OCing an Intel 2.6Ghz and Asus P4P800

[Wisey]

My Asus P4P800 has this AI overclocking facility whereby all I have to is to set 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%.

Since I am a complete noob on OCing, I am currently trying the auto 10% and my CPU is running at 2.86Ghz.

Now..I would like to know the following:

(1) I am using a low end 350 W Antec PSU and stock air cooling, is 10% generally considered to be a lot of OCing for such configuration? I have two SATA harddisks, 2 DVD writer and Geforce 6600 GT as well.

(2) Is it a good idea to continue fiddling with this AI OCing facility of my motherboard? Is it too much of a risk to try and run at 20% AI OC?

Thanks.

 

[Wisey]

Anyone?

 

[DrFragaTron]

Go for it, I tried that on my P4P and I booted fine so I switched to manual and overclocked more.

That mode only ups the FSB and tweaks the core voltage slightly. It is fairly safe. If you try it and your PC doesn't boot or crashes a lot then you have OC'd too far and then you just need to back it down.

 

[Wisey]

I set the AI OCing to 20%. The CPU is running at 3.12 Ghz (from 2.6Ghz). I didn't change any settings at all, the motherboard takes care of everything. Is this kind of OCing slower than the manual OCing?

Running Asus PC probe, the idle readings are as follow:

CPU : 30 C/86 F
MB : 36 C / 96 F
CPU fan: 2884
Power fan: 1493
Chasis Fan: 2616
+12 V rail : 12.038
+5V rail : 5.026
+3.3V rail: 3.328
VCore: 1.68

Should I go for 30% AI OC?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The only way to determine if AI over-clocking -- using the ASUS "automatic" features -- is "better" -- is to run some benchmark comparisons.

I wanted to make experimental changes in my memory timings, so I turned off the feature that gets them from SPD. After that, you might be looking for adjustments between VCore and VDIMM voltages and slightly higher external frequencies, so you would begin setting your external frequency "manually".

I have friend who has the cousin of our P4P800, who swears by the AI feature. There are only so many parameters to change, so I'm not all that confident that just setting to a percentage saves you all that much trouble.

You didn't say whether you were running a Northwood "C" processor or a Prescott "E", but the temperatures you report at idle -- CPU in relation to the motherboard -- seem a lot more consistent with Northwood than with Prescott.

In the 2.4C to 2.8C processor range, assuming that you got certain production runs and steppings of the processor [30-caps on the core bottom instead of 12] -- you should be able to go as high as 25%. If this were Las Vegas, I'd bet heavily against your getting a stable configuratiion above that number.

For the 3.0C and higher, I'm more inclined to think that the limit is 20% without water-cooling or VapoChill.

What may appear as a stable configuration may be stable at idle and middle-range loads, but pushing the stress to the maximum will cause a failure in the program you use. Here, I refer mostly to PRIME95's torture-tests. With my 3.0C I THOUGHT I was stable at 3.808 -- something above 25% -- but PRIME95 quickly put that delusion to rest.

I have the same mobo, but don't recall the over-clock increments. If you only have a choice between 20% and 30%, stand pat at 20.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

PS

I'm not sure if AI over-clocking "locks" the AGP/PCI ratio to 66/33. That's one feature you should either be sure AI handles safely, or set it manually yourself.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Post-PS

If it were me, I'd want a PSU with greater capacity than 350W. I wouldn't bring this up if you only had 1 SATA drive and one optical. It also makes a difference whether you are using 512MB RAM, 1GB, or more. But your voltages all seem perfect -- except one.

I'm surprised that AI over-clocking posts that Vcore voltage of 1.68V. Probe seems to report higher than the BIOS voltage for this item, but the processor warranty covers up to 1.55V (correct me if I'm wrong -- the answer can be found at the intel web-site.) Usually, if I set the Vcore to 1.525 or 1.5327V, Probe reports around 1.62V. When I set the VCore to "Auto" with a 20% over-clocking of the FSB, Probe never reports in excess of 1.55V.

This may not be anything to worry about. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it, but more information is better, no?

 

[Wisey]

Oh..what should be the normal range of Vcore voltage? I have no idea....

Yes, it is a Northwood.

I am having 1 Gb of RAM.

If I change my PSU to a higher one, says 400 W or more, and if I instal a CPU Zalman, I should be able to go 30% OC maybe?

Very tempting...

 

[Wisey]

I tried to set AI OC to 30% and my system still POST and everything looks fine but WinXP cannot load up.

Anyone knows why?