Really ticked off about my overclocking experience..

Philippine Mango

Diamond Member
Oct 29, 2004
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Intro, if you want, you can ignore this
In Mid 2004 I built my rig which consisted of an IC7-G motherboard, P4 2.8C, 120GB HDD, and some high quality corsair PC4000, Twinx1024 memory. The memory cost around $260 when I bought it, quite expensive considering that the processor was cheaper than it. I purchased this memory with the intent to overclock this system, because you know, this board and processor combination were not only mature but very good overclockers.

So I assemble the system and I overclock it and limits to 3.2, eventually I figure out it's PSU related, so I got a new PSU and I was able to get my system stable at 3.5GHZ/250MHZ FSB, which is the exact speed of my memory modules, so I was relatively satisfied (I heard about 3.6GHZ overclocks..).

I was told that I had a respectable overclock and that I should quit whining cause others had less of an overclock. Some time earlier this year I tried again but realized I was still at the same fate I was at 2 years ago, though this time my max FSB (POST) was 262MHZ, not 255 as it was back in '04, likely due to a bios update. Keep in mind that I did everything I could to allow for higher clocks but nothing allowed for them, this included voltages, chipset settings, memory dividers, agp/pci locks, disabling chipset 'enhancement' features etc. Hmmm.

So I ask around these forums and I get nothing as to why it's like this, the same old 'it's respectable overclock, yada yada yada', reason. The reason I was so intent on being able to overclock some more is because I knew this CPU wasn't being pushed near it's limits since it was running fairly cool, so cold that earlier this year I underclocked it but the temps didn't actually improve.

So last week I'm reading up on overclocks on the P4/875p combo with all the boards, seeing how high people got. I RMA'ed my motherboard a few weeks ago prior to reading up on this (for unrelated reasons) and recieved the board this week. So with the knowledge of 300MHZ FSB overclocks on 2.4Cs and a new board, I thought that I should be able to do at least 270MHZ. So I overclocked the new board yesterday and what do I find? I get the exact same overclocks as I was getting prior to the RMA. Only difference from earlier this year and '04 is that I have an internal PC speaker which made an audible continuous beep. Hmmm

So last night close to 1am, I stumble upon this site Text and read up on the 875p fiasco. Sadly, I never knew about this article and I have to wonder how many on this forum DID know about it or anything related to it..

So, this afternoon I take a Kingston 512MB PC3200 module I recently purchased for another system I built recently (elcheapo system), pop out my Cosair PC4000 modules out of my machine, and pop in the PC3200 module.

I boot up and everything works, as expected. So I overclock and get back to the dreaded 262/264 barrier where once I got to 264, I got a long beep from the system (wasn't audible in '04 as I didn't have an internal PC speaker then). By now I have the memory divider to 3:2 and I'm getting ready to cross the threshold, and what do I find? IT BOOTS! Incredulous! :p

So I keep overclocking higher and higher and what do I find? It turns out, my system now posts at a whopping 282MHZ FSB, thats 3.9GHZ!

I went from a limit of 3.66, close to what the reviewer said in the link provided, to posting at 3.948MHZ!

Now I'm pissed, because I just realized that the reason I was never achieving the clocks I so longed for was because of the part I bought to achieve those clocks!!!!

:| :laugh: :| I'm not sure if I should be happy or pissed. Sighs, I guess I should be spending the rest of my time to find out my max stable overclock and how to sell this memory.
 

inveterate

Golden Member
Mar 1, 2005
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U should still be pissed, cuz my comp still pwnzors urs. muahahahahahaha. how much does ur comp come out to total "not including price depreciation and such"
 

DidlySquat

Banned
Jun 30, 2005
903
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I had the same issue with my machine. I could never get passed 270 mhz FSB with my ASUS A8N-SLI mobo and my previous Venice 3000+ even with the memory set to divider 2:3 which means it was running slower than DDR400. When I got my Opteron 165 it still couldn't pass 270 so I was certain it's a limitation of the motherboard right ? WRONG!!!!! by chance I set the divider to 1:2 and now I can go all the way to FSB 330 or even more (haven't tried going higher yet). I'm not sure why divider 1:2 works but 2:3 doesn't as both should result in the memory running below spec so it should be fine. Maybe it's something with the memory or maybe this board doesn't do 2:3 very well. Whatever it is bottom line is to try many things to get the max OC
 

Soulkeeper

Diamond Member
Nov 23, 2001
6,735
155
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also you must take into account the heat of the northbridge
those chips get hot too, and most the people that get them insane overclocks over 3.5+ tend to have an aftermarket nb heatsink
but those people that told you it was a respectable oc were right imo
i am only running my 2.8e at 3.2 right now cause it is so hot where i live
 

Philippine Mango

Diamond Member
Oct 29, 2004
5,594
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Well the prescotts really weren't suppose to run on those IC7s. I'm surprised they worked at all since they draw a lot more power; ironic that a smaller micron process processor using more power than one of 130nm....