Quick and dirty A64 clocking guide **UPDATE** X2 OC information!

[bigguyottawa]

forgot to say i just built my new combo and now overclocking it cpu 3000+ Venice mobo DFI nf4 dagf pc 3200 corsdair value ram 1024 mb

 

[PharaohJD]

I just put my new system together last week and I'd like to overclock it a bit. I havent been into overclocking for a while, not since the original Celerons. Anyhow, for the memory settings, I don't know which setting in the BIOS relates to which number, like when you say 2-2-2-7 1 T . Is there any site with info for the DFI motherboard where I can see what means what in the BIOS?

 

[cronic]

maybe this will help
the first # is Tcl in your case 2
the 2nd # is Trcd in your case 2
The 3rd # is Trp in your case 2
The 4th # is Tras in your case 7
as for the 1t setting set the Mhz to 200 1/01 and set cpc to enable
by the way i may have the 2nd and 3rd backwards, but in most cases, as in yours, they are usually the same.
Thanks

 

[PharaohJD]

Great I'll try it out tonight, thanks for the help

 

[imported_wyrmrider]

DFI Street overclocking guide is still being updated and is a good read

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12960&page=1&pp=15]http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12960&page=1&pp=15[/L]

 

[hofinder23]

Originally posted by: Zebo
VERY IMPORTANT to keep in mind at all times is hypertransport needs to be around 1000, meaning LDT x HTT (aka FSB) ~1000 or less.

i have my hypertransport at 1044... how bad is it to have it over 1k?

 

[theMan]

that should be fine. some people actually overclock the bus, to above 1200. it depends on your board. it has been shown that a high HT does absolutely nothing for performance. you could be running it at 200 and not get a hit. if the computer gets unstable, (very unlikely) you should reduce the ldt.

 

[hofinder23]

Originally posted by: theman
that should be fine. some people actually overclock the bus, to above 1200. it depends on your board. it has been shown that a high HT does absolutely nothing for performance. you could be running it at 200 and not get a hit. if the computer gets unstable, (very unlikely) you should reduce the ldt.

thanks for the answer... would it reduce the lifespan of the board if i run it a lot over 1k for a long period of time? i'm at 2.61 Ghz right now... maybe thinking of going to 2.7. so that would bump my HT to 1080.

 

[theMan]

naw, thats fine. if its prime stable, its fine. if you really feel uncomfortable, drop the multi. run some benchmarks, probably not synthetic ones. use fraps and see if it affects your fps in games. use aquamark, or 3dmark05. i doubt it will hurt performance at 810mhz

 

[bobbybullseye]

So I've got a very strange bug here after overclocking. Stick with me because I have done a lot of troubleshooting and have some pertinent information to share. My Linksys WMP54Gv4 wirleless adapter will not function at all when I overclock my processor to 240MHZ FSB. I know for a fact it works at 200 (stock), 220, and 230. I haven't tried all the iterations inbetween, but you get the picture. I tried reinstalling the adapter, putting in a different wifi card (another of the same adapter from another system), reinstalling the driver . . . none of these worked at 240MHZ. But when I returned the FSB to 230 or below, there were no problems at all. When I ran Prime95 and did other programs at 240 there were no problems or freeze ups, so why would a PCI card not work at given CPU speed? Any insight would be very helpful. Here are the specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester @2.0-2.4GHZ (issue with wifi at 2.4)
ASUS A8V Deluxe Ai w/ 1014 BIOS
1GB Kingston DDR PC 3200 (2 sets of KVR400AK2/512R = 4 sitcks of 256)
WD 240GB SATA RAID striped (2x 120GB drives)
Genuine ATI Radeon 9800 pro (R350)

By the way, I have used the Ai overclocking in the BIOS (which goes up to 10% or 220MHZ) and currently have it manually set by changing the FSB alone to 230MHZ. I did this for 240MHZ as well, but that is where I had the problems with the wifi card. If anyone can help, I would really aprreciate some thoughts.

Also, if anyone has a REAL fix for the ATI 9800 pro/A8V problem, I would appreciate that, too!!!

-Bobby

 

[theMan]

make sure you set the pci lock to 66.66/33.33. some devices are really picky with high htt speeds. also, you should DEFINATELY be using 1009 bios. 1014 has lots of mem divider issues. dont use ai overclocking. it uses way to much vcore. not quite sure about the 9800 pro, since i dont have one with my board. however, i have seen a TON of stuff on the internet. just google it, ask in the motherboard forum.

 

[Anubis]

ISOLATE
Don't forget to take notes.
1. Max HTT/FSB should be first ..*only works if motherboard has locks. Most A64 boards do today. Sata 1 and 2 are not locked on some nforce mobos use 3 and 4.
-set CPU multi to 6 or 7, this will take CPU out of equation
-set memory to SPD and 100, this will take memory out of equation
-Increase HTT/FSB up until you fail to boot or there abouts, back down 5%, (HTT * 0.95), this is your max safe HTT.

2. Max Chip capable
- Set multiplier to it's maxium
-Set vcore to 1.6 -1.65 for 130nm chips, 1.50-1.55 for 90nm chips
-Set mem to SPD and 100, this will take memory out of equation
-starting with HTT 200 raise in about 5Mhz increments up to boards max found earlier or until you start failing PRIME95 which will probably happen first..only give it 5 minutes max, that's good enough for now.
-At the point it starts failing within that 5 min time period, back down 5%, (CPU MHZ * 0.95), thats your max CPU speed, now test prime again at 95% for 12 hour for stable.

someone wanna let me know what these things are actually called in the bios? cause i have no fing idea which one is which - useing a DFI mobo latest bios 8/11

and now that i think about it my HDDs are in SATA1,2 is that really bad? im not tryingto go for an insane OC just a moderate one, i also have 2 IDE hdds in here

 

[bobbybullseye]

Thanks, theman. That did the trick.

 

[bobbybullseye]

Okay, well here's my "wall" on my winchester 3200+, I guess. It's stable at 2.45GHz. I did a lot of work to get this just right, but it still has a full prime95 cycle to go through before I am comfortable.

245MHz HHT (FSB)
1000 HT (5x to all non ASUS)
10x CPU multiplier
1.6v vCore
50C after 20 mins of Prime95

250MHz would look okay until I ran Prime95, and then I would get less than 1 minute, no matter how I changed the HT or the voltage (never went over 1.6v). Any thoughts on tweaking this for better results? I know the total is 1225 (above 1000!), but it seems to work best there.
----------------------
EDIT: I am running into problems . . . believe I corrupted my windows install. I can't get windows update now even with settings back to stock. I am going to reinstall and try again from scratch. . . .will advise when done.


Also, where should I start for my RAM? Refer two messages above for my full RAM information. I am not really fully understanding how to do the math on the RAM to achieve "tight numbers" or how to do the math right for the memory divider. Thanks to all.

Bobby

 

[theMan]

lower your HT! lower it down to 600.

 

[bobbybullseye]

theman-

too late. well, some learn the easy way. not me but it was a perfect excuse to install that fully lisenced x64 pro disk i got from school.:thumbsup: which is working awesomely right now. now to isolate my damn hard drive. i know you have my board. have you been able to isolate the promise sata?

EDIT: Gogar's optimizer seems to be down (his whole site is down) but here are my 123:

1) Max HTT = 300MHz (BIOS limit)
2) Max CPU = 240MHz (HT at 4x for 960)
3) Max DDR =

 

[theMan]

well, thats ok for a winchester. dont really expect to get what people get with venice's. only some, (like me, hehehe) have been able to get up to like 2.7 or above on reasonable volts. just try tweaking things. instead of setting the mem to 100mhz, which sets the latencies to like, 1.5-2-2-4 like it did for me, set it to 133 or 166. just make sure its below 200mhz.

 

[srygonic]

Originally posted by: Zebo
3. Memory MAX

It depends what you want and type of mem you chose, LL or Bandwidth but must keep 1T (command rate) because A64 suffers big time with 2T.

-For high bandwidth set mem setting to 200 and 2.5-4-3-7 1 T and give it boards max volts, or for LL set mem setting to 200 and 2-2-2-7 1 T and give it boards max volts. (up to 2.9Vdimm is safe with all ram) ( Caution DFI/ABIT users -- do not exceed 3.0V unless you know what you are doing!!!)
-Set CPUs multi to 6-7, again to take it out of equation.
-Raise HTT up to boards max or until you start failing memtest86 test 5 and 6 http://www.memtest86.com/
-When you start failing memtest86 test 5 and 6, back down 5%, (HTT * 0.95), thats your max MEM speed.

Is it ok to run memtest in windows? Cause I don't have a floppy...

 

[bobbybullseye]

I haven't been able to run the memtest86 in win x64 (the self-executing floppy writer), even though the latest version is supposed to support x64. Has anyone else had that problem?

Also, I somehow corrupted my HDD again even with the AGP/PCI locks in place. I don't understand how to protect the SATA drives that are on my promise controller. Is the PCI lock supposed to protect the promise controller, too? If it doesn't is there a way to protect the VIA chip so I can plug my SATAs into the VIA ports?

Theman . . . which BIOS are you running, and why?

-Bobby

 

[theMan]

srygonic- memtest86 is a program intended to run outside of windows, before it boots up. you can download a .iso version, and burn it to a cd.

bobby- same as above. the operating system shouldnt matter. thats really weird. the promise controller is locked. the via isnt, but if you want to try it, you can. its locked for some people... when you say you got corruption, what happened exactly? as i said, i am running bios 1009. you should either run that, or 1010.003 beta. they are pretty much the same. they are more stable, overclock better, and give better memory bandwidth.

 

[yanman]

several months on from my previous overclocking success with this guide i've now bought another 2x512MB sticks of same type but the new stuff won't overclock as well

currently:
A8N-SLI 1011 bios (had 1006 previously till yesterday)
Venice 3000+ at 2696Mhz -> 337x8, Legend DDR400 2x512 ram at 2:3 (225mhz) 2.5-3-4-7-1T
Galaxy 6600GT at 560/1100 in 3D mode

the new sticks fail memtest at that overclock, combined with the original 2 or by themselves. i havent redone the memory test yet to see how far they clock.

my mate said he'd swap them for 2x1gb sticks of legend which are appaerntly raetd at 2.5 instead of the 3 that the 512s are so maybe that'll help

 

[yanman]

doh.. cant get it to work even when i changed the ratio to 1:2

 

[theMan]

make sure you have it set to 2t in the bios. no auto or anything.

 

[yanman]

ok cheers ill try that, but how come i use 2T tho? cos the guide says should be 1T...

"3. Memory MAX
It depends what you want and type of mem you chose, LL or Bandwidth but must keep 1T (command rate) because A64 suffers big time with 2T. "

 

[theMan]

with the a64 memory controller, if you use 4 sticks, you must use 2t. also, you memory may not be able to clock as high. but, your bios should have set it to 2t automatically, which is really weird.