Overclocking problems w/ AMD & Asus A7N8X - HELP!

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maynardc

Junior Member
Oct 3, 2003
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I have a Asus a7n8x deluxe 2.0 and a AMD 2600+.

this is what i did: I went into my bios setting and changed the CPU External Frequency/FSB to 209mhz (from 166mhz) and changed the multipler to 11.5x (from 12.5x). when I rebooted my PC, nothing shows up on the monitor, it goes into powersave mode as if no signal wa being made from the videocard to the monitor.

I was told that this would be safe...now my PC won't boot up. I can hear the fan running and see the hard drive light going on occasionally but nothing else happens. all of this happened after I saved the settings to the CMOS and exited.

what should I do? can anyone help? how can I fix this if nothing is shown on the screen?

please help.
 
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SilentAssassin

Member
Oct 1, 2003
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I also have that motherboard but a different AMD cpu and I was having that problem. Hold in the button untill the system turns off. Wait 10 secs and turn it back on and it should take you too a screen saying your cpu speed ect. Hit delete to enter bios and just go to save and exit right away. This time the pc should boot up and go into windows. Now there are 2 things that can happen. 1 the pc will never go to the screen with your cpu info in wich case you will need to remove the battery, clear cmos with the jumper and put the battery back in(this is in the manuel and will show you where the jumper is). The second thing that can happen is if you are able to do what I said the pc will just go back into power save mode again instead of booting to windows. If that happens then the settings you picked can't work. You will either need to lower the fsb or up the vcore.
 
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maynardc

Junior Member
Oct 3, 2003
15
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resetting the CMOS worked...THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH! I thought I had ruined the MB and the CPU.

so what is a "safe setting" (multiplier & FSB settings) to start with?

thanks again!
 
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maynardc

Junior Member
Oct 3, 2003
15
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I believe it's a Barton. how can I verify exactly what I have? I just got it 2 days ago w/ the motherboard.
 
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SilentAssassin

Member
Oct 1, 2003
156
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It could probbly pull a pretty decent overclock. Average overclock is 2370 Mhz with it according to overclockers.com. What the default vcore on that? You will probably have to up it a little. What you should do is set the FSB to 200mhz and leave the default vcore setting. Then set the the multiplier to something lower than last time. Maybe 10.0 or 10.5. See if it boots. Once it boots check the speed or the cpu. Keep changing the multiplier untill the speed is back too it's original speed(2.08 GHz I think) but at the 200mhz FSB setting. Once you get it to boot like that then you can start raising the multiplier. Keep raising it .5 untill it won't boot again. Then set it to the highest multiplier you had working and see what your speeds ended up as. Post back after you've done that. Also what kind of ram are you using?
 
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maynardc

Junior Member
Oct 3, 2003
15
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thanks for the info. I'll try what you said. by the way, I'm using PC3200 RAM.

edit: I found out that my PC3200 RAM is 200mhz and that my motherboard supports 400mhz-type RAM. so now I'm going to exchange it for the faster RAM.

is there any difference as to how I should overclock once I'm using the 512MB of PC3200 400MHz DDR?
 
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maynardc

Junior Member
Oct 3, 2003
15
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SilentAssassin, the default vcore is set at 1.65 V. Should I up it? It seems a little unstable at 1.65 V...XP tends to all of a sudden reboot/crash. I raised it to 1.675 V (the next step up). is that ok? thanks again for all of your help.
 
Jeff7181

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
11
81
Don't change more than one setting at a time... that's what usually confuses it. Change one thing at a time, exit, reboot, enter BIOS again, and change another thing. Yes it's a pain in the arse, but it saves you this type of worry =) It may also save you from confusing this BIOS bug with CPU instability after you try new overclocking settings.
 
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SilentAssassin

Member
Oct 1, 2003
156
0
0
Yeah thats fine. If it crashes or reboots then just up the vcore a little untill it's stable. Only go as high as it needs to be stable though and don't go past 1.80. Do you have Prime95 ? Get it and run the torture test(Options, Torture Test, Blend). If your system is unstable it'll most likely reboot before it can finish the first two tests(wich takes about 20minutes). It'll also stop if any bad calulations are made wich could mean you have a bad setting. So what speed did you end up running?

Oh and I'd say leave the ram at it's spd setting while you overclock the cpu. That way when you run into any problems you know it's a cpu setting and not the ram. One thing at a time. It's easier that way.
 
edmundoab

edmundoab

Diamond Member
Apr 21, 2003
3,223
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next time it is advisable to save settings first,
then save and exit

also,
if resetting CMOS does not help in the future,
reflash the bios to a newer version.
that may solve the problem too
 
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maynardc

Junior Member
Oct 3, 2003
15
0
0
according to SiSoftware Sandra, I'm at 2.31 Ghz; according to Aida 32, my CPU type is a 2800+ at 2300 MHz. is that ok? I'm assuming that is pretty good. I'll download that program you mentioned and let you know what happened. thanks.
 
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SilentAssassin

Member
Oct 1, 2003
156
0
0
Yeah Prime95 will take your cpu to 100% usage and same with ram. If you can pass that test then your pc should be fine. Also what I do is while Prime95 is running check the temps with Asus Probe. Whatever it is at after 30 minutes it probably the hostest your cpu will get so if it's still at ok cool temps and you pass Prime95 you can try upping the multiplier even more.
 
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maynardc

Junior Member
Oct 3, 2003
15
0
0
my PC is unstable at the current settings...it wouldn't handle the stress test. I had to drop the multiplier to 11.0 from 11.5, and the stress test seems to be going fine. it's currently in the 600+ test range and Asus Probe is displaying the CUP temp at 42 C/107 F and a MB temp of 29 C/84 F I'm assuming these are safe temps.
 
Jeff7181

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
11
81
Bartons don't always respond to voltage. For example, mine runs at 2.2 Ghz on 1.65 volts... but it won't even run at 2.25 on 1.75 volts.
 
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