P4 2.4C overclocking help needed

[rubix]

it is very hard weeding through all of the info here for info that i need and can understand. my last system was a bx6/celeron, so everything is so different now. i find the ram dividers especially confusing.

my current system is:
abit ic7-g (bios 16)
retail intel p4 2.4c w/ stock cooling
2 kingston 512mb hyper-x modules, pc3700
ati radeon 9500 pro w/ 9700 pro bios

what fsb, memory divider/timings and voltages should i use? do i even need to change ram voltage or just cpu voltage? also, how do i make sure i am not o/c'ing my agp and pci cards? is this the "lock" i've seen mentioned. i know nothing!!

also, can someone please post some links that explain the basics of overclocking on newer p4 based systems.

 

[fredtam]

A 1:1 ratio means that if you have a FSB setting of 200MHz your ram will be running at 200MhHz.
A 5:4 ratio means that if you have a FSB setting of 200MHz your ram will be running at 160 Mhz.

The 5:4 setting would be used if your ram can not operate at the 1:1 ratio. Your ram (DDR466) would be within spec up to a 233MHz FSB or 2796MHz (2.8GHz). You will be able to push it a little farther at 1:1 but once it becomes unstable it is time to switch to 5:4. If switched at the 233MHz FSB your ram would now be running at 186.4Mhz (372.8) which is well below the rated spec of 233MHz (466). This allow you to push the cpu speed further witout the ram being the limiting factor.

In your BIos under "Soft Menu Setup" after you select "user defined" for the speeds you will see AGP Ratio. This is what needs to be locked. Select "fixed". This keeps the agp/pci within spec a syou overclock so your cards continue to work.

As for the voltages I always bump the ram up a step or two when I start to overclock but the cpu I bump up as the system becomes unstable. It is esiest to look around and see what voltages other people are needing to get the overclock you want.

 

[rubix]

thanks. that makes the memory dividers more clear for me now.

edit:
so if i could get my fsb up to 250 and used a 5:4 divider, my cpu would be at 3ghz and my ram would be back to 200mhz again just like using 1:1? or am i doing this wrong?

 

[fredtam]

That is correct sir.

 

[rubix]

ok thanks for the help. once my artic silver 3 comes in (today i hope) i'll try these settings.

 

[Mickey21]

By the way, Abit has posted the version 17 BIOS now on their website. You might want to update the BIOS as well, since they fixed the instability problems when overclocking past 250 FSB that they had prior. As well as a ton of other minor fixes and possibly major fixes. Worked wonders for some of my overclocking.

 

[rubix]

yeah i was thinking about flashing to v17, but i saw many post in their forums about boot problems, so since i wasn't o/c'ing yet, i said i'll wait til v18.