Thinking of OCing

[JE78]

I've been thinking of OCing since I bought Battlfield 2 last week. But I don't really have any idea where to start or what to do. Here is my setup, everything has stock cooling.

P4 2.53 (idle temp 33c, at load 43c)
Gigabyte GA-8SG667
ATI 9800 Pro 128mb (idle temp 45c, at load 55c)
1gb ram 1 512 stick PC2700 generic 1 512 stick 3200 crucial
Enermax 460 watt PSU
5 case fans

I've been told by a few people that I could OC my 9800 pro to an XT if I wanted. I'm not sure about my CPU, has anyone tried to OC this processor?

I'm planning on upgrading my CPU and Mobo to an AMD setup next month. I'm looking at a 3200+ (vinice) and a MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum and keeping my 9800 Pro. But right now i'm wondering what would be possible with my current setup? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Fern]

I used the Rage 3D Tweak proggie to OC my 9800p to (and beyond) XT levels.

To OC your CPU, since intel's are multi locked you're left with increasing the FSB speed above 133mhz. First do some research and see if your mobo has a PCI & AGP bus lock so those won't get out of spec (33mhz/66mhz respectively) and cause problems.

Your temps look pretty low, so you may have some headroom to boost the vcore (voltage to CPU) w/o adding a better heatsink and fan to keep it cool.

Fern

 

[vrbaba]

Go into the BIOS...Go to the CPU settings screen. You should see several things in there. Firstly, there is 'Auto' or 'By SPD' setting for the speed of the processor. Change that to Manual. That should unlock things for you to change. Increase the FSB (which should be at 133) to about 145. Restart it.
Keep the computer on and monitor the temps for about 10 mins or so. If your temps are below 50 on load, keep increasing the fsb now by 5/10. Keep doing this until you think you got enough about 3.0ghz speed and a stable computer with load temps not over 55.
You will realize that you have increased a lil too much when you see the blue screen of death. So roll it back down until u stabalize. Run Prime95 or something to see if it stable for a while on full load. (really depends on how much patience you have). Make sure to keep monitoring the temps, dont wanna get that out of control.
Next, would be to change the divider. There is a CPU/DRAM ratio setting in the bios, should be on the same screen as before. Change that to 5:4 or even 3:2. Now increase the fsb more. this should give you a little more headroom for increasing the cpu speed. Repeat the process as before.
In the end, run Prim95 for hours to make sure everything is perfectly stable.
happy OCing!!

 

[JE78]

Thanks for the info guys. Is there any trick to OCing the video card or so I just increase the clock speeds and then watch the temps? Whats the max I should go up too for the 9800 pro underload??

vrbaba: How do I know that I OCed the CPU to a 3.0ghz?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: JE78
Thanks for the info guys. Is there any trick to OCing the video card or so I just increase the clock speeds and then watch the temps? Whats the max I should go up too for the 9800 pro underload??

Well, it's been a little while... But there are options to increase the core (gpu) and vid ram seperately. IIRC, there's a slider thingy to change values for those two. After selecting the new speed(s) you'll see a little window, like when you change resolutions on your monitor saying something like "keep these settings" - if there are artifacts, click "no". If it looks good click "yes".

Then test with games.

You cannot monitor temps with a 9800pro, unless it has the XT core (r360 IIRC) and you flash the BIOS. Versions earlier than the XT core did not have a diode built-in to monitor temps.

Fern

 

[JE78]

I have a temp probe on the back of my 9800, right behind the GPU. Thats how i'm getting my readings. So what i'm getting from what you said is increase the core clock and memory clock until I see artifacts or until the temps get too high? Sorry for asking such basic questions but I don't want to screw anything up.

I'm still not quite sure about overclocking the CPU. I found this article about my motherbaord, all good things i'm guessing. http://www.pchardware.ro/Reviews/review.php?id=176&p=5

 

[JE78]

Well I decided to mess around with my FSB setting on the MB. It was set at 133 and I uped it to 145 like suggested above. I started up BF2 and ran it and the highest it got was 47c. I decided to up the FSB setting to 150 and try to run Prime95 and I got this error message: "FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4 Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file." Does this mean that the FSB is too high or did I not setup Prime95 right. I don't know much about this program. I did a search on it and went to Options > Totrure Test > and selected to Small FFT's. If someone could shed some light on this it would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Thats the standard error message when it fails. Up the vcore or back down the FSB

 

[JE78]

vcore??? I don't have the option for Vcore in the BIOS.

 

[JE78]

Well i'm at it again. I backed the FSB back down to 145 and tried to run Prime95. It ran for 4 mins and then stoped. Should I just back the FSB down to 133 or keep it where it is? The only other option I have in my BIOS I can adjust is the DDR clock, I don't have a Vcore to adjust either.

I've also tried to run R3DTweak but I get an "Application failed to initallize properly" error. I have the 5.6 Cat driver installed so i'm not sure what the problem is. Any ideas about this? Thanks.

 

[Fern]

If you had it OC'd when you install the Rage 3D app, set it back to stock, uninstall and reinstall with CPU/FSB at stock.

I don't install apps unless I'm REAL sure my OC is uber stable. If it's even a bit unstable it can foul up the installation of apps.

Or, just could've been a bad d/l. So, try again

Fern

 

[JE78]

thanks, turned out it was just a bad download.