Overclocking Athlon XP 2200 problem

[Chang10is]

I'm running an Athlon 2200 on an Asus A7V333. For some reason, I'm able to overclock the bus/pci ratio up to 145/36 MHz in the BIOS (didn't try pushing it higher because I don't want to overclock the PCI any more), but I can't get the processor to overclock when I set the on-board jumpers to 140 MHz or 150 MHz bus. I've tried setting the VCore on auto, 1.70 V, and 1.80 V. Am I doing something wrong here? If it overclocks to 145 MHz bus through the BIOS setting when it's locked with the PCI ratio, why wouldn't it overclock when I'm overclocking the bus alone? The motherboard won't post and tells me that the "system failed CPU test".

 

[Chang10is]

Does anybody have a suggestion for this problem?

 

[Chang10is]

bump for update

 

[o1die]

That particular cpu is usually not a good overclocker. You might also have a power supply issue. What ps are you using?

 

[Chang10is]

I'm using an Antec SmartPower 300W unit. Any other possibilities besides the PSU? Yes, I know this particular CPU isn't very good compared to the mobile processors, the desktop 2100, or even the 2000. I wanted a cheap retail CPU, which left me choosing between the 2000 and 2200, and the 2000 was out of stock when I wanted to order it. I thought I'd take a chance with this one, but I guess I should have just waited.

 

[myocardia]

That's not enough of a psu to overclock very far, as I guess you've figured out by now, huh?

 

[Chang10is]

So it is the PSU then? Bummer. But why would it o/c with the FSB/PCI ratio locked, and not with just the FSB? Seems like voltage and power don't explain this.

 

[myocardia]

You have a motherboard that's not good for overclocking, and you bought a processor that doesn't overclock very far. Just be happy that you were able to overclock any at all, especially with a 300 watt psu.

edit: If you want to make sure that it's your psu, borrow another one. BTW, that chip should run fine with 1.80v vcore at a 166fsb, which will put your pci bus back to spec (33mhz).

 

[ceasar88]

I don't think it is a power supply issue, since I have the same model and my Barton runs flawlessly at 2.5 GHz. It seems to adjustments in bios and jumpers work in different ways which could not be explained easily. I'd suggest that you just do the overclocking in bios.

 

[Chang10is]

Ceasar88, I think your post hit the nail on the head. I tried overclocking through the BIOS, and it worked very well. I got the FSB/PCI ratio up to 163/33 MHz at 1.75 VCore and ran CPU Burn-in to ensure stability. Not bad in my opinion, for a processor that most people say isn't a good overclocker. Thanks to myocardia too, for pointing out that the PCI speed drops back into the 30s if you push the FSB high enough in the BIOS.

Perhaps a motherboard engineer would be able to explain the differences between overclocking with jumpers and in the BIOS, but this is definitely something to keep in mind for the rest of us if anybody runs into a similar problem in the future.