questions about barton 2600+

[udonoogen]

okay so i got a barton 2600+ chip. i've never overclocked a chip in my life so i want to make sure i'm not going to blow up my computer or anything.

in the bios i changed the clock speed to 2300mhz. i booted up and the computer hasn't locked up or restarted. i'm running a thermaltake silent boost on my asus a7v8x-x mobo and according to speedfan the temperature is at ~34 degrees. 768mb of kingston/crucial pc2100 (my other 512 stick of crucial died recently). did i do all this right? don't touch anything else? words of advice? overclocking only takes a few weeks or months off of a chip's lifespan, right? thanks so much!

Don

edit: i read the sticky above and tried to find asus probe but couldnt locate it on the asus site ... where can i find it? is it specific to my motherboard?

 

[BlueWeasel]

What FSB and multiplier are you running at? FSB x multiplier = 2300mhz

You might want to test for stability using a program like Prime95 or your favorite game to load the CPU. If you get errors or crashes during testing, you may need to bump up the chip and/or RAM voltages in the BIOS. When OC'ing raising the voltage to a component (ie, CPU or RAM), helps stability at the higher speeds.

Your temps are fine and I wouldn't worry about the chip's lifespan. Unless you're pumping 1.9v into the chip, you'll likely have upgraded long before the CPU dies from overclocking.

 

[udonoogen]

11.5 x 200/40 = 2300mhz ? is that right?
the CPU vcore is at 1.65 also. i have no idea what these numbers mean but if they look okay to you then they're okay to me.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Yeah, you're doing good at those numbers. You always want to go with the higest FSB speed you can, because of the extra bandwidth it gives. The 1.65v of Vcore is fine as well. As long as its stable, you don't have a thing to worry about.

 

[Tango57]

is this a mobile barton or desktop? i think you're doing fine. you can probably crank it up a bit to 2400 mhz by just changing the multiplier or cpu ratio to 12 instead of 11.5. see if it will run at that speed with 1.65v. if not, up the vcore a notch to 1.7v or 1.75v. i wouldn't recommend adjusting your vcore higher than 1.9 as that will definitely heat your cpu up and shorten it's lifespan. after that check for stability but running programs such as Prime95 as Blue Weasel mentioned. i also run 3Dmark 2001, 2003 and Aquamark to check for stability when i overclock. as long as you have good cooling there's no reason why your cpu won't last you until your next upgrade.

 

[Fricardo]

Originally posted by: udonoogen
overclocking only takes a few weeks or months off of a chip's lifespan, right?

Overclocking won't take anything off its lifespan, overvolting will. XPs are designed to run at 1.65, so if that's all your going to use you don't need to worry about a thing. Now taking it to 1.75 or maybe even 1.8 will lower its life span, but it won't kill the thing straight away. It all depends on how long you want keep the chip. If you want to keep it for a long time (3 years +) I wouldn't go above 1.75.

 

[selfbuilt]

Originally posted by: udonoogenedit: i read the sticky above and tried to find asus probe but couldnt locate it on the asus site ... where can i find it? is it specific to my motherboard?

It's also on the CD that came with your mobo.

My mobile barton 2500+ runs stably (prime95 >4hr) at 2.38GHz (12x198) at 1.65V set on my Asus A7N8X. Of course, my A7N8X overvolts by ~0.055V, whereas my old A7V8x only overvolted by about ~.035V. Asus probe will tell you more when you have it up and running.

 

[pspada]

I've been able to run all of the 2600+s that I've encountered at 11.5x200fsb with stock voltage.