Overclocking an old AMD CPU. Need a bit of help.

[RyanGreener]

EDIT: Bought a new CPU Cooler/Fan, I think I've figured out enough from here. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[jvroig]

I have not touched the RAM settings or voltage settings at all.

1.) You need to check the RAM settings and lower them to rule out memory problems causing the errors.
2.) You also need to check voltages (make sure not on auto), and adjust the voltage (Vcore / CPU Voltage / whatever it is called in your bios)

am running on stock cooler and I don't want it to overheat.

All you can do is raise the OC and voltage bit by bit and test it in between each adjustment, to see when temperatures start to get out of hand.


There's a recent thread about this, I'll see if I can point you to it.

 

[RyanGreener]

1.) You need to check the RAM settings and lower them to rule out memory problems causing the errors.
2.) You also need to check voltages (make sure not on auto), and adjust the voltage (Vcore / CPU Voltage / whatever it is called in your bios)


All you can do is raise the OC and voltage bit by bit and test it in between each adjustment, to see when temperatures start to get out of hand.


There's a recent thread about this, I'll see if I can point you to it.

1) I should lower the memory settings? This is just to test out if they are causing errors, right? Or will this help stability?

2) The voltages as far as I know, are set to auto right now. I will have to adjust them, but I am not sure how much to adjust them in accordance to how much I'm overclocking. Also, voltage tends to increase heat output a lot, correct? I'm trying to keep it safe on stock cooler. I don't really have spare cash right now and I just want a bit of better performance in SC2.

 

[jvroig]

I should lower the memory settings? This is just to test out if they are causing errors, right? Or will this help stability?

When you upped the HT ref clock (what used to be called the 'FSB') from 200 to 215, it also made your RAM go faster, since the RAM speeds (and uncore/IMC/CPU-NB speeds, and HT Link speeds as well) are tied into the base clock. Therefore, whenever you raise the HT ref clock, any one of those could be at fault, so you need to isolate one component at a time. If you want to check if the CPU can take it, lower all other settings, if it is stable enough, then you can return the rest one by one to their normal settings and then check if it is still stable. Eventually, you'd get to see where the problem is, and then you can decide from there how to solve it - for example, if it is a CPU problem, maybe it needs more vcore. If it is an HT ref clock problem, then the NB voltage may need to be increased. If it is the IMC / CPU-NB, then the CPU-NB voltage needs to be increased.

2) The voltages as far as I know, are set to auto right now. I will have to adjust them, but I am not sure how much to adjust them in accordance to how much I'm overclocking. Also, voltage tends to increase heat output a lot, correct? I'm trying to keep it safe on stock cooler. I don't really have spare cash right now and I just want a bit of better performance in SC2.

It's always good to learn overclocking, so I'm not here to discourage you from learning, but this isn't something you pick up like counting 1-10. As you can probably tell by now, there are quite a bit of things you need to understand. And I will be upfront with you. Your chip and your stock cooler aren't going to give you much success at all. You can't have a decent overclock with the paltry stock cooler at all. But you can always try.

That said, if you are still willing to learn, then you can read most of the info you need here: Dolks Phenom II OC Guide

The principles are the same, OC from Athlon X2 up to today's Phenom II chips haven't changed much.

 

[RyanGreener]

When you upped the HT ref clock (what used to be called the 'FSB') from 200 to 215, it also made your RAM go faster, since the RAM speeds (and uncore/IMC/CPU-NB speeds, and HT Link speeds as well) are tied into the base clock. Therefore, whenever you raise the HT ref clock, any one of those could be at fault, so you need to isolate one component at a time. If you want to check if the CPU can take it, lower all other settings, if it is stable enough, then you can return the rest one by one to their normal settings and then check if it is still stable. Eventually, you'd get to see where the problem is, and then you can decide from there how to solve it - for example, if it is a CPU problem, maybe it needs more vcore. If it is an HT ref clock problem, then the NB voltage may need to be increased. If it is the IMC / CPU-NB, then the CPU-NB voltage needs to be increased.


It's always good to learn overclocking, so I'm not here to discourage you from learning, but this isn't something you pick up like counting 1-10. As you can probably tell by now, there are quite a bit of things you need to understand. And I will be upfront with you. Your chip and your stock cooler aren't going to give you much success at all. You can't have a decent overclock with the paltry stock cooler at all. But you can always try.

That said, if you are still willing to learn, then you can read most of the info you need here: Dolks Phenom II OC Guide

The principles are the same, OC from Athlon X2 up to today's Phenom II chips haven't changed much.

I'll be reading this post very carefully, and I know I have a lot to learn, so thanks for putting the time to help. I'm having a feeling that the stock cooler will obviously be the limit, and if necessary I'll just buy an upgraded fan/heatsink, but is there a way I can edit the stock fans to run more often or whatever to help with cooling? Obviously at the limit this will be of no help, because once they're running at they're max they can't cool what is out of their capacity

 

[bryanW1995]

When you upped the HT ref clock (what used to be called the 'FSB') from 200 to 215, it also made your RAM go faster, since the RAM speeds (and uncore/IMC/CPU-NB speeds, and HT Link speeds as well) are tied into the base clock. Therefore, whenever you raise the HT ref clock, any one of those could be at fault, so you need to isolate one component at a time. If you want to check if the CPU can take it, lower all other settings, if it is stable enough, then you can return the rest one by one to their normal settings and then check if it is still stable. Eventually, you'd get to see where the problem is, and then you can decide from there how to solve it - for example, if it is a CPU problem, maybe it needs more vcore. If it is an HT ref clock problem, then the NB voltage may need to be increased. If it is the IMC / CPU-NB, then the CPU-NB voltage needs to be increased.


It's always good to learn overclocking, so I'm not here to discourage you from learning, but this isn't something you pick up like counting 1-10. As you can probably tell by now, there are quite a bit of things you need to understand. And I will be upfront with you. Your chip and your stock cooler aren't going to give you much success at all. You can't have a decent overclock with the paltry stock cooler at all. But you can always try.

That said, if you are still willing to learn, then you can read most of the info you need here: Dolks Phenom II OC Guide

The principles are the same, OC from Athlon X2 up to today's Phenom II chips haven't changed much.

I don't agree, the stock amd x2 coolers were pretty decent. besides, he could always remove the fan and slap on a higher flowing, quieter unit. Different cpu coolers get great publicity based upon a few website tests, but for most it's easy to fix. Heck, I was getting mid 80's on my i7 920 @ 3.8 (dc 24/7) until I found an extra antec 900 tri cool 120mm case fan lying around in my closet yesterday. slapped that fan on the ultra 120 for push pull, set it on high, and temps are down ~ 8c to high 70's. haven't seen any core go over 77 in fact. A little ingenuity could go a long way here!

 

[RyanGreener]

Quick little question...what's the whole thing about not running the HT Link Speed over 1000 MHz? I've been reading around, and I realized that my HT Link Speed is over 1000 MHz, so I'm guessing I will have to lower that before I continue to overclock anyways, right? I believe it had a multiplier setting in the BIOS somewhere.

 

[RyanGreener]

I don't agree, the stock amd x2 coolers were pretty decent. besides, he could always remove the fan and slap on a higher flowing, quieter unit. Different cpu coolers get great publicity based upon a few website tests, but for most it's easy to fix. Heck, I was getting mid 80's on my i7 920 @ 3.8 (dc 24/7) until I found an extra antec 900 tri cool 120mm case fan lying around in my closet yesterday. slapped that fan on the ultra 120 for push pull, set it on high, and temps are down ~ 8c to high 70's. haven't seen any core go over 77 in fact. A little ingenuity could go a long way here!

Yes, I am most likely going to try upgrading the fan if it comes down to it.

 

[jvroig]

@bryanW1995:
I suppose there would be more OC headroom thermally for the stock cooler if that 5600+ was a Brisbane (65W) instead of a Windsor (95W), but the Brisbane 5600+ model was stock clocked at 2.9GHz, so his CPU is definitely the higher-TDP Windsor. With everything stock as he said, including fan and all, it can OC a bit, sure, but I'm just not confident about how much OC headroom it can provide a 95W rated chip and didn't want to get his hopes up since he made it clear he had no surplus of cash to spend here to replace the HSF with anything. Maybe 3.1GHz, tops? 3.1 is the stock clock of a 6000+ Windsor, and that's a 125W part that comes with the better heat-pipe (noisier) cooler, so by that speed I'm not sure how higher he can get with his aluminum block cooler.

Yes, I am most likely going to try upgrading the fan if it comes down to it.

Cool.

Although, for about $100 bucks, you can get a Mobo+CPU combo that will give more performance than a slight OC. If you are going to spend any money at all, you might be better served to just save it until you can have enough to buy even just a board + CPU combo.

 

[RyanGreener]

@bryanW1995:
I suppose there would be more OC headroom thermally for the stock cooler if that 5600+ was a Brisbane (65W) instead of a Windsor (95W), but the Brisbane 5600+ model was stock clocked at 2.9GHz, so his CPU is definitely the higher-TDP Windsor. With everything stock as he said, including fan and all, it can OC a bit, sure, but I'm just not confident about how much OC headroom it can provide a 95W rated chip and didn't want to get his hopes up since he made it clear he had no surplus of cash to spend here to replace the HSF with anything. Maybe 3.1GHz, tops? 3.1 is the stock clock of a 6000+ Windsor, and that's a 125W part that comes with the better heat-pipe (noisier) cooler, so by that speed I'm not sure how higher he can get with his aluminum block cooler.

Hi, I did state that it was a Windsor model in the OP, and also, I read somewhere that the TDP is 89W (weird #.....but yeah). I did state that I can easily buy a heatsink/fan setup, it's just that I'm not sure how much it will actually help me because this chip is so old and seemingly obsolete, and also, it is stated that my motherboard is limited to 95W processors, which is weird, cause I've seen people run 125W on these?

EDIT for your edit:
If I upgrade the Mobo+CPU, I'll most likely go AM3 which means I've gotta buy more RAM. I do have a job and all, and if I didn't have another side project, I would spend way more cash to make this desktop a "beast", but I'm currently building up my car so I'm trying to send my funds towards that. Haha...

 

[jvroig]

Quick little question...what's the whole thing about not running the HT Link Speed over 1000 MHz? I've been reading around, and I realized that my HT Link Speed is over 1000 MHz, so I'm guessing I will have to lower that before I continue to overclock anyways, right? I believe it had a multiplier setting in the BIOS somewhere.

That's the Hypertransport frequency. It also gets raised whenever you raise the base clock, so lower its multiplier to make sure you don't cause HT instability errors. Whatever your default is, lower it a notch or two.

 

[RyanGreener]

That's the Hypertransport frequency. It also gets raised whenever you raise the base clock, so lower its multiplier to make sure you don't cause HT instability errors. Whatever your default is, lower it a notch or two.

I see. Will lowering it below 1000 MHz effect performance? The multipliers seem to be "big", in the sense that they are 1/2/3/4/5 and lowering it to 4 will give me under 1000 MHz unless I have a 250 for the FSB.

 

[betasub]

No loss of performance. Fortunately 1000MHz HT is far beyond what is required - you can safely drop to a 3x (or even 2x!) multiplier so that overclocking never threatens to push HT back over 1000MHz (or anywhere near).

 

[RyanGreener]

No loss of performance. Fortunately 1000MHz HT is far beyond what is required - you can safely drop to a 3x (or even 2x!) multiplier so that overclocking never threatens to push HT back over 1000MHz (or anywhere near).

Good to know....thanks!

 

[heyheybooboo]

Good to know....thanks!

As long as the HT speed is faster than your RAMS speed you should be good to go. 4x should be fine (unless you get the clock over 250MHz).

You need to drop the memory from 4.00 to 3.33

3.33 x 240MHz = RAM spec 800MHz

So ...

Drop the HT to 4x.
Drop the memory ratio from 400 to 333.

AND

I would suggest dropping the CPU multi to 13x.

That way, if you can run 13 x 240MHz your RAMS will be running at spec speed. I doubt you will stretch much beyond that (3.12GHz) with stock cooling and minimal volt changes.


edit: I forgot .... Lock your PCIe to 100MHz.



--

 

[RyanGreener]

Ahh, thank you for the direct advice. I'll be applying this tomorrow

 

[RyanGreener]

Ok, I did everything that you posted except change the memory ratio. I could not find the option anywhere...it only limited me to lowering as much as 400 mhz, not lower. Anyways, I'm editing the first post to make it easier for everyone to track the progress..

 

[RyanGreener]

I checked CPU-Z, and for FSB:Memory Ratio, it says "CPU/13"....that doesn't seem to make sense. Any ideas?