simple overclock for Barton 2500+

[sencha]

Hi guys. I am new to overclocking and am looking to do a modest overclock on my Athlon 2500+ to 3000+ speeds. I am using a stock HSF on an Asus A7N8x-x motherboard in an Antec Sonata case with a 380w smart power power supply and 2x120mm case fans. I have 2x256 pc2700 DDR and 1x512 pc2700 DDR ram and a nvidia 6600 gt video card.

Obviously pc3200 ram would be better, but I'd rather not replace my ram. Can I overclock without increasing my FSB by just changing the clock multiplier? If so, what values do you recommend.

Thanks in advance

 

[Fern]

Hi sencha and Welcome to the Forums!

If your cpu was fabricated b4 week 39 of 2003, it is likely unlocked. If made after that date, the multiplier is hard uber-locked and you won't be able to change it. If you can change the multi, it s/b set to 13 to operate like a Barton 3000+

If your cpu multi is locked, raise the FSB for both the cpu and ram to whatever you can get to.

HERE'S a link to AMD XP cpu info (multipliers etc)

Fern

 

[TRUMPHENT]

I would see how far your ram can go first. You may be surprised if it is a high quality manufacturer like Crucial. It could run at 200mhz. You may not get all the DIMMS to work together at the higher speed. You probably can find a buyer to take it and subsidize the newer faster ram if need be. Bargains are everywhere these days.

I just upgraded my mainboard so I could run my XP2500+ at higher speeds. It went straight to 2.2Ghz (XP3200+) with no extra voltage needed. My stepping is AQXEA 0331. Until a new BIOS version allows more speeds, I have only 27 more mhz to play with.

If you own a Barton XP2500+, you have to Overclcock it.

AMD forced the XP2500+ on me. I RMA'd an XP2400 (DOA) and they sent me an XP2500+ in its place. Sounds good huh! Well my mainboard didn't have a 333mhz FSB. So, I ran my Barton at an underrated speed for the longest time. No longer!

 

[L8CS]

If your cpu was fabricated b4 week 39 of 2003, it is likely unlocked

Where can I find the manufacture date of my Barton?
--------------------------------------------------------------

I'm just raised my FSB to 200 for my 2500 Barton and it's running great at 3200 on a Abit NF7-S2. The idle temp is 39 with an Alpha PAL 8045 HSF and I haven't changed my voltage settings. I originally had 2 sticks of 512mb Crucial PC2700 ram but I was having random reboots and lockups, so I ran MemTest and determined that one stick was bad so I RMA'd it. I'll was thinking about upgrading to Crucial's PC3200 Ballistic ram just to be safe.

 

[TheStu]

you pull the heatsink off the CPU and look at the Black label... it is on the second line of info i think....

 

[L8CS]

you pull the heatsink off the CPU and look at the Black label... it is on the second line of info i think

I had written the label info down before I installed it. The second line is AQYHA0428DPCW 1999AMD. ANy ideas?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: L8CS
I had written the label info down before I installed it. The second line is AQYHA0428DPCW 1999AMD. ANy ideas?

0428 in the line above means that chip was made during production week 28 of '04 (2004), and unfortunately means the multiplier is locked and you can only OC by raising the FSB.

I'd say see how far you can push that PC2700. I've got a stick of Mushkin PC2700 that's running at 215 FSB (damn near PC3700 speeds) with 2.8v. Try bumping the RAM voltage (VDIMM) to something like 2.7v or 2.8v and just see how far you can go.

 

[L8CS]

I'd say see how far you can push that PC2700.

Thanks, I'll try pushing the memory and see what happens. I'm concerned however about the other 512 stick of my Crucial ram being up to the job, since I RMA'd one 512 stick of memory to Crucial already because it failed MemTest. If I decide to upgrade to the Crucial Ballistic PC3200, would it be better to run 2 sticks of 512 or 1 stick of 1gb. I know the 1gb is more expensive but aren't there efficeiency issues between multiple banks of ram?

 

[TheStu]

I have never encountered efficiency issues and I run two sticks... I think there is an efficiency issue when running 2 sticks in non-dual channel. You take a performance hit when running 2 sticks in single channel (like 5% or something low like that) but if you run them in Dual Channel it negates that. Or so I've heard

 

[L8CS]

I have never encountered efficiency issues and I run two sticks

TheStu, thanks for your help.

 

[frootbooter]

Yes, running two 512mb dimms on an nforce2 will make overclocking to anything past, say, 220 fsb a MAJOR pain in the ass... this is assuming they are double sided dimms, which most are. The nforce2 doesn't cope very well with double sided dimms at high speeds, because it's basically like having 4 dimms instead of 2.