adjust for errors, for example... if you know room temp is say, 20 degrees C, if you power on your computer after being off for an hour or so, and it says 30 degrees in the BIOS, you can be 95% sure it's reading 10 degrees high.
 

Clon22

Junior Member
Mar 9, 2004
14
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I'm no pro and I'm not familiar with intel systems but I did o/c for quite a few comps.
I feel always best to set agp/pci bus @ 66/33.(Increased speeds may cause your drives to run a bit abnormal. My cdwriter couldn't write properly.)
When you increase fsb, your ram also increases. I assumed that your ram on stock voltages can reach up to 210, so maybe you can try increasing the dimm voltage. When your fsb gets too high, you might also want to run your ram on loose settings.
When you think you have reached a certain high fsb, and the system gets unstable again, you might considering increasing the vdd voltage of the chipset.
To get a higher fsb, you may have to lower the cpu multiplier.
Case/cpu/chipset cooling is impt too.
I may not be right but hope I have been of helped abit. Btw, I have a raidmax 420 too.;)
Its all trial and error. Goodluck on your o/c!;)
 

TGHI

Senior member
Jan 13, 2004
227
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0
I would not suggest running your AGP/PCI at 75/38. Your videocard will likely spew itself out of the AGP port and catch your house on fire.
 

rcomo

Senior member
Jan 21, 2004
227
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0
After a week of playing Jedi academy in 2 hour bursts, thankfully nothing happened. I changed teh AGP/PCI bus back to 66/33 and it is still running at 3.2ghz. And everything seems to be OK.
 

Duvie

Elite Member
Feb 5, 2001
16,215
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The AI7 is the "max line" of the IS7 i865pe chipset board....It is an ethusiast board with plenty of adjustments for ocing....


The AGP/PCI thing is and was odd...I have never seen it except for compatability issues with some earlier versions of Granite Bay and ATI Radeon 9700pro cards....


I would use these settings....

NB strap 800fsb
ram ratio: 5:4 with cas 2,3,3,6....turn of any accelerators for now

vdimm = 2.7v
vagp = 1.55 to 1.6v
vcore = Abits undervolt so default does not mean default...may need to set to 1.55v-1.575v to get an actual read vcore voltage at idle of 1.525v

There is a good chance we can get that 2.8c higher!!! Want to try???


Edit: The reason for the vdimm and vagp voltae increases are 2 things...One the abits undervolt quite a bit...Two once you start raising the FSB the NB chip needs more juice, sometimes the ram is spec'd higher needs more juice and these things start drawing off the board. 2.7v and 1.6v are both quite safe on all modern agp and pc3200 items....


May also want to use that fancy abit flashmenu program and update to a latest bios if the board's bios is not the latest...Some of the symptoms you described are goofy and thereofre could be a bios glitch.