Stupid A64 overclock...

[jdogg707]

Well, I the computer in my sig. has been running fine for weeks using the following settings:

A64 3200+ @ 2.21GHZ - Stock Voltage - 221MHZ FSB - 2.85V RAM - 2.5-3-3-6

So today I finally have a chance to install Unreal Tournament 2004 and play it, so I start it up, change the video/audio settings to maximum levels, and start an quick Onslaught match. I'm playing for about 15 min. and all of a sudden the audio start repeating itself, the computer freezes and must be restarted. So I decide to make sure everything is working alright, so I get Prime95 going and it fails after about 45 min. So I am now scaling it back trying to find a happy medium, why would it be stable for so long, and then just start having issues. I have played C&C Generals, Call of Duty, Halo, and even the Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo without any issues, so why am I having them now after so long? I am currently using the MSI K8T Neo-FISR2 motherboard, is there a better motherboard that I could achieve a higher overclock with and have it remain stable. I have had some problems with this board, dead Floppy Disk Controller, a little BIOS corruption, but that's really it. I think it has something to do with my AGP/PCI bus being elevated...hopefully the nForce3 250 boards will be out soon and provide the much needed lock to prevent such stability issues. Any have some advice?

Thanks!

 

[Dman877]

You might have damaged something on the pci bus with the OC. There is an AOpen board for socket754 that is supposed to have a pci/agp lock but its not official. If you want to OC, grab a mobile barton.

 

[Ronnie]

I have that same board with a 3000+ and with my OCZ pc3200 have run well until recently. I had mine running @2.35GHZ and fried my video card pushing it too hard on 3dmark01. I have tried some kingston HyperX 4200 and it ran horribly in my system not even @2.2 stable. I'm back running the OCZ which is great and the board has not given me any other problems. The one thing I dislike is the lack of vcore selection. When are they going to update the bios and give us a higher vcore selection.

 

[jdogg707]

Dman877, I don't think anything is damaged because it works fine at stock. As far as a mobile barton goes, why do I want one of those when my A64 runs better at a lower speed, overclocking this rig is just feeding the enthusiast inside!

Ronnie, what are your settings to go up that high, and what do the specs on the rest of your system look like?

 

[Ronnie]

3000+
512MB OCZ pc3200 2.5-3-3-7
120gb maxtor ide hard drive
5900fx nu

I run my timings at the above speeds, memory set to turbo. Ram I set the vdimm@2.85V, vcore I leave at auto. I have cool and quiet running and dynamic overclocking I set to the second one, I think its called sergent. I built the system right after christmas and am using the lastest bios. I have only tried this bios and the one before. The previous bios when you set your vcore above 1.5 it would default back to 1.5 when overclocking. I have heard that some people have trouble with sata drives overclocking and also ati cards.

 

[jdogg707]

Originally posted by: Ronnie
3000+
512MB OCZ pc3200 2.5-3-3-7
120gb maxtor ide hard drive
5900fx nu

I run my timings at the above speeds, memory set to turbo. Ram I set the vdimm@2.85V, vcore I leave at auto. I have cool and quiet running and dynamic overclocking I set to the second one, I think its called sergent. I built the system right after christmas and am using the lastest bios. I have only tried this bios and the one before. The previous bios when you set your vcore above 1.5 it would default back to 1.5 when overclocking. I have heard that some people have trouble with sata drives overclocking and also ati cards.

Thanks a lot for the info, I think it might be my SATA drives, I've finally hit a Stable point at 2.17GHZ...it could also be my memory.

 

[newb54]

I have a similar problem when I play unreal at over 2170, my 9800 PRO will cause random freezes or VPU recovery will kick in. Btw Aopen does NOT have agp/pci lock. People need to stop saying that it does. Only in the BIOS (that was never offically released), that anandtech used in there review, does it show agp/pci speeds remain constant even though they really don't. The later BIOS versions will show the true agp/pci speeds which are not locked.

 

[jdogg707]

Originally posted by: newb54
I have a similar problem when I play unreal at over 2170, my 9800 PRO will cause random freezes or VPU recovery will kick in. Btw Aopen does NOT have agp/pci lock. People need to stop saying that it does. Only in the BIOS (that was never offically released), that anandtech used in there review, does it show agp/pci speeds remain constant even though they really don't. The later BIOS versions will show the true agp/pci speeds which are not locked.

I figured it was the Radeon or SATA. Ya, the Aopen review was pretty misleading and it needs to be made clear that the AGP/PCI bus is not locked on it.