Overclocking question from a (now new member) Welcome freshspace!

DanC

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2000
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Hey guys,

I met a guy on e-bay looking at some mobo/processor combos I had up.

He poses this question:

> I've never overclocked anything before. I don't know how. Can you help
> me? Currently, I have a Cel 700 with a PCChips M780 (rev 1.5a) mobo.
> Can I overclock with this setup?

I thought Celery's were clock-locked after the 450, but don't remember.
Anybody got the answer for him? I'll shoot him this thread link.
If we get him the right answer, perhaps he'll join the effort?

Thanks!

dc
 

bot2600

Platinum Member
May 18, 2001
2,075
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76
Hi Dan!

The multiplier is locked his option for overclocking would be to try to inch the FSB up if the motherboard has jumpers or BIOS settings for FSB settings.

Bot
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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With an extra helping of Vitamin "V"(oltage) it might hit the 100MHz fsb, which would bring it up to 1060MHz... :D That CPU family is known for not producing a lot of heat, of course, so it might make it on stock cooling or similar.
 

DanC

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2000
5,553
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heheh.... I KNEW you guys would know.

Now - start hammering on him to join up... ;)


Dasm... Bot, Mech... it's almost like old times.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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I'm downloading the manual for the mobo to see what options it has in BIOS or by jumpers... :D ...please stand by.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Hmm, no mention of any CPU-voltage jumpers, and from reading the manual, it *appears* that it would not be adjustable from within the BIOS either. Still nothing to lose by looking... it would be under Frequency/Voltage Control in the BIOS and if the parameters are set to Manual for frequency/multiplier, it might be adjustable then.

If nothing else, our friend could try scooting the FSB up to 100MHz and see if he has a "golden" CPU which will make the jump at stock voltage. :) I would definitely back up all my important data before trying this, in case Windows gets Registry corruption as a result.
 

DanC

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2000
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Thanks Mech, Bob... "Mui appreciando" (yeah - I know that's not REAL Spanish) ;)

There's your answer Douglas. Now time to join up! heheh.
 

DanC

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2000
5,553
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oops:eek:

Uh... I've got a couple of K7T Turbo Ver3 boards with Duron 700 and 750's doing 750 and 945 respectively.

anyone interested in bidding? I haven't relisted them.
 

kmmatney

Diamond Member
Jun 19, 2000
4,363
1
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The guys best overclocking option will probably be CPUFSB software (or something similar). He should at least get that Celery up to 75 MHz FSB. My motherboard also has no overclocking jumpers or BIOS options, but it overclocks just fine with cpufsb. (Athlon XP 17--+ /w ECS SIS735 chipset).
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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I've never tried CPUFSB myself, could you give us a link and some tips kmmatney? :D
 

freshspace

Senior member
Mar 23, 2002
617
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Hi Everyone,

I'm the "guy" who asked the question to Dan originally. Thanks everyone for all of your input. With my limited experience with computers, let me see what I can do without breaking the computer. That "corrupting registry" comment is scaring me, though. Let's keep the fingers crossed. Thanks. :)
 

freshspace

Senior member
Mar 23, 2002
617
0
0
Hi you guys,

It is me again. Do I have to "flash" and get the latest BIOS for overclocking? Again, I don't know a thing about it. Why do you need the latest BIOS? I heard that you can run higher cpus than originally intended, if you update the BIOS. Is this true? What other advantages are there? How do you update your BIOS? I know how to go into the CMOS set up. Is this the same as BIOS?

Hewwwww. Too many questions. Sorry and Thanks.

Douglas :)
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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Hey freshspace, here's a bit of a rundown on How Things Are:

The motherboard has a sort of "reference signal" called the Front-Side Bus (FSB). In your case, the stock FSB is 66 megahertz (MHz) because that's a characteristic of the Celeron CPUs that are made to run at 766MHz or less.

The PCI bus runs at a ratio of the FSB. It hosts the hard-drive controller, along with any expansion cards you plug into PCI slots (such as sound cards, network cards, modems, etc). The PCI bus on your motherboard has a "home" frequency of 33MHz, and so it runs at a 1:2 ratio of your 66MHz FSB. If you had a CPU that uses a 100MHz FSB, the PCI bus should self-adjust to a 1:3 ratio so it stays at its specified 33MHz.

The AGP port also runs at a ratio of the FSB. Its home frequency is 66MHz, so with your CPU it would be a 1:1 ratio. If your CPU used a 100MHz FSB, the AGP port would run at a 2:3 ratio.

The CPU itself also runs at a ratio of the FSB. The CPU's ratio is called the "multiplier." For a 700MHz Celeron, the multiplier is 10.5 and the CPU runs at 7.5 x 66MHz FSB = ~700MHz.

The memory (RAM) also is referenced to the FSB speed. Memory is built to run at a specific speed and can almost always tolerate being run slower than it was designed to. PC133 memory, for example, can run at 133MHz, 100MHz or 66MHz. There are different implementations of this but basically, the memory is going to run at some ratio of the FSB speed, and often this ratio can be independently dictated in the BIOS. If you had a 66MHz FSB, you might have the option to run the memory at either a 1:1 ratio (66MHz) or a 3:2 ratio (100MHz). If you start raising the FSB speed, the memory speed will maintain the ratio and speed up proportionately.


So the key is the FSB, and the ratios. The Celeron is multiplier-locked, or else you'd be able to raise the FSB while lowering the multiplier and have way too much fun. :D You don't want your PCI bus to run too far from its home frequency of 33MHz or your hard drive may have Problems. Let's look at some examples using your 700MHz CPU as the basis:

Example 1: NuB user tries to overclock to 83MHz FSB

  • FSB = 83MHz
  • PCI = 1/2 of FSB = 41.5MHz Red Alert, she canna take it for long, Captain! :Q The hard drives are corruptin' from the high PCI-bus speed! :Q
  • AGP = 1/1 of FSB = 83MHz A good AGP card can hack it here, but it's not easy on it.
  • Memory = 1/1 of FSB = 83MHz If the memory is designed to run at only 66MHz then this is an issue. If it's PC100 or PC133 then it's still breathing easily
  • CPU = 10.5 x FSB = 870MHz The CPU is happy because this isn't too much of an overclock, but the rest of the system is in distress, except possibly the memory if it's built to go faster.

Example 2: NuB user studies issue, and uses ratios to his advantage

  • FSB = 100MHz
  • PCI = 1/3 of FSB = 33MHz Perfectly on-spec because the mobo automatically kicked the ratio down to 1/3 when it was set to 100MHz FSB
  • AGP = 2/3 of FSB = 66MHz Again, right on target
  • Memory = 1/1 of FSB = 100MHz If the memory is PC66 then this is going to be pushing it, but if it's PC100 or PC133 then it'll be happy.
  • CPU = 10.5 x FSB = 1050MHz The CPU is probably going to need an extra 10% more voltage to do this, and reasonably good cooling, but the rest of the system is on-spec and happy.

So you can see that if you stray too far from one of the motherboard's "home" FSB frequencies (namely 66MHz or 100MHz) then things could backfire on you even if the CPU itself is happy at the speed that resulted.

To really answer the question about why flashing to a new BIOS might help overclock... Some boards allow for voltage adjustments and manual manipulation of the PCI and AGP ratios, giving you more room to play with, and sometimes a BIOS update adds these features, but in the case of your motherboard, I don't think it would because it's just not aimed at a hardcore tweaker customer.

You DO have the ability to change the FSB in your BIOS, however, and so your safe target would be the 100MHz FSB. If your CPU will handle that, all the other stuff is going to be on-spec. The question is whether your CPU can do it at stock voltage, since you don't have any voltage adjustments available.

When you do look in the BIOS to adjust the FSB speed, oftentimes the speeds will be shown as FSB/PCI... for instance,

66/33
75/37
83/41
100/33
105/34
113/38
133/33

and this is intended to help figure out what the effect will be on the PCI speed, which is probably the "gotcha" to watch. The AGP bus is not so critical.
 

freshspace

Senior member
Mar 23, 2002
617
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Thanks a lot, mechBgon! And thank you everyone else. My gosh, mechBgon. Are you going to bill me for this? You wrote so much for me with so much information with textbook accuracy! Thank you.

You are right. With the help of everyone here, I went into the CMOS setup. and to the Frequency/Voltage control. I had 5 lines there.

"Auto Detect DIMM/PCI CLK - Enabled" - I left it alone. I guess this is the memory speed.
"Spread Spectrum - Disabled" - I left it alone. I have no idea what this is.
"CPU Speed" and I changed it to "Manual."
"CPU Ratio - x3" - I left it alone. What is this? I think it goes up to x8.
Then, finally at "CPU Frequency" I had 3 options. "66/33," "75/37" - 787Mhz, "83/41" - 874 Mhz. There was no 100Mhz option for me. When I ran it at "83/41," the computer felt like it was on Steroids! However, as soon as I saw your "warning" I lowered a notch to "75/37." It still seems faster.

One thing I have noticed is that the processor usage was jumping up and down when I ran it at "83/41." My mouse pointer was not moving so well, as if the CPU was being drained from time to time. Thus, I went Ctrl-Alt-Del and the window showed processor usage to be somewhat unstable. I am running WinXP Pro. At "75/37", running at 787Mhz, the processor usage doesn't seem like it is unstable, but still, there is some movement. Is this normal? Is this a typical side effect of overclocking, or is my system doing something crazy? If it is going a bit crazy, can I stabilize it? In my box, I am running a heatsink from a Celeron 1.1 Gig retail package. Also, I have 2 80mm case fans blowing at the motherboard with the power supply venting the heat. I have a passive cooling for the chipset. I found a small fan from my stash of old computer parts and used a double sided tape to put it on top. The tape is holding the fan well and the fan is blowing right into the heatsink without any obstruction from the tape. Is this okay?

What is the CPU Ratio? Can I change that and help the situation? Can I update the Bios and get that 100Mhz option? Man, this stuff is fun! I would greatly appreciate any input. Thanks you.
 

DanC

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2000
5,553
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0
BUWAHAHAHAHAH!... another really geeky overclocker is born! ;)

Thanks Tom - great little article. :)
 

htmlmasterdave

Golden Member
Jul 13, 2001
1,309
0
0
"Spread Spectrum" has to do with basically turning off PCI slots that aren't in use to minimize interference with stuff. It doesn't really matter, and only can create instability, leave it disabled ;) I would stick to official fsb's. If it won't do 100, I wouldn't overclock it.

Originally posted by: freshspace
Thanks a lot, mechBgon! And thank you everyone else. My gosh, mechBgon. Are you going to bill me for this? You wrote so much for me with so much information with textbook accuracy! Thank you.

You are right. With the help of everyone here, I went into the CMOS setup. and to the Frequency/Voltage control. I had 5 lines there.

"Auto Detect DIMM/PCI CLK - Enabled" - I left it alone. I guess this is the memory speed.
"Spread Spectrum - Disabled" - I left it alone. I have no idea what this is.
"CPU Speed" and I changed it to "Manual."
"CPU Ratio - x3" - I left it alone. What is this? I think it goes up to x8.
Then, finally at "CPU Frequency" I had 3 options. "66/33," "75/37" - 787Mhz, "83/41" - 874 Mhz. There was no 100Mhz option for me. When I ran it at "83/41," the computer felt like it was on Steroids! However, as soon as I saw your "warning" I lowered a notch to "75/37." It still seems faster.

One thing I have noticed is that the processor usage was jumping up and down when I ran it at "83/41." My mouse pointer was not moving so well, as if the CPU was being drained from time to time. Thus, I went Ctrl-Alt-Del and the window showed processor usage to be somewhat unstable. I am running WinXP Pro. At "75/37", running at 787Mhz, the processor usage doesn't seem like it is unstable, but still, there is some movement. Is this normal? Is this a typical side effect of overclocking, or is my system doing something crazy? If it is going a bit crazy, can I stabilize it? In my box, I am running a heatsink from a Celeron 1.1 Gig retail package. Also, I have 2 80mm case fans blowing at the motherboard with the power supply venting the heat. I have a passive cooling for the chipset. I found a small fan from my stash of old computer parts and used a double sided tape to put it on top. The tape is holding the fan well and the fan is blowing right into the heatsink without any obstruction from the tape. Is this okay?

What is the CPU Ratio? Can I change that and help the situation? Can I update the Bios and get that 100Mhz option? Man, this stuff is fun! I would greatly appreciate any input. Thanks you.

 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
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Hehe, glad you liked the crash course :D Ever since I discovered how to use the bulleted-text feature, I've been on a rampage! :D And the Forums are lightning-quick now that I've subscribed and gotten onto the Subscriber server... best $30 I've spent in a long time, for a year of this kind of speed... :D

It sounds like your motherboard is designed not to offer you the 100MHz+ options if it senses that you've got a 66MHz-based CPU. If you gave it a Celeron 800MHz or higher, which are based on the 100MHz FSB by design, then it would probably only offer you 100MHz and higher.

The "CPU Ratio" is the multiplier that I mentioned. It generally has no effect because the Celeron is internally multiplier-locked and will override any attempts to change the multiplier.

Yeah, sounds like your computer was pushing the limits at 83MHz FSB. I'm not sure how to answer on the occasional usage spikes you're seeing, except to say that I know a way to keep the CPU usage nice and level at 100% (winks at DanC). :D It appears that the 700MHz Celeron II that you're using is the fastest Celeron variant supported by the board, judging by the specs. If you like the improvement in performance that you were seeing at 83MHz, then you are in grave danger of catching Computer Upgrade Syndrome. :D But it's a benign disease... trust me! ;)