Results for overclocking 1G T-Bird on KT7a

[Taplight]

I am a lttle dissapointed about the results I got(especially after reading some of the mega O/C's on this board) but my 1G is happily doing 1103 mhz. I got it as high as 1197 but would freeze up occasionally so I opted to set it lower but enable all the bells and whistles in the bios. Currently, the fsb is set to 147 and the multiplier is 7.5 at 1.85 V. It takes the 8x multiplier but gets flaky and 8.5 barely gets started. I enabled 4 way interleave and left the agp at 4x(probably could've gotten more o/c by turning down). Got some decent sisoft scores:

memory ALU 571/FPU626
cpu 3076 MIPS/1496 MFLOPS

not mind blowing but acceptable. The cpu is 35C at idle and tops out at 49C full load. The video card gets HOT so I need a way to cool it cause it's right under the cpu and hsf. Another project to keep me busy! By the way, it seems that having a higher fsb is better than having a higher clock speed at a lower fsb. Could be wrong but games run a tad smoother and recall of previously opened programs a bit quicker. If you'd like to add anything at all, post away!!

 

[Taplight]

By the way, it's a week 50 cpu and I have heard that they're not the best overclockers.

 

[johneetrash]

if i had a choice between higher cpu speed/lower fsp, or lower cpu/higher fsb, i think i'd pick the higher fsb... i think i read somewhere that the system runs a bit faster.

 

[sd]

Are you happy with that mobo. I'm gettin ready to upgrade and I don't want to wait for stable DDR mobos(or buy RAM). I can't decide which mobo to get, the KT7a or the AV7133. I'm leaning towards the abit mobo. Oh, and what HSF did ya slap on that bad boy?

Thanks for any info.

 

[Taplight]

SD,

I am happy with the board but I expected a little more stability at 150 fsb. I bought mushkin rev 3 for that so it's got to be something else. Don't know if it's the board or some other component but I'm still tweaking it out so I'll let you know what I find out. I did manage to get it to 151fsb but wasn't stable enough for me. I demand near crash proof performance since this is my daytrading rig so I do need to ease it off from the top more than the guy who just wants windows to boot up long enough to do some benchmarks. Also, it could be that I encounter some windows bugs so you never know.

As far as the hsf, I have a globalwin fop32-1 with a quieter fan than stock with some arctic silver slapped on the die. Unlocked with permatex rear window defogger and a magnifying glass(that was a little nerve wracking). Hope that helps. If I left out anything else useful, LMK.(BTW I do give a rats ass!)

Jtrash,

Yeah, I thought I read somewhere that was the case. It did seem to make a difference.

 

[pay]

what week of 1ghz tbirds are the ones that you guys have gotten to 1.4ghz? Is it week 01?

 

[TeMpT]

I was getting my 1G bird to 1160 (8*145) with all the bells (AGP/4ways..) on KT7A. But every now and then, my Seti@home runs are getting really bizare results. So I guess I'll bring it back down to 8*140 for now. Running 1.7V (maybe I should up this a bit).

Either that, or I just got a really weird set of Seti data...

 

[Taplight]

Yeah, it seems like your voltage is set pretty low. I usually get registry problems with low voltage so I don't even f with that anymore. Looks like you're a little luckier with that. Also, when the multipliers too high i either get system disk errors or won't go into windows. Too high of a fsb and I get lock ups. That seems to be the pattern. Anyway, you also need to watch your system resources which, as I just recently found out, has nothing to do with how much memory you have. Windows 9x sucks as far as multitasking and you can get lock ups or error screens if you're running too many programs. I'm thinking about getting win2000 which apparently doesn't have this problem and uses your physical memory more fully.

I am currently running at 146fsb which will now run every program I have flawlessly and no lock ups. It's funny because at 151 I was able to loop 3dmark continuously for hours and not crash but if I ran my quotetracking program, by midday it was reset time. Oh well, guess I'll be looking to sell this cpu to my friend by midyear and take my chances on the palomino if its compatible with my mobo.

By the way, after I installed the 4in1 4.28, I got a nice little boost in performance numbers. Try it if you haven't already.

 

[Dredog]

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE explain this WEEK 1 business? What does the week mean and where is that info located! Thanks!

 

[Dredog]

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE explain this WEEK 1 business? What does the week mean and where is that info located! Thanks!

 

[Taplight]

This is how you can tell the week number:

A1000AMT3B
AJFA0050BPEW
94204370016

The 2 numbers after AJFA indicate the 2 last numbers of the year made(in this case 2000) and the next 2 numbers indcate the week(50) Whether this info does you any good it's yet to be seen. All we can do is wait for o/c numbers to come in and find a trend for certain weeks. Mine happens to be fairly crappy.

 

[sd]

Taplight, hows that mobo runnin? Any issues?

 

[Taplight]

sd,

It's chuggin along. If it weren't for the programs I need to run I could probably do 150fsb and not die. Games will run endlessly at that clock. Gets fidgety with certain programs though. I am looking to get win2k and try it out. I heard it can multitask alot better and gives you more system resources to work with than win9x. Also heard it's overall more stable. My sound card could be limiting also but will not get rid of it so haven't tried to o/c without it. All in all, I think it's a solid mobo and I would recommend it. Very spacious and the layout is very well thought out. You still haven't decided yet sd? Are you going to o/c it or is that a dumb question? Come join the dark side Luke!!

T

 

[sd]

Hows a 1.2@1.4MHz sound? hehe! Just tryin to decide on a mobo

 

[TeMpT]

Taplight,

Which do you think is better? 8.5*133 (1133) or 8*140 (1120). Both I can do wonders at 1.65V, thus keeping it nice and cool. Would like to up the fsb a bit tho.

 

[Viper GTS]

8x140 will give better performance.

Viper GTS

 

[LuNoTiCK]

I think an asus is more stable the abit. Also the MSI K7T Turbo to the person who wanted to know. I have the abit though.

 

[SlickVic]

I have the Abit KT7A-Raid with a T-Bird 800@1064, GlobalWin FOP32-1, WW BIOS, everything in BIOS set for max. performance....VERY stable...highly recommend....just get quality PC-133 RAM...I did have issues pushing up the FSB with good PC-100 RAM until I got some of that incredible PC-133 RAM from compuwiz1...that stuff's from another freakin' planet:Q...soon as I put it in...BOOM, no more issues...I can go up to 1100, but 1064 seems to be a sweet spot...no lock's, nothing....play UT for hours, and never go over 45C.

Always run at a higher FSB vs. higher multiplier, if you can do it and stay stable...it's going to' be faster...remember, the faster the bus, the faster the system, all other things equal...and it's better to run at 8x133(1064) than 9x119 (1071)...bus is faster...I did it and the scores were better at 8x133 than 9x119!!...bus speed, that's what's it all about (to a point of course)...that?s what?s nice about the AMD's...if 8x133 won't work with an un-locked 800 CPU (it should), try 9x119, or 7.5x140...you get the idea.

Just my $0.02

 

[Taplight]

Tempt,

GTS is right. Higher fsb gives better performance but you may or may not be giving up stability. I read a post(maybe it was you)that they were running at that low of a voltage and mine just won't do it. I immediately got a registry error(I hate those cause I have no idea what just got f'd up). It doesn't seem possible but looks like you are lucky. I wonder how many others can run it that low without problems. I'm just running mine at 7.5 x 146 1.85v and it seems happy. It's all a crap shoot with o/c'ing.

 

[DaddyG]

Taplight, have you tried to back off your memory settings to get more stable at higher FSB ?? Your system disk errors could be related to too high a PCI, I assume that you are using the 1/4 divider not the 1/3. Whats the highest multiplier that you get stable at 133 ??

 

[Taplight]

DaddyG,

I didn't try a whole lot of tweaking with the memory to get the fsb higher, just set it to the max performance settings and went from there. I felt that because I bought the mushkin rev 3 that I should take advantage of it. It would be interesting to see if taking off some of the "premium" settings for the ram and running it at a higher fsb would yield higher benchmarks. The only thing is I've started to get degradation in my windows and programs every time something goes wrong. So far, reinstalling windows over my existing one has fixed it mostly but I have this gnawing feeling that something wrong is lurking in the registry. I have "moved in" to this computer and a start over would be a bitch.

To answer your question about the mulitplier, the highest I can go is 9 at 133 which is 1197 but it freezes right away. 8.5 x 133 seems alright but I wasn't interseted in running 133 fsb. I've tried 12x100 just to see and got it to post but would not load windows. The way the pci works on the abit is this. You can set the starting point at 133/33(or 136/34 100/33 etc) then up just the fsb by entering a number between 1 and 28 so I'm guessing it doesn't overclock the pci. My question is this. Can the cpu be a limiting factor on the fsb. Also, what causes freezes. Those are the most desturbing becasuse everything seems fine and you finish some benchmarks then for no apparent reason, it stalls. Those are the ones that drive me crazy because I'm not sure if they're hardware or software related.

I'm a little burnt out on o/c'ing and part of me wants to just leave it where it is cause it's rock stable under ALL conditions(not just benchmarks) but you guys keep posting suggestions on my thread and it makes me want to go into that bios again! Damn you all! I may just take your suggestion and lower the mem settings and see if I can break in to windows at 153 before I go to sleep

 

[TeMpT]

Taplight,

After spending the last two nights until 3 am, I've found somethings that may help you on your o/c. These of course pertains to the KT7A (maybe KT7A-Raid) on WZ and to more or less WW.

I have similar problems as I push my 1G to 12*100 and 9*133. Both hangs during windows startup. It seems like 8.5x133, 9.0x124, 10x107, 10.5x107, 11x105, and 11.5x100 are the highest ones I can get to flow with all the bells and whistles.

Interesting notes...
1. PCI speed - It seems that anytime the PCI clock exceeds 35 (note how all the stable speeds I've mentioned have PCI at or under 35), the system is extremely flaky to no POST.

2. FSB Plus - Can't seem to get ANY settings to work right (unless you are on 100 FSB). Anyone got luck on this?

3. I've found that benchmarking is not the best of fastest way to tell if you system is stable. Someone mentioned a program called BurnInTest that works REALLY well. Set the settings to test CPU and Memory only and let it rip for about 10-30 minutes. A lot of the speeds I thought was stable start showing errors on the memory test within the first 3 minutes. You get can a eval copy here

So far I've testing roughly 80 FSB/multiplier/Vcore combinations. Maybe I'll get something slightly higher than 8.5*133 (instead of 11*105, I want the FSB effect).

Hope that helps

 

[Taplight]

Tempt,

I admire your persistence. Keep it up. I will try out that burn in test that you recommended. I agree that benchmarks don't always test how stable you're setup is. Admittedly, some programs that I run may be flaky to begin with, they definitely have a sensitivity to fsb. Benchmarks seem to be more stable at higher fsb which seems contradictory to what they're supposed to do.

I'm a little confused by your post about fsb plus. Didn't you say you could run at 140fsb no problem? Wouldn't you use fsb plus to get it to that? Please elaborate. Maybe we're talking about 2 different things. Anyway, good to know someone else is losing sleep with the o/c bug. I think they should start OCA (overclockers anonymous) for junkys like us!!

 

[TeMpT]

Taplight,

I set "CPU FSB/PCI Clock" to 140/35. Whenever I set anything on "CPU FSB Plus(MHz)", my machine get really flaky...even at 8*133.

 

[DaddyG]

Taplight, my suggestion on backing off your memory settings was to try to find out what is causing your instability issues. If you can get stable at slower settings, then memory is obviously your problem. Getting the best overclocks is always about finding which piece of your system is limiting your overclock and eliminating it , if possible.