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Overclocking w/ NF7-S r 2.0

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Dave332

Member
Hey,

I've been trying to overclock my system for the last few months, but I'm having just a tad of trouble. First off here are my current specs:

NF7-S r2.0
Athlon XP 2400+ Mobile currently 2250 (10x225)
1GB Mushkin "Enhanced Basic" PC3200 @ 450 CL 2.5-4-4-8 (originally 2.5-3-3-8)
PowerColor Radeon 9800SE (no, the other 4 pipes don't work)

Cooling:
CPU - AeroCool HT101 JR
RAM - Covered in CoolerMaster ramsinks
Northbridge - ZM-NB47J
Southbridge - ZMNB32J
Various Chips and the MOSFETS have CoolerMaster Ramsinks on them
All sinks are applied with either Artic Silver 5 or Artic Silver Thermal Epoxy

Current Setup:

Currently I have the fsb set to 225. I had to mess with the latency on the RAM to get it to run synchronous, but it did up the bandwidth signifigantly. For some reason, the system is completely unstable when the proc is set for 2300 or higher and vcore bumps do nothing to improve the situation. Oh well, I'm not horribly worried about CPU Speed (although it would be nice). Oh, before I forget, all of these clocks are the same as when I had the stock cooling on the cpu and the thermaltake extreme spirit vacuum, I mean cooler. Everything else (except the CPU, Northbridge, & Southbridge) was uncooled. With the new cooling, everything runs ~10 degrees cooler. The RAM latencies can't be tightened and I can't push the FSB any higher. My only conclusion is that I need more voltage, which leads to my next point:

Voltages (as measured from PC Health Status in BIOS and the ABIT EQ tool:

VCore: 1.71
Chipset: 1.7
VDimm: 2.96
+3.3V: 3.26

I guess that's all that really matters. Post if you want the others.

I went and did a little bit of searching and found that others with a similar or the same problem were able to fix it by upping the 3.3V line to ~3.58V. This resulted in a boost on the the Chipset and the VDimm, allowing for more stability at higher speeds. As far as I can tell, this is accomplished only by adjusting a pot on the psu, which means you have to have a psu with pots. I took apart my Enlight 350W and it does not have any pots. So does anyone know what I can do? Thanx in advance.
 
Why push your FSB so high, when you can lower it and raise the multiplier?
Let your PC3200 rest and make your CPU do the work. 😉
 
Have you flashed your bios to the newest revision? Perhaps you can lower your fsb to 220mhz and up your multiplier one step? You should be able to hit 12x220 with 1.75V, but nothing is for sure in the world of overclocking...

good luck!
 
Originally posted by: Blain
Why push your FSB so high, when you can lower it and raise the multiplier?
Let your PC3200 rest and make your CPU do the work. 😉
Click to expand...

Yep.

Just for reference, my 2500+ mobile does 2400mhz on 1.70v, 2500mhz on 1.80v. I always leave my FSB at 200mhz. 225mhz is really pushing your luck. Just tighten your RAM timings as much as you can. Mine are at 2.5-4-4-11 (cheap generic stuff).

Leave your chipset voltage at default, or bump it up slightly if you have stability problems. Memory voltage should be fine at one step below the maximum, or even the max if you really want to push it. Always leave your AGP voltage at 1.5v.

Good luck. The mobiles are fun. :beer:
 
You could try one of the modded BIOS files from Merlin or Tictac. I have had the best luck with Merlin's D26 Taipan w/ CPC On. The D26 Manta Ray from Tictac is also a good BIOS. Aside from typically allowing higher FSB settings, they offer an added bonus: recognition of mobile chips. It's hard coded but nice to see nonetheless. 😛
 
Yeah, the first thing I did when I got the system in August was to try 200xX (X being anywhere from 10.5 to 15), but for some reason, the whole system is unstable when you set the CPU >=2300 so I've been trying to get it as close as possible without going over. If anyone knows how to fix that, I'd really appreciate it. Oh, and yes, I am using the latest bios (abit v26) but I think I will try one of the Merlin or Tictac Bios. Thanx for your help everyone.
 
I set my 2500M at 12x200, prime stable. So I guess like every body else said, just lower ur FSB to like 200 and let ur CPU do the work. Dont push ur ram so hard, I set my VDMM at 2.6 and my thing still running at 2-3-3-5. oh dont put too much thermal paste on ur CPU a thin layer is fine. and make sure it cover the whole core surface. 🙂 gl

Spec
2500m OC 2.4G 45 idle, 52 under Prime
947U Heatsink.
1G PDP 3200 2-3-2-5
CoolerGaint 430 watt
 
Hey, Thanx for the help. I flashed with the most recent version of the Merlin BIOS I could find and it's now running stable at 231x10.5. Brought my Superpi score down to 42s. Still have to run Sandra for Mem Benchmark, but it's still idling @ ~120F.
 
Oh, and the reason I pushed my frontside so high was because when it was at 200, I tightened the timings on the ram as much as I could, but still got lousy mem bandwidth. I discovered that as the fsb went up, so did the bandwidth. It used to be running @ 200x11 2.0-3-3-5 and I only got ~3060,2900 on sandra mem bench. Last night I benched at 3496,3265. I don't think I'll push any more ... until next time ...
 
You never mentioned what PSU you had, if you have a crappy PSU you wont overclock very easily. Until I upgrade the PSU on my P4 setup (in my sig) I had difficulty Overclocking. Before not only did I have to raise the Vcore but it was also unstable at the speeds I am running at now, but when I upgraded the PSU I was able to run the processor at the speeds in my sig on default voltage so a good PSU is a very big factor.
 
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